MIT's $50K Entrepreneurship Competition is the hub of a vast network of venture capitalists, angel investors, consultants, and alumni seeking the savviest young technology innovators.
Not all business-plan competitions on university campuses are equal. To put it another way, the one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass., is more equal than all the others.
Take Pasha Roberts, 35, who won the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition two years ago. He scored the $30,000 jackpot, the largest such prize in the country. (Two other finalists collected $10,000 each.) What's more, he leveraged his many MIT contacts to get his WebLine Communications Corp., a software company based in Burlington, Mass., off the ground. A classmate from MIT's Sloan School of Management, Helen Wittek, introduced him to Bob Johnson (MIT physics, 1963). Johnson, who later was a judge of the MIT competition, invested $25,000, part of the critical $600,000 that Roberts raised in seed money. Pasha's father, Larry Roberts (MIT electrical engineering, 1963), a successful entrepreneur, referred his son to some venture capitalists. They kicked in another $1 million in the next round of financing. "There's a lot of MIT people who know other MIT people," Pasha Roberts acknowledges. His 35-employee company has attracted a total of $8.6 million from investors.
Not all business-plan competitions on university campuses are equal. To put it another way, the one at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass., is more equal than all the others.
Take Pasha Roberts, 35, who won the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition two years ago. He scored the $30,000 jackpot, the largest such prize in the country. (Two other finalists collected $10,000 each.) What's more, he leveraged his many MIT contacts to get his WebLine Communications Corp., a software company based in Burlington, Mass., off the ground. A classmate from MIT's Sloan School of Management, Helen Wittek, introduced him to Bob Johnson (MIT physics, 1963). Johnson, who later was a judge of the MIT competition, invested $25,000, part of the critical $600,000 that Roberts raised in seed money. Pasha's father, Larry Roberts (MIT electrical engineering, 1963), a successful entrepreneur, referred his son to some venture capitalists. They kicked in another $1 million in the next round of financing. "There's a lot of MIT people who know other MIT people," Pasha Roberts acknowledges. His 35-employee company has attracted a total of $8.6 million from investors.
