High school students from all around the country will soon go head-to-head in a Business Pitch Competition hosted by Idaho State University in Pocatello.
While ISU has put on these types of competitions for a while through different classes offered through the university to its students, this is the first time ISU will offer a contest of this type to high schoolers.
Joshua Thompson is a clinical associate professor who oversees the entrepreneurship program at ISU. He says there are several valuable lessons for students to learn from the contest.
“I’ve really tried to push this high school one quite a bit, because there’s a lot of value in teaching our youth the importance of entrepreneurship, regardless if they want to own a business or not,” Thompson said in an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio. “Learning how to speak in public and things like that, there’s a lot there.”
Students are also encouraged to take the business ideas they use in the competition with them throughout their college experience.
“We try to promote students to start in the beginning of their college career, if they’re doing something entrepreneurial, and they take that business idea that they have as a freshman, and they continue to grow it until, when they’re seniors, they get to pitch it again,” Thompson says. “A lot of our judges are business individuals who, at times, will invest. I’ve invested in a handful of these opportunities with students. We’ve had some great successes in them.”
Surprisingly, Thompson says the most rewarding part of it all isn’t the business ideas he hears from students.
“What’s pretty amazing about this business pitch competition is not the business pitches, and it’s not the business plans, and it’s not the pitch decks that they do,” Thompson says. “It’s seeing the growth from an 18-year-old who is still trying to find their way and find what they’re going to be in life and seeing that confidence that grows.”
Ultimately, Thompson says both he and the rest of the committee for the competition want to see the students succeed.
“I want them to get money,” Thompson says. “I’ll tell you, it is so awesome to see a student when they get that check, because we give out big checks.”
By big checks, he means both literally and figuratively. The second and third-place finishers in the competition will each receive a $2,250 scholarship to ISU, with the grand prize winner taking home a $4,500 scholarship.
Registration for the competition ends Friday, Sept. 26, and students’ business plans will begin being put up against each other on Oct. 10, and finalists will compete on Oct. 24.