 Business Plan Competition. Excited to have you all here in the fabulous Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and celebrating the 21 businesses who have gone through the past several weeks of training and coaching, worked on their business plans, the top eight of whom are here tonight to pitch for some very nice prizes. So this is our 12th Business Plan Competition. We've been doing this for a while and it's really one of the big tentpole things that the City of Fort Worth Economic Development Department does to help support and celebrate small businesses. According to research from HSC Next, there are 25,000 jobs created by new firms less than three years old in Tarrant County every year and this has been the case for the past several years. That is a lot of paychecks, that is a lot of family supported, that is a lot of awesome jobs for people in Fort Worth driving the economy here. So you guys are the backbones of the community and we really appreciate all that you all do. But more than anything, we appreciate how you all contribute to Fort Worth's vibe and character through your unique businesses, through all that you do to create the entrepreneurial community that we know and love. And so thank you all for helping make Fort Worth the city that it is. So this competition really exists to help get people plugged into that larger ecosystem and get set up for success. Everyone who's pitching tonight has worked very hard on a written business plan and so they've put in a lot of work over the last couple of weeks. And so to speak a little bit more about small businesses in Fort Worth, I'm going to introduce my boss, Robert Stearns, the director of economic development. Thank you Andrew, how's everyone doing? Good, good. So if you all noticed in that video, I was a little sweaty the last time I was up here. So I want to just thank lifestyle transitions for providing some vantage for the United. So thank you all for being here. This is really just a wonderful opportunity to celebrate entrepreneurs that have participated not only in this year's competition but the participants over the last 12 years that have been involved in this. It has really been a labor of love for the city of Fort Worth team that have worked on this. Special shout out to Andrea Dexter, Kristen Martins with Frost. It has been a lot of work to pull this competition together. And many of you may not know, but this competition was originally the brainchild of Ed Reef and Stahl with the alternative board. Ed was and still is a very strong supporter of the Business Assistance Center and it's been my honor to continue the work that he and many others began when they started this competition. So someone told me this was like the state of small business or entrepreneurship speech. That is not what it is, trust me. But I will say that as you all entrepreneurs know, it has been a wild ride since the pandemic. It has just been a little bit of craziness and the city had to pivot just like everyone else. It is hard to believe that just a couple of years ago, we did this entire thing online. Not the most optimal way to do the business play competition, but it worked. So it's really great to be back in person for the second year and provide this great learning environment for our entrepreneurs and participants. But this thing is not only the, this is not the only thing that we're doing for small businesses. As many of you know or should know, we launched an online tool with SparkYard called SparkYard several years ago in partnership with HSC and TCU to connect entrepreneurs with the resources across the community. The past year, we've set up an entrepreneurship and innovation committee to focus on building out ideas to support our ecosystem. And that resulted in the establishment of the Fort Worth Entrepreneurship Center, which will open in the near South Side later this year. All right, very good. South Side. But I will say that the most important thing that we did this year was listen. We heard from a number of small businesses that the development process was extremely challenging to them. I remember sitting down with Council Member Michael Crane and about a handful of small business owners, five or six, and they let us have it. I mean, they were like, this, this process is terrible. I, you know, and, and so we sat down listening to really heard that and took that to heart. And so there were several things that kind of came out of that. One, we brought on a Fuse fellow I saw K West outside earlier K where you know, there's K K who was with with the Fuse Fellowship. She's now with True Fun, but we brought on K to help us really look at what was going on at the Business Assistance Center and how we could better support entrepreneurs. We had the Institute for Justice that came in to do a study on our processes, which resulted in some significant changes. And the establishment of a one stop shop for small business owners online to understand not only how to start a business in Fort Worth, but what types of permits they may need to get up and get running as quickly as they can. And I was telling Kat and Jonathan, if you're the folks outside, that is step one and about 100 steps that we still need to do to support small businesses. It is not perfect and I will be the first one to admit that. But we have long understood as Andrew mentioned that small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods and our cities. If you look at what's going on in the near south side, for example, in the past 20 years, you can understand how important it is to have vibrant and thriving neighborhoods filled with small business owners. And when you think of economic development, you know, most of you think of attracting corporate clients. And if you walk outside this building, you can look a block over and you'll see a huge development decrescent going on right now. That's a mainstay of economic development across the country. Nothing new to Fort Worth. But I can tell you that when I can grab some Asian zing tacos from Katrina Carpenter's mobile bistro, when I can grab a bag of East Siders blend coffee from black coffee on the east side, or when I can do my weekly visit to Hotel Dries to have a Dries tea, which needs to happen fairly soon because I haven't been there in a while. Those are the moments that really make me proudest of the work that my team has been doing over these past few years. So before I turn the mic back over to Andrea, again, I just want to say thank you to everyone for coming out tonight. You really don't know how much this competition means to us, just on a personal level and what it means to the city of Fort Worth as a whole. So thank you again. We're looking forward to an exciting night and a strong night of pitches. So let's get after it. Thank you all. Thank you, Robert. Can't forget his fan. Next up to say a couple words is going to be someone you all know and love, Shannon Watt, Executive Vice President from Frost Bank. Well, good evening, everybody. I'm so glad y'all are here and I'm glad to be here too, but Robert's words are so true. We can't thank the city enough for the partnership that we have with this business plan competition. I've been involved for a number of years, but just look at how far it has come, even after the pandemic. I'm so proud of you guys. You guys are the backbone of our community, just generating that economic development, that tax revenue for the city and those loans for the bankers. You know, we love those things. But anyway, so glad you're here. Just want to say thank you. Kristen Martinez is the rock from Frost