Venture Information Form

Thank you for your interest in the Mizzou Venture Mentoring Service (Mizzou VMS).

Mizzou VMS is open to all members of the MU community - students, faculty, staff, alumni, licensees of the MU Technology Advancement Office (TAO, formerly OTMIR) and clients of the Missouri Innovation Center (MIC) or of the Missouri Small Business Development Center (SBDC) who have ideas and want to start new businesses or expand current ventures.

If you meet these qualifications please complete all sections of this information form and submit it Mizzou VMS. This form must be provided prior to scheduling an initial introductory session.

Section 1

(If you do not have a name, please enter TBD)
Venture Mailing Address

Section 2 - Who is the team?

Please list only the founders and key members of the team.
List primary contact first

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Section 3 - Venture Status

Industry Categorization
(Please select from the following categories the area that best matches your idea/business.)

Have you received other entrepreneurial services/business assistance?
If yes, please check all that apply:

Have you formed a legal business entity?
If yes, what is the legal business classification?

Section 4 - Business Idea/Description

To help us best serve you, please answer a few questions about your venture. Don’t worry about developing your responses formally like you would in a business plan. No deep details or financials are needed – just tell us what you think and envision at this point. Use everyday language as if you were explaining these things to your friends or family.
Please provide a succinct one-sentence description of what you do. Example: Something like “we create and sell game software for consumers". “We are the X for Y” can work very well here – example: YouTube’s concept statement was “Flickr for video”.
In a few sentences, please describe what problem you are solving. Example: The amount of junk mail in everyone's email inbox is growing despite attempts to fight it. You can't be sure who sent you the mail. In addition to wasting time and being annoying, this poses threats to security, spreads viruses and clogs up networks.
In one or two sentences, describe who has this problem. Example: This is costly for everyone in the chain: end users, IT departments and ISPs.
In a few sentences and in completely NON-TECHNICAL terms, please describe how you expect to solve it. Example: We have software that guarantees that the sender is who they claim. This can be implemented at ISPs and enterprises, allowing the entire chain to validate every email's origin and discard invalid messages before they travel further.
In a few sentences, describe who will use it, who will pay you and how you envision selling to them. Again, you do not need to provide in-depth financial details. Example: We will sell our software and services directly to the ISPs, web mail providers like Google and Microsoft, and F1000 companies through direct sales. We will provide a free add-on for email clients like Outlook so end users can easily adopt it.
In a few sentences, describe what is special about your solution and product. Example: Breakthrough identification algorithm that can be inserted into the backbone system at a switch level. Based on cutting-edge research developed under government grants by the founders as MU researchers.
In a few sentences describe the IP status.
8. What is your current status?
It’s just fine to be very early in the process, even at the idea stage. (Please check one)
9. What type(s) of VMS help do you think your startup needs?
(please check all that apply)

If there is anything else we should know about your venture, please let us know here. Also, please let us know if there are critical immediate issues.

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