How To Apply

The New Venture Competition is open to all current GW students, with no prior business experience required. GW faculty, staff, recent alumni, and non-GW individuals may participate as long as they join a team led by a current GW student and meet the team composition requirements. Check your eligibility by answering the following requirements questions below.

Eligible Participants

To be eligible, you must be:

• A current GW student (undergraduate or graduate, part-time or full-time, domestic or international), or
• A GW-affiliated team member, which includes:
  • Current GW faculty or staff
  • GW alumni who graduated no earlier than Fall 2024 / Spring 2025

Note: Alumni, faculty, staff, and non-GW individuals may only participate as part of a team that includes a current GW student.

Team Composition Requirements

• Your team must be at least 50% GW-affiliated (see definition above).
• Your team leader must be a current GW student.
• Maximum team size is 5.
  • Teams of 2: Must include at least 1 GW-affiliated member
  • Teams of 5: Must include at least 3 GW-affiliated members

Note: Only GW-affiliated members may pitch during live rounds (Semifinals, Finals, Awards). Non-GW teammates may assist behind the scenes or during Q&A.

Venture Eligibility

NVC is designed for early-stage ventures - pre-revenue to early traction is ideal, so your venture or idea must:

• Be no more than 4 years old at time of application
• Have less than $400,000 in total revenue

To participate in the New Venture Competition, you must select a track for your venture. Review the tracks below and choose the one that best aligns with your venture idea.

Explorer Track

Explorer

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The Explorer Track aims to appeal to students with early-stage ideas. The Explorer Track aims to appeal to those students who have yet to gain experience with innovation and entrepreneurship programs but are curious to learn, and whose ideas may be highly nascent.

The Explorer Track's requirements are shorter and simpler throughout the competition, thereby encouraging students who might otherwise be intimidated by the traditional NVC tracks' size, scope, and time commitment. These very early-stage ideas will be judged and rewarded based on students' understanding of venture creation basics such as idea fidelity and quality of thought, versus more advanced concepts, like scalability potential and revenue generation. Explorer Track participants will be urged to work with the GW Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in pursuing their ventures further and return to the NVC the following year with an evolved concept.

The Explorer Track is perfect for individuals that are just starting to dip their toes into entrepreneurship, whether for a class project or a last-minute idea.

Vertical Tracks

Consumer Goods & Services

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This track is for ventures that offer everyday goods and services sold directly to individual consumers (B2C), not businesses, government or retailers. These ventures succeed primarily through product or service sales, even if the product has added sustainability, wellness, or lifestyle benefits.

Examples include:

• Convenience Goods: Groceries, toiletries, skincare, cosmetics, and personal care items or services.
• Personal Tech, Apparel & Lifestyle Services: Electronics, wearables (e.g., smart rings), clothing, fitness and wellness apps, luxury goods, travel planning tools, dating apps, and restaurant/event recommendation platforms.
• Other Personal Services: Real estate services, life insurance, legal assistance, and even burial planning services.

Business Goods & Services

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This track is for ventures that sell to other businesses, not directly to consumers. Even if the end user is a consumer, if your customer* is a business, then you are B2B.

Examples include:

• Services or software that help businesses improve operations (e.g., logistics, CRM tools, internal dashboards).
• Tools for specific industries like hospitality (e.g., a restaurant suggestion tool for hotel concierges).
• B2B products such as office supplies, industrial equipment, marketing solutions, or data platforms.

*As a general rule, your customer is the one who pays you directly or who shares revenues with you following a customer transaction. You may still need to understand the end user’s needs and behaviors, but your customer is a business. B2B buyers often think about return on investment (ROI) and how your solution can directly benefit its company, and this will be a significant part of how you will be judged in the competition.

Social Innovation

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This track is for ventures that are mission-driven and focused on addressing critical social or environmental challenges. These ventures aim to improve lives and communities through scalable, sustainable impact - not just charitable intentions. A social innovation venture will often be supported by grants or donations coming from donors and government support rather than sales revenue.

Social innovation ventures may operate as:

• Nonprofits
• Hybrid models (e.g., benefit corporations or social enterprises)
• For-profit companies with a core social mission

Examples include:

• Programs addressing education gaps, climate change, healthcare access, human rights, or economic mobility.
• Sustainable ventures focused on underserved populations or systemic change

Note: Simply donating a portion of profits to charity does not make a venture socially innovative. Teams will be evaluated on the measurable value their venture creates for its intended beneficiaries, their understanding of the problem and unique market position, and the financial sustainability of their business model - not just the mission statement.

Health & Life Sciences

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This track includes innovations that aim to improve health, extend life, or enhance well-being through medical and scientific discovery, technology, and service delivery.

Examples include:

• Services and platforms for healthcare providers (clinics, hospitals), insurers, or researchers.
• Medical devices, diagnostic and therapeutic solutions, health tech, healthcare IT, and scientific R&D tools.

Food Innovation

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The Food Innovation track supports ventures that seek to transform how food or beverages are cultivated, processed, produced, stored, distributed, consumed or upcycled/disposed. This track welcomes mission-driven ideas that improve food security, nutritional quality, sustainability, and/or affordable healthy food access through innovative products, services, technologies, or business models.

Competitors are encouraged to demonstrate how their solutions advance a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient food system - from reducing waste and improving environmental or supply chain efficiency to introducing healthier ingredient alternatives and expanding access to nutritious food in underserved communities.

Take the time to carefully review the round requirements for your selected track to fully understand what is expected at each stage of the competition. This will help ensure you are well-prepared and can meet all necessary deadlines and criteria as you progress through the competition. Select your preferred track below to review the round requirements.