Women In Business NB Offers $2,000 Prize For Top Pitch At New Competition
Women in Business New Brunswick (WBNB) will launch its first Start Up Competition virtually on November 30, with entrepreneurs and teams making pitches in either of the official languages.
Those interested can apply between now and October 9.
Director Kathrine Lanteigne says the competition is in line with WBNB’s mandate of helping women entrepreneurs start businesses and export their products and services, especially during the pandemic.
“Because of Covid-19, a lot of women had to pivot how they were selling their products or how they were selling their services,” she said.
Lanteigne says the competition is open for business ideas of all types, but WBNB’s clients are generally in the retail, service, and food and beverage industries.
The competition is open to women entrepreneurs and women-led teams who are thinking of starting a business, who may have a new product or service that they want to bring to market, those who want to gain knowledge and guidance, and those who are considering growing their current business into new markets.
The teams and individuals must be based in New Brunswick. Teams can have up to five people, and a majority of them must be women.
Lanteigne says sometimes the women WBNB hears from don’t have the confidence they need to start or grow their business. The competition aims to focus on developing an entrepreneurial mindset while providing group training workshops.
“I hope that this will give them confidence, even if they don’t win the competition, because we’re going to have our development officer that will be guiding them,” she said. “There’s also training that will be provided to them. So, prior to the competition itself…there will be a series of workshops that will be offered for free to all the participants.”
The workshops will cover pricing, pitching, and building a buyer persona.
A maximum of 15 ideas will be selected by a local panel to go through to the second stage, which consists of an online pitching event on November 30.
The first-place winner will receive $2,000, followed by $1,000 for the second-place winner. A $500 award will also be given as the student prize. Winners will also receive informal support and guidance from WBNB.
The event will be held in partnership with the W-Power International Project. The project, which WBNB is a part of, brings together organizations of women entrepreneurs and educational institutions from sparsely populated Northern European countries and regions.
Under the W-Power umbrella, similar start-up competitions will be held at the same time in Sweden and Finland, among other countries.
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