By Meghann Naveau
The Well founder April Kline got her start in business because she knew there was a better way to care for women – and she set out to create it. A serial entrepreneur, Kline established The Well in August 2022. Together with a curated collective of diverse-but-like-minded practitioners, April supports women and families through major life transitions, births, deaths and diagnoses. Launch Dayton caught up with April after her recent participation in the Startup Week Pitch Competition.
April: I have a deep belief that our bodies are built to be healthy. If something is off, hurts, or simply doesn’t feel “right,” it’s a body telling us that something needs to be different. At The Well, we do a lot of listening to what our clients’ bodies are telling them and really caring for people as they are and determining what they need.
I was a massage therapist prior to the birth of my first child, and that delivery was a turning point for me. It was rough and traumatic, and I didn’t want other people to have that same experience. So, I became a doula, then a midwife. I found there was so much trauma work in walking alongside other mothers. It was a lot of helping people make peace with the experience they’d had and recovering from that to move forward.
Along the way, I found other women’s health practitioners – pelvic floor therapists, massage therapists, birth and cancer doulas, lactation consultants, and more – who used a similar approach of care. Our clients were thriving, and I had a strong desire to bring those complementary services together in one place.
I’ve run businesses my whole adult life, and I spent a lot of time with my dad during his cancer journey brainstorming what this space could be. We would sit and dream, and it was a way to help him focus on something else for a bit. After he passed away and I went through his notes, I found where he had written The Well and underlined it five times…and it just felt right.
The Well is housed in my dad’s former business building, and we envisioned this space as a place for women to fill their cup, to receive whole-person and holistic care that allowed them to be healthy and be active, powerful people in their communities. We built The Well to be that cup-filling, soul-filling place.
Start small. So often, people believe they have to do things big, that there is only a growing and bigger and bigger mindset. That can be paralyzing for people. They feel like they don’t have the energy to do something that big.
To me, a lack of energy comes from doing too much of what doesn’t feed our souls. Find the thing that energizes you and do it small to start. Humans are amazing, and we forget that sometimes.
Learn more about The Well here.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
Save some time for family and friends this holiday season — let Tumble handle your laundry chores.
Founders Charles Wheeler III and Jeffrey Caldwell II started researching the idea for the on-demand laundry service while they were college roommates at Miami University.
“He’d just got off of work, still had a lot of laundry and a lot of other chores to do, and he was like, ‘Jeffrey, what would it be like if there was actually a business that took care of all your laundry, your wash and fold, you know, and put it all in a nice, neat, packaged bag for you, and left it at your doorstep?’,” Jeffrey recalled. “I was like, Charles, that could be us, that’s a brilliant idea!”
As the pair begin researching, they discovered laundry was a multi-billion dollar industry, he said.
“That got us really sparked up and interested in the whole business,” Jeffrey said.
After graduating from Miami University, both men returned home to Dayton and launched Tumble, offering wash, fold & dry-cleaning services, available via pickup and delivery.
“There’s a lot more entrepreneurs here than people will believe there to be, and so it’s good to be a part of a community full of entrepreneurs,” Jeffrey said. “And it’s a growing market. We have everything almost at our disposal, it’s like our little playground to go ahead and get ideas worked out in real life.”
Both Jeffrey and Charles dabbled in entrepreneurial endeavors as kids.
Charles cut grass, shoveled snow, washed cars, sold Kool-Aid at summer camp.
“I definitely knew I had the knack for finding ways to make money outside of a job to supplement myself,” Charles said. “Being able to take the reins and freedoms into my own hand for how much I make each year and what my workload looks like for a day, that definitely made it more enticing to me.”
Jeffrey also used to cut grass, as well as clean out garages to supply an Ebay shop.
“It’s always been a really big passion of mine, owning my own business, and it’s funny now to think like, at a younger age, this was my dream, and now my dream has come true to a certain extent,” Jeffrey said.
Resiliency is key to that entrepreneur life, Charles said.
“That’s part of the game, you’re going to get knocked down a couple times, or things aren’t going to work out the way that you exactly planned for them to work out,” he said. “It has definitely pushed us out there to be more confident in our abilities and just tap into the resources and networking that we have. The earlier on in your life that you make mistakes — and figure out how to bounce back from those mistakes — the more wisdom and resilience you’ll have down the line.”
