ScaleUP! Kansas City Reveals Sixth Cohort of Kansas City Business Owners
These Kansas City business owners are primed, pumped and ready to grow. Meet the next 16 companies that will go through the ScaleUP! Kansas City program and get the community, confidence and curriculum they need to accelerate their businesses and jump start revenue growth.
Like their five cohorts of business owners that have preceded them, this new batch of small business entrepreneurs lead businesses located across the Kansas City metro and represent such varied industries as software development, health care, construction, consulting, cleaning services and more.
For four months, these ScaleUP! KC participants are immersed in intensive training that will connect them with subject matter experts and equip them with the strategic perspective necessary to position their businesses for growth.
Meet ScaleUP! Kansas City Cohort 6
Thomas Assel, Assel Consulting LLC, Lee’s Summit, Missouri
Assel Consulting is a grant services firm that works with nonprofits, school districts, universities, and other grant-seeking entities. Company services include research to identify likely grant funding sources, developing annual grant-seeking plans and proposal development.
Chris Ayala, First Response Construction LLC, Kansas City, Missouri
First Response Construction (FRC) focuses on small and large scale repair, restoration and new construction of commercial and residential properties. From original designs to complete renovations, FRC has restaurant, office and residential projects throughout Kansas City.
Cristina Betts, MD HomeCare, LLC, Kansas City, Missouri
MD, HomeCare, LLC is a medical practice that performs house calls to persons that are homebound or disabled. Founded in 2000, MD, HomeCare also sees able-bodied patients in their clinic in Kansas City, Missouri.
Sheryl Briggs, ClassApps LLC, Kansas City, Missouri
ClassApps LLC is a leading provider of next generation online data collection, research and survey software headquartered in the East Crossroads of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Clients include big pharma, academic, government and fortune companies as well as small businesses.
Dawn Cramer, Cramer Capital Management, Kansas City, Missouri
Cramer Capital Management specializes in helping clients improve their long-term financial success. Their customized programs are designed to help grow and conserve clients’ wealth by delivering world-class service.
John Crum, Crum Cleaning, Kansas City, Missouri
Crum Cleaning is a residential and small commercial cleaning services located in downtown Kansas City. Crum is full service—they provide all the equipment, have non-toxic cleaners and allow the customer to create their own priorities.
Kathy Gates, The Running Well Store, Kansas City, Missouri
The Running Well Store specializes in providing clients a free stride analysis to match them with the proper running and walking shoe for their biomechanics. The store has earned the Top 50 Best Running Stores in America for four consecutive years.
Chris Goodwin, Insurance Pros, Overland Park, Kansas
Insurance Pros is an insurance agency specializing in small group and individual health insurance. Through partnerships with the major insurance carriers, Insurance Pros originates and services insurance plans for clients in the employee benefits, individual health and Medicare markets.
April Kramer, Apple Pie Painting, Overland Park, Kansas
Apple Pie Painting is a mobile painting company in Kansas City and surrounding areas. Founded in 2014, Apple Pie Painting brings the hugely popular “sip and paint” concept directly to the consumer through in-home painting parties and kits.
Nick Lewman, Matai Services, Kansas City, Missouri
Matai Services provides a variety of contracting services with a primary focus in electrical and directional drilling. Matai also works with project managers to identify the best subcontractors to meet their needs.
Elizabeth McFadden, Novella Brandhouse Group, Inc, Kansas City, Missouri
Novella Brandhouse is a creative marketing and branding agency. Novella works with growing companies or brands to define, launch and expand their businesses. As a full-service advertising firm, Novella develops, designs and implements campaigns and strategies across all platforms.
Mani Raman, Yotabites Consulting LLC, Fairway, Kansas
Yotabites provides specialized strategic consulting, solution delivery services, training services and open source software around big data and deep analytics. Its vision is to shape the future of innovation in the Midwest through the use and application of Big Data.
Sara Noble, Noble Designs, Inc., Mission, Kansas
Noble Designs is a full-service interior design firm that strives to create fresh, unique interiors that reflect our client and their families. Noble also retails all the items necessary to create a beautiful home.
Brendan O’Shaughnessy, Ocean & Sea, Mission, Kansas
Ocean & Sea is a nautical clothing and lifestyle brand with a midcoast twist. Established in 2013 by Brendan and Amanda O’Shaughnessy, Ocean & Sea seeks to inspire a sense of wonder, adventure and fun through unique one-of-a-kind brand experiences.
Jennifer Rosenblatt, MusicSpoke, Kansas City, Missouri
Like Etsy for composers, MusicSpoke is a marketplace that allows music educators and other professional musicians to purchase the sheet music they need directly from the composers they love. Consumers can hear and see the entire inventory and download digitally.
Lori Worthington, Right Angle Advisors, Kansas City, Missouri
Right Angle Advisors is a consulting firm headquartered in the northland of Kansas City, Missouri. The firm specializes in operational strategy and change management, business intelligence and consumer engagement for health care providers.
Where are they now?
ScaleUP! KC has already helped 77 Kansas City business owners hire expand and grow their businesses and their revenue.
Impact surveys show that less than a year after graduating from ScaleUP! KC, alumni reported opening new locations, launching additional businesses and growing revenues, sometimes between 35 to even 400 percent. And, within a year, ScaleUP! cohort alumni have reported hiring 50 new full-time employees.
And numerous Scalers have experienced personal success stories. To name just a few:
Ruby Jean’s Juicery was featured in the fourth annual We Create KC report, which highlights the business and organizations making Kansas City America’s most entrepreneurial city, and will be recognized by the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce at their annual luncheon on April 26.
Webb Technology Group became a certified Veteran-Owned Small Business in February of 2017 and is ready to start selling to one of the biggest clients out there—the federal government.
Weave Gotcha Covered! opened The Sewing Labs to teach job skills to marginalized women in the urban core and teamed up with like-minded workforce development organizations with KC Works Together.
Fortiviti takes a lot of the hassle out of running a business and was honored with a 25 Under 25 Award by Thinking Bigger Media.
Family Bicycles was recently accepted into Goldman Sachs 10,000 Businesss Program. Stephanie Sage of Sage Restoration and Sharon Auck of Fresh Approach Cleaning Professionals have already graduated from this intense national program.
Thirsty Coconut opened a new building in Louisburg, Kansas, tripled its staff and is on course to quadruple sales in 2017 as a nationwide vendor for healthy beverage distribution.
And just last week, the Kauffman Foundation awarded ScaleUP! Kansas a grant through the foundation’s KC Accelerator Challenge.
“ScaleUP! fills in important gap in Kansas City’s entrepreneurial ecosystem—and for business owners, of all stripes and types, who are ready to scale their businesses,” says Jill Meyer, director of ScaleUP! KC. “Winning this award will help ScaleUP! further strengthen the success of our alumni with continued coaching and peer mentoring and help us reach deeper into the KC community to support the growth of KC’s small businesses.”
Be sure to follow ScaleUP! on Twitter and Facebook to keep up with this amazing group of Kansas City entrepreneurs.
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