How to Organise Business Ideas Contest Online

Everything you use in your daily life, from a toothbrush to your smartphone, exists because of the people in the past who managed to transform their ideas into a reality. The continual process of ideas generation is the foundation of any business infrastructure. But how do you actually discover these brilliant ideas that make an impact and promote business growth? While “sit and think” works at times, sometimes it’s a good strategy to do something more original to move the needle in the direction of creativity. Contests can be a great source of creativity. Keep reading to discover some great tips on how to organise a business ideas contest online.

What is a business ideas contest?

Basically, it’s any competition, either online or offline, that is focused on industry-related business ideas. The goals of such events usually boil down to finding investors, launching new products or startups, and developing essential business skills. In the past few years, the growth of startup pitching events and hackathons has only proven that viable business ideas are always in great demand. From Money 20/20 Asia to Seedstars, investors and corporations from all over the world attend a huge number of business conferences as they hunt for the best new ideas.

Reasons to organise a business ideas contest

Let’s be honest here: running a business ideas event is a risky deal because you never know whether you’ll be able to reach your ultimate goal. However, there are at least three reasons why this is a risk worth taking:

1. You’ll attract investments: For many young companies and startups, developing a good business idea isn’t a big deal. What’s really problematic is finding investors who could help turn an idea into reality. Business idea contests are the go-to platforms for business angels, which means such events can make impactful meetings happen.
2. You’ll tap into the target niche: Business idea contests bring people with the same goals and interests together. In an interview, Seth Godin said, “[The] Internet lets weird people find other weird people, which amplifies their weirdness. Events are here to help you live with your weirdness.” In other words, contests focused on business ideas help people understand their industry better, make connections, and explore the ways of realising new ideas.
3. You’ll grow a business: Many people mistakenly consider a business ideas contest to be a startup thing. However, if you’ve ever attended big conferences like Web Summit, you’ve probably noticed that companies like Google and Booking.com are represented there. To keep a business afloat, you have to infuse it with new ideas and innovation on a regular basis. Because of this, business ideas contests may inspire companies to make impactful changes and help them increase productivity.

How to organise a business ideas contest online

Since running an in-house event might cost you an arm and a leg, online contests are the perfect alternative. Check out this short guide on how to grow and collect business ideas without leaving the virtual space.

Choose a platform

Use an awards management system or social media—you decide. Depending on the complexity of your business ideas contest, you’ll need several mechanisms to get it going. These include submissions management, voting, analytics, judging, video integration, promotion, and more. If you want to collect business contest ideas on social media, shop around for platforms like Hootsuite that can offer a range of promotional modules. This is a popular choice in terms of gaining publicity and introducing business ideas to a wider audience. However, with startup pitching events, it’s often important to maintain some privacy. That’s when awards management software like Judgify can be the right fit since it grants secure access to the dedicated contest platform where all the magic will happen.

Set up contest rules

Before pressing “go” on your business ideas contest, make sure you have a clear set of rules that define the entire process from A to Z. Here are the popular aspects that you’ll have to touch upon when running a business ideas event:

• Eligibility requirements
• The format of business ideas presentation (video, pitch, photo submissions, etc.)
• Deadlines and voting/judging timeline
• The platforms where a contest will be hosted/shared
• Privacy regulations
• Criteria for judging a business ideas contest
• The prize and winner selection
• The mechanisms used for fraud prevention/detection

Determine the judging process

Winning a business ideas contest is a big deal. In most cases, winners are entitled to promising new partnerships, new investments, and extraordinary public attention. Considering these facts, it’s super important to ensure the results of such contests are based on fair, transparent judging. No matter what the size of a contest is, having a strong voting and judging toolkit is a must. Here are the basic modules you have to look for:

• Flexible management of multiple judging rounds
• Custom scoring capabilities
• Judges abstention (in case of a conflict of interest)
• Entries’ segmentation based on specific criteria
• Wide search functionality
• Robust analytics

Contest promotion

The final critical step is getting people to participate. Whether it’s a private event or a public social media contest, reaching the right audience is the key to success. So how do you ensure your online contest attracts viable, money-making ideas? Check out these simple strategies:

• Email blasting: If you’re a lucky owner of a contact base through which you can reach young business owners, companies, and investors, email marketing is the way to go.
• Advertise on social media: Target social media communities that are interested in worthy business ideas, startup trends, etc.
• Use paid ads: While this technique will cost you some money, paid ads can really skyrocket contest promotion.
• Submit to a contest directory: Many platforms, like Contest Bee and Contest Listing, are just waiting to advertise your event. If you think your audience might check contest directories, give these platforms a chance.

Why you should use Judgify

Judgify is an awards management system that combines effective tools for managing contest applications, judging processes, public voting, and online event analytics. Since it’s so flexible in terms of criteria management, upload settings, and customised voting, Judgify is the right choice for managing business ideas contests anywhere and anytime.

Conclusion

Organizing a business ideas contest online is a good way to drive profits for companies or startups as well as foster useful business connections. We hope that this simple, four-step framework for setting up an online event will help you reap extraordinary business profits.