The 2012 Cougar Pitch winners!

Here are the top three finishers in each category of the 2012 Cougar Pitch. Thanks to everyone that participated in the Pitch. If you weren’t a finalist this year, next year’s entries open September 3, 2013.

BBA ENTR Major Category:
1st Place: Brenda Melgar; 2nd Place: Andrew Michael; 3rd Place: Jessica Bolaňos

Student Category:
1st Place: Jose Ramirez; 2nd Place: Tehmina Manasiya; 3rd Place: Azam Rauf

Congratulations to these students!

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CougarPitch is a business elevator pitch competition conducted by the Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship (WCE) and designed to give you an opportunity to see if your business idea is a worthy idea. In fact, if it is, it could be worth up to $1000!

All businesses start with an idea, an idea that fills a perceived need in the marketplace. These ideas can come from anyone, and anywhere. Surely there are many students, faculty and staff right here at the University of Houston that may have a sustainable business idea. CougarPitch gives you the opportunity to find out if YOUR idea is one of them. And you will never know if it is a good idea until you pitch it.

A business pitch, also known as an elevator pitch, is the simplest distillation of your idea. It is short, to the point, and only has to communicate a few key concepts. It’s easy to write (we’ll even teach you how to do it) and takes less than two minutes to present. Many good elevator pitches take less time than that. So why not give it a try? You could win $1000!

CougarPitch is open to all students, faculty, and staff at the University of Houston. The only requirement for entry is that an entrant has a “uh.edu” email address and a PeopleSoft ID. The competition will be divided into at least two categories: BBA Entrepreneurship students, all other students at UH (business or otherwise). If there are sufficient entries and interest in a faculty/staff category, that will be added, too. All entries are done online here at the Web site, and the selected finalists will give their pitch (yes, you actually have to be able to give it) at a special CougarPitch Finalist Event on November 17th.

Key Dates (for 2013):

• 9/3/13 – Entry submissions begin
• 10/31/13 – Deadline for entries
• 11/16/13 – Final Judging at which finalists have two minutes to present their pitch to an audience, panel of judges and possibly VCs, investors, entrepreneurs and business people. Winners selected, prizes awarded.

The top three finishers in each category will win cash and other prizes, with at least $1000 going to the winner in each category, $500 to second place, and $250 for third place. Other prizes will be announced as we get closer to the event, and prizes could change depending on the number of entries and the final number of categories.

Don’t miss this great opportunity to find out if your business idea is a worthy one, and take your chance on
winning $1000. Look through the rest of the site for more information, or contact the CougarPitch Administrative Committee at info@cougarpitch.com.