The sky is the limit, Jeffrey added.
“Only you stand in your way. Only you can dictate how far you’ll go,” he said. “There will definitely be haters and naysayers on the way, but they’re not the ones putting in the work. Only you can lead you to your dreams.”
“I’m Charles Wheeler III — and I’m Jeffrey Caldwell II — and we are entrepreneurs.”
By Katie Aldridge
You can’t fill someone’s cup if your own is empty.
It can be hard for entrepreneurs to make self-care a priority, but at this year’s Launch Dayton Startup Week, a panel of founders discussed practical strategies to make wellness a part of your daily routine.
The panel included:
The panelists recommended the following practices to help you begin your wellness journey:
“If we do not make time for our wellness, we will be forced to make time for our illness,” April said.
It takes a lot of physical and mental work to be an entrepreneur. So, why is wellness a taboo subject to discuss with employers, business partners, and employees? April and Taylor believe there is a way to change the expectation to push your hardships aside in business, and it starts with reclaiming what it means to be professional.
We are human first, the panelists reminded attendees, and we all have things going on.
Other ways to pursue wellness as an entrepreneur:
When Zontaye Richardson organized the first Gem City Black Business Tour in August 2022, she wanted to bring awareness to Black-owned businesses and show attendees the many options they have to support business owners throughout the city.
The tour was so well attended and the feedback so positive that Zontaye will host a second tour later this month, on Nov. 25.
“Our goal is to have 10 brick-and-mortar businesses featured and have two buses that each visit five locations,” said Zontaye. “Black-owned businesses have been on the rise in the past 10 years, and it’s vital to highlight those businesses and the contributions they are making to the community. People may have heard of a place, but not visited. We’re literally taking them to the front door and bringing the customer and business owner together.”
Locations are still being confirmed for this tour, but may include West Social Tap House, Unique Aromas, Vegan Meltz and more.
Tour details:
Cost is $50 and includes tour, snacks, and an exclusive coupon valid at Theze Dealz.
Reserve your seat today! Tickets are available at Theze Dealz and online here.
By Meghann Naveau
As a child, Gabrielle Little helped her mom make rum cakes for friends and family during the holiday season. Encouraged by her grandmother to pursue baking and pastry-making as more than a delicious pastime, Gabrielle has been bringing her dream of a drunken bakery to life over the past few years in her home kitchen and Second Street Market. This fall, she graduated from Early Risers Academy, a 10-week business-building bootcamp powered by Launch Dayton partner Parallax Advanced Research.
My husband’s first experience with rum cake was when he sampled my family’s rum cake. It’s super moist with rum in the mixture and a butter rum sauce at the finish, and it’s most often made in a vanilla flavor.
He tasted it and loved it and asked me to create a lemon and strawberry. Soon after, my mom requested chocolate, and they were all so good! It was really fun to figure out how to change up the flavors and take something that had always been one way and create something new from it.
We filled a need by turning this passion into a business.Typically you can’t find rum cake in a local store; they’re mass produced typically in the islands and rarely in a variety of flavors. But with my education in baking and pastry and this family tradition, it felt right to turn it into a business where we could share our delicious, unique treat with others.
I honestly don’t remember where I first learned about Early Risers Academy. I’m often looking up resources and connecting with other entrepreneurs in Dayton, and one of them encouraged me to apply. The Dayton community is full of people who support each other, and this was one of those times!
My favorite thing about the Early Risers Academy was being with other entrepreneurs who understand this life. Having a sounding board and a group of peers to share ideas with has been so vital for me. Unless you’ve really poured yourself into starting a business, it’s hard to understand what that’s like and the toll it can take. But with ERA, I found a community who understood and supported me.
I’ve always had a drive to earn my own income, but I never knew exactly what that looked like for me. The freedom of it was appealing! Balancing freedom and providing for my family was a big part of why I started The scRUMptious Dessert.
