It's tough to win funding for a new business. Not because of the current economic climate, but down to the fact that at concept stage, there's a very high risk of failure. Private and government money prefer businesses that are much more advanced. Not so the Barclays "One Small Step" competition. Barclays are offering a hefty £50,000 boost to for new business ideas around the UK

The submission deadline for the competition is 16 May 2010. Judges then prepare shortlists for 10 regions in the UK by 23 May. Public voting will take place until 4 July.

Find out more about the competition at the One Small Step website

Meanwhile here's my take on things to watch out for:

* Competitions like this don't come along often. Most business competitions require a business to be up and trading, which of course doesn't work for you if you have a business idea at the concept stage.
 
* The competition requires that you have a Barclays business account, or that you open one. Not a problem in itself, but usually, if you're going through the development stages for a new product there's no need to open a bank account and start incurring bank charges sooner than you have to. Same goes for registering a Limited company.

* The competition only pays out £10,000 to get you started. Thereafter your local Barclays bank manager steps in to work out how you'll best spend the money within the first 12 months. As the prototyping and development phase for a new idea can take years rather than months, you might find you can't actually spend all the prize money within a year.

* Although some of the information will be held back for judges eyes only, essentially the public is voting for the best idea. So your idea is...well...made public. You need to feel confident that you've take the right steps to protect the Intellectual Property in your idea before revealing it. And that the chance of winning the prize is worth any advance information you're giving away to potential competitors.

* If you've got a uniquely innovative product, this competition is most likely to be useful if you've already done the thorough market and originality research for it, and you've got a working prototype that you are sure has a strongly patentable element to it that you register before entering. If you release your idea into the public domain before you have patented it, you risk being prevented from patenting it later.

* Bottom line is, this competition is most likely to be useful if you're already pretty advanced with your new product or business idea, and poised to move quickly over the coming year.

Visit the FAQs for the One Small Step competition on the Barclays Bank website

As part of the competition, Barclays will be sending an information bus on tour around the UK

 

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