 Hello, my name is Bob Baldacci and welcome to Baldacci on Business. This is our pitch me show and really I'm so excited to be hosting the show tonight. This is really the highlight of our year and to bring on these young entrepreneurs who successfully competed in your program, Kate, Build-A-Biz. So would you take a few seconds and just talk about what we're doing tonight? Yeah, absolutely. I want to thank Rob and the panelists for being here to support the youth entrepreneurship of Maine and Build-A-Biz program is a free online youth program teaching kids about awareness, you know, how to start and run a business and we started out this year with over 300 entrants and then 90 great business plans but we have the judges nailed it down to four wonderful young entrepreneurs girls rule I have to say that before we introduce the the successful entrepreneurs I do want to introduce our panel for this evening show and on my immediate left is Alexandra Sweeney. Allie is a sophomore at Greeley High School in Cumberland. Allie, thank you for being here and if you recall last year Allie was also on the panel so we just want to have that voice that young voice to interact with with our entrepreneurs tonight. My younger brother, Governor John Baldacci, two-term Governor of Maine and former congressman but the reason that John's here is John has had 30 years experience running our family business in Bangor, Mama Baldacci so he does know a lot about business and thank you Governor for being here. Kate McAleer Kate is was on our show this year and I'm so proud of the fact with her Bixby chocolates which she's now moved to Rockland Maine was the winner of a $30,000 launch pad competition through Gorm Savings and Kate that I was so pleased to hear the the news so she'll be here and she really should be an inspiration for you guys to to follow as a young entrepreneur. More girls but thankfully we have Don Gooding on the panel as well Governor. Don is the director of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development. He's an entrepreneur in his own right, an investor so you know he may write a check tonight. He's also an officer of the the Maine Angels, vice chair and Don thank you. And connected to Build-A-Biz by marriage. Because they're related and speaking of marriage my wife Elizabeth, Elizabeth Baldacci who in her own right is an investor, an entrepreneur, officer of the Maine Angels and a principal with Baldacci group. Elizabeth thank you for being here. Thank you. So Kate without further ado would you like to introduce our winners? Yes our panellists are our pitches who did a great job like I said we had 90 business plan competition people send information in and you were the top four and we're very excited you did a great job on your videos and I'm going to start here with Maya. Maya Kalasky is 10 years old, Raya Morrow 14, Haley, Leary 4-E I get that right 12 and Caitlyn Rayner is 16 and we have some great pitches coming forward so just hold on. Alright so without further ado we're going to launch our first pitch and who's that going to be Kate? Caitlyn Rayner. Caitlyn in what school are you? I go to Scarborough High School. Scarborough High School so why don't you get right up to the mic? My name is Caitlyn Rayner and my Build-A-Biz idea is called errands for the elderly. My business will involve teenagers like myself running errands, assisting with errands like light grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions, household chores, appointment reminders, light meal preparation, computer and social media assistance, assisting with pets, light meal preparation and courtesy check-ins to make sure they're okay. 15 to 20% of all proceeds will be donated to the Southern Maine Agency on Aging which is a nonprofit organization that provides adults and their families with information, guidance, education and programs for a wide range of financial, emotional and social needs. 17% of Maine's population consists of adults over the age of 65. As we get older our bodies and our minds tend to slow down and sometimes a helping hand can be a welcome relief. That's where errands for elderly comes in. We respect and appreciate these older members of our community and want to offer them inexpensive services which are provided by responsible and compassionate young adults. With competitive and affordable rates our services are the perfect fit for older adults on fixed incomes. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I think we used up the 90 seconds there quite well. Any questions? Are we going to hold off? No. First of all this is a great idea and we do have a high percentage of our population in Maine that is elderly and I just applaud you for such a caring idea and trying to implement that. With that I believe there are services out there that already offer this so how do you differentiate yourself and your business from the services that are already out there? That's a good question. The difference between us and those other services are we aren't quite as expensive. We understand that older people have fixed incomes and we're very compassionate. We understand their situation so we try to tend to those needs. Okay great thank you. So I'm wondering whether this is something that you've personally done and whether you've started yet to try to recruit maybe some of your friends at high school to try to do that with you? Actually I'm in a medical occupations class at the Westbrook Regional Vocational Center and we have learned a lot about home health care and how the elderly need a lot of help as they get older. So I've just I've been very interested in helping others and getting involved in this. I've talked to a few of my friends and they're really interested in this too. Any other questions from