The competition is open to University of Dayton students, faculty, and staff, alumni, and members of the Greater Dayton region. This is a team-based competition (teams can range from 1-8 individuals).

An individual may be a member of a maximum of TWO competition entries (judged separately on each) but may only be on ONE finalist team.

Application can be submitted to any track. During the submission process, you may select up to two tracks but you must apply to each track separately.

The deadline to submit an idea for consideration is Monday, October 20, 2025 at 11:59pm.

You will not be able to start a submission and come back later. We recommend drafting the application in a separate document and copy your information into the submission form once you have all the required information.

No, there is no fee to submit your venture idea for the competition.

All work must be the original work of the applicant(s). All plans must be based on a legitimate business enterprise/venture. Applications that involve breaking the law as part of their business model are prohibited (ex: music piracy).

Plans or any venture that require a liquor license to be legal, or whose primary purpose is the promotion or sale of alcohol, are prohibited. All plans must be startups. Purchasing a current venture, including business opportunities and franchises, is prohibited. Plans involving pyramid-based marketing are prohibited.

For the nonprofit track, the venture is at an idea stage, on track to pursue a nonprofit structure, or already a nonprofit in operation for three years or less.

Teams will be notified by Tuesday, October 24, 2023 if they are accepted into the competition.

All pitches will be in-person. The dates of each Flyer Pitch engagement can be found on our important dates page. The cohort meetings will be virtual and the meet and greets will be in-person.

The first round criteria can be found on the Round 1 Selection Criteria page. The second and third round criteria will be provided at the cohort meetings throughout the competition.

If the application involves an existing venture, major startup event (ex: first sales, incorporation in Ohio, other states outside the US) dates should be 36 months old or newer, at the time of the first round of the competition.

Submissions for each track are open to ventures based in the Dayton area as well as those based in other cities.

For the nonprofit track, there are no restrictions on the age or stage of the venture. All are welcome to apply for established organizations and businesses to those that are just in the ideation stage.

In-kind prizes must be claimed within 10 business days from the ENT banquet when and where the awards are announced.

The sponsor's contact information will be provided to the teams that are awarded the prizes to contact the sponsor(s) directly.