With the incredible development of technology and devices we witness these days, ideas can rapidly turn into reality very fast, even making their owners very rich in a somewhat short amount of time. That is the ideal case scenario which, however, does not always happen.
Sometimes, despite the huge value of those ideas, they are put aside simply because creators and entrepreneurs cannot find the right partners and the needed financing to bring those ideas to market. In order to go against this wave, an international competition has been created, that is now in its second stage and has the prize of £100,000 ($156,300): let’s meet the MBJ Launchpad.
The international MBJ Launchpad competition gives teams the opportunity to win £100,000 worth of business and technical expertise, in order to help develop a business idea into a profitable and viable enterprise. One of the best aspects about this competitions is that, at any stage of the process, equity is not (mandatorily) sought by investors. Even though the 2015 edition is now underway, this is a very interesting competition, which should be kept on the radar for people looking for potential financing.
The MBJ Launchpad consists of three stages. During the first stage, entrepreneurs and/or teams submit their web or app based business ideas from every industry and from anywhere in the world, via a short video encapsulating the idea and, if existing, the business plan.
20 ideas have been selected, from which the online community will vote for the 4 finalists. Voting will remain open until September 3rd, 2015, and everyone is welcome to cast their vote. Teams participating in the competition are encouraged to spread the word about the voting through any way they can, like social media.
In the third and final round, the four teams with the most votes will be chosen to join the MBJ team along with a community of experts in London for a week of coaching and preparation for the last pitch. The final event will be held on October 22nd, at Google Campus in Central London, where the 4 teams will have the opportunity to pitch their idea to a panel of professional judges in front of a public audience. The winner takes the prize, worth £100,000 of business, legal, and financial advice and nurturing.
This competition is organized by MBJ Integrated Technologies, a company founded in 2011 by Julian Baladurage. Beggining by offering consulting services to students as well as SEO and social media strategy to some bigger corporate clients, in 2012 he met Toni Horn, the other partner at MBJ, and from there they began to explore ways to expand the company and began to develop digital products like websites and mobile apps to their growing client base.
Image Source: MBJ Demo Videos