our panelists before we go on to... I was just going to say that I can appreciate what you're doing and why you're doing it and your drive for it and I think the services have there are services that are out there that provide these services but with the major cutbacks that have been going on and the growth in the elderly population it could be much more of a need for that also and I think the more that you can document that and get the information to help support your business plan it would be even more better received. Anybody else? I was wondering what you're doing right now to advertise it or what you're planning to do for the future as far as advertising goes? Actually I was planning on advertising by word of mouth. Social media, bingo centers, websites, grocery stores, senior citizen centers. Have you considered Facebook? I have. Good, I think that's very good. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Very much, Caitlin. Great job. Thanks, Caitlin. Appreciate it. So one of the things that we've done this year is so all of our four winners are going to be at the award ceremony on May 29th and I'm actually looking for mentors for them in the business that they're in to be able to help them so they'll be able to meet them that evening. So we're going to have the award ceremony, we're going to have actually 12 kids from around the state this year. It'll be exciting. Wonderful, wonderful. All right our next contestant, oh don't shy away. Get right up there. Okay Hailey. And you want to talk a little bit about you, where you go to school? I go to school at Cape Elizabeth. Okay, and what grade are you in? I am in 6th. Okay. Hello, my name is Hailey Lurie 4-8 and my business is called Gold Elephant. The product that I sell is a lip savvy set. This set includes a lip scrub, which looks like this, a lip balm that looks like this, and a lip balm, which is a lip balm with sun protection. This product is unique because it is made in Maine, organic, not tested on animals and safe for the environment. I am building relationships with twist boutique in Portland, Fabry Salon in Portland, and Lois' food market as well as Ola's in Portland. Terrific. Well that's great. I'm often told that I need to put stuff on my lips, and as a guy I don't do that as much as I probably should. So I'd like to hear first of all how you came up with the idea and then also how much it actually costs to buy it in some of those stores that you mentioned. I came up with this idea because my skin and lips are very sensitive, so one day I was just like on YouTube and stumbled across a recipe, and I have perfected it to make it my own. That's awesome. And how much does it cost? 17.72 with tax. 17.72 with tax. All right. With tax. That's awesome that you know that. Kate McAleer. I loved your idea, and my question is do you use any Maine made ingredients in your product? What do you mean by that? Any ingredients that come from Maine locally or are grown in Maine? I am not quite sure. Okay. What kind of ingredients do you use in your? I use beeswax, olive oil, and waxilane, which is kind of like a vegan Vaseline. So you might want to think about sourcing some Maine beeswax or something in that vein because Maine made has great marketing cachet that would help you promote your product. That's a good point. That's a great idea. Governor? It's Bob and I know you don't want to give out your recipes so you probably want to have that patented. Maybe Don and I could use it on our forehead. I was thinking the same. No, I don't have any questions. Good job President. Hallie? I was wondering just thinking about how many lip products and balms and all kinds of things like that that there already are. What do you think makes this particularly different? What do you think this would make people want to buy this rather than another? I think because it's all-natural and vegan friendly and it's sold locally and it also comes in a bag. Cool. Do you have anything you want? I think that we need to. Okay, move it on. I know. Well thank you very much. Your packaging is beautiful. Thank you. Well, you know there's another. Thank you for the suggestion. Who did Maine Mead? I mean thank you for the suggestion of a possible mentor to help her go forward with you know sourcing her product in Maine with all the other. Our next pitch is okay, Raya. Are you all ready? You want to talk a little bit about where you're from? I'm Raya and I'm from Bangor and my product is called the Pat Pouch which stands for the Pet Aromatherapy Pouch. What this is is a teabag-style diffuser that you put using tart warmers. All you do is you put the teabag inside of the tart warmer which are sold in many many stores nowadays in a little in a small amount of water and this pouch releases a remedy of four different herbs that calms down dogs that left a home alone and by using this product you can prevent you can prevent your dog from getting separation anxiety which is a disease that 15% of dogs in America have which is a high number considering the fact that this is a preventable disease and by using this product you can help relieve your dog of separation anxiety if you think that they have it. For $16 you get three teabags that last about a week each and the cost for the cost of making this is about $13 no it's about $3 and the profit is about $13 so it's a it's a high profit for this product and it lasts a long time. Do you want to start, Ellie or John? Okay, well you clearly have your information down that's great. You said at the beginning of your pitch there you put it in a what to make it work. Could you explain to me what that is? A tart warmer you can buy like tart packages for them and they just melts the wax and you can yank and candle cells their versions and Sensee is also a