With tools and skills gained through an intense, 12-week business mentoring program, entrepreneurs from six area businesses were honored at a Super Send Off event Thursday night at Gateway Technical College’s Kenosha Campus.
The teams were part of a Gateway’s Launch Box Accelerator Program, which was one of 50 winners out of 800 applicants nationally for the first Growth Accelerator Fund Competition through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
The winning area entrepreneurs took part in the program to help them grow their business, such as working on revenue models, customer surveys, prototypes and working to make sure their business is profitable.
Launch Box hosted the accelerator program and offered such resources as prototyping at the Fab Lab housed at Gateway’s SC Johnson iMET Center in Sturtevant, connecting with area entrepreneurs and providing business space at its facility.
The entrepreneurs, and their businesses, who completed the training are:
Nick Berveiler, Document Garden, Kenosha
Document Garden is a database application for small organizations to track custom data sets. Originally designed for nonprofit organizations to track demographic data, Document Garden can be customized to track any type of information. One key market area includes child care businesses.
David Barczak, Hawthorne Window Easy Trim, Mount Pleasant
Hawthorne Window Easy Trim provides custom-made, pre-assembled, pre-finished, pre-stained, replacement casing and jambs. This product reduces the labor costs and increases the quality of the installation and reduces the mess in the customer’s house.
Luke Olson, Illumicase, Racine
Illumicase is a fun, light-up, swappable phone case. It allows the user to change the look and theme of their cell phone case by simply swapping out pieces.
Ben Taft, Landmark Acoustics LLC, Racine
This business makes biologically-inspired software for measuring, tracking, and reporting sounds in speech therapy, bioacoustics and medicine.
Kenya McRae, Scantributions, Racine
Cheerful Giver by ScanTribution is cloud-based, mobile donation tracking service that will allow donors to make donations to the nonprofit organization(s) of choice in a more efficient, accurate and timely manner.
Tammy Myers and Kimberly Silverstein, Mrs. Myers Reading Room, Mount Pleasant
Mrs. Myers' Reading Room is an interactive, multisensory reading program that makes learning to read fun. Small group classes are open to children ages 3 to 12, and each class involves movement, music, and technology. Books are printed after a child’s 18 week session, making each student a published author.
Being part of the accelerator program also gave businesses the opportunity to access seed money they may have been unable to tap into prior to participating in the program.
Companies which complete the program are then required to mentor new program participants, called a “folding” requirement.
For more information, please contact Kristin Niemiec at (262) 898-7404.
