Idea to Profit

Idea to Profit will solve the problems of the entrepreneurial education offering gap, lack of access to mentors, and awareness of upskilling and skill development opportunities. According to the U.S. SBA, small businesses are crucial in inner-city communities, making up 99% of all establishments and 80% of jobs. The Idea to Profit program addresses exposing and hosting entrepreneurial education opportunities in distressed communities through a one-day workshop or a Business Mastery educational series with mentors while spreading lean methodology practices and community resource knowledge. To build social capital, Idea to Profit allots at least 40% of the classroom seats to individuals and businesses in distressed communities. This solution could positively change the lives of millions through the Idea to Profit train the trainer certification by building capacity of diverse instructors within their own communities, allowing them to offer the entrepreneurship educational programs themselves.

Idea To Profit solves the problem of community-driven innovation by addressing low levels of diverse entrepreneurs, dispersing the culture of entrepreneurship, sharing and make known the current entrepreneurial and business resources, informing on different types of access to capital and where to get it, and gender equity. 

Idea To Profit supports community-driven innovation by addressing the initial idea stage with a diverse classroom, we can connect the entrepreneurs to co-working spaces, incubators, accelerators while building inter-personal connections with entrepreneurs from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. According to U.S. SBA, the U.S. economy relies on small businesses who provide 50% of all jobs, 64% of net new jobs. The skills for employ-ability and new business owners to thrive are rapidly shifting to agile and evidence-based methodologies, making it a world-wide best practice tool to de-risk ideas and initiatives. This is even more crucial for inner-city communities as small businesses make up 99% of all establishments and 80% of jobs. Inner city residents represent 10% of the population—that’s 32 million people. Nearly a quarter of the population living in poverty live in the inner city. Inner cities represent 16% of U.S. unemployment, 22% of U.S. poverty, and 32% of U.S. minority poverty.

Entrepreneur #1 ranges from a 17-year-old high school graduate to a senior citizen, resides in a distressed Orlando community, and is inspired by a potential business opportunity or has a current business. Idea to Profit addresses this entrepreneur’s barriers of understanding and navigating local entrepreneurial resources, access to adequate coaching and guidance in evaluating and de-risking their idea, and lack of social capital, confidence, and mentors that have successfully pursued and grown a business.  

Intra-preneur #2 is a small or medium sized business owners looking to scale and learn how to disrupt, before they get disrupted. Idea to Profit address their barriers by providing understanding on how to use business resources in Orlando, lack of ability to evaluate which technologies could help enhance their business operations and deliverable, and lack of a system tools that consistently evaluate new ideas and implementation tactics to increase revenue.   

We have conducted 3 pilots and created partnerships in two distressed communities with an average of 12% unemployment and 28% poverty: Parramore and Pine Hills. We plan to scale to the wider seven-county region where the average poverty rate is 14.7% with concentrated poverty pockets as high as 35.4%, according to the U.S. Census.

Idea to Profit unlocks the potential of ambitious entrepreneurs in a diverse and inclusive environment. Promoting entrepreneurship creates lasting economic development in communities by building local wealth to pursue broad-based prosperity, especially in distressed areas with high poverty rates. As the Orlando Economic Partnership works to provide the region with a durable competitive advantage in global competition for quality jobs, economic growth, broad-based prosperity and a sustainable quality of life, the Idea to Profit program is imperative to creating a sustainable entrepreneurial region. 

The Idea to Profit program uses the Business Model Canvas as the base curriculum. The Business Model Canvas (BMC), a strategic management and entrepreneurial tool that systematically guides the process of describing, challenging, inventing, and pivoting business models as the most fundamental element of business success. Currently, over 12 government agencies and most Fortune 500 companies use this from their application process to intrapreneurship.  

The methodology has also proven to increase access to capital. According the angel funds of PoweredbyNEXUS and FloridaFunders, it is proven that companies that have applied the BMC to their business, have a higher chance of getting investments. The National Science Foundation (NSF) has stated that the BMC increases your chances of getting an SBIR/STTR NSF grant by 60%. 

The Idea to Profit program consists of a one (1) day and business mastery educational series that spreads the knowledge and idea vetting process, allowing participants to get a certificate upon their completion. To build social capital, Idea to Profit allots at least 40% of the classroom seats to individuals in distressed communities through scholarships and brings in mentors from large corporations and community leaders. This will be followed by a train the trainer program to increase capacity and diversity of instructors. 

Through the power of partnership, and as a division of the Orlando Economic Partnership, The Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce, is positioned to successfully launch Idea to Profit. The Orlando Regional Chamber has been a trusted institution in our community for over 100 years. Launching the Idea to Profit program through the Chamber will allow us to create inclusive opportunities for businesses, women and minorities from the seven-county region - Brevard, Lake, Orange, Osceola, Polk, Seminole and Volusia – as well as the City of Orlando. Idea to Profit will focus within the Chamber’s area of expertise, influence, and network to establish a solid foundation of networks in distressed communities.