popular company for tart warmers and they're very popular now and so all you do is put the water in the basin and put the diffusers inside and it releases the that's very interesting would you consider selling those together? I've thought about creating my own version of a tart warmer that involves either candles or electricity and if I were to create one I would make it so you can buy them either together or separate. I think that would be more compelling. The question I have is now you say it's for pet anxiety pet separation yeah because dogs have to home alone away from their owners they experience heavy amounts of stress which can lead to separation anxiety right you have two dogs a couple of examples of that but I'm just saying you have any research to back up the claim in terms of its effectiveness. I've actually pursed I use it on my dogs if I know I'm not going to be home early that day and so when I normally when I return home and I don't use this product they're very stressed about me being gone and they'll bark as I leave and then they'll be very nervous when I come home yeah and after using this product for a day I realized I see they come home and they're not sometimes you find them sleeping in their kennels because they have to be in kennels because they misbehave otherwise. Maybe a good idea I've been using NPR in between but this may be a better product thank you. Kate and then you Elizabeth. So how long does it last in the tart warmer? Each diffuser lasts about a week depending on how long you plug it in for and how long it stays on and the water might have to be refilled sometimes because the herbs do suck up some of the water and some of the water evaporates but each diffuser lasts about a week. How close does it need to be to the dog? As long as you place it in the room where your dog is and your dogs can smell the herbs. We only have like 30 seconds left. Okay so my question is what is your distribution strategy who are you selling this to? My product my target demographic is many dog owners across the country and I'm assuming most of you guys have dogs so you could use it as well and plus traveling families that have to leave their dogs at home alone families that are very busy who have who can't go home early. So directly to the customer not through vets or other sources as a wholesale directly retail. I have been thinking about selling my product through veterinary offices and the Humane Society as well to get it to more pet owners. Thank you Raya. Great job. Thank you very much. Do you have a dog? I did but I'm not much of a dog. He's a cat. We have a couple of cats and that's enough. I do want to our audience watching the show if you have any ideas or any suggestions please feel free to contact the station if you'd like to connect with any one of our young entrepreneurs particularly if you think you can be a mentor to them. Yes we're looking for great mentors. Our next final. Maya Kaloski. Hi my name is Maya Kaloski I'm 10 years old and I live in Portland Maine. My business is a website called OMG Anxiety. OMG Anxiety is an online on-demand therapist through a series of games for kids when they need it because most of the times you get scared aren't at therapy they're often on car rides or at the doctors and even the kids who have therapy can't have it every day. This you can take anywhere and it's great for kids. I've been working on a series of games put on the website or on people's devices one of them is called Shake Your Fear. When your kid logs on they will choose an avatar which will represent their fear monster. In this game it represents your fear growing and shrinking so when your kids tap on the game they'll see this and as you shake your device he'll get smaller and if he tries to grow again shake him until you feel like your fear is gone. This and many more things will be included on my website and you can buy them on your device. I've talked to a lot of therapists doctors children and parents and this day and they say that things like this aren't usually very friendly for kids so this could be something that the world needs. I'm excited to do this because I'll be helping kids just like me. I have anxiety too. Thank you for listening. That's a terrific job. Kate I skipped over you the last time and I'm sorry would you like to take the lead question? Sure. So do you have your website up and running yet? We are working on it right now it's supposed to be up and running probably sometime in July great. Feel free to anybody. So this is actually a big area of games for people who have you know various kinds of anxiety I was actually reading in today's Wall Street Journal a report about lots of games that are being used so you're actually at the leading edge of technology and so and one of the people mentioned in that Julia Hoffman is somebody I know so I'm going to put you in contact. So just kudos for being at the leading edge of this very exciting. It is. Panelists. So one thing that I noticed is I I did watch your video I went on to the website and the website looked very serious it looked really informative but my understanding is that your apps are for kids and so I was wondering how how how you were going to know that how kids were going to know that oh this is exciting and the artwork looks like a demographic that they would enjoy. Well I really think it takes a kid to know what a kid likes. Yeah. So I'm going to have a lot of input from my friends on how to make the website good for kids my age and younger and older. Great. Okay. Good answer. I was just very impressed with her presentation and I thought she did it very well and and appreciate you know how you presented it so thank you. Thank you. And you're 10 years old. Now have you been learning how to program