Official Rules, Guidelines and Submission Requirements

The Moot Corp^® Competition simulates the process of entrepreneurs soliciting capital from investors. Ventures participating in the Competition are selected by invited business schools or by winning designated competitions. A complete list of participating competitions can be found at Participating Competitions.

Eligibility

• All ventures must be seeking outside equity capital.
• At least one graduate student must be a member of the team. All graduate students, not just MBA candidates, are eligible, including executive MBAs. Non-students may be members of the management team and participate in planning the venture; however, only students may participate in the competition. In other words, only students may present the plan and answer questions from the judges. The maximum size of a team is five (5) students.
• The competition is for students enrolled in the current academic year, September 1 through August 31. Students who graduated in the preceding academic year are not eligible to participate; an exception will be made for students who both wrote their business plans for academic credit and graduated during the preceding summer. An exception will also be made for students from universities south of the equator that have a different academic year.
• The competition is for new, independent ventures in the seed, start-up or early stage. Generally excluded are the following: buy-outs, expansions of existing companies, real estate syndications, tax shelters, franchises, licensing agreements for distribution in a different geographical area, and spin-outs from existing corporations. The licensing from universities or research labs of technologies that have not been commercialized previously is not excluded and is encouraged.
• The competition is for student created, managed and owned ventures. In other words, students are to have played a major role in conceiving the venture, to have key management roles and to own significant equity. An equity position of less than 20% will be suspect and require the students to show evidence that they were a major cause in the venture creation. One objective of this rule is to exclude ventures formed and managed by non-students who have given token equity to MBAs for writing their business plan.
• Ventures with revenues in prior academic years are excluded. The history of a team member working on an idea or new technology in previous academic years or even prior to entering graduate school does not exclude a venture, if there were no revenues prior to the current academic year.
• The business plan must represent the original work of members of the team and be prepared under faculty supervision; ideally, the business plan will be prepared for credit in a regularly scheduled course or as an independent study.

Business Plan

• Plans must be limited to 25 (typed and double-spaced) pages of text, including the executive summary and summary financial data. Detailed spreadsheets and appropriate appendices should follow the text portion of the plan. In total, the plan should be no longer than 40 pages.
• Financial data should include a cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet. Include an explanation of the offering to investors indicating how much money is required and how it will be used. Also, delineate the possible exit strategies.
• Appendices should be included only when they support the findings, statements and observations in the plan. Because of the number of teams in the competition, judges may not be able to read all the material in the appendices. Therefore, the text portion of the plan (25 pages) must contain all pertinent information in a clear and concise manner.
• Judges will use the three-part Moot Corp® Judge's Evaluation Form. Part I (valued at 40%) is designed to help assess the written business plan focusing on key elements and the effectiveness of the summary financial data. Part II (20%) assesses the poise and professionalism of the presentation. Part III (40%) evaluates the perceived viability of the venture. This quantitative assessment is meant to complement, not replace, the qualitative evaluation of the judges in their determination of winners.
• A useful guide for structuring the business plan is Ernst & Young's Outline for a Business Plan.
• For ease in handling, we request that all copies of business plans be professionally bound (i.e., velo, spiral, tape, etc.). Three-ring binders will not be accepted.
• Eleven (11) copies of the final plan are due at The University of Texas at Austin on or before April 18, 2003. Teams not meeting this deadline may be disqualified. Five (5) copies will be distributed to the Opening Round judges before the competition. Five (5) copies will be distributed to the Money Round judges should your team move forward into the Finals of the competition. Plans will be returned to the teams after the competition with judges’ comments included. One copy will be retained by The University of Texas at Austin Moot Corp Program.
• Plans should be sent to Dr. Gary Cadenhead, University of Texas at Austin, Management Department CBA 4.202, One University Station B6300, Austin TX 78712-0210. He may be reached at 512-471-5289 and gcadenhead@optionii.bus.utexas.edu

Presentation

• The presentation is in two parts. In the Opening Round, each team will have 15 minutes to present its plan. THIS TIME LIMIT WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED. The presentation will be followed by a 20-minute question-and-answer session with the judges. The opening presentation in the Finals may have a different time allotment and format.
• Each member of the team must participate in the formal presentation of the plan.
• A team, once it has finished its presentation, may observe both the presentation and Q&A session of the teams that follow it. A team that has not given its presentation may observe only the presentation segments of teams before it must exit the auditorium at the start of the Q&A sessions.
• Each team will be given 15 minutes to present its business plan followed by a 20-minute question and answer session between the presenting team and the judges. Each presenting team will have approximately 10 minutes for set-up.
• Teams may not observe other presentations or question and answer sessions in their division until after they have presented their own plan.
• All public sessions of the competition, including but not limited to oral presentations and question/answer sessions, are open to the public at large. Any and all of these public sessions may be broadcast to interested persons through media which may include radio, television and the Internet. Any data or information discussed or divulged in public sessions by entrants should be considered information that will likely enter the public realm, and entrants should not assume any right of confidentiality in any data or information discussed, divulged or presented in these sessions.

• Equipment needs: If you are bringing a videotape that was made outside of the United States, you must have it converted to NTSC forms. If you plan to use a laptop computer for material that you want displayed on a large screen, we will need to determine if our projection equipment is compatible with your equipment and your software.

Rights of The University of Texas at Austin

• Due to the nature of the competition, we will not ask judges, reviewers, staff or the audience to agree to or sign non-disclosure statements for any participant.
• The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business, the organizer of the Moot Corp® Competition, may make photocopies, photographs, videotapes and/or audiotapes of the presentations including the business plans and other documents, charts or material prepared for use in presentation at the Moot Corp® Competition. Students retain all proprietary rights. The University may use the materials in any book or other printed materials and any videotape or other medium that it may produce, provided that any profits earned from the sale of such items is used by The University solely to defray the costs of future Moot Corp® Competitions. The University has non-exclusive world rights in all languages, and in all media, to use or to publish the materials in any book, other printed materials, videotapes or other medium, and to use the materials in future editions thereof and derivative products.