Your Customers

Consumers USE products; Customers PAY for products. Sometimes they're the same; sometimes they're not.

For example: we're Consumers of Facebook, but advertisers and game designers are the Customers of Facebook.

Customer Discovery Work  Please upload any documents (surveys, interview questionnaires) that show your customer discovery work by clicking here.

U-M Course Association

Other Information

When making our funding decisions, we (in part) look to see that you've done your research.

1. Have you determined the specific costs of what you need?
2. Have you exhausted all of the resources that are available to you as students at a reduced or at no cost? For example:
   1. software (CAEN) (ITS)
   2. legal advice (Entrepreneurship Clinic Office Hours)
   3. 3-D printing labs

That said, there are 3 grant categories you can apply for. Each has limits, and there are Member and Team limits:

• $1,500 per team for Prototyping
• $1,000 per team for Legal
• $250 domestic or $500 international per member for Travel, up to 4 members
• $1,000 total maximum per Member
• $2,000 total maximum per Team

You must therefore stay within the category, team member, and team limits.

Also please note: we do not provide retroactive funding.
 

If you do not need funding in a specific category, please enter $0 then NA in the subsequent fields.

Budget (Optional)

To get a better picture of how your grant requests will fit into your overall budget, please upload a copy of your budget (if you have one). This is optional, but greatly appreciated.

Prototyping

Legal

Teams can contact the ZEAL Entrepreneurship Clinic and/or attend their office hours for guidance prior to requesting funds.

Travel

How will you ALLOCATE your funds?

Funds are distributed directly to your student accounts, so we need all of the information in the matrix below.

Remember the Limits:

• $1,500 per team for Prototyping
• $1,000 per team for Legal
• $250 domestic or $500 international per member for Travel, up to 4 members
• $1,000 total maximum per Member
• $2,000 total maximum per Team

Please manually check your math in the matrix below.

Please list any EXTERNAL and/or PERSONAL funding you've spent on your idea.

Instructions

Upload all documents using this link.

Please prefix all files with your startup name, e.g.

• Facebook - Faculty Reference Form.pdf
• Tesla - Business Plan.docx
• Google - Budget.xlsx
• Spanx - Slidedeck #1.pptx

 
Required

• at least one (1) Faculty Reference Form for a current student on your team. Send this link to your faculty and have them complete it.
• a detailed budget proposal

Note: You may be automatically disqualified if you do not submit at least one (1) Faculty Reference Form and a detailed budget proposal. There will be few if any exceptions.

Optional: please upload any additional documents using this form that will help us make an informed decision about your idea. For example:

• customer discovery surveys or interviews,
• hand- or computer-draw wireframes,
• hand- or computer-draw diagrams,
• prototype photos (including quick shots with your phone camera),
• slide decks / presentations,
• a business model canvas,
• a milestone doc,
• business plans,
• other grant applications, and
• news articles.