Any early stage concepts had difficulties associated with entering and competing in startup contests?

I've just entered the vator.tv splash competition and was wondering what other people have run into as far as problems.

I assume:
overzealous preoccupation with winning could hurt a team, but that seems easy to avoid.

There are a lot of lessons learned by competing that don't require winning to occur. I'm interested in what other side effects that slow or halt growth of the business can occur due to competing? Any true contestant experience total failure due to over hype? Anyone win a contest and then plunge into failure?

Thanks.

I participated in several competitions, and ran several competition via the entrepreneurship club at my university. I almost won $100K (which wasn't fun, because I was very close, but ended up with nothing) and I have won several thousands of dollars worth of services. I have also made some great friends in the process.

I am a firm believer in these competitions, as they open many doors and help most of the participants who take them seriously. They help you by giving you feedback and focus, they help you network, they help you raise funds... They are generally great.

There is even a book written on these competitions by the head of the OPIM department at the Wharton business school in the university of Pennsylvania. There is a link to the books website.

Good luck in your competition! Make the most out of the experience.

I entered into a business plan competition (palo alto software ) & won 1st place. The plan was (and still is) included with every copy of business plan pro. This business plan, even with obfuscated projections, became a problem with some VC's who felt that distributing the plan (even if it represented a fraction of our offerings) gave away too much information.