EforAll Longmont, a nonprofit supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs to start and grow small businesses, hosted two community pitch contests where local innovators shared their business ideas and received feedback from volunteer judges from the local business community. As a bilingual organization in Colorado, one of the contests was conducted in English & the other in Spanish.
EforAll Longmont executive director Caroline Hafele comments, “Pitch contests are a great way for community members to share their latest business ideas and potentially win funding to support startup costs. We are grateful to have an opportunity to learn about these new ideas and encourage new business development throughout Boulder County.”
A total of 12 candidates participated across the two events. Each candidate had 2.5 minutes to pitch their idea to a panel of three judges. The contestants were then asked clarifying questions regarding their business ideas. After the judges scored and deliberated, they awarded three prizes to the winners:
- $1,000 for the grand prize winner
- $750 for second place
- $500 for third place
- $500 to the fan gavorite chosen by an audience poll
A special thank you to the volunteer judges panel: Jose Luis Ramos (bilingual business specialist); Amanda Mendez (VP of Independent Financial); Rosario Cardenas (owner of Rosario’s Restaurant). Jill Mendoza (economic development manager), Kevin Erickson (SVP, market president at Independent Bank), and Danelle Dannenberg (leads product operations at Atlassian).
Congrats to the winners of the EforAll 2022 Fall Pitch Contest in English!
First place winner:
Michael Milakovic of Mighty Mikes Foods
Mighty Mikes foods support provides healthy organic vegetable-based snacks. With childhood obesity still on the rise in the United States, they want to create products that kids and parents love that are healthy and good for you!