October 2014 Newsletter: Partner Happenings: "Award Opportunities via MiQuest"

MiQuest's vision is to make Michigan THE state of entrepreneurship. To help achieve this ambitious vision for Michigan, MiQuest is hosting competitions and other opportunities, so entrepreneurs can get the proper tools for growth including media exposure, funding and access to issue-resolution experts. Growing Michigan's culture of entrepreneurship will be the catalyst for more opportunity, prosperity, critical thinking and self-reliance for everyone. Current opportunities are available for growth-stage, emerging, and high-tech startup companies.

Growth-Phase Companies

The nominations are now open for the Michigan 50 Companies to Watch awards, with a deadline of November 7 by 5 PM. The awards will be presented at the Michigan Celebrates Small Business event gala in Lansing in May of 2015. The qualifying criteria include:

• Be a privately held commercial enterprise (not a nonprofit, not publicly traded, not a subsidiary or division of another company) and can't have been recognized for this award before
• Be past the startup stage and facing issues of growth, not survival
• Employ 6-99 full-time equivalent W2 employees (including the owner)
• Have between $750,000 and $50M in annual revenue or working capital from investors or grants
• Be headquartered in Michigan
• Demonstrate the intent and capacity to grow based on: Employee or sales growth
• Exceptional entrepreneurial leadership
• Sustainable competitive advantage
• Other notable successes

Emerging Companies

MiQuest's newest program, Venture Drive, is in sign-up period, closing at 5 p.m. on November 12. Entrepreneurs that have validated a market for their business and are cash-flow positive from investment, sales or grants are invited to complete a one-year vision, work with coaches, and have an opportunity to win cash prizes, micro-loans, advisory boards, a ticket to the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium (MGCS) and CEO roundtable participation for the year. The awards will be announced on May 19, immediately preceding MGCS in Ypsilanti.

This competition is designed for companies from any industry that are experiencing challenges launching into a growth phase of business development. They have leadership teams that are ambitious and focused on developing a business with rapid growth potential. The business concept and/or technology have been vetted and their market has been defined and is substantial enough to support growth projections. They have revenue or customer interest sufficient to demonstrate the validity of their offer in the marketplace. Typical issues at this stage are lack of access to capital, management communication practices, recruiting talent, developing a sales pipeline and scaling up production or service.

High-Tech Startup Companies

The Annual Collaboration for Entrepreneurship (ACE) Challenge is an excellent opportunity for early-stage technology startups to get help with their executive summaries and presentations for sales, investment or recruiting talent. Applicants will need to provide contact information, a few data points regarding current phase of development and a five-page executive summary. Coaches from both the New Enterprise Forum and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Tech Team will provide structured feedback on executive summary improvements and prepare teams to pitch their showcase presentation at ACE'15 on January 29, 2015, at Burton Manor in Livonia.