ceonyc

Sixteen years ago, I wrote that, “Business plan competitions are the air guitar championships of the startup world.”

I meant that you can mimic all the movements of a startup without any of the real risk-taking or building. My criticism then was that we were teaching students to pitch without teaching them to build.

Fifteen years later, that gap matters even more. In a world where AI can help anyone ship a working product in a weekend, and where entry-level jobs are disappearing, the ability to actually build something—even something small—isn't just a nice skill to have.

It might be the whole ballgame—and I’m curious how many universities are thinking this way about their entrepreneurship programs.

Separately, why there isn't a tool used by the mortgage broker to facilitate this, I have no idea. It's a nightmare of documents and tasks that makes the whole process 8 times as long.

Tweak based on feedback is exactly right!

Only problem is that VCs normally don't give any!

They actually weren't "grading" per say. They were answering questions like "Have you seen anything else like this?" and rating teams with multiple choice answers like "This is one of the best teams I've seen." So, they kind of know how a company did, but it's not like they were looking at their own scores at the end.

So psyched for Daniela and Jorge--this is the product they had in mind when they first started the company.