Applications are live for Greater West Dayton Incubator’s Cultural Capital Microlending Program!
This year’s applications now include templates in Excel format for income statements and balance sheets, as well as videos developed by Flyer Consulting students to explain how to fill out these documents. View the application and supporting materials here.
Lenders are looking for business owners who have already generated traction in their business with six months or more of consistent sales, and who show passion, planning, and persistence for their business.
Kaye Taylor is the owner of Gem City Commercial & Residential Cleaning Services, a cleaning company that specializes in construction cleaning. She’s looking for introductions to developers across Dayton — read on to learn more about her journey and how you can support.
My name is Kaye Taylor, and I am the owner of Gem City Commercial and Residential Cleaning Services. We’re a facility maintenance company specializing in construction cleaning. My goal as an entrepreneur is to tap into male-dominated construction opportunities. My company does everything from power washing to car detailing.
In 2019, after being unemployed for three years, I decided to start a residential cleaning company. In 2020, all the businesses closed down, but were in need of cleaning. At that time, I decided to get certified in bio hazard cleaning. Shortly after, we had the opportunity to help a new development in Centerville. That contract put me in a different revenue bracket, which allowed me to expand the business to Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida.
I have been an educator for over 20 years, but I didn’t want to go back to working for somebody else for money. I also wanted to provide jobs for individuals who could not get employment because of their past. As a second employer, I can help those individuals with a hand up and not a handout.
Yes, I have been an entrepreneur since I was 12 years old, selling candy in class.
As a minority woman of color, I have been bold enough to take a stand in a predominately male role. I welcome everyone who applies for a job whether they be young, different nationality, or need a second chance. I believe in the people. Whatever mistake they made in the past, it’s just that, the past. Also, as the owner of the company, I assist my employees by helping them remove barriers that hinder them, such as lack of child support and driver privileges. We partner with Montgomery County Reentry, Welcome Dayton, and Youth Works.
Hiring the wrong people and allowing others to be the face of my company!
I am a social entrepreneur. I love being in the room with millionaires. I’ve learned that the more you surround yourself with like-minded people, the more you will succeed.
Be all you can be! Stand out, strategically plan your business logically, and don’t overdo it. Start small and crawl before you walk.
I’m looking for introductions to developers in downtown Dayton and its surrounding areas.
Connect with Kaye at [email protected].
Recless Tech is now Reliant Search Group, founder Aaron Davis announced earlier this month.
The rebrand was prompted largely by a change in the firm’s business model, he said.
The startup has shifted from its fully recruiter-less talent referral platform to a more traditional talent search model. It has also branched beyond hiring software developers and information technologists to tap individuals with other hard-to-find skill sets, including engineers and executives.
“Initially, Recless meant recruiter-less. When we changed the business model, it didn’t feel sincere,” he explained.
The tech branding also felt limiting as the team expands its executive search offerings, he said.
“We’re evolving to a broader, more generalist name, but it also implies the way we work — reliability, senior-level competence,” he said. “The last thing in the world we are is reckless. It was OK when folks misinterpreted the name when we were looking to disrupt the recruiting industry, but now it’s just a distraction.”
Aaron took a break from his company from mid 2021 to the end of 2022. He’d launched his self-funded startup in late 2019. As he started to run out of his budgeted seed money, a consulting opportunity popped up. He took it, and spent a year and half acting as interim CEO for a real estate development firm.
“I thought maybe Recless Tech was dead,” he recalled. “I met other firms experimenting with similar business models, some doing things I’d tried, some doing something new. As I look back and check on those organizations now, it’s validating — a lot of them have evolved like we have. They either changed, or don’t exist anymore.”
While the peer-to-peer referral process can work, it’s not effective at scale, Aaron explained.
“It’s very cool to have been so early in that idea of executing external referral programs. But as you scale, you lose the nature of intimacy in the network. And you erode trust,” he said. “Folks may come to mind when you see a position, but you have no confidence that putting in the work to make a referral would actually result in someone being hired.”
Reliant Search Group will still utilize referral incentives in targeted moves that complement traditional recruiting strategies, Aaron said.
It was actually an offer for a permanent executive position that sent Aaron back to his own company.
“I was really unhappy,” he recalled. “I realized I needed to get back into tech or recruiting.”
So he revived his firm in 2023 and launched the podcast “Being Built” to reconnect with his network.
The podcast shares the stories tech leaders and lessons learned on the road to innovation. As Aaron began interviewing those tech leaders, they asked if he was going to start recruiting again — because they needed good people.
“My gift, my talent as a professional, is figuring out what an organization really needs,” Aaron said. “I can read between the lines and figure out what they’re trying to get done with a hire.”
So he pulled in a couple colleagues to moonlight with his firm and jumped back into that work.
