Dave and I (along with a classmate Dom) won the Chicago Booth (MBA) business plan competition for Bump before entering YC. It was good because we were in schoo

Dave and I (along with a classmate Dom) won the Chicago Booth (MBA) business plan competition for Bump before entering YC. It was good because we were in school and got credit for spending time thinking about and working on Bump (rather than taking a class that was wholly distracting this one was only partially distracting), met some alumni that have become valuable advisors, and greatly improved our presentation skills (which helped a lot when we were raising money). It was bad because we knew had to work on two things in parallel 1) the real business and 2) the "business plan" business (if we had said what we really wanted to say we would not have won that competition, which at the end of the day is what it was). Overall it was net positive for us I think because priority #1 was the real business and we made instead of planned (we started on Bump 7 months before the competition and launched before it started). In fact, the top 2 companies were the only two that had product in market at the finals. When my Booth ex-colleagues ask me for advice in the business plan competition I tell them to build a product and get in in customers hands, otherwise you are spending too much time guessing what customers will think. There are plenty of companies that came out of business plan competitions that have done really well. One of my favorites is SunEdison that won the HBS business plan competition. A few years after winning they were just bought for $200M. Not bad...