Judges and mentors are wholly committed to helping you succeed. Over our history, we cannot identify a single instance where a student’s idea was stolen as a result of participating in this competition.

However, if you have an idea that you hope to sell internationally, we recommend you file for a provisional patent. Join Creators to get access to our legal and IP mentors who can help you do that.

Absolutely! The uniqueness of your idea is not as important as your ability to successfully understand and solve a customer problem. Solving problems may be as simple as offering an easier way to find parking, buy contact lenses, or get great pizza in Provo.

The Creators membership comes with access to our mentor network of seasoned entrepreneurs and tech professionals.

If you are all-in on starting a business, you can also apply to Seed, our startup accelerator and community for student founders to get even more mentorship, funding, and help with your idea.

Yes you can! However, only one of your ideas can be selected into the Top 20. This means that if you are on two separate teams, and both teams’ ideas end up in the Top 20 after the preliminary judging round, then only the higher scoring idea will be allowed to participate at the Final Event.

No idea is perfect. And great entrepreneurs learn to fail early and often. The Big Idea Pitch offers a unique opportunity to get feedback from successful entrepreneurs about your idea. This feedback can help you make necessary changes to improve your idea and ensure you’re making the most of your limited time.

No. The judging criteria rewards those who clearly articulate the problem, market, and solution, not necessarily those with the BEST ideas.

We strongly encourage you to use the Big Idea Canvas as a tool to evaluate your idea. You can also ask yourself the following questions:
+ Do I see evidence of a “pain” people are trying to solve?
+ After 30-60 minutes of searching online, did I find any products or services that address the customer pain?
+ Could I do a better job addressing the customer pain than what is already offered? How? Why?
+ How big is the potential market for this product?
+ How can I take my idea to market?
+ Another great way to evaluate your idea is to watch and compare yourself to past winners (See last year's pitches above).

Eligibility is determined by these eight areas:

Ownership: If equity has been assigned, a minimum of 20% of the company must be owned by current BYU students (see definition below).

Control: Current BYU students (see definition below) must control a minimum of 51% of the company’s voting rights at the time of application.

Management: Seed Grants are for student-created and student-managed ventures, as such student participants should fill key management roles (Presidency or C-Suite) in the venture.

Revenue: Ventures with cumulative revenues of more than $100,000 are *not* eligible to apply. This includes proceeds from crowdfunding (Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, etc.).

Investment: Companies who have received $250,000+ of investment are *not* eligible to apply.

Prior Participation: Teams may resubmit businesses that have been submitted previously.

Nature of Venture: Ventures cannot be a buyout, an expansion of an existing company, a real estate syndication, a tax shelter, a franchise, a licensing agreement for distribution in a different geographical area, or a spin-out from an existing corporation. Licensing technologies (eg. tech transfer) from universities or research labs is encouraged, assuming they have not been commercialized previously, but must clearly indicate what was provided by the licensing agreement (patents, partnerships, etc.) before student involvement.

Current Student Status: Qualifying BYU-Provo students must be degree-seeking students enrolled in at least 6 credit hours for undergrads or 3 credit hours for grads in the semester when applying for the grant. Online courses will only count toward the minimum credit requirement if they fulfill graduation and degree-specific requirements.

If you want to show slides, we recommend recording yourself using Zoom or a similar video conferencing platform. There is also a way to record a slide show with narration in PowerPoint. You can find a walkthrough from Microsoft by googling "Record a slide show with narration."