Aaron launched Recless Tech because he believed there was a better way to recruit. Though Reliant Search Group deploys different strategies, that core belief holds true, he said.
“The recruiting business is really competitive. To grow, larger tech recruiting companies hire kids out of college and give them a script,” he said. “But there’s a level when competence and understanding the technology really matters. When an agent doesn’t understand the field, recruiting gets messy. So research is a big part of what we do. We really don’t like sticking our nose into the middle of something we don’t understand.”
In 2024, Aaron expects small, but steady growth. His podcast is booked into March. And he’s considering a partnership path for executive recruiters.
“As my beard gets grayer, people recognize my experience as an executive who hires leaders and entrust me with that,” he said. “So that’s what’s next.”
What do the step ladder, the ice cube tray and the motorized wheelchair have in common? They were all created by Dayton inventors!
While the Dayton region is most known for the Wright Brothers, hundreds of Dayton-based business leaders and creative thinkers have been disrupting life as we know it for many years. The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce’s Soin Award for Innovation celebrates these rising startups.
Nominate your favorite startup by Friday, Feb. 23 at 4 p.m. for a shot at the $25K cash prize.
The Soin Award is designed to help innovative businesses take their ideas to the next level. The ideal applicant will:
Read more about past Soin Award recipients in Chamber News or meet the winners by tuning in to the Soin Award videos via Chamber TV.
A couple weeks ago, Jon Powell glanced at the calendar and realized he had extra reason to celebrate — it was his fifth anniversary as a business owner.
On Jan. 2, 2019, launched Christopher and Mae, his marketing and video production company. Business pivots, growth, and a pandemic later, we sat down with Jon to chat about this milestone accomplishment and the lessons he learned along the way.
Jon: Even saying we made it to 5 feels too monumental. It’s surreal. It feels like a long time, but also it doesn’t.
How much I’ve grown as a person. I can remember a time when I was so nervous to talk with a client that I wrote out everything verbatim and had flashcards. Now I’ll pitch a concept in the car in between dropping kids off for practice. Just the level of confidence and growth and progression — if my 2019 self could see me now, he’d be like, wow.
Also, my connection to the city. I’m originally from Columbus, but I fell in love with Dayton. I’ve gotten to work with some Dayton staples, brands and orgs that I never dreamed to have on my calendar.
But my biggest highlight — my wife told me that since I started the business, I’ve been a better husband, partner, father. That has meant more to me than any contract I’ve worked on. That’s what keeps me going.
We’ve been uniquely blessed. We started our business in January 2019 and had our first five-figure contract by February. So it was a blessing, but it also gave us a fall sense of reality. We had a deep valley after that. But that first meeting, that first contract — it was for an event. It was great, it started a great relationship. And it was the first time where I felt like, this is a thing. It’s not just an idea anymore, it’s an actual thing.
That first summer was a significant valley. We landed big contracts in February and April. Then we did not land another job until October. We were quoting a bunch of stuff, but nothing hit. Resources started to dwindle. Money ran out. Confidence was shot. I didn’t think I’d make it to year one.
People always ask, when did you know it was time to walk away? I always said, I’ll know it’s time when I’ve tried everything I can think of and none of it has worked. And so as long as I had an idea of I could try next to keep us going, the idea was enough to push forward. And I was always trying to learn and grow. I spent a lot of time reading and self-teaching that summer.
I’ve washed my hands of the notion of work-life balance. It’s about mindset and energy. I can call the school for something during the work day, and I can take a business call while the kids are at swim practice. I don’t separate my work and personal life, but rather, I’m looking at how I can show up in each of those areas.
When I first started out, it was all business. I was running off sheer adrenaline. I worked those crazy hours — waking up at 5am, working until midnight or 1am, but it didn’t feel bad. But eventually, there were times when I’d be physically there, but I wasn’t there. My kids would tell me about their day, or my wife would ask me a non-business question, and I didn’t care. My relationships started to suffer.
And I found myself falling into the trap I started my business to get away from – tackling projects that left my team and the client creatively and emotionally spent by the end. I started Christopher & Mae because I felt there was a better way to do this work, a more holistic way. Where I get the biggest passion, biggest reward, is when I leave conversations with people, and they go, “wow, I thought this would be more complicated,” or “I had low energy around this and you made it better, I’m excited to work on this now.”
So in June 2022, I started to shift away from those work hours. I started trying to be more strategic about the work I was doing. It took about 6 months to transition out of the hustle. I’m working around 30-40 hours a week at this point. Profit margins have gone down, but it’s intentional. We’re doing quality work, and our client relationships are stronger.
Honestly, if I had to start over right now, I don’t know if I’d do it. My kids now are 9, 6 and 3. They’ve got their own personalities and goals. I have to be intentional at home. I want to be the best dad and partner I can be, not just the best business owner.