Our company gives us a lot of flexibility, but it’s also a big part of our family life. My nickname at home is Corporate. As a home-based bakery, I’ve got that corporate mindset and thinking about packaging, cleanliness, etc. My husband is Head of Operations, always organizing our space and ordering what we need. My kids are the Head of Sanitation (cleaning helper) and Tastetester (snatching as many bites as possible). Our whole life centers around the kitchen island where we’re living and baking. It’s a lot of work to juggle it all together, but a lot of fun, too.
There’s no one-size-fits-all blueprint for starting or running a business. You want to always be able to move on to the next thing, but sometimes you have something in front of you that needs to be resolved immediately.
I’m so thankful for the people in Dayton and in my life who’ve shared ideas and resources, and I try to pay that forward, too. There’s plenty of business and money for everyone here!
I’m really grateful to all those people who walk through life with me, including the broader community and my customers. Taking the time to build relationships with people and listen to their stories matters so much, and I really enjoy it. That’s one of the things that makes even the hard parts of business worth it for me.
Visit Gabrielle’s The scRUMptious Dessert at Second Street Market or place an online order at https://www.facebook.com/Thescrumptiousdessert/.
Curious if Early Risers Academy might be a fit for you? Learn more and apply for a future cohort!
There’s no one way to be an entrepreneur.
You don’t have to look a certain way, operate in a particular industry, pursue specific education, grow up in a particular household, or spend your free time nurturing any particular hobbies — entrepreneurs grow from all walks of life.
In a new video series we are excited to launch today, entrepreneurs, founders, and small business owners from across the Dayton Region share their individual stories in order to break down those pervading stereotypes about who can or can’t be an entrepreneur.
They proudly declare, “I Am an Entrepreneur” — and you can be, too.
In 1956, Korean war veteran Charlie Ferrell, call sign ‘Mutt’, thought people were too wasteful with condiments — so he mixed his own one-sauce-for-all recipe.
More than five decades later, his granddaughter and fellow veteran, Charlynda Scales, inherited that recipe, and launched her company, Mutt’s Sauce, to share it with the world.
“I’m probably the worst cook in the family. I don’t have the credentials, I thought at the time, to carry this forward,” Charlynda recalled. “There were a lot of introspective moments of, why me?”
Charlynda was halfway through her last military assignment when she launched her business. She did a Google search for free business help, and wound up at the door of Dayton Score, a free business support organization that connects new business owners to mentors.
“I just wanted to make a couple bottles of this sauce for friends and family. I wasn’t thinking big business,” she said. “When we had the first conversation, [my mentor] started telling me about Kraft and Heinz and the big brands of tomato-based products that eventually became conglomerates, and he said, it started with a recipe.”
She was glad to find herself launching a business in a military-friendly region.
“People who have the background that I had as a service member could say, we know that you are still dealing with challenges being a service member,” she said. “I am a 70-percent disabled veteran. From the outside, I’m perfectly fine, but I deal with challenges every single day that I have to overcome in order to appear normal and get the same job done as everybody else.”
Charlynda draws every day on her core values — values she learned from her grandfather and her military service.
“As a entrepreneur you cannot get complacent. You have to be hungry at all times. You have to be okay with learning something new. And you have to be willing to put in the work,” she said. “The lessons that I learned on active duty, I can carry with me throughout my journey as a business owner.”
And you have to stay humble, her grandfather taught her.
“My grandfather used to tell me that humility will take you further than money. I didn’t understand that. But if you look at the core values of integrity first, service before self, excellence in all you do, there’s a lot of humility in there,” she said. “There were a lot of times when I went to a mission, and I was scared to death. I didn’t feel like I had enough experience, or I didn’t have enough resources. But when I look back on it, the job still got done, it was just that moment where you just take action.”
Action cures anxiety, she added.
“Act on it before your fear can get in the way,” Charlynda said. “If you have a dream, sometimes that’s exactly what happens. There’s that moment where your fear turns on and it stops you in your tracks. So just act before you can feel it, and then you’ll look back at all you’ve accomplished.”
“I’m Charlynda Scales, and I am an entrepreneur.”
We’re so excited to promote your business this holiday season with the return of our #LaunchIntoTheHolidays social media campaign!
Launch Into The Holidays is our annual shop local holiday campaign. We share the stories of local business owners with consumer products to encourage our community to shop local for holiday gifts rather than turning to big box stores, Amazon, etc.
