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Nominations Now Open for 2022 BBB Spark Awards For Entrepreneurs 35 and Under

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Better Business Bureau serving Dayton & the Miami Valley is pleased to announce nominations are open for the 2022 BBB Spark Awards. This is the fourth year the BBB will be presenting this award for entrepreneurship, which seeks to identify trustworthy entrepreneurs age 35 and under and new business owners less than three years in operation. It honors eligible social entrepreneurs, startup founders and new business owners from this community that embody and cultivate the Three C’s of Trust: Character, Culture and Community. These “trustmakers” are the future of our trusted marketplace.

Applications and nominations are accepted online at bit.ly/2022DaytonSparkAward. If you’d like to nominate an organization, the deadline to do so is February 1, 2022. Nominated companies must complete and submit their entries by April 1, 2022. (Organizations may self-nominate.) Award criteria can also be found at this Web site.

The Spark Award winners will be announced on May 10 during the BBB’s Torch Awards For Ethics. Additionally, recipients will be involved with telling their stories at BBB events throughout the year.

Winners from the class of 2019 were Catapult Creative, Goldfish Swim School and Scratch Bakery By Justin Tyler. In 2020 Butler Heating & Air Conditioning, Fox in Socks Soapery and Wilderness Agency were honored.

John North, president and CEO of BBB serving Dayton/Miami Valley says, “We are looking forward to celebrating the spark of these entrepreneurs and new business owners. They set the bar for others in our marketplace. They have hustle and light the way for others to follow.”

The Class of 2022 honorees will inspire others to take the leap into successful entrepreneurship. So, if you, or someone you know, is a young leader of an outstanding entrepreneurial company, submit a nomination or entry for the Spark Awards today.

If you have questions regarding this new recognition, call (937) 610-2270 or e-mail [email protected]

 

FREE 10-week Program Will Take Your Business From Idea to Launch

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Launch Dayton will run its upcoming Early Risers Academy cohorts virtually in an effort to support our local business owners and entrepreneurs as our community collectively works to halt the spread of COVID-19.

Our 10-week Early Risers Academy program is completely free. The program is designed to take aspiring entrepreneurs from idea to launch, or to help newer small business owners plan & train to successfully pivot or scale. Entrepreneurs of all genders, colors & creeds are welcome.

The next general cohort will launch April 7 and run through June 9, and a tech cohort will launch April 8 & run through June 10. If there is enough interest, we will launch additional cohorts in April to meet the need.

The program utilizes Kauffman FastTrac curriculum from the Kauffman Foundation, the country’s preeminent entrepreneurship-building organization. Aspiring founders will receive pitch coaching and hands-on mentoring, weekly discussions with successful entrepreneurs and experts, access to Dayton’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, & alumni support after graduating the academy.

The tech cohort will be run by reps from Converge Technologies, an engineering and business advisory firm that helps companies with development and commercialization of novel technologies. This focused cohort will offer additional experts on topics such as prototype development and how to design to appeal to end users and for large-scale manufacturing.

Applicants should be able to commit at least 4-6 hours per week to coursework for the duration of the academy.

Each program will conclude with a pitch event in which one graduate from each cohort will win $1,000 to infuse into their business. Pitch events will be organized by partners of Launch Dayton, a collaborative effort to connect entrepreneurs to peers, resources, and supporters, and to tell the stories of our region’s thriving startup community.

“We are intentionally carving out space for minority founders and business owners to access resources that help build solid foundations and provide hands-on support in order to create successful businesses,” program manager KeAnna Daniels said. “We are committed to reaching non-tech and historically under-represented founders who haven’t always felt seen in Dayton’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Apply here.

Early Risers Academy is supported by Launch Dayton partner organizations Wright State Research Institute and The Entrepreneurs Center with their respective grant funds through the US Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment and Ohio Third Frontier’s Entrepreneurial Services Provider Program. 

Entrepreneurs Start with a Customer

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I am often asked about resources to start a business.  Too often the startup entrepreneur is asking the wrong questions and looking at the wrong issues.  Before starting a business, a prospective entrepreneur must answer the marketing questions.

The most important issue around starting a business is the customer.  Let me say this again: THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE AROUND STARTING A BUSINESS IS THE CUSTOMER! Who is the customer?  What need (product or service) are you satisfying that they are willing to pay you?  Why is no one willing filling that need now?  Or are they?  How much are they willing to pay?  What makes your product or service superior to the alternatives?

Many entrepreneurs focus on financing, building, location, etc when starting a business.  Instead, they should answer the questions honestly before looking at anything else.  The #1 need of entrepreneurs at all levels is customers.  Without customers, you have no business.

When I started Gasper Corporation, I benefited from the business classes I took at Wright State.  The most important were marketing and accounting.  I used the concepts of target marketing to make the business viable and effective.  So here is how I answered the marketing questions.

David Gasper - Back in the day...

Who was the customer? The 500-1,000 Automatic Teller Machine (ATMs) departments in banks worldwide.

What need did they have? The ATM industry was in its infancy and availability (uptime) was not considered thoroughly when ATM networks were designed.  The cost of downtime hurt their profits and bank image.

Why was no one filling that need? The startup industry offered the opening.  Competitors offered offline manual products while we had a chance to offer online monitoring and management.

How much were they willing to pay? We developed a pricing model based upon the size of the network.  Larger networks paid more as their problems were larger.  Our pricing model also reflected a payback based upon two values that our product offered.  1.  Our product reduced labor costs, so that savings was part of the price.  2.  Our product increased revenues from higher availability.  We factored that into our price.

What made your product superior? I started my career as an ATM programmer.  I understand the sensors and status signals better than others who designed management systems with no ATM experience.  I also understood the specialized switches (such as Base24) that processed ATM transactions.  Finally, conventional wisdom at that time did not believe that personal computers could process online transaction.  From my programming efforts in 8080 assembler and low level code of personal computers, I saw that was not true.  PCs were the wave of the future with more power in smaller boxes for less cost.   This specialized knowledge allowed Gasper Corporation to create unique position.

So we picked a small limited market with little competition that we could dominate. We stayed very focused on that small target market of 500-1,000 customers.  We could have created monitoring products for many other markets.  In doing so, we would have been wiped out by large competitors such as IBM, Hewlett Packard and Computer Associates.  Instead, we chose to target one specific market and be the BEST in that market.

The rest is history.  So, before you go looking for start up funding, answer the questions above honestly.  If the answers are not satisfactory, then FIX them with the right honest answers.