that really helps get this going. But Robert, Andrea and Dexter with the city, just great partners. So thank you. And then I just like to end also to tell the competitors for this year that Frost is prepared to extend to you a loan offer, a pre-approved, no application loan offer just because you completed your business plan and you got through it. So you can certainly opt in or opt out. More details to come, probably check with Kristen. But nevertheless, congrats to you all who are part of this. And I look forward to seeing you all here give your pitches. Thanks. Thank you, Shannon. Not a bad deal, huh? All right, without any further ado, I am very, very proud to introduce Lauren Kuchka of Salted Pages, who was last year's grand finale winner. And she is going to be our emcee for the evening. So please come on up. You know, there are two important things that she didn't quite mention. I'm a dog person. And if you were here last year, you would know that I'm a lot better at putting words together than ingredients. So I'm Lauren, I'm an entrepreneur and the founder of Salted Pages, a marketing company that specializes in brand messaging and search engine optimization. But last year, I was one of these 21 contestants. And I remember gripping in this piano that they have in the green room, waiting for my turn for my three minutes to share my story. And that story has led me here tonight, where the city of Fort Worth and Frost Bank have given me the pleasure, in the adrenaline rush, if we're honest, of leading tonight's contest. And apparently three minutes wasn't enough because here we are tonight. So thank you so much for being here and for supporting these stories as these entrepreneurs chart their paths to success. Speaking of, tonight will be a night of storytelling, stories that we can all connect to. Some salty, some sad, some that relate to road trips, to taking care of ourselves, to taking care of the planet, taking care of the elderly, getting organized, getting noticed. And I can't go on without pausing to notice the supporting individuals and organizations that have mentored tonight's entrepreneurs. If you are a member of one of these organizations, could you please stand? Accelerate Fort Worth, HSC Next, North Texas Entrepreneur Education and Training Center, please stand if you're involved here. We also have Score of Fort Worth in the Tarrant SBDC and Tech Fort Worth, please stand so we can give you a round of applause. We are also in awe of this location. Thank you to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and Cafe Modern. If you need a brunch recommendation or an immersion into history, you know where to come. So let's go ahead and introduce our judges. I know you can't wait to get started as entrepreneurs. So let's go ahead and walk you through the format that we'll be following for tonight. So the judges please stand and wave when your name is called. Although Rosa I believe we will have sitting down she hurt her ankle, but please can you wave Rosa Bordeja. She's our attorney and board member of the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber. And then Ori Fernandez, please stand. Assistant Director of the City of Fort Worth Economic Development Department. And then we have Stacey Marshall, President and CEO of Southeast Fort Worth, Incorporated. Catherine Morris. She's the owner of Cherry Coffee Shop. So when you need to pick me up tomorrow after all of this, then we've Amy Razer. She's the Fort Worth Regional Director of the Better Business Bureau. And then last but not least, we have Amber Yorman. She's a former senior program manager at HSC Next. And then we have Nikita Dennis, Executive Vice President at Frostbank, who was unable to attend tonight, but this won't impact the scoring she had to be excused in emergency. So tonight here we are. We started with actually more than 21 applicants. There was a top 21 that were chosen to compete. And in the months leading up to tonight, these entrepreneurs attended professional development workshops. They received coaching from partners and business mentors in Fort Worth entrepreneurship ecosystem. The one goal of this entire competition was to create and present a winning business plan. And they have one now. Each of these business owners are going to walk away rich with the knowledge that they can use to grow their businesses. We hope that you have learned and created amazing relationships that you can use for the long term success of your business. We're so excited that each of you was involved in this year's competition. Can you please stand if you're one of the top 21 applicants this year? These are the business owners that created their plans. Yes. If you need advice from them on running a business plan, you know who to go to. So based on the written business plan, those 21 were narrowed down to just eight. And those are the eight that you will be seeing tonight. So let's go through the rest of the competition. The judges have already reviewed the written business plan. That was 50% of their score. The remaining 50% will be based on tonight's pitch. Each contestant will have just three minutes to make their pitch and then two minutes of Q&A with our live panel of judges. Once all the contestants have pitched, the judges will deliberate and return to announce our third, second and first place winners, which speaking of, it's not a small prize. Our third prize winner will receive $4,000 in cash. We can do a round of applause for that. Our second prize winner will receive $6,000 in cash. And our first place winner will receive $10,000. There's a lot in the cards tonight. A lot of, you know, stress and adrenaline on top of these entrepreneurs' shoulders, and we are just so excited to see their pitch to see these stories. And in addition to the cash prizes, you will get to vote, as in you, the audience, will get to vote on the perfect pitch. So after the pitches have all been completed, you will be able to vote on your phone and we'll share the link. So let's go ahead and kick things off. Each participant will be called in alphabetical order. All other contestants, except for our first, could you please go backstage to the green room until it's your turn. You know, I'll tell you my favorite part about this composition is that the money doesn't determine the next step. It's the plans, the plans that they've already created that will determine the next part of their stories. But let's go ahead and buckle up with something sweet. Maybe please welcome on to the stage, Hallelujah, Brittles and Sweets. Good evening. We are Hallelujah and Sweets. I am LaVelle Luster, a military veteran and a retired federal government worker. My name is Zett Pickens. I'm a retired administrator and the person behind all this deliciousness. I came up with my own version of peanut brittle and gave it out as Christmas presents to family and friends and they loved it. They said you should sell it. So here we are. Hallelujah. Brittles and Sweets. Anyway, is there anyone in the audience who has never, ever eaten a piece of candy in their entire lives? Before you raise your hand. No, I got a lie detector in the back. Despite inflation, candy sales in the US in 2022 were estimated at $37 billion and projected to increase in 2026 to $44 billion. I bet the dentist loved that. The average candy eater eats eight pounds of candy per year. Eight pounds. That's about the size of her head, isn't it? Well, some of us. This is eight pounds of our Brittle. I need all candy eaters to focus on my watch. All candy eaters will eat eight pounds of Hallelujah Brittles and Sweets this