I heard someone say it before, but I never fully understood or appreciated it until this year — start with the end in mind. Understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. Build from there.
I want to get Christopher and Mae to that next level. At one point, we had a staff of 9 or 10, but right now, we’re a team of four. My goal is to get back to that small boutique agency, 10-12 employees, with a stand-alone brick + mortar studio, working with really great clients. We’ve got the great clients. So 2024 is about going back to the basics, building the rest.
Rachel Dominguez-Benner’s entrepreneur journey spans the continent.
Her creative venture first launched in Portland, Oregon, sparked from a seed planted in Mexico, and spurred on by an art class in Penland, North Carolina. Today, Rachel crafts her home goods gift line from a home studio in an east Dayton neighborhood. You can buy beautiful Rachel DB Creative products at smattering of local retailers.
“My most popular [product] is kitchen towels,” she said. “I wanted a product that people own multiples of already, that they’ll buy more than once, that would make a great gift, because I love giving gifts. And something that…could be art and was useful, and was made of natural materials. So through all those things, we get to the humble kitchen towel.”
When she’s not screen-printing her original designs on a variety of objects, she is developing co-ops. She specializes in communications and member engagement for cooperative businesses.
“It’s my interface with capitalism. I’m just going to be straight up and say it,” she said. “Rachel DB Creative is how I am taking control of my own labor and deciding how I want to interact with using my labor in exchange for money. And so that’s also why there are the two pieces. Because there’s the tangible, beautiful, bringing art into your everyday products, and that’s great. But there’s also a lot of work to be done in helping reimagine our future together. And that’s why I’m so drawn to working with cooperatives and developing cooperative businesses.”
Check out Rachel’s full story in the latest episode in our I Am an Entrepreneur series.
Once a financially unstable single mom, Jessica Gaston built her financial literacy and expertise from scratch. In 2018, she launched her company, The Finance Doctor, to help her community do the same. Read on to learn more about her work.
I am an award-winning financial expert who has helped over 3,000 families get out of debt. I am a financial guru specializing in behavioral finance and the why’s of financial decision making.
In 2018, I started my company to assist businesses, but in 2020, I got an overwhelming amount of interest from family and friends, so decided to give corporate knowledge to every day people.
Many people struggled after COVID and the economy has only gotten worse. People need this information I’m delivering.
NO! Some entrepreneurs are made through seeing a problem, fixing in their personal lives and wanting to share that development process with the community.
I was once an uneducated single mom not financially stable. Many people today who are struggling to be successful while paying day-to-day bills can relate to this.
Reaching those who truly need the financial guidance. Most people who can afford my services don’t need it as much as those who are struggling paycheck-to-paycheck.
I am able to get people out of financial debt. Finance is the root of many societal problems and I’m doing my part in liberating those in financial bondage.
Network and market! No one can buy your services if they don’t know you exist.
As the Launch Dayton startup community continues to grow, we’re excited to see what’s in store for these companies in the new year! (Startups listed alphabetically.)
A familiar face, AIMM founder Luis Estevez has made this list before for the self-disinfecting N95 mask he was developing during the pandemic. This year, the startup took the $5,000 second place prize at the Launch Dayton Startup Week Pitch Competition for a new technology it’s developing to address difficult-to-treat water issues, such as forever chemicals, to help provide safe water to all.
Founder Jess Kellar whips up nostalgic treats from her base in Spark Fairborn’s commercial kitchen. She’s a graduate of the 6888 Kitchen Incubator’s Sharpen the Axe program and the Entrepreneur Rising Academy. We can’t wait to see how she’ll continue to grow in 2024!
Kilele Health is developing wearable remote continuous patient monitoring for cardiometabolic diseases, empowering doctors and patients with accurate real-time data. The startup took home the $15,000 first place prize in the Launch Dayton Startup Week Pitch Competition, powered by the Entrepreneurs’ Center.
A team of students from University of Dayton, Sinclair College, Cedarville University, and The Modern joined forces to launch Kitchen Kanvas at the 2023 LaunchHack DYT Startup Weekend. Their product — single-serving spices contained in edible, compost-able, tear-able rice sheets. Thought the team did not advance into the second round of the 2024 Flyer Pitch competition, we’re still excited to see where they go this year!
Mompreneur Sarah Kallile launched Lunnie in 2021 with a simple mission — to reinvent the nursing bra for fellow breastfeeding moms. Her first production run in spring 2022 sold out. She wrapped up 2023 by announcing a new partnership with Kettering Health to provide Lunnie’s patent-pending nursing bra to moms in need. We’re excited to see where 2024 takes her!
