Wolverine Venture Battle Competitor Information

Round One

Intent to Compete

To register, teams are required to complete the online form by clicking on the button below. 

Information Required:

1. Venture Name
2. Is it social or commercial?
3. Team Member Information
4. Idea description (1-2 paragraphs)
5. 90-second video pitch. This should be a brief overview of the concept to give us an idea of what you are doing! 
6. Commercial Enterprises Only: First Draft of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) – this is a collection of your initial hypotheses. You’ll be validating these in the next round. BMC PPT template. Please print it as a PDF before uploading. Guidance on how to complete the Business Model Canvas can be found here.
7. Social Enterprises Only: First Draft of the Mission Model Canvas (MMC) – this is a collection of your initial hypotheses. You’ll be validating these in the next round. MMC PPT template. Please print it as a PDF before uploading. Guidance on how to complete the Mission Model Canvas can be found here.

Eligibility

• Teams must be comprised of at least half GCC undergraduate students. Only GCC undergraduate students will be permitted to present during the final presentation round.
• Teams that have participated in the final round of the WVB in the past may enter again only with a new idea. Ideas pitched in the final round of previous venture battles are not eligible to participate again. 
• Teams may be comprised of any number of students. You can enter solo but we highly encourage you to find a team member to work with!
• At least one member of your team must be able to present during the final round to be eligible for prizes. See below for finals dates.

The deadline to register for the 2026 Wolverine Venture Battle is Thursday, February 5th @ 5 PM.

All teams that submit an appropriate, correctly formatted entry will move on to Round 2.

If you have not already done so, you will need to create an account on Reviewr to enter.

Round Two

Product – Market Validation

Once you indicate your intent to compete, it’s time to get to work! For the next few weeks, your team will go about making as much progress as possible toward strengthening your case that your idea is a good (and viable) one.

Startups use innovation to solve important problems in new ways. In the real world, investors need to believe that you understand that you have a unique insight into solving a big problem for a specific group of people.

Pro Tips for finding Product – Market fit

• Primary Research – Customer Interviews
  

  One of the most effective (and fun!) ways to build a startup is testing your ideas with customers, adjusting your ideas based on feedback, and repeating this process until you receive market validation. In order to do this, you’ll need to get out of the building (and on the phone and on Zoom/Teams/Video Call Service of Choice), and talk to potential customers to test the guesses that you made on your initial Canvas. As you gather meaningful feedback from this process, change your Canvas accordingly. You’ll be amazed at how much stronger your case becomes as you accumulate data to prove your assertions.  Helpful Resources: Lean UX Customer Discovery and Never Ask What They Want – 3 Better Questions to Ask in User Interviews

• Secondary Research

  Doing research will help you to back up your argument that this is a big idea. While Google can be your best friend here, you should also make the best use of the library and its helpful staff. The library has a vast array of market research tools, including databases that you normally have to pay to access, so make sure that you avail yourself of this amazing resource. 

• Build a Prototype

  Building a prototype is not only fun and essential for the next round. Use a prototype to show potential customers the job your product or solution will do for them. It is always preferable to show instead of tell your idea. If the product is digital, the team can use a prototyping or wireframing tool such as moqups, balsamiq, Figma, Adalo, or  proto.io.
  If the product is physical, the team should consider a rough physical prototype.

  If the business is service-based, simulate the experience for your customer.

PART 1 – Video Submission:

Round two is about communicating your vision and the story of your venture. Tell us about the problem or opportunity you see in the world.  Who has this problem (your customer), how you will solve it in a unique way (your product or service), and why it is important. These are the first four slides of your pitch deck.  What you create for Round Two should flow directly into your final pitch.  Guy Kawasaki’s and Dave McClure’s 10-slide pitch deck classic startup pitch formats. 

In a video that is no longer than five minutes, tell the WVB Review Panel a compelling story that makes them believe that your idea is a BIG idea. You do not need to cover all nine elements of the Business Model Canvas in Round Two. If you have a prototype, show it, but it is not required until Round Three.  

The video is where you highlight what you’ve done to validate your belief that this is a viable venture.  Be specific about the customers you’ve interviewed and the insights that you have discovered. Explain the changes in thinking that your team has experienced from the initial Canvas and how you’ve pivoted.

Make the video interesting, but remember you aren’t pitching Netflix. The quality of your idea and evidence to support it is your business. 

Videos are to be uploaded directly to Reviewr along with the other parts of your Round 2 submission.

For inspiration, take a look at some past Proof of Concept videos students have made below. Please note that some of these videos reflect the previous round two formats and time restrictions. 

Māhlon Acoustics

Civitas

Carpenter

Great Frontiers

PART 2 – Submission Statement: This Submission Statement signed by all team members must be uploaded as well.

PART 3 – Category:  Should the reviewers use the SOCIAL or the COMMERCIAL judging rubric?

PART 4 – Team Members + T-Shirt Size (please list)

Upload Round Two by Tuesday, March 17 @ 5PM.

The WVB Review Panel will choose the top-scoring team to compete in the Final Battle based on this judging rubric for commercial ideas and this judging rubric for social ideas.

Feedback will be provided to the finalist teams in order to guide them as to how they should proceed to strengthen their business models.

Round three

Final Battle Round Investor Packet Preparation

Now is the time to put your foot on the proverbial gas! The top teams are expected to continue to make as much progress as possible with their ventures as they prepare for the Final Battle Round.

Investor Packet Submission

The Finalists are required to submit an Investor Packet by Wednesday, April 15 @ 5PM. This packet should include:

• An Executive Summary in this one page format used by the Angel Capital Association, with one exception – the Financial Summary at the bottom is only required to show a Three-year estimation: 2026, 2027, and 2028.
• Income Statement for 2026, 2027, and 2028 to support the numbers shown in the Executive Summary. Wolverine Venture Battle finalist teams are required to attend the VentureU seminar on March 25 @ 4PM on startup projections with Professor Ken Smith. To help in preparing financial projections, Professor Smith will meet with teams to review their projections.
• Access to LivePlan will be provided for all finalist teams to prepare documentation for Investors. This will help with the preparation of the Financials and any other details that you’d like to present. You are encouraged to prepare a nice supplemental package for the Investors to show that you have thought through all of the details with regard to your venture. Teams are permitted to submit any supplemental materials that they like.

Upload Investor Packet by Wednesday, April 15 @ 5PM.