year. All candy eaters will eat eight pounds of Hallelujah Brittles and Sweets this year. Can't blame a girl for trying. Our main target goal is anybody with teeth, dentures included. We have eight different varieties of Nut Brittles made with peanuts, cashews, almonds and pecans. We also have toffee and praline, both regular and hot because some folks like it spicy. When we open up our production facility, we will have walk-ins, drive through online website and we will have Nut Brittle vending machines. Vending machines, yes, when our facility is up and running, our 12 month growth sales will be around $200,000 year to 26% increase year three, about 34% increase. We will sell orbital nationwide. We will establish brittle Nut vending machines throughout Dallas-Fort Worth area. We will also set the term. Cash flow will consist of a production facility, equipment, machinery, distribution, marketing and employee salaries. We're finally going to get paid. In closing, remember if you've got teeth, you'll love our brittle dentures included. We forgot about jaw. Okay. All right. I found the button. Got it. First one. So congratulations. Thank you, ma'am. I love your, you're very ambitious and you're scaling. Yes. So talk to me a little bit about at what kind of thresholds y'all are going to begin their next phase of expansion because vending machines, like, are you going to have your own vending machines or are you joining other vending machines? We're going to lease vending machine. It's the cheaper route. It'll, when you're starting a business, you got to go go low until you can afford them, get them yourself. So vending machines is one of the routes that we would like to go with first because you can have four or five vending machines. They're like 150 bucks to lease per month. And then depending on what area you put them in, if they want a percentage, 10% or whatever. Have y'all considered joining a district, like reaching out to a distributor to see if they'll distribute your product in their own vending machines? We're working on it. Okay. Okay. For sure. Okay. So is there an option for people like myself who can't eat sweets down the road, you know, for people that are pre-diabetic? I have been working on something. I'm going to keep working on something until I get there because I do have friends that are diabetic and they don't care that order my brain don't eat it anyway, but I'm working on it. And you will too. Hi, ladies. Based on your projected annual revenue growth that I think you said it by year two, you want to grow by 26% correct? How do you plan on expanding your operations to to prepare for that growth? Well, we're going to go slowly. We don't have a facility up yet. So we can't truly answer that question. So when we get the facility up, we're going to expand the vending machines because it's the easier route. And the vending machines, you have four or five vending machines, you can make almost 50 grand in four months. So that's going to help us scale up and grow. It sounds like a lot of your plans are based on that facility for production. Yes. What's your timeline and your funding plan for that? Well, timeline is now until hopefully the next 15 months, we can get our facility up. Looks like that's time. Please round of applause. Thank you. I just want to vending machine in my office like I work from home. But I mean, that would just be such a nice. So I know there's some scrumptious snacks in the lobby, but I'm sure we're all craving some brittle right now. But let's go ahead and continue. This show is just beginning. Our next pitch is the perfect match to help all of us manage our stress levels as we run our businesses. I'd like to go ahead and welcome honeybee wellness and consulting. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your time this evening. I am brandy rodin. I am a licensed clinical social worker, the owner and founder of honeybee wellness and consulting, where we're buzzing around creating change and we help your brains create shortcuts to better your life. Our mission and vision is to create a whole healthy community and we want to be we are the ultimate stop for quality mental health care. So here's our problem. We found that during the pandemic, everybody across the world began having mental health problems specifically here in America and athletes across the world. They began to struggle with sport for performance as well as decreased confidence because all the games were haunted. And in addition to that, they eventually got into where they were able to play games with no live audiences. Well, as we know with performers, they feed off of their audiences. And so we were there to step in specifically with our community university, Texas Christian University to provide that service to help get their athletes back into the game. And just overall, there was an increased need for mental health care and not enough providers. Our second problem, honeybee wellness and consulting provides supervision services for licensed master level social workers. Well, social workers are part of the BIPOC community struggle to find supervisors that were are of color. So we stepped in, took the training and now we provide those services for those individuals. And here's how we solve the problem. We provided culturally attuned services for therapy as well as supervision services for newly licensed social workers and college aged athletes. Here's the team. So for the judges who read my business plan, the goal was actually to hire three team members by the end of Q2. I am elated to announce that as of today, I hired my third employee. We did gross over 72 K from October of last year until March and we completed a total of 272 individual sessions not to account for workshops or group work that we did. So these are my two competitor organizations, one Fort Worth based one Arlington based, what sets us apart from these amazing organizations is that we offer specialized services for athletes that they do not. Here's where we're headed. So we've already met our goal of three employees by the end of Q2. So we are now looking to make sure that we are keeping our four elements Ws that we have in place and to gross over 211,000 over the next 12 months. I'm Brandy Rodin licensed clinical social worker with honeyby wellness and consulting and thank you for your time. There you go. Sorry about that. I had a question on you said that you're partnering with TCU right now. Yes. Do you have plans to partner with any of the other local colleges? Yes, I actually do have plans to reach out to the UNT program because they are as well as UTA to keep it into Tarrant County and to keep, you know, those services going for those athletes that are both local and coming out of state. So yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So question about athletes. What if someone comes to you and they're not an athlete? We service them. We don't turn people away. Mental health is needed. I didn't know if you had a referral partner or plan or yes, I do collaborate with other therapists in the network that have different specialties. So if we're not better fit for them, we do refer out if needed. But we try to keep it. So talk about the continuation of care after they're no longer that athlete and they leave college. They can stay with us. There's no there's no cap. Our target audience is the college age athletes, but that goes on with continuity of care. We don't just stop them just because they graduate. They once they establish that relationship with us, as long as they're meeting needs have goals to work on, they will work with us until