The TiE University Business Plan Competition and TiECON were fun and inspiring for so many reasons!  The competition provided an opportunity to meet with and learn from the experiences of dozens of successful entrepreneurs and to receive valuable feedback from them.  Their advice and perspectives helped our team recognize the key targets we needed to hit and the hidden pitfalls we needed to avoid.  The conference was filled with excellent panel discussions and presentations — stories of entrepreneurs making creative pivots, persevering through hard times, and learning from failures.  TiE has cultivated a community and a mentorship network that are great assets to entrepreneurs, and I am grateful to be a part of it!

I am grateful for the experience I received at the TiE U business plan competition. I started the business as a project in the Coles College of Business entrepreneurship program at Kennesaw State University. I didn’t really expect it to become an actual business. While preparing for the business plan competition, I was able to soft launch the business and test my market. The preparation for the business plan competition helped me see what areas of my business I needed to adjust.  At the competition, I received honest, real world suggestions and critiques by real entrepreneurs that assisted me with restructuring my business and to consider other ways of generating revenue. I implemented everything that was suggested.  As a result, I was able to increase my annual revenues by 150%! Thanks TiE U!”

“TiE University competition has taught me to think critically about starting a business and the kind of resources (both monetary and human) that is needed to take it to the next level. This competition is also a great place to get mentorship and feedback (although sometimes quite honestly brutal) and really vet out your ideas about your startup or potential startup. This was also a great team bonding experience and excellent opportunity to see and hear about what other successful entrepreneurs such as Dr. Jay Yadav, Jeff Sprecher, John Marshall, Alan Dabbiere, and Laurie Ann Goldman have to say about their past failures that has brought them to their triumphs today.”