Business Case Competition

For your final project, you will create three connected components that together tell the story of your mentor’s entrepreneurial decision:

  1. Written Decision Memo (2–3 pages) — a concise, analytical narrative about a real decision your mentor faced. (80 points)

  2. Digital Story (3–5 minutes) — a visual or narrated summary that introduces the business and the decision point for your mentor and peers to view before the networking event. This is to be recorded. (40 points)

  3. Peer Evaluation & Individual Reflection — a reflection and assessment of your teammates’ contributions. (30 points)

Purpose

Your project will capture a real decision point—a moment when your mentor had to make a consequential choice involving trade-offs, uncertainty, or competing priorities. This assignment allows you to analyze an entrepreneurial challenge, communicate it in both written and digital formats, and connect classroom concepts to lived entrepreneurial experiences.

Networking Event Reveal

At the Mentor Networking Event on Thursday, December 11 from 5:00–7:00 p.m. in Nutrien 135, each team’s mentor will reveal what actually happened—sharing their real-world outcome, reflections, and lessons learned.

This live reveal will allow you and your classmates to compare your analysis with the entrepreneur’s actual decision, deepening your understanding of how entrepreneurs make choices in real-world contexts.

At this event, the winners of the “Best Podcast” and “Best Case Study” will be announced.

Instructions

Please check Canvas for assignment instructions.

Total: 150 points (15% of final grade)

Remember: Every case we’ve studied this semester started with a real person facing a hard choice. Your mentor’s story is just as rich, and your challenge is to bring it to life.