they're ready to stop. So 72 grows since October. That's really good. Congratulations. Do you know what your overheads are and what is your like profit margin after? Yes. So when I ran the numbers, right now, the overhead is around five K. So bringing in about roughly some anywhere from seven to 10 K a month. And so that's kind of leaving me in the $2,000 profit margin, which is actually growing. It's grown exponentially since October of 2022. Talk about capacity. You have three people on staff. How many people are you seeing per person? So I am seeing I have 20 clients on my case. So we each have a total number of sessions to complete a week. And each week we are bringing in roughly anywhere from 15 to 25 sessions a week. It just varies on availability and client therapist need. Thank you so much. Please round of applause. She has a calming aura around here. I know I feel better already. And if there's going to be a buzz created, let it be to take care of our mental health. Please. So summer is coming up, right? That's for sure when I come alive. And if you're planning a summer road trip, you might want to connect with this next entrepreneur who is providing the dream accessories for your next highway adventure. I'd like to welcome to the stage, gnarly vans. Hi, I'm Brian Frank, owner of gnarly vans, a camper van component company here in Fort Worth. So welcome to all you future van owners. Gnarly vans is helping people enjoy their vans by giving more of what we all need most, time. Our optimized and patent pending products help produce the hassles of van living, set up and clean up so that you can get on the road and headed to adventure. Now optimizing your 50 square feet of van life is not a new concept, but gnarly vans is different because we're catering to passenger vans. With over 100,000 Ford trains of vans sold every year in an increasing trend in van life, there's no shortage of customers to help or products to optimize. When I first discovered camper vans in 2018, we bought a passenger van to build out for the kids as I convinced my wife. We eventually filled it with three smiling and very destructive, I mean, very curious boys. One day in 2021, my son dropped a bag of goldfish in the van. Now, when you only need five of the 15 seats in a passenger van and you remove them, you're left with a hole in the floor. So there I was driving down the road, unable to pull over, watching in dismay as these goldfish bounced and left to freedom underneath the van floor, never to be seen again. The parents know what I'm talking about. As a full time mechanical engineer with over 10 years experience in product design and manufacturing, I created the first floor hole covers for the Ford Transit passenger van and have sold over 1000 in the past two years to businesses and consumers alike. We continued to solve these types of problems by inventing new covers, brackets, hooks and other storage solutions for a growing customer base. With revenue last year approaching 30,000, our products have been installed in vans in 11 countries and counting. Now we're introducing a new product, which will be our largest revenue generator, insulated window covers. So when I asked all the manufacturers of these insulated window covers for cargo vans, when we would have them for passenger vans, they all said the same thing, said we do not offer them for passenger vans. And this was taken from one of their websites. So after waiting long enough, we designed our own. So when we win the 10,000 from this business plan competition, we'll be able to launch our innovative new products alongside our best selling products and take our revenue from 30,000 to $200,000 next year. So who's ready to save time, explore more, and get gnarly with gnarly vans? You said you've sold to 11 countries now. How did you branch into international and what's that been like from a shipping and duties perspective? Van life is pretty large in Europe and Canada and overseas. So mostly on forums they find me or through Etsy has been a good way to international ship and get out there. Hi, have you tried to partner with any of the makers of these vans, whatever, to see if you can sell your product to them and that way it can take off even more or sell more? Yeah. We have a general distaste for dealers right now. As I know a lot of people do. I'm sticking more in the aftermarket community right now. So I've sold to distributors and builders and upfitters mobility upfitters that community. And I'll eventually branch into dealers. And I just one more question. Can you expand a little bit on how you market this product? Right now I spend a lot of time in the community. It's still a niche community. So social media forums, as well as some ads. So talk a little bit about ADA compliance, which are vans and how do you deal with people with special needs? I've sold to a lot of mobility upfitters because when you remove the seats as you need to do for wheelchair, it leaves the hole in the floor. So I'm the only product for them. So I've sold plenty to them as far as ADA compliance that hasn't really been approached or problem for this apart. So I used to watch a show called Pimp My Ride. So I wanted to Pimp My Ride. Can I get certain colors? I mean, certain things added to the van itself or whatever. Anything you can imagine you can get in a van. It's it's it's the perfect envelope for for your dreams. No fish tanks. No fish tanks. Sunroof. Thank you so much. I love that they've tapped into the international market. Nearly half of businesses failed due to a lack of market demand. So the fact that his market is going beyond just Fort Worth just the United States. I mean, that's that's incredible. So this competition, if you may have figured it out by now is known for trailblazers. And our next entrepreneur is certainly one two known for breaking down barriers to independence. Let's go ahead and learn how please welcome lifestyle transitions. Thank you, everyone. Everybody should have a fan. I'd like you to listen closely. I'd like you to raise your fan if that rings a bell from the 80s and 90s life alert. All right, keep your fans high if you guys know someone 65 years and older. All right, raise them even higher or raise the other hand if you know someone who has fallen in that age group. Look around. That is my demographic right here in Tarrant and surrounding counties. I am Michelle Holloway. I'm a doctor of occupational therapy services and we provide mobile concierge outpatient services focused on fall prevention and safety. We are like your home inspector insurance approved that comes to your home to assess the person and the space. And then we follow up with training visits. Sorry, what coalifies me to be on this stage tonight and ask for your support in this competition. It's not my education. It's not that I'm a social entrepreneur and it's not even that I'm a certified aging in place specialist. It's also not that I am insurance approved and credentialed to care for their clients. What matters most and what qualifies me to be here is 30 years of experience taking care and rehabilitating people after they fall as an occupational therapist. Loved ones, clients and friends age 65 and older just like those that you raised your hand for. The elephant in the room. I'm asking for your support. Winning first place would let me purchase technology, a robust practice management software and hire an administrative assistant well needed to increase sales and revenue. I cannot rewind the clock and prevent a fall that's already happened, but I can focus on proactive prevention moving forward. Think