Business Plan Competition for Women:
1 Million Millionaires in the Making

This business plan competition for women provides the resources for one million companies to grow to million dollar businesses. Wow.

I am constantly astounded by the amount of money floating around the venture capital world -- and constantly amazed by how little of it reaches women. I cannot begin to tell you how thrilled I am with the Make Mine a Million Business Awards.

First, huge kudos to the sponsors: Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, a New York City nonprofit, OPEN from American Express and Cisco Systems. The combination of cash awards and personalized mentoring is geared to make each company selected a million dollar company.

The goal of this business plan competition for women is to enable one million women-owned companies to be million dollar companies by 2010. Only 3 percent of women-owned companies (about 280,000 companies) are presently million dollar companies, compared to over 20% of all companies. Clearly, women have been left behind.

The awards will continue for several years more. Legions of women are applying, and legions will win. It's not necessarily the high tech, hoity toity businesses that are winning. For instance, in the summer of 2006, the following companies won $10,000 credit line from American Express, a loan of up to $45,000 from Count Me In and tech support and mentoring from Cisco Systems:

• Allison Evanow, Square One Organic Spirits in Novato.
• Julia Frink, Dogwalks.com in San Francisco.
• Molly Fuller, Hands On Gourmet in San Francisco.
• Robin Moorad, Imago Associates in Berkeley.
• Linda Russell, Mugshots Photography in San Rafael.
• Jinsoo Terry, Advanced Global Connections in Berkeley.

These are all incredibly creative endeavors, each worthy of becoming a million dollar company.  

Many, many thank yous to Count Me In, American Express and Cisco Systems for making these business plan competition for women awards possible. The benefits extend far beyond the companies declared "winners". In truth, each and every entrepreneur who enters gains an absolutely invaluable opportunity to explore the potential of her company.

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