The First Ever Dorm Room Biz Contest!

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Almost three years have gone by since starting Dorm Room Biz way back in the day of December 2005. So now here we are in 2008 and it is time to kick up the dust a little bit and run what will hopefully turn out to be a cool contest. The idea is simple: help promote and grow Dorm Room Biz in anyway you can (posting, commenting, subscribing, emailing, etc). For your efforts, you have the opportunity to win some cool prizes. I’ll outline all the details below.

How To Enter

As with most of the contests that go on around the blogosphere, there are a few different ways to enter and earn chances to win a prize. Here they are:

1. Comment on this post and you will get one entry
2. Comment on other posts throughout the course of the contest and get one entry for each comment. Comments need to be worthwhile and not just a “nice post” type of comment. Have some substance people!
3. Write about the contest on your blog and receive 5 entries into the contest. Please provide a trackback to this post or leave a comment with a link to your post.
4. Subscribe to the email feed and get another 5 entries for the contest.

Everyone who participates will be entered into a random generator and names will be pulled for the winners randomly.

Contest Timeline

The contest starts…TODAY and runs until September 19th. On the 20th I will run the names and announce the winners.

The Prizes

I know this is the section you guys have been waiting for, so here is a list of the prizes that are up for grabs.

• $50 via PayPal - 1st place
• The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur book by Mike Michalowicz, signed copy - 1st place
• 1 Month of advertising on Blogtrepreneur, 125×125 ad spot ($50 value) - 1st place
• 1,000 EntreCard Credits - 2nd place
• You Call The Shots book by Cameron Johnson, signed copy - 2nd place
• 1 Month of advertising on Young Entrepreneur Blog, 125×125 ad spot - 3rd place
• The Student Success Manifesto book by Michael Simmons, signed copy
• Zero to One Million book by Ryan Allis

You can see the prizes listed for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. The other books and any other prizes that get sponsored will be given at random!

There are still lots of opportunities for contest sponsors and I am constantly searching and talking with people to get more prizes for this!

Bic Promo Pens and John Chow Launch Flip Video Camera Contest

The evil John Chow has partnered with Bic Promo Pens to launch a new contest on his blog this month. The contest is for a new Flip Video and Mini Flip cameras. As usualy with John’s contests, leaving a comment on his blog will get you entered into the contest with the hundreds of other people. On top of that, you can write a post, like this, talking about the contest.

I am sure you guys know all about promotional items that you get from companies when they are trying to sell something to you or when you attend a conference, well Bic Promo Pens is no different offering promotional pens and similar items. I am a fan of promotional items, because many of them I use. I used to get a package once a month from a promotional products company that did printing for me a couple times on different items. Each month they would send me some different sample products, and always included pens. Besides the markers, sticky notes, coffee mugs, and cups that they sent I usually enjoyed the promo pens the best; simply because I could use them daily and it saved me from needing a stock of pens incase I left one on campus somewhere or lost one.

If you’ve got a blog, make a comment on John’s blog and write a post about the contes for a chance to win!

Win $50 from SmartyPig Towards Your Savings Goals

After a great interview with Mike and the folks at SmartyPig, they were kind enough to send me a $50 gift card for SmartyPig. As a user of SmartyPig, that would be a great little bonus into my own account and to be put towards my savings goal. However, I thought it would be more fun to give it away to someone who sets up an account at SmartyPig. Now, before you get too excited about winning a free $50, this gift card can only be used at SmartyPig.com to be added into your account and go towards one of your goals.

So, here is how things will work. First, you are going to need an account with SmartyPig. So, head over to www.smartypig.com and sign up for an account and set up a savings goal. Then leave a comment with your email address that you used with your SmartyPig account. This will let me check to see that you set up an account and see what people are saving for. By signing up for an account and leaving a comment here on this post, you will be entered into the contest.

Here are a couple other ways to get more chances to win:

• Subscribed to the Email Feed for Dorm Room Biz
• Write about the contest on your blog providing a trackback to this post or leave a comment with a link to your post.

It is as easy as that! The winner be chosen randomly and will be annouced on July 15, 2008. After the contest ends, I’ll contact the winner to get their address and send the gift card off to them!

I look forward to some participation in this contest, and more contests will be coming soon!

So, who wants $50 to save towards their goal?

Market Leverage Is Ruling The Blogosphere With Contests!

If you have been following some of the more popular bloggers such as John Chow, Ian Fernando, and Tyler Cruz, you will have noticed that they all launched contests on the same day with the same prizes sponsored by the same company - Market Leverage. Seems like they may be trying to make a statement and make a push to get some more people signed up for their great affiliate marketing service. As you also probably noticed, I have signed up with them but that was a week or so ago and am not eligible for some of the contests.

If you are interested in signing up for Market Leverage, I’d love for you to sign up through my affiliate link but of course it’s not required. If you want to participate in the contests being run by Tyler and Ian, you will need to register for Market Leverage through their referral - a sneaky way for them to make extra money as you compete to make as much money as you can in a time period.