of those people that you raised your hand for. Think of Mother's Day that's coming up and give mom the gift of fall prevention. Voting for us, which all of you six now have to do and the audience is a vote for the city of Fort Worth. I can use that money to create jobs, but most importantly, I can help our Fort Worth citizens prevent falls. Don't be the one in three. That's my battle cry. I want to let you know that I started just six months ago zero client visits today. I saw my one hundred and twenty-third. Which demonstrates the opportunity for growth and scaling. Thank you guys for being here. You all now are experts knowing that falls are real. How to prevent them through us an assessment and follow up training and remember lifestyle transitions. And I would like to open it up for questions because leaves should fall, not people. What's the cost of your service? I love that you asked that it's approved by insurance. I bill two hundred and ninety eight dollars for the initial visit. The initial visit ranges between sixty and one hundred and twenty minutes. It's reimbursed at about two hundred dollars to fifty. My follow up visits are billed at one hundred and fifty dollars. If you're familiar with insurance that I always give you what you asked for. But I'm getting reimbursed at about one hundred and sixteen dollars for forty five minutes to an hour follow up training visit. Is that probably Medicaid Medicare. Yes. In this slide that showed who I'm credentialed with one of my number one resources. Woo there it is is Medicare Part B. But everyone on this of this slide I have accepted payment from I receive paper checks and I'm converting to direct deposit. And I do accept private pay. I'm in phase one of four. And I have clients who once they're done with the medical necessity and the insurance payment they want to hire me on for continued maintenance health and wellness. Congratulations on your traction. Great job. Have you done any assessment of how those hundred and twenty three people found you and how has that influenced your plans to market going forward. OK so hundred twenty three people is a hundred and twenty three visits. Oh OK twelve clients today and each client on average has sixteen follow up visits. I have made amazing traction through word of mouth. I was at the senior synergy in Fort Worth last year and I got two clients that was wonderful but I couldn't figure out how to get paid for them and how to get credentialed and collect the money. So I pumped the brakes. I hired a credentialer and a biller and now back in January I mean in December I lucked into a wonderful group of neuro patients who have Parkinson's disease have survived a stroke or have had cancer or traumatic brain injury and they're a very close network of neurologists. That's my phase one. I would reach out to podiatrists to orthopedists. The list is so extensive. I love your energy and I can tell that you're very passionate about what you do. My question is are you still providing occupational therapy services? Go and have to stop with questions. That's the time. Thank you so much. Thank you. The fastest growing industries are actually health care and social assistance. So it's really beautiful to see this kind of business helping our aging population. I know I only have one living grandparent left and I actually get to see her this weekend for her 90th birthday and I can't wait. So we've been fully buttered up at this point would you say. I would think that this next pitch is going to pop. Please welcome Lil Pop Gourmet Popcorn. So I have a confession to make back in college. One day I was really late for a class and it wasn't because of an emergency. It was because I smelled the fresh scent of popcorn popping in the lobby and I decided to wait in line for it. Ten years later I have no regrets. Why because I love popcorn. Popcorn is what inspired us become entrepreneurs and for us to start our business. Hi my name is Shalonda and I'm Michael and together with our two daughters we are Lil Pop Gourmet Popcorn a family owned business. At Lil Pop we have a fun and engaging experience for popcorn lovers and snackers alike because we give them the power to customize their popcorn. Our popcorn is handmade with delicious ingredients and all you have to do is just go online and order it without a problem. Log on to choose your base add your toppings press order and then boom. The popcorn is ready. Alongside our create your own flavors we also have our signature line with our burger birthday cake kettle corn our number one seller our cookies and cream and we're going to bring that customers customization to life through our popcorn bars that we're launching next week. Yes I know there are a lot of words on this slide so I'll just give you the highlights. The snack industry has grown by 35 percent since 2019. In fact Hershey's has invested two billion dollars since 2017 by buying popcorn companies. The major factor in the growth of this industry is due to the changing trends and tastes of the next generation. Millennials and generations Z are more are snacking more often. They are purchasing food online and they are moving around the country more often than their previous generation. Yes we are hoping to capitalize on these trends and drive revenue growth. For the next four years our focus would be on improving our website partner with schools to expand and some fundraising launching our DIY growing kits and eventually move it into a brick and mortar. And we know we can achieve all these objectives because we have a dynamic team. My beautiful wife and CEO of the company has worked at several Fortune 50 companies and in their marketing departments and I have a background in finance and accounting. So you know I love spreadsheets and clean books. And white let's not forget about our two employees of the month London and Izzy who specialize in taste testing. So we are not asking we are hoping for the $10,000 after we win this competition. With that $10,000 we plan to buy better equipment enhance our website and buy more ingredients and source those ingredients locally. This business has given us the opportunity to work together as a family and also to inspire our two young girls as well as other girls in the community to pursue entrepreneurship. So what are you waiting for? Join us on a mission to change the popcorn industry one kernel at a time. Thank you. Give it the minute. OK, there we go. Hi. Love that you're bringing your daughters into this and that was kind of the reason you started this based on your business plan that you shared with us. What do they think about this? Is this energizing for them? Are you dragging them by their by their feet? What are their how are they enjoying this process with you? They are really enjoying it. They're excited every time we get the chance to go out and sell popcorn. They truly have bubbly personalities and you know I think they're going to love it just as much as we love it. They're sorry they're number one salespeople as you can see right here when we set up tables they're just ready to go and give out popcorn as much as possible. You receive an order online. How long does it take to process that order and get it to that person in their hand? So with our process in time right now we can have the popcorn in their hand depending on if it's being shipped then of course I would take a couple of days due to the shipping but if they are local in Texas we can have that popcorn in their hand and probably about two days. Talk to me briefly about production. Are you operating under cottage law? Yes but we also