Latest Early Risers Academy cohort to pitch companies this Thursday
October 19, 2021
The summer 2021 Early Risers Academy general cohort will see 8 founders pitch their budding companies for prize money and support this Thursday at 5:30p at The Hub.
The Early Risers Academy program is managed by Launch Dayton partner Parallax Advanced Research with funding from the Department of Defense Office of Economic Adjustment & Ohio Third Frontier’s Entrepreneurial Services Provider program.
“From Air Force and university research labs to urban kitchens and garages, innovation is a force in the Dayton region,” program manager KeAnna Daniels said. “Our diverse entrepreneurs are developing new technologies and processes, and we’re excited to offer these bootcamps to help them reach the world.”
The free, 10-week business-building program leverages Kauffman FastTrac coursework from the nationally-renowned Kauffman Foundation. Participants also receive pitch coaching and hands-on mentoring, weekly discussions with successful entrepreneurs and experts, & access to Dayton’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This week’s pitching entrepreneurs include:
- Christian Johnson, founder of evenYou, an event planning website that uses the power of the internet to connect occasional event planners with specialized event service providers. evenYou is designed to streamline and focus the event planning process in order to spend less time planning, and more time partying!
- Shannon Barr, pitching H20’s Kitchen, a restaurant dedicated to fine dining by way of high-tech aeroponic grow towers;
- Jazmon Stewart, founder of iThrive, a Minority, Agricultural Family leveraging Social Emotional Learning via Plants in Service of Equity for Inner City Communities;
- Michel’le Curington, founder of Fail Me Not Tutoring, a tutoring company that focuses on building students’ math, reading and writing skills in grades K-8th.
- Kane Pickrel, founder of FreshCo, a digital platform that offers a completely reusable packaging solution for food/beverage establishments and delivery services. Restaurants can save money and become carbon-neutral when they subscribe to our end-to-end facilitation and cleaning services using a FreshCo container.
- Violet and Aaron Hobbs, pitching a new gluten-free downtown Dayton ice cream shop. By offering entirely gluten free options, with many vegan options, we can accommodate everyone (including you).
- Donniece Koontz, founder of Your Favorite Notary, offering mobile/remote services, wedding officiation, loan signing services and other general notary work.
Register here to attend the pitches virtually or in-person!
Early Risers Academy is designed for aspiring founders in any industry. We’re particularly excited to work with more women and minority founders.
These workshops can also be valuable for founders early in their small business journey, or who jumped right into their business without formally developing the plans behind it and are now discovering they need some of that paperwork in place to grow.
Learn more & apply for an upcoming Early Risers Academy cohort here.
