For new firms, receiving the capital resulted in a 37 percentage point increase in the likelihood that the individual was operating a firm three years later, a 23 percentage point increase in the likelihood the firm had 10 or more workers; higher ratings of innovation, and a 23 percent increase in profits.

For existing firms, relative to the comparison group, receiving the capital resulted in a 20 percentage point increase in survival over three years; a 21 percentage point increase in the likelihood the firm had 10 or more workers; more innovation; and a 25 percent increase in profits. The implied real return on capital was 1.5 percent per month.

By the end of year 3, the 1,200 winners were estimated to have generated more than 7,000 new jobs. At US$3,606 per job-year (or $64,000 scaling for US per-capita differences), the cost per-job-year generated compared favorably to fiscal stimulus programs in the U.S., where the cost ranged between US$92,136-145,351. It also compared favorably to vocational training, business training, wage subsidy, and small grants to microenterprise programs in developing countries, where the costs ranged between US$11,000-80,000.

Regression discontinuity, comparing those just above and below the threshold for being invited to training, showed the 4-day business plan training by itself had no effect on later likelihood to be operating a firm or on employing workers.

The results of this evaluation show that a business plan competition can be successful in identifying entrepreneurs with the potential to use the large amounts of capital offered as prizes, and that these individuals appeared to have been otherwise capital constrained from realizing this potential. The prize money generated employment and firm growth that would not have otherwise happened.

However, the results also highlight the difficulties of picking winners. The randomized component showed that semi-finalists with lower business plan scores did just as well with the grants as those with higher scores. Furthermore, business plan scores, characteristics of the applicant, and characteristics of existing businesses had very little ability to predict which firms would grow faster.