Your Experience can Empower our Entrepreneurs
The Role of the Advisor is to:
- Encourage contestants to meet deadlines and complete competition;
- Review contestants' work regularly;
- Advise and guide contestants pointing out deficiencies and making suggestions;
- Lead by example: meet commitments, keep contestant(s) positive, encourage timeliness and complete work, follow-up on status of suggestions made at previous meeting; and
- Serve as a Business Plan Reviewer.
Your time commitment is about 20-25 hours from February through May 2025.
This includes:
- An Optional Virtual Advisor Orientation on February 4th, from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm on Zoom - https://bit.ly/BPCAdvisorORNT
- Advisors Only - no competition applicants/contestants at this Advisor Orientation.
- This Orientation is not Required, but it is a great way for advisors new to our competition to learn more about how it works.
Six Contestant Training Sessions
Four on ZOOM and Two Onsite:
We request advisors attend at least three of the six competition training sessions:
- Tuesday evenings from 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm. (Includes: 30 minutes of networking with competition leaders, contestants and advisors, 2 hours of presentation and 30 minutes of Q&A).
- Feb 25 - Virtual, Mar 4 - Onsite, Mar 18 - Virtual, Apr 1 - Virtual, Apr 15 - Virtual and May 6 - Onsite.
- One-on-one advising meetings with your team - Advisor and contestant teams meet one-on-one in between training sessions, at mutually agreed upon times. These can also be virtual if that is your preference. We've noticed that some teams meet at an agreed upon time once a week or they arrange to meet periodically before or after each training session. If any advisor and contestant team collectively wishes to have an in-person meeting, this can be done, provided that every member involved feels comfortable with meeting in-person. These meetings can be done until plans are due on May 5. Slide presentations and one minute videos are due May 12.
- Optional Attendance at Business Plan Pitches on May 28, 2025 if your Team Makes the Finals!
- Optional Attendance at Awards Ceremony - June 05, 2025 from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Give the Business Plan Contestants the advice and guidance you wish you had when you started or wanted to grow your business. New and Returning Advisors, please use the link below that applies to you to submit your interest and tell us a bit about your area of expertise. This helps us review submissions, connect and fit advisors with the right teams and business concepts.
Timing - Building the Advisor Cohort - We will announce accepted teams on February 20th and will pair teams with advisors as we move toward the first training sessions. We pair teams with advisors by considering advisors' experience and each accepted team's business concept. We will respond to your submission throughout this period. We will be communicating with advisors via emails from c4e@hccs.edu; and sometimes via a phone call or text to speak to or reach an individual advisor.
Thank you for your time and consideration! Being of service as a volunteer advisor can change the lives of these entrepreneurs!