BRIDGEPORT – Taking a simple idea and molding it into a small business that not only fills a niche in today’s fast-paced world, but impresses angel investors enough to give you the seed money to start is what drives a six-week business lab at University of Bridgeport.
Financially supported by M&T Bank, the 4-year-old brainchild of David Femi – the bank’s senior vice president and business and professional banking regional manager – was borne out of the 2020 Covid pandemic. It has grown from an idea he tried out in Buffalo, New York, in April 2020 to six-to-eight-week labs at local colleges throughout the Northeast today.
“During Covid in April 2020, I read an article that said eight weeks into the pandemic Black-owned businesses, Hispanic-owned businesses, African-American-owned businesses were the most negatively impacted businesses so far in the pandemic,” he said recently at a multicultural small business pitch competition at the University of Bridgeport Nov. 20.
“I asked myself, as a bank, what can we do to change this? Or what are we not doing to help these businesses get out of this hole? So, this was about 11 p.m. one night and I said, ‘you know what I should get a bunch of these businesses together with their (Covid) masks on.’ And ask them what challenges do they face and what can the bank do to help.”
In October 2020, he convinced 32 businesses to meet in Buffalo. “We asked some questions and talked about how hard everything had become. Many of them had been in business for 10 or 15 years and the pandemic had taken away everything. I said to myself we have to do something.”
Since that time they have taken nearly 700 businesses through these labs and have awarded almost $400,000 in cash prizes to some of them.
On Nov. 20, 2024 in a “lab” inside University of Bridgeport’s business school, eight finalists from the latest lab – the third iteration – made their 5-minute pitches to a panel of five judges, the M&T team and two professors who taught the lab course. They vied for part of the $16,000 in cash prizes based on their pitch and a 2-minute Q&A with the judges.
The business lab is open to existing small business owners who are located in Greater Bridgeport, have been in business 60 months or less and have annual business revenue of $300,000 or less.
The competition offered such businesses as a tax planning app, a glitzy, high-tech skating rink, business advisory, and toxic-free safe women’s underwear. In the two-hour marathon of pitches, only four were declared recipients of the cash, while all learned the ups and downs of running a small business.
The winners
The four business owners who were honored were Christina Phillips, CEO and founder of Puure women’s undergarments (first place); Gissell FeQuiere, owner of Gisselle Tax & Accounting firm (second place); Nova Raft, principal of Nova Raft Business Advisors (third place); and Peggly Colas, operator of Cornerstone Medical Training Center(fourth place).
Christina Phillips (winner of $6,000)
Her company makes organic underwear that that only use non-toxic chemicals that targets women in the 25-to-45-year-old demographic.
“The accelerator was a great experience and M&T Bank are great partners,” Phillips said. “They are very supportive and want to see businesses like mine excel. I am also always happy to see that people understand the seriousness of this issue that I am addressing and receiving recognition of this nature reinforces that I am building something that will make a difference.”
She plans to use the funds to develop a plus-size line extension. “We have customers already asking about plus sizes so we know that needs to be the next step in this process,” Phillips said. “I will also use the funding towards labor expenses. I use contract workers to help with product development and production. These funds will help keep them on board until my sales picks up.”
She says to plan to scale up operations over the next five years. “While doing this, I am working on setting the ground work for the next steps like the product expansions as well as potential partnerships with charities and other organizations that support women’s health,” she said.
This competition, which was her seventh all told, now brings her total funds raised to nearly $50,000, she said.
In a nutshell, her pitch went something like this:
“Growing up, I watched the women in my family struggle with fibroids with tumors in the uterus. I saw them struggle with miscarriages, hysterectomies and debilitating period cramps. When I too suffered from fibroids, I wanted to understand what were the contributing factors.
“Did you know chemicals in our underwear can contain toxic chemicals? These are contributing to reproductive issues such as fibroids, cancer as well as infertility.
“Today, I have a solution – Puure. It is at Puure, where we offer our customers a three key solutions:
- Saving the body over products that have been certified and are made of cotton
- Providing something that is both comfortable and stylish that promote confidence as well as comfort
- Promote wellness (We’re not just an underwear company. We create communities to educate our customers about this issue.)
“We are projecting that we could hit about $230,000 within year three, bringing us to a break even in 2025. We hire independent contractors and production coordinators to help us coordinate our manufacturing overseas in Bangladesh.
Gisselle Fequiere (winner of $4,500)
Her established accounting firm is launching an app called “Tax Plan Hero,” which focuses on tax planning for many of her existing clients.
“Participating in the 6-week cohort with M&T Bank was an amazing experience, and being recognized among such talented competitors is truly humbling,” Fequiere said. “This achievement reinforces my passion for helping freelancers and small business owners access effective tax planning strategies. The funding and support will be instrumental in advancing my mission and turning my vision into a reality.”
The winnings from the competition will help her finalize the development of her MVP (minimum viable product) for my tax planning mobile application, she said. Upon completing the app in April 2025, she expects to be positioned to secure additional funding from angel investors, enabling a full-scale launch and operational readiness.
She has won three other pitch competitions, and currently has collected $46,000.
One thing that set her apart from the seven other companies in the pitch competition was the effusive nature in which she introduced her product to the judges and the audience. She handed out bags of fake money to everyone before she went ahead with the pitch.
“Imagine this bag is the income you made throughout the year,” she said. “The issue is somebody is coming in and taking a huge chunk of that money. That person is the IRS. The issue is every year $15,000 goes away unnecessarily from taxes from small business owners.
“It’s a major, major pain point. How do I know this? Many of my new clients are asking me how do I save money on taxes? They want to be like big companies like Tesla and Amazon that pay little to no taxes. There’s a solution. It’s called tax planning.”
More developed companies can afford to spend thousands of dollars on paying a tax planner to lower their tax liability while most small business cannot.
“It is proactively throughout the year finding strategies to lower your tax bill, right,” she said. “The issue is it is a premium product. But how would you like to get tax planning at a fraction of the cost and right in the palm of your hand? So, introducing Tax Plan Hero, which is a mobile app that syncs with your bank and credit cards and auto-categorizes your transactions in a maximum tax savings way.”
Her target market is self-employed individuals, 1099 contractors and small business owners who have a revenue of $100,000 to at least a half-million dollars. She expects to have social media campaigns on LinkedIn and YouTube and targeted ads to have people download the app.
Her projections? “We are going to have 10,000 users at a 5% conversion rate that will lead us to $100,000 in revenue for next year,” Fequiere said. “We will charge $200 a year for the app. By 2027, we will have $1 million in revenue just based on subscriptions.”
The accounting firm got the seed money for the app by winning a pitch competition for $35,000. They also plan to add an additional feature called File Tax Now.
Third- and fourth-place winners
Nova Raft of Nova Raft finished third, collecting $3,000 and Peggy Colas of Cornerstone Medical Training Center finished fourth, collecting $2,500.
Criteria for the judges
The judges had to grade the pitches by the following criteria:
- Presentation content
- Presentation quality
- The market/community needs that the business addresses
- Its business plan
- Its capabilities to adapt to changing market forces
- Its potential for growth and positive impact on the community
The judges were Ramon Peralta Jr., CEO of Peralta Design; Natalie Pryce, founder and CEO of Pryceless Consulting and co-founder and director of Workforce and Business Development of Led by Us & Associates; Natasha Noel, a writer, poet and educational leader in nonprofit management and education; Clovia McIntosh, founder of infant-to-toddler bathtub maker Tubee and winner of last year’s business lab; and Barbara Distasio, a mentor with the Bridgeport Accelerator Program at UB’s Innovation Center for three years.