This year, we want your reels. Sign up by Nov. 18 for your preferred date.
Already doing reels as part of your holiday marketing? Make one pitching your top holiday product, and we’ll share it across our platforms, expanding your marketing reach beyond your own followers.
Know you should be doing reels, but haven’t gotten around to it yet? We’ll have a reels tutorial for participants to help you get started this holiday season.
Once you complete the signup form, someone from the Launch Dayton team will send you the official campaign filter to use on your reel + an instructional video on how to add the filter to your reel & how to tag Launch Dayton as a collaborator on instagram.
We will use the rest of your responses to write a quick profile that we will share in the Launch Dayton newsletter and on our other social media platforms.
Not sure how to pitch your top holiday product in 90 seconds? Greater West Dayton Incubator Director Whitney Barkley will walk you through it via an online workshop for Launch Into The Holiday participants on Nov. 17.
Questions? Email [email protected].
By Meghann Naveau
Business owners Franchesca and Kyle Howe-Vachon started Believe in Dream Creations during the early days of the pandemic, and from the beginning, it’s been a business running alongside (and throughout) their family life. The work and life partners participated in the Retail Lab Spring 2022 and won the program’s pitch competition, earning additional funding for their dream and art.
Franchesca: I grew up in Puerto Rico, and our family was always celebrating and eager to throw a party! Often, we used balloons as part of those celebrations, and creating art with the balloons became a fun hobby for me.
I moved to Ohio 10 years ago, and after helping a friend set up for her daughter’s birthday party, I received so many compliments on the balloon decor. People saw it and started asking if I would do decor for their parties, and our business grew from there.
Franchesca: Kyle and I run all parts of the business, everything from the bookkeeping to ordering and filling the balloons and displays. He’s a great partner and helps balance me out; we both know our strengths and weaknesses.
Kyle: It’s definitely hard work and can be challenging to both the business and the marriage, along with managing our kids’ activities and life. But, it’s been really fun for us, too. This is the life we’re choosing to build together.
Kyle: We saw it on social media. I follow the Downtown Dayton Partnership, and when they posted about, we saw it and knew it was something we should check out.
Franchesca: I was terrified when Kyle told me about the pitch competition. I get nervous that my English and Spanish will run together because English is my second language. But, I’m passionate about this work and know the meaning in it, and that’s what we needed for the pitch: our passion and our purpose.
Franchesca: Equipment! Having the right tools for filling and storing balloons, as well as creating the backdrops we use for installations, makes a big difference in the labor involved in creating our art.
Kyle: This helps set us up to keep working toward a scalable business and bringing in other people to help with the work. We’d love to have a brick-and-mortar store one day and partner with other local businesses, host classes for other balloon artists and more. Each step forward helps us keep building toward those bigger visions.
Franchesca: I didn’t know how persistent I can be until we started BDC. I believe so much in what we are and what our business can be, and I didn’t realize how strong I’ve mentally had to become and how much I can do because of my determination.
Kyle: Running the business with our kids and having them see us, especially Franchesca, being a business owner is really powerful. Our daughter pretends to take balloon orders and do inventory. She’s growing up confident in her ability to own a business because she sees us doing it — and that’s deeply meaningful.
We’ve also been really impressed and grateful for all of the resources that exist for small businesses in Dayton. We learned so much as part of the Retail Lab, and there are so many free workshops available for business owners.
Franchesca: We’re currently booking for holiday parties of all kinds (businesses, families, reunions, etc), so choosing BDC for your event is a great way to support us! We’re also always looking to connect with other business owners and learn from each other, so please reach out and make an introduction. We want to connect and learn and keep growing, together.
Connect with Believe in Dreams on IG & Facebook @believeindreamcreations.
By Meghann Naveau
We’ve all heard some version of the American dream: have a vision of success, work hard to build it, make a comfortable living for you and your family.
But what happens when that formula only produces for some people? What if something completely out of your control makes the “American dream” nearly impossible to achieve?
Te’Jal Cartwright, outreach director for Co-Op Dayton, posed these questions as the foundation for her “Intro to the Just Economy” session at the 2022 Startup Week.
