Motivation, Determination Plus Partnerships, Planning and Preparation Creates a Foundation for Success
Each day you wake up to another day looking for the opportunity to generate more sales. When you operate a small business, there is no parachute or safety net for entrepreneurs. You either sink or swim and the bills won't stop for any of us.
Entrepreneurs may have talent, experience, expertise and skill in their chosen industry but most were not taught how to manage a successful business operation, sales, marketing, accounting and people. Where do you turn when you run out of answers, attorneys and accountants are too expensive for your budget - for now?
Start.Pivot.Grow. Small Business and Innovation Accelerator (SPG) was started by a female serial entrepreneur and investor located in Dallas, Texas. Cynthia Nevels wanted to provide valuable assistance to businesses on the brink of failing or closing during the pandemic and partnered with Dallas College to deliver a unique program that has excelled for two and half years. The SPG Accelerator is a subsidiary of Integrality, LLC a business consulting firm that helps small businesses achieve their goals through consulting services and solutions for over 21-years.
Our focus is on identifying business owners' unique strengths and weaknesses and crafting a customized business education and advisory solution that works best for their business. From market research to business planning, we offer a wide range of services to help businesses succeed. We have helped numerous small businesses over the years and are proud of their successes.
Check out our portfolio of SPG graduates and successes who have earned business grant funds from our Start.Pivot.Grow. program powered by Dallas College, Capital One Bank and Wells Fargo Foundation.
2020 Winner - Moe's Delights
In February of 2020 Monisha was a high school teacher who decided to purchase a home in the neighborhood she grew up in, Sunny South Dallas. A month later COVID 19 hit pandemic levels and most of the country was ordered to social distance, leaving many confined to their homes. Years prior, Monisha learned her mother’s fight worthy sweet potato pie recipe and helped her bake them for family and friends. Althea Randolph is known by many names; Ms. Althea, Aunt T, Sis. Randolph. But one thing everybody knows her for is her down home sweet potato pie. Monisha baked her mother’s sweet potato pie recipe in effort to connect with her neighbors during the pandemic. Baking became a fun past time and more people fell in love with sweet potato pie. She kept baking and giving her pies away. By Thanksgiving, folks asked to purchase them and she ended up baking 54 pies that holiday season.
By the end of 2020, Monisha decided to make Moe’s Delights a business. Currently (2023) she operates out of a commercial kitchen on the campus of Cornerstone Baptist Church, where her and her team bake pies for families, corporate events, weddings, and goodie bags all over to the state.
Moe's Delights grant funding paid for website development, licensing and legal structure and improvements to product labeling and packaging.
2021 Winner - LifePlate
In 2017, our family decided to make a dramatic lifestyle change toward plant-based eating. We had been trying to figure out what was going on with our bodies. Doctor visits revealed high cholesterol, prehypertension, and abnormal lab results. With a food service background and a desire to change our family’s medical history, we were committed to finding a solution.
After watching a documentary on plant-based diets, we decided to take a plunge into the plant-based lifestyle. We took on the challenge with much criticism and social judgment from family and friends. I spent countless hours researching recipes and finding creative ways to cook unfamiliar meals. We made advances and experienced challenges but kept moving forward. Today, after much practice and refinement, I’ve been able to make some exceptional meals that have been well received, even from former critics. In some cases, skeptics had been made believers.
This lifestyle has restored our family’s vitality and overall health. In March 2021, I was asked by a family, who heard about my cooking to cook weekly meals. I was excited to help them on their journey. After all, it was simply cooking meals for two extra people, resulting in 10 extra meals per week. Needless to say, that 10 extra meals have increased. This has ignited my love and passion for helping people eat more nutritiously. Today, we look to continue to influence as many people as possible toward nutritious, exciting and flavorful plant-based eating.
LifePlate executives used funding to assist in buying two delivery trucks and making website enhancements to improve sales funnel.
2022 Winner - OffWorld Coffee
Awah Chai, the Roanoke-based founder and CEO of Offworld Coffee, arrived in the U.S. in 2019 with goals familiar to many international students: Get a degree, secure a job, and live the American dream.
Those plans shifted dramatically during his junior year in Waco when the computer engineering student sipped his first-ever cup of coffee.
“It was not that impressive,” he said. “I thought, ‘I could definitely improve upon this.'”
Today Chai’s startup, Offworld Coffee, is crafting a niche, specializing in coffee concentrates he calls “infused refreshes.”
Born and raised in Cameroon—where tea is the norm—Chai found the taste of coffee too bitter. His taste assessment, based on a tea-drinking background, led the entrepreneur on a journey to enhance the coffee experience by infusing it with tea and fruit flavors, including watermelon, pineapple, and apple.
After working on improving coffee for about six months, Chai decided to drop out of college. Moving to Dallas to make his coffee infusion shelf-stable, he navigated common entrepreneurs’ challenges: bringing a product to market and building community connections. He officially launched his LLC in October 2022 and began seeking resources to bolster the business side of his endeavor.
Awah leveraged his grant award to add a new canned refresher beverage to his product line up with tremendous success which opened the door to wholesale opportunities to sell in cafes, bakeries and local convenience stores.
2023 Winners - Okra Vegan Meals and Infinity Truck Parking LLC
Do you have a small business that has the potential to reach 6-figures in revenue but you need help in streamlining your operation? Sign up for Cohort 6 starting October 3, 2023.