have our manufacturer. Yes we just got a food manufacturers license and so we can now ship across states. The last thing we need is just a food handler's license or actually you got the food handler's license. So yes we can ship across states. What is the shelf life of your products? The shelf life of our products right now because everything is homemade it'll last about two weeks. And what is your most popular flavor? Cookies and cream by far. It is absolutely delicious. Did you bring any? I did not bring any samples but if you're coming to the junior achievement golf tournament on Monday we will be there with our popcorn bar so. I love that y'all are planning on partnering with school districts. How do you plan to go about that route? I'm a former high school coach and I know we always looked for ways to you know do fundraisers so just kind of walk me through that. Yeah so we're hoping to be able to just partner with schools by building relationships. And that'll be our time. Thank you. Yeah. By building relationships with them and their students. Thank you. So I think I found the secret to being the coolest like business or office in town if you're in charge of an office branded popcorn. I mean right that would be so cool to get that customized and brought to your office. So we're coming close to the end here and speaking of popping I would say that distractions pop up a lot when you're running a small business. One of the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is just trying to stay organized you're wearing so many different hats especially these small often single or two person businesses. So tonight we're going to introduce manifest your purpose. Please a warm round of applause. My name is Soraya Hawkins Banda and I'm the proud founder and CEO of Manifest Your Purpose a luxury stationary and office accessories company based right here in Fort Worth Texas. A phrase that we hear often in our society is representation matters. And why many of us can generally agree that this is true for me and those who look like me. It is a fact of life. As a young child who grew up right down the road in East Texas I loved stationary. As you can see from this picture there was hardly a time where you could catch me without a journal or pencils in my hand. However I remember often coming to the point of tears when I would walk in the store and not see anything that looked like me. No dark skin no kinky hair and no brown eyes. It often made me wonder if I was even worthy of being celebrated. This problem persisted into adulthood and I realized that it was so much bigger than me. This is why in August of 2020 I started my company Manifest Your Purpose to unapologetically celebrate the beauty and multi-dimensionality of black women by allowing them to see themselves reflected in products that they use every single day. Right now we are a mighty team of two comprised of myself and my assistant Bianca. Combined we have over 15 years of professional and project management experience and we also are both very proud graduates of TCU. Go Pearl. We also work contractually with a lawyer and accountant in a digital marketing agency. Our target demo is black women with a specific focus on millennial black women as this has been our most profitable customer segment thus far and with over $1.2 trillion in spending power combined with a reputation for being brand loyalists and trend setters we are confident that the niche that we have carved in the stationary market will allow us to see continued and sustained growth. Currently we're about 80% business to consumer and 20% business to business. You can find our products on our e-commerce website in Amazon and we also do multiple in-person vendor events per year with our biggest thus far being the Essence Festival of Culture. Our numbers in our first two years of operation have been amazing. From year one to year two we saw a 275% increase in revenue and we've also maintained a 32% customer retention rate. We've shipped over 3700 orders to women all around the world and we've also maintained a 52% gross profit margin. Therefore we are seeking $10,000 to invest in stocking up on inventory developing new products and paid social media advertisement. To end being a girl is great but being a black girl is magic. So we hope that you decide to invest in our company to allow us to continue sprinkling a little black girl magic everywhere we go. Thank you. So you're 20% B2B, 80% B2C. Do you like that percentage or do you want to shift that? No, we do want to shift it. One of our goals, one of our smart goals for this year is to increase B2B to about 35%. It helps us to see a larger profit margin so we're really working hard on that right now. Do you have a strategy for how you want to do that? Absolutely. So we actually had one of our biggest partnerships signed last November with Goldman Sachs. We're an alumna of their One Million Black Women program and so we have a consistent relationship with them and we've actually reached out for them to get more partners from people that they know to see if we can expand that framework. And final question from me, and do you have any plans or desires to do any host any booths at trade shows like NSS or things like that? I tend, we tend to try to go where our target audience is. So as I mentioned, we did the Essence Festival culture, which is the Coachella is the biggest festival in the United States every year. So we do aim for events like that where people who understand what we're doing there. Talk to me about scaling and growth when someone places an order, I'm assuming it's one of the two of you filling that packing, shipping, at one point will you, you know, have storage and outsource some of that stuff? Absolutely. That's something that we mentioned in our business plan. We're hoping to get a warehouse soon because I'm running out of room in my house. And we also have been talking to major retailers to see if we can expand into that space as well. We just need capital and funding. Tell me about your shipping process. It's hectic, but we have a system down. Yes. So what are you using for fulfillment orders a month? Sometimes more. And my amazing teammate Bianca and my husband and my daughter and my friends, they all come to help. But hopefully if we get more funding, I can hire someone full of time in order to really dedicate that time of shipping. We're just. Any last questions? OK, thank you so much. Please around. Don't forget, we only have two pitches left and we do have that perfect pitch contest. So start thinking about who you want to vote for. So we're now moving to our second to last pitch. I've been a vegetarian for four years. So this plan also has me hungry like so many of these others. I'd like you to pull up a chair and give a round of applause for pure vegan pantry. Good evening. My name is Hillary. I'm one of the co-founders of pure vegan pantry along with my sister Gretchen, who will be joining me on stage for Q&A. We are on a mission to provide pantry essentials to ensure an easy and crazy yummy plant based lifestyle by transforming traditional dishes into plant based dishes everyone loves. Ten years ago, we opened up a vegan cafe and juice bar in Fort Worth called Juice Junkies to fill the niche for healthy plant based foods in our community. And over the years, many of our customers have asked us if we could ship our product to their friends and family. But shipping prepared foods is difficult and very expensive. So we decided to transform some of our most popular items into dry mixes that can be very easily shipped all over the U.S. And