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Read the below blog by Linda McMahon, SBA Administrator
Once upon a time….
It’s the classic opening to our favorite fairy tales. As children we dream of magic potions and knights in shining armor that will provide our happily ever after. How were we to know that our own hard work, skill and determination could be far more effective?
Once upon a time, my husband and I started our business sharing a desk. As he developed our product and expanded our markets, I managed the books. When the work became too much for the two of us to handle ourselves, we hired our first employee. As our business grew, we hired another. Then another. Over decades of hard work growing our business, that company we created now has grown to a publicly traded enterprise with more than 800 employees and consumers in 180 countries worldwide.
As an entrepreneur, I have truly lived the American Dream: the classic tale of taking a risk on an idea, working hard and creating something from nothing. Don’t get me wrong – we had plenty of stumbles and challenges that provided the plot twists along the way. But it’s a story I am always proud to tell.
And as head of the U.S. Small Business Administration, my goal now is to help more people have the opportunity to live the American Dream.
Yet many aspiring entrepreneurs have no idea how to get their stories started or write their next chapters.
The SBA is here to help, with resources both online and in communities from coast to coast.
During National Small Business Week, as we celebrate the 28 million small businesses that drive our nation’s economy, we also showcase the resources and services the SBA provides to entrepreneurs at every stage, whether they are starting up, expanding or getting through a tough time.
The SBA has 68 district offices and an extensive network of resource partners across America, including Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam. The experienced professionals that staff these offices offer a core group of services that we call the “three Cs and a D” – capital access, counseling, contracts, and disaster assistance.
Many entrepreneurs need capital to start or expand their small business, combining what they have with other sources of financing. While the SBA doesn't loan money directly to small business owners, it helps facilitate loans with a guaranty that a certain portion will be repaid. We offer counseling on starting, scaling and succeeding in business, from how to draft a business plan to how to export your product overseas. And we train small businesses on how to compete for government contracts, especially those set aside exclusively for small business owners. Finally, SBA provides a helping hand to small businesses recovering from disasters.
As I think back on my own story as a small business owner, I wonder how much easier things might have been if we’d been aware of the many valuable services SBA provides. My hope is that as more people learn about the SBA, they will have the confidence, skills and resources they need to succeed as small business owners, and we can continue to revitalize a spirit of entrepreneurship in our country.
There’s room for far more success stories in our library.
And the SBA can help more entrepreneurs write their own “happily ever after.”
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SnapRyde a Startup Team from the 2016 Batch of iStart Valley Accelerator Program launched its app on 21st March. Within 4 days of its launch SnapRyde has garnered 300+ registered users using the service. We wish them a big success in days to come and a smooth Ryde ahead.
SnapRyde provides a unique platform where driver gets privilege to bid their price and riders will be matched with the cheapest bid available. People sharing the ride pitch in some amount for drivers to cover the gas expenses, cutting down the expenses on commute for both Riders and Driver. We highly value the green environment and our vision is to reduce the carbon footprints for a cleaner, healthier environment.
Mayank Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of SnapRyde says “We whole heartedly thank iStart Valley for supporting us in transforming our idea into a startup. The personal attention, guidance and mentoring from them is helping us in understanding the startup ecosystem and coming up with the best strategy to develop a world-class enterprise level product. We are fortunate to collaborate with them in our journey towards success and look forward to keeping working with them in near future”. Mayank put together a team with Shraddha Jain as the Co-Founder and CTO and Samvaran Kashyap Rallabandi as the Co-Founder and CTO working deligently to transform the idea into a successful Startup.
iStart Valley offers a 9 Month Startup Accelerator Program for the technology Startups to transform ideas into growing Technology Startups. For more information check out - http://istartvalley.org/programs/accelerator.html. Next batch of the Accelerator program for the year 2017 is expected to begin May-June timeframe.
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iStart Valley promotes Jacksonville Startup Weekend scheduled between Friday, September 9th to Sunday September 11th 2016. Buy your tickets for the demo day today @ http://www.eventbrite.com/e/startup-weekend-jacksonville-sep-9-2016-tickets-26085554596
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For Immediate Release
June 9, 2016: iStart Valley is excited to announce the 2016 batch of the Accelerator Program. The 2016 Startup teams were picked from leading national hackathons and Startup Weekend contests. After reviewing the top ideas in these contests, iStart Valley has offered seven startups an entry into the 2016 Accelerator program. During the nine month long Accelerator program, the selected startup teams will go through a rigorous idea validation phase and spend significant amount of their time in customer validation.
During the first six months of the iStart Valley’s Accelerator program, Startup teams will work on ideas, build market-ready products or prototypes with a well-defined marketing strategy. They will also receive coaching and mentoring by several serial entrepreneurs from the same domain areas as of the Ideas. The last three months of the Accelerator program will aim at Startups presenting to iStart Valley’s growing Venture Capitalist and Super Angels network for seed round or “A” series funding. The key differentiator of the program is the pairing of startups with Venture Capitalists who share common interests and are the right fit based on their portfolio. This approach helps reduce the time taken for the startups to get funded.
The brightest ideas of the 2016 accelerator program, starting in June 2016, come from Dallas, Texas and Jacksonville, Florida regions. And they are as follows.
Cloud Immense: Cloud Immense builds a heterogeneous cloud solution for scheduling computing and storage specific operations. This is a platform that gives a single intuitive interface to manage, schedule and monitor multiple cloud providers through its console.
Potent: People bookmark every cool webpage or article they see but seldom ever go back to read through them. Potent gives people a way to develop a better understanding of what they've read in the past, to lock in concepts, and recall information more actively. Potent provides a full system to annotate and view bookmarks in an easy to read format across the platform.
SnapRyde: provides a unique platform where driver gets privilege to bid their price and riders will be matched with the cheapest bid available. People sharing the ride pitch in some amount for drivers to cover the gas expenses, cutting down the expenses on commute for both Riders and Driver. We highly value the green environment and our vision is to reduce the carbon footprints for a cleaner, healthier environment.
Wheel Desk: creates affordable modern furniture, with an emphasis on incorporating dynamic movement. We are focused on helping people prioritize their health and well-being without impinging on their lifestyle. As a company, Wheel Desk believes that quality, attention to detail, and aesthetics are just as important as function.
123 App Studio: 123 App Studio is platform to build effortlessly mobile applications. It's mobile application development platform for small businesses with subscription model. With a unique pricing model, customers will be charged on monthly basis with additional fees for online transaction on % basis.
Simmersion: is a modular desk chair mount that allows for easy integration and a more in-depth immersion within virtual reality environments. In this design, an Arduino controls motors is used, based upon the virtual reality environment, to move the chair. Product is a mobile kit that can be plugged into any chair/recliner.
SMPLFY: As a company the goal of smplfy is to use technology to create solutions that alleviate and facilitate the lives of users every day. These solutions/technologies make it easier to get things done, and are not solely limited to healthcare hardware (like Insight), but rather expand into frameworks and libraries for companies and independent developers to use and expedite their development process.
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About iStart Valley:
iStart Valley Inc., is an award winning, non-profit Business Accelerator for technology based startups. Our goal is to provide world class resources for aspiring entrepreneurs to turn their creative ideas into growing Tech Startups. We help redefine the startup ecosystem with the support of local and global resources by providing a viable pool of startups and entrepreneurs.
