What You Lack in Execution, You Can't Make Up at Business Plan Competitions

You are intent on starting something--a business, an organization, a social enterprise, a project.  Google "start a business" and you are bombarded with entrepreneurshiporn full of half-truth information advising that you need loans and venture capital, or a list of business plan competitions.

Confident that you need cash, business plan competitions appear to be a quick fix.  Show up with an interesting idea and hockey-stick projections, drill down your competitive advantage, a few jokes, and savvy deck of slides and you just may leave with cash.  How about the wave of social enterprise competitions, a la Pepsi Refresh? Goodwash your three degrees of social-network-separation with pleas to recruit an army of clickers and you just might win.