Self-proclaimed community foot fairy, Shayna is the owner and creator of Naturally Bare, a practice focused on medical pedicures. She was the winner of her winter 2022 cohort of Entrepreneur Rising Academy. She wrapped up 2023 advancing as a finalist in the Main Street track of this year’s Flyer Pitch competition. We love to see our ERA grads do big things, and we’re so excited for her to grow in 2024!
Noorah Labs is the first majority-minority owned marijuana processing lab in Ohio. In 2021, they closed their initial $2.5 million funding round and started their first production run. Watch cofounder Nickole Ross’s Launch Dayton Startup Week talk with What’s The Biz founder Te’Jal Cartwright here. With Ohio voters passing a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana last fall, we’re curious to see where Noorah Labs soars in 2024.
Erin Parrott’s grand opening of her After 5 boutique this summer in the Fireblocks District was a smashing success. Next year, she’s looking to build on that momentum as part of the team opening the highly anticipated Reserve on Third in the new year. We can’t wait to check it out!
Unlisted Homea is a software platform that helps homebuyers connect with the owners of off-market properties they covet. Want-to-be buyers send a personalized mailing — complete with vanilla frosted cookies — inviting the owners to join the platform to chat one-on-one about their future buying and selling plans. Founder Katie Hill was named an American Inno Female Founder to Watch this year. Unlisted Homes also took first place at the 2023 Flyer Pitch, taking home $60K in cash + prizes. We can’t wait to see what they do in 2024!
Adrian Shergill has always had a passion for food. Two years ago, the passion led he and his wife, Maggie, to open a Bristish gastropub in Enon, OH.
But opening day at The Last Queen didn’t exactly go as planned.
“Should I tell you about our first day? So you have to take into context that we’ve never ever run a pub before, ever,” Adrian begins. “So we’ve done our rehearsal with friends and family, that went reasonably well, we tested everything. And you know, the clock’s ticking, it’s 3:30, 3:45, everything’s good to go, everyone’s happy. We’re going to do this.”
But a minute or two before doors opened, the pub’s ticketing system went down.
“So all these people come flooding in, and our computer system is completely crashed,” he said. “It was possibly the worst thing that could have gone wrong, because that’s the information that the back of the house needs.”
They scrambled around, made things work. And then two hours into dinner service, the system came back online.
“All the tickets came up on our screen, and it it was a nightmare, because we didn’t know what we’d done and what we hadn’t done,” Adrian recalled. “So the very first day of opening was, if anything could have gone wrong that you wouldn’t want to have gone wrong, it went wrong.
But we dusted ourselves off and carried on.”
Check out Adrian’s full story in the latest episode in our I Am an Entrepreneur series.https://launchdayton.com/video/adrian-shergill-i-am-an-entrepreneur-ep-25/
By Te’Jal Cartwright, Founder, What’s The Biz
Celebrating yourself is essential to the entrepreneur journey.
Too often, we focus on the next accomplishment rather than acknowledging the work we’ve already put in.
Take What’s the Biz with TJ for example. Four seasons of an independent web series is an amazing feat! We highlighted 150+ businesses, connected Black-owned businesses with resources, especially during Covid, and paid over a dozen local contractors through our creative partnerships. But I was always consumed with the politics that come with working to empower the Black economy and felt like I was never doing enough. I had to learn the value of celebrating myself and how it can benefit one’s spirit.
Here are three thing I discovered about why it’s so important to celebrate every step:
When you take the time to celebrate yourself, you intentionally acknowledge all the good things you are able to do! It’s a reminder of how awesome you are. This gives you energy to keep going and maybe even do more!
Everyone that I know works extremely hard without looking up, but taking the moment to celebrate allows you to recognize all the wonderful things you’ve done, which inherently creates space for new ideas. When you celebrate your work, you recognize the wins. By recognizing the wins in your life, you create the space for more wins!
A lot of times we try to keep ourselves small because being big is uncomfortable for us. So we keep our accomplishments to ourselves because we fear distressing others. But I encourage you to do the opposite. You never know who will be inspired by your accomplishments. I’ve connected with so many budding media creatives that were inspired by WTB and felt empowered by someone creating their own platform. These connections wouldn’t have come if I’d played it small and not acknowledged our team’s hard work.
That being said, I want to invite you to celebrate What’s the Biz with TJ and the end of an era on Jan. 10 at The Hub!
If you’ve been impacted by What’s the Biz in any way, we’d love to see you there! This is an opportunity to uplift our collective impact since 2018. We’d like to acknowledge all of the work we’ve done together, all of the connections made through this series, and the amazing things we’re looking forward to in the future. We’ll have food, storytelling, and a special premiere of our final episode. Thank you for your support —we can’t wait to celebrate with you!
Launch Dayton is thrilled to partner with Te’Jal and her team to produce the final season of What’s the Biz. Check out Ep. 1, Ep. 2, and Ep. 3 today!
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