from this idea, pure vegan pantry was born from a meatless classic chicken salad mix from a must have dairy free cheese sauce mix. We have the essentials to create plant based dishes the whole family will enjoy by simply adding water, plant milk, oil or a touch of mayo. Our dry mixes are plant based gluten and soy free. They're also free of those weird science ingredients you can never pronounce. This is a most difficult combination for the U.S. consumer to find and pure vegan pantry is here to remedy this problem. Personal health issues and concern for the impact of animal agriculture on our planet continues to fuel growth in the plant based food sector. In 2021, the percentage of growth in plant based food sales outpaced the percentage of growth in total food sales. This trend suggests that plant based foods are no longer nice to have, but must have items from many consumers. There we go. Pure vegan pantry plans to stand out in this exploding plant based industry by delighting consumers with nostalgic flavors and textures they know and love and by building a brand people can trust by using simple, honest ingredients. Currently we can produce 300 units per week out of our small commercial kitchen, but a partnership with a co-packer would allow us to produce a minimum of 3000 units per week while also reducing the cost of ingredients and packaging. And infusion of $10,000 in capital would help us with our first one of bulk product with a co-packer. Our next steps will be to launch aggressive social media campaigns and then begin partnering with regional grocery stores. We anticipate these efforts to increase our monthly sales from $3,600 to $60,000 over a 20 month period. Thank you very much for your time and I would now like to bring my sister Gretchen to the stage for Q&A. Ladies, so manufacturing and food service to incredibly high turnover industries. So congratulations on choosing to do both. How do you plan to handle employee like acquisition retention? Well, actually our next step really is to try to partner with a local co-packer. So a lot of the employee issues will be handled by the co-packer. Thank goodness. As far as anybody that's currently working with us, everybody's been with us for five to seven years. So we have a pretty good track record there and if they want to come with us in our new direction, they're more than welcome to. With a gluten free and soy free and like allergen free product, how are you selecting your co-packer? Is there a requirement of them to have a gluten free, soy free kitchen that you're co-packing in? That is ideal. We would absolutely love that. And Warren talks with a company called Terasol that does all clean ingredients. It's gluten free and dairy free. So hopefully that will happen. That's that's the ultimate goal. And they are a Fort Worth co-packer trying to keep it in Fort Worth. Family wife team. Yeah, the family to wife team and they are. We've had a relationship with them for 10 years. They're really great. You said you're currently producing about 300 units a week. Are you selling 300 units a week and then who's purchasing them? Well, we have we sell our product in our store juice junkies. And we also have an online store for your pantry. And all of our sales have been organic sales. We have not pushed advertising. We haven't gotten to that point yet and we're gaining a lot attraction from people just walking into our stores and they're finding us online from all over shipping all over the U.S. Just with organic sales. Do you have any? Can you walk me through your marketing then? Because I know you you say that you're doing limited marketing. What are your plans for that? I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Can you walk me through that? You're you're marketing your current marketing or current marketing? Yes. So right now we're not doing any. Everything everything has been organic growth. People that come into our cafe see our product on shelves and it's been selling itself. We do have some very aggressive marketing plans after we get capital in place. One of the first things will be is to secure a social media market share that really knows how to reach our target audience and do those free reaches and just keep going and keep going. Thank you so much. Please a warm round of applause. I do remember them saying being aggressive with social media, although I can't imagine them being anything but warm and inviting and obviously feeding you into your family. So our last pitch of the night, I know we've all been waiting and we're very excited to see what the results are. We still have one pitch left and I wouldn't be surprised if a few entrepreneurs one day go on to write their own books. And that's what this next pitch is going to be about. They will help you fine tune, publish and promote your masterpiece as an author. So let's welcome for our final pitch, Right Publishing House. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jonathan Carradine and my name is Megan Jackson and we are Right Publishing House. So I want to ask a quick question really quick. How many of you have ever thought about being authors? How many of you know someone else who have maybe thought about being an author? Fantastic. So congratulations. You are a part of 80 percent of Americans who have an idea of becoming an author. But here is the kicker. 90 percent of manuscripts that are submitted to traditional publishing houses, they are rejected 90 percent. In comes Right Publishing House. We are in service of the 90 percent. Not only do we offer curated, customized, tailor-made services for our clients, but we also offer a one-stop shop. In the publishing arena, the market is rife with opportunities. Despite being dominated by Megalodons like Amazon and Pearson, there is space in the industry for innovative platforms who provide services or solutions to the issues that authors face during the publishing process. Rigid templates and standardized designs hire created or rigid templates and standardized designs stifle creativity, causing authors to supplement their initial plans for their creative outline. On average, our clients invest around $2,400 in our services, allowing us to deliver exceptional value and support as authors bring their stories to life. Building on this set of part, strategic partnerships, enabling us to offer our services some 40 percent lower than our competitors in comprehensive white glove marketing, ensuring authors receive the visibility they deserve. Fantastic. Thank you, Jonathan. In regards to our traction and achievements, as you can see, we have several that we have hit really quickly in just a few short lines. One thing I would like to call out in particular is that we have onboarded successfully six authors, six authors in just two and a half months. And we have several that are also in the running as well. And I say the running because we've got to go through a process here. OK. And also, I just want to make mention that we have done that with simple word of mouth. OK. So what are we going to do with this investment? This investment is going to help us be able to move to a digital platform. And it is also going to be able to help us to have our services automated. That will help us be able to service our clients even better. So with that said, I have a question for you judges. Are you willing to go with us on this journey to take the less than five percent authorship and catapult that thing to 15, 20, 30 percent and beyond really. Thank you so much. Can you walk me through the process? Somebody calls you and says, hey, I need your services. What