By now, you and your startup team may already be underway with your one-pagers, soon to be sent to our betapitch jury, and you may be wondering just how you can improve your chances of making it into the top-10 and, eventually, the winning spot.

Our jury will soon be swamped with one-pagers from all sorts of startups. From this mess of papers, 10 of the best will be chosen to pitch at betapitch on May 3rd.

Your applications will be evaluated on 4 criteria: your business model, your team, the purpose of your startup, and, finally, your originality and innovativeness.

Naturally, these criteria will also apply to your pitch, should you be nominated as a finalist.

Your startup should not only have a cool idea and catchy slogan, but should also be based on a solid business model – one that ensures your startup can remain functional and continue to receive revenue in the long term. That is why we chose the Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder and Pigneur as the basis for our application process (meaning, your one pager should be based on this). By using the business model canvas you should be able to develop a fairly complete idea of your business model, that others can grasp easily. You can download the canvas here.

Behind nearly every successful startup company is a well-rounded team, bringing together diverse skill-sets and levels of expertise, and working towards a common goal. 

Of course, you want to be doing all of this for a reason. It would be a shame to develop great business model and assemble a talented team, only to waste all of that on an idea that neither concerns nor interests anyone else. Your startup should address an existing need in real life, taking on a significance in the lives of others, and should do so in a way that is creative, innovative, and that benefits both you as a business, as well as your target market.

Lastly, your startup should be based on your own idea, and executed as originally and innovatively as possible. Drawing inspiration from existing startups is one thing, simply aping them is another. Needless to say, if you are caught simply renaming and rebranding an already-existing startup, your application will not even be considered: betapitch is proud to be a copycat-free zone.

So you’ve been nominated as a finalist. The challenge is now to present your idea in a way that captures the attention and interest of our judges. Your originality, purpose, structure, and plan must shine through in this as well – try to think of something that stands out; something other than the standard corporate presentation. For eye-catching, yet effective presentations, we suggest making use of one of the many great online resources out there, such as Prezi, or Salon.io. Your team will have 5 minutes to present your idea, and 5 minutes to answer any questions from either the jury or the audience.

Learn more about how to succeed at your startup pitch competition.

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With all of this in mind, we wish you and your teams the best of luck, and we look forward to receiving your applications until April 20 at 23:59 (GMT+1). Please note that applications and presentations must be in English!

We will then let you know whether or not your team has been selected until April 26, and send you some additional information about the pitch. Teams selected as finalists are strongly encouraged to attend a Pitch Training Session on Wednesday, May 2.

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