Jamestown Pitch Competition Opens, Aims to Boost Stutsman Entrepreneurship

The Jamestown Regional Entrepreneur Center launched registration on Nov. 18 for its annual virtual Startup Business Pitch Competition, signaling a fresh push to cultivate new firms across a nine county region that includes Stutsman County. The open call targets early stage pre revenue ideas and keeps the entry window open through Friday, Dec. 5, 2025, offering local founders a low barrier opportunity to test concepts before customers and investors.

Organizers plan to select finalists who will deliver roughly 10 minute presentations to a three member panel. The competition awards cash prizes of $250 for first place, $200 for second, and $100 for third, and emphasizes coaching style feedback intended to help participants sharpen value propositions, refine financial assumptions, and improve investor readiness. While the monetary awards are modest, the program’s chief value is tailored feedback and presentation experience that can increase a startup’s likelihood of attracting follow on support.

For Stutsman County residents the event offers several concrete benefits. The virtual format reduces travel costs and broadens access for entrepreneurs in rural communities, where early stage financing and advisory services are often scarce. Presenting to a panel provides a disciplined exercise in communicating unit economics, market size, and customer acquisition plans, skills that local founders typically build gradually. In the regional economy, even small firms can generate local employment, capture unmet demand in niche markets, and spin off suppliers and services.

From a market perspective, programs like this operate at the top of the early stage funding funnel. They focus on ideation and model validation before revenue, a stage at which traditional lenders and equity investors are usually constrained by risk aversion. The competition’s emphasis on feedback recognizes that human capital and coaching can be as critical as seed capital for translating an idea into a bankable business plan. For economic development policy, that suggests a dual approach: continue offering pitch forums and pair them with follow up resources such as mentor networks, micro grants, and connections to regional accelerators.

Longer term, supporting a steady pipeline of founders across a nine county area can help diversify the local economy, particularly in counties like Stutsman that rely on a mix of agriculture, manufacturing, and services. By encouraging experimentation and lowering upfront costs of market testing, local economic development actors may increase the odds that viable firms scale and contribute payroll and tax base growth over time.

Registration information was announced on Nov. 18, 2025 and entries are accepted until Dec. 5, 2025. The competition is designed to encourage entrepreneurship and provide new founders with practical feedback as they move from idea toward execution.