do you do then? Sure thing. So the way the process begins is we will set up an initial consultation and in that process, we will sit down with our clients and we will get an idea of precisely what it is that they need upon completing that process. What we then do is provide them with a perspective roadmap, which essentially outlines their market entrance into the market space essentially. And what it also does is it outlines the strengths, the weaknesses and what services that we believe would be catered to amplify their product. From there, we will start the onboarding process once we have secured finances and we do provide financing if required. But once we do that portion, we will simply walk through each through the steps. So every time there is a milestone, we will deliver to them a copy of the work that we've completed and we will essentially get it printed, published and sent out to market. What type of authors are you looking for? Authors, what type of writers you're looking for people? So we actually are open to the authors that to the authors that we are looking for. I will speak specific to say that so far we have the authors that we have in our Rolodex are Christian authors. They are children authors myself. I am a children's author of words or magic. And so so far that is kind of the Rolodex that we are targeting, but we are very much open to all authors. Sounds like a really cool process in supporting that 90 percent. Like you said, what is your capacity? How many people can you work with? That's actually a great question. So as of late, we've set our capacity at four clients per month. So we're able to onboard four clients per month. However, we are in the process of automating our services, which will allow us to maximize our capacity. And also, we do have a very robust Rolodex of different vendors that we vetted over the last two years to allow us to be able to service more in the future. Thank you so much. Please, a round of applause for our final pitch. So before we get to see how tonight's story ends, we need to give the judges some time to delivery. I think there's a lot of great pitches, a lot to think about here. So please don't forget to vote for your favorite pitch here. And I'm going to turn it over briefly to Robert before we take our break. As I said earlier today, pivoting is always important in entrepreneurship. So before we let you all go back in the lobby and let the judges get to the judging process, we have been joined by Councilmember Chris Nettles, who is here. I want to invite Councilmember Nettles to come and just give a few comments before and then we'll let you guys go out and get the judging started. So Councilman, thank you. I wasn't prepared to speak, but anytime you show up, you have to be prepared to speak. And so I just really want to thank Fort Worth and all of you have come out because small business is really the ladder that gets us to what we're trying to go. We have to invest in small businesses. And so I am grateful that you are here today to invest in small business. I'm asking these judges, I know you guys have heard quite of information about what we are trying to do in the city of Fort Worth. And if we're going to grow and be a smaller city, a growing city, a city that invest in people, we have to invest in small businesses. And so I am grateful to be here tonight. I am a small business owner and I know what it takes the grime, the effort, the time that it takes to put into small businesses. So I am grateful all the small business that came tonight. So those that are not awarded the funds tonight are not awarded a prize tonight. Just know tonight is not the only night that you can present because we at the city of Fort Worth, we want to invest in you. So don't go away. Don't hide in the closet. Continue to thrive forward and move forward. And hopefully tonight that those that are selected advance to a greater cause. And so again, my name is Councilman Chris Nettles. I'm grateful to be here. Thank you for allowing me to serve a second term in the next election. I appreciate that. I thought it in there. Thank you. And so thank you, Robert. I know guys some are itching to go into the intermission. So I'm grateful that you are here tonight. So that's all I have. That good, Robert. Thank you. Have a great evening. You all are dismissed the lobby while the judges will join us in the green room to deliberate. Please cast your American Idol style audience vote for your favorite pitch at the addresses on the screen and it's also in your program. We'll see you after judging. Welcome back and congratulations again to the top 21 and tonight's eight candidates for making it this far. And thank you to our audience who came out tonight to celebrate Fort Worth small businesses. Please a round of applause. So here's how this is going to work. If your name is announced for any of the prizes, please come get your trophy and move to the far side of the stage. Next to the banner. We will announce all of the prizes and after the announcement of the grand prize, we'd like to be by all winners, judges and sponsors to please return to the stage for additional group photos. So first we'll start with the perfect pitch prize. That's the one you voted on. We're going to have printed thread step up and just give a small introduction for that. Hi, my name is Brett Bowden and 13 years ago, my wife and I started a business in our garage and today we're bursting from the seams of a 21,000 square foot building and thank you and near Southside. So through the years, we've learned that entrepreneurship is a great struggle, but it also provides some of the best freedoms in the world. And so I'm really excited that the city of Fort Worth is doing what they're doing. This is a really cool thing. And I think that all of us should be spreading the gospel of the great things that the city of Fort Worth is doing to promote entrepreneurship. So as that the founders and CEO of printed threads, we want you to know that we want to support entrepreneurship as best as we possibly can. So I am I'm an available resource and I want want you guys to talk to us and we want to do everything we can to support you guys. So thank you for inviting us here and let's get excited about learning who's going to win this perfect pitch thing. I would say drum roll, please, but the perfect pitch prize goes to lifestyle transition. The prize for the perfect pitch thing is a five hundred dollar credit at printed threads to to provide you with either merchandise or uniforms or promotional products or whatever you might need to promote your business. All right, we get to move on to our cash prizes. We're going to start with third prize, third place for four thousand dollars. This is no normal third place prize. So if we could please give a round of applause for our third prize winner, Narley Vans. Let's move on to our second place for six thousand dollars. Manifest your purpose. What we've all been waiting for our grand prize of ten thousand dollars goes to Lil Pop Gourmet Pop Park. She's bringing out the surprise back there. There we go. On behalf of Frost Bank and the city of Fort Worth, thank you again for everyone who came out tonight. Please round of applause for them. We appreciate your support of Fort Worth Small Business Community. We'll see you next year for our 13th business plan competition. Follow the Fort Worth Economic Development social media pages for updates and to see the next stories as they unfold. One last round of applause. Thank you. That's it. Thank you so much for coming. We'll move on to photos. I appreciate you.