Yes, capitalism and ongoing growth play a role in a thriving economy. And, there’s also immense value in growing a business that supports a collective, common good and community where everyone can thrive.
Co-Op Dayton is built on the concept that the “cooperative model of community and worker ownership can transform Dayton’s Black and working-class neighborhoods by rooting jobs and businesses locally.”
“Using a cooperative approach means creating jobs with greater dignity and opportunities for workers to build wealth through their contributions to the business,” Te’Jal said.
Decisions in cooperative-model businesses are made by the people they most impact, producing solutions that take into account the needs and wants of the community.
“There’s a greater level of accountability to the people doing the work and the community at large, rather than an individual or small group of people making decisions in a space far removed from where the impact is happening. That’s the part that is often missing in the exaggerated ‘American dream’ narrative,” she continued.
Using the principles and structure of the Spanish Mondragon Corporation cooperative, Co-Op Dayton is developing a network of local cooperative businesses to grow our community’s economy and create wealth from the ground up.
What does that mean in practicality? Te’Jal shared it’s a combination of several offerings and initiatives that both support the transition of existing businesses to employee ownership and also develop new worker cooperatives that use community assets for community needs.
One of Co-Op Dayton’s best-known projects is Gem City Market, a community- and worker-owned co-op grocery store in West Dayton. The idea was born from within the community to address high rates of diet-related illness and low access to groceries. Today, the Market is a full-service grocer with worker-owners and numerous community well-being programs.
Have an idea for a cooperative way of working? Want help considering how your organization can support the common good in Dayton? You may be a good fit for working with Co-Op Dayton to create a just local economy if you:
Not every business would work with a cooperative model – and that’s okay! But, there are ways we can each work to build toward a common good in Dayton. What mark will you choose to make? What can you build with others that creates something stronger than building alone?
By Katie Aldridge
Nearly a decade ago, Keenan Woods fell in love with a summertime treat that was silky-smooth like ice cream, flavorful like sorbet and refreshing like shave ice. As soon as he tried it, Keenan knew he wanted to bring it to Dayton.
Today, at Remarkable Ice, Keenan is using the names of his flavors to help people express their experiences, like Peaceful Lemon and Optimistic Mango.
Keenan is the pitch winner of the latest cohort of Early Risers Academy, a 10-week business-building bootcamp powered by Launch Dayton partner Parallax Advanced Research.
In February, Keenan decided 2022 was the year to go for it, so he resigned from his day job to pursue entrepreneurship.
His wife, Roe Wallace, graduated from a prior Early Risers Academy cohort. He watched her growth through the program, so he signed up for the summer session.
“What I really liked about the program was the communication, the supportiveness, and the ability to apply the coursework to different industries,” he said. “The one-day commitment is feasible for most people. There is a lot of love and compassion, and the feeling of camaraderie is definitely prominent.”
Keenan launched Remarkable Ice in July. He is leveraging his background in finance and a bachelor’s degree in business as he pursues business ownership.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur, even before I knew what an entrepreneur was,” he said.
Keenan’s grandfather taught him how to understand finances from an early age. His first lemonade stand was with his grandfather, who also happened to be his only customer. In high school, Keenan was known as the candy man, selling items ranging from mixtapes and CDs to socks and clippers.
“Entrepreneurship is about connecting with people and helping them fill a need,” he said.
Understanding that perspective is everything helped prepare him for life as an entrepreneur, Keenan said.
He spent his life preparing to play professional football until, after playing in a Regional Combine, Keenan was in a car accident and broke his neck. In a split second, 24 years of work was gone. Ever since, he has been trying to find the same passion that he felt for football.He believes he has found it in entrepreneurship.
His biggest challenge has been self-doubt along the journey, he said. But he keeps pushing through those mental roadblocks.
“What I do feels like bliss,” he said. “It’s me expressing myself.”
Keenan’s creative process for the names of his flavors stem from his favorite emotions and how the cadence of the words flow with one another. It’s all about the way it sounds to Keenan and what positivity he wants his customers to say and hear.
“When someone says the name, the words create a feeling and remind them of a time they felt optimistic or joyful,” he said.
Connect with Keenan on IG @remarkableice.
Curious if Early Risers Academy is fit your you? Learn more & apply for a 2023 cohort!
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