yourself? Yes. I am programming in languages called Scratch and Hopscotch. They are animating websites creators that help you like I program games on them and I make videos and most of it's going to be about strategies that has helped me because I have anxiety and I take care of it. So are you going to charge for the app? How are you going to make money? Well people can buy the apps on their devices that they can take anywhere and you can also set an account on your website where you can track your progress on it and we're not exactly sure how much it's going to cost yet but probably get figured out soon. That's a terrific idea. Allie do you have any? Yeah I'm wondering again about anxiety sorry advertising. What are you doing or planning to do as far as advertising goes? Well we're probably going to put most of it online for that's probably the source where most of it's going to come from and I'm also spreading it around. Twitter and Facebook and all of that and stuff. All right anybody else thank you very much. Terrific job. Terrific job. Well here we are we're getting near the end of the show and first of all Kate is there anything else that we need to know about the program? Well just briefly I just wanted to talk about so Build-A-Biz this online program which they completed and sent in all their information and they're here for this competition. This is just one of the events you know the next one actually is Build-A-Biz Day across the state so on May 18th kids are going to be setting up their businesses all across the state and so this is an example of what you're going to be seeing this year which is I don't know I really the judges have a really hard time and we are addressing some major needs you know we have a huge baby boomer population you know Caitlyn, Hailey you know we're out in the sun too much we don't hydrate enough and I think that's part of at least that's why I tell Don he doesn't drink enough water that's part of it you know we all have unconditional love pets you know dogs anxiety is a huge one I didn't know it was a disease it's good to know and I hope that I can understand because I have anxiety and I hope that I can do your game so the judges have a hard road here so yeah they're deliberating as we speak yes but again for these four to to arrive at this point Cait they were you had over 300 300 children registered this year from all across the state every corner you know they made it through three levels of cuts you know the judges the small business development counselors you know they set it up and you know here they are on the Bangor Savings Bank elevator pitch competition to compete for a thousand dollars for the first prize and 250 for the second and they're all going to be at the awards ceremony though okay and they each I already have sponsors for all of them so there's also a little extra financial surprise there too nice nice so you have done a great job you all relaxed now that's over I mean this is really why I wanted to do the show in the first place to give people the idea or the belief that they they can create that create their own destiny and it really starts with the kids our youth and I'm very proud of you guys very proud so they have done yeah they've done a great job and this is part of what Build-A-Biz you know we started it as an awareness builder entrepreneur builder but really this Build-A-Biz has become an aspiration for Maine in our future and so getting the word out there to support youth entrepreneurship I mean people don't you know don't understand that you need these skills whether you're going to run your own business or whether you're going to work for somebody else if you want to move up in the company so they're very important to have a very important skill you all did a phenomenal job this is going to be very hard and our judges are still constantly this is not an easy decision and we have this is the longest they've taken so two more minutes left for the show folks while they decide but this is good this is a testament to to you folks that it's not an easy decision so well we hope to be at the the awards banquet and again your sponsors include Bangor Savings Bank yeah Bangor Savings Bank has been our founding sponsor since 2010 uh you know we have GWI has been there Oxford Networks CTN Balaji on business you know we have been very lucky to have partners great community partners all right i'm going to have to ask the panel i'm sorry are we ready i think so all boys first of all is there is there a dissension among you know made it so tough because you're all so good yes and we all think you all have an opportunity you know with a little mentoring to really be very successful and i think it's a great testament for Kate to be here who has been on that seat where you're sitting and has been able to turn out such a success but we ended up going with the pet pooch okay pet pouch excuse me pet pouch all right pet pouch yeah congratulations congratulations to you number two number two very close second with omg anxiety oh wow well you all are winners you really are and you're gonna we're gonna have all your awards for you at the award ceremony on may 29th so congratulations congratulations and looking forward to that event and we'll be inviting uh ryer on our june show which we're going to be taping shortly here so again thank you all and viewers thank you and and we really appreciate the support you've given our show we look forward to another season and again panelists thank you guys very very much it was a good show so tough decision all the way around and if there's anybody out there with young entrepreneurs that want to get involved next year build a biz dot me b u i l d a b i z dot me it's a great program thank you very much thank you very much all right great