14 Participants, 1 Winner
On December 18th, over 50 people gathered at the Fonseca Theatre to watch 14 small business owners pitch their businesses for the chance to win $2,000. Participants first attended the 10 week SOURCE Dream It – Start It – Grow It Business Accelerator, put on in partnership with BOI to learn how to make their business dreams a sustainable reality. During this series, they learned to define their target market, hone their marketing skills, tighten up their business ideas, create realistic budgets and projections, and more to prepare for the Pitch.
Businesses ran the gamut from hair styling, consulting, pool cover sales, and electricians to sustainable energy, art installations, and more. Each small business owner had 5 minutes to present the problems their business solves, how they solve it, and what they would do if they won the $2,000 prize generously donated by The Kelley School of Business.
A special thanks goes out to our three guest judges: Maurice Dunn, Owner of The Carpenter’s Son and Spring 2019 Pitch Fest winner, Barb Cutillo, visiting lecturer for The Kelley School of Business, and Andrew Carty, Director of the Economic Development Division at the Indiana State Department of Agriculture.
After one of the toughest deliberations to date, the judges took to the stage with a large $2,000 check to present to the winner.
A very big and well deserved congratulations goes to Ravan Carter, Fall 2019 Pitch Fest winner and owner of The Bag by Styl-ish Designs by Ravanjay! Ravan is developing a solution to help other small business owners expand their market reach at events such as pop-ups, farmers markets, and more across the state.
The SOURCE Business Accelerator happens twice per year and has limited seats available. If you’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to start or grow your small business in 2020, the Spring class is forming now! Thanks to generous funding from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, we are able to offer this 10 week series at the reduced cost of $149. We hope to see you there.