However, if you do want a shot at a Nike duffel bag full of Market Leverage stuff, then check out the contest that John Chow is running.

All you need to do is blog about the contest and send a trackback - its that easy. Then, you just hope that you get picked as a winner of one of the great prizes. See any of the many contests happening around the net to see what is being given away!

Contests are also happening at Balkhis and CashTactics.

Win 10,000 EntreCard Credits from John Chow

Just a quick note - John Chow is running a contest on his blog with the prize being 10,000 EntreCard credits. For those of you how are running EntreCard on your blogs, you know that it does indeed bring in some extra traffic and that if you had 10,000 credits, you could start doing a lot more advertising then you may already be doing via EntreCard widgets.

So, check out John’s post about the contest and get involved for a chance to win!

Dorm Room Business Competition - Start Up Nation

I am sure that some of you have already heard about the dorm room business competition that StartUpNation is sponsoring, but in case you have not, I thought I would give a quick post about it; just to share the details with you all.

Are you a college entrepreneur with a great business?

If so, you should enter the StartupNation Dorm-Based 50 ranking for a chance to be named one of America’s top 50 college-based businesses of 2008.

You’ll be joining some of America’s most successful entrepreneurs who made their way to the top by combining “campus” with “commerce”. Think Michael Dell, Bill Gates and more recent high-fliers like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Brian Taylor of Kernel Seasons.

America’s collegiate entrepreneurs continue to thrive, taking bold risks and making business breakthroughs. The winners of the 2008 StartupNation Dorm-Based 50 will be no exception. This ranking will salute outstanding collegiate students for their achievements as well as their future prospects as entrepreneurs.

What’s the upside of being named a winner? Extensive national promotion on leading national TV, radio, online and print media outlets. Be ready, though - winners in other StartupNation competitions have received so much traffic from media attention that their websites have literally crashed. For bragging rights, winners will also receive a Dorm-Based 50 Winner’s Emblem that they can locate on their websites and in emails.

What’s the downside? Ummm… we couldn’t think of any.

To be considered, entrants must currently be attending college in the U.S. (though not necessarily living in a dorm) and must have a business website.

After filling out our simple online form to enter, winners will be judged on a some or all of the following criteria:

• Innovativeness of business concept
• Potential for growth
• Cutting-edge business practices
• Potential for overall impact
• Financial performance

Entries will be accepted through March 15, 2008. Winners will be announced in the national press on April 10, 2008.

StartupNation is collaborating with College Boxes, iContact, MSN and Fox Business Channel for the 2008 StartupNation Dorm-Based 50.

Still have questions? Contact us and we’ll get back to you quickly.

Think your dorm room business has what it takes to be among the top? Then go ahead and enter today!

Need Business Cards? Want Business Cards? How about 5000 of them?

Sure you do! You can always use some more business cards, at least that is what Young Go Getter (YGG) and Orange32 think.

YGG and Orange32 are sponsoring a contest for 5000 free business cards. You can check it out here.
They are giving them away to the most creative post that someone writes and submits to them…I hope I win!

ProBlogger 3 Year Old Birthday BASH!

In case you have been living under a rock the last few days, you need to check out the birthday bash going on at ProBlogger. Darren has rounded up over $50,000 worth of sweet prizes. Prizes range from free books, gadgets, electronics, consulting services, design services, and more.

Head over to the site to check out the full prize list and add him to your RSS reader to keep up on the latest contests that happen during the week!

The Blogging Scholarship - Win $10,000 for blogging!!!

For all the readers out there that are still in college, this will appeal to you. College Scholarships (www.collegescholarships.org) has released information for its $10,000 Blogging Scholarship. Here are the quick and dirty details for those of you who may want to submit an entry.

Important Dates:

• Submission Deadline: Midnight PST on Oct. 6th
• 10 Finalists Announced and Public Voting Begings: 9am EST on Oct. 8th
• Public Voting Ends and Winner Declared: Midnight PST on Oct. 28th

Apply Today!

There is a 300 word limit for this essay. Like great blog posts, short and interesting is preferred over verbose. Use any of these questions as the basis for your scholarship essay:

• If you nominated a friend, what makes them and their blog so special?
• What is the most interesting or inspiring blog post you have ever read? Why did you find it inspiring?
• How have you used blogging to help yourself or others?
• What is the most powerful social change you have seen come out of blogging?
• Why did you start blogging? What does blogging mean to you? Why is blogging important to you?

Check out the full details of the blogging scholarship at the College Scholarship website.

Win A Signed Copy of The 4-Hour Workweek from John Chow - Another one!

Well, if you didn’t win the first time that John Chow gave away a copy of The 4 Hour Workweek like me, then you should rejoice because you have another opportunity. The rules are the same and the prize are the same.

Comment on his post, stumble it, or blog about it and get 1 entry in the contest per each. If you are an RSS subscriber of his, you got a little extra treat and opportunity to enter another time.