Prizes:

• $1,500 for First Place
• $1,000 for Second Place
• $500 for Third Place

The Experience: Startup Boot Camp is a 3-day experience where you will learn from experienced founders, conduct sales experiments and pitch your idea for prizes! Learn to avoid the mistakes that stop so many founders short, validate your riskiest hidden assumption, and ask for help in a way that gets you the access you need.

Key Dates: February 2-4

Feb 2nd: 6pm-9:30pm

Feb 3rd: 9am - 5:30pm

Feb 4th: 10am - 5:30pm

(times are subject to change)

Benefits:

• Realize the value in making mistakes.
• Practice pitching for recruiting, sales, and investment.
• Earn your first co-founders – it’s the biggest sale you’ll ever make.
• Validate market need by prototyping a one page web site, sales video, and a way to take pre-orders.
• Get firsthand experience selling your product in an innovation bazaar, and get one-on-one advice from our mentor community.
• Decide whether you’re an inventor or an entrepreneur.
• See which makes a bigger impact on buying decisions: logic or emotions.
• Identify the gaps between your idea and a sustainable business – do you have a working product? If not, prioritize those gaps and form them into a coherent ask for help.
• Meet key stakeholders in the UB and WNY startup ecosystem who can help you cross those gaps.
• Pitch your idea to compete for prizes.
• Leave knowing how to validate the next step in your own business.
• Campus cash provided to those that fully participate.

Collaborators:

UB Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships

Resource Guide:

UB Libraries will curate resources for students to reference and leverage through a resource guide and linked here.

Prize Award: 

• You will need either a Social Security Number or Individual Taxpayer Identification Number in order to collect any prize money. 
• The prize awards will be paid to the student entrepreneur(s) in recognition of their achievements in preparing for and participating in the pitch competition. Where a student startup is represented by more than one student entrepreneur, the prize award will be divided among the student entrepreneurs. Prize awards may be subject to U.S. federal tax withholding. Prizes may not be transfered.