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A group of passionate entrepreneurs shared their best business ideas for a chance to win up to $5,000 over the weekend.
The Pitch Showdown was organized by Liftoff Waterloo Wellington, a local business incubator and accelerator program for Black entrepreneurs. On Saturday, people gathered at the SDG Idea Factory in downtown Kitchener to share their ideas in the hopes of winning over the judges.
Trevor Charles, the executive director, says it’s important to have an event focused specifically on uplifting Black entrepreneurs.
“I think that we can recognize that for whatever reason, there are a number of doors that are closed to members of the Black community,” he said.
Charles added the Black community is very diverse in Waterloo region with a variety of different cultural, religious and individual experiences.
“[The event is] a place where members of the Black community can feel welcome and be themselves and network with other members of of the Black community, and at the same time also welcome allies who are not afraid to become part of our overall network,” he said.
Below are four of the many pitches made at the Pitch Showdown on Saturday.
Nigerian food e-book
Kosi Nwagbara was there to pitch her new e-book focused on helping students eat on a tight budget. She’s a TikTok food influencer hoping to take her talents to the next level with her new food guide.
“In first year, I was given pocket money when I moved here as an international student and I spent it all on food from outside, going to restaurants. I had finished the budget for three months in one month,” she said.
“So when next I got my pocket money, I had to budget and know what to do with every single thing that I got. I put all those years of knowledge into one e-book that is easily digestible by anyone.”
Nwagbara is known as Nigerian Foodie Hub on TikTok.
She won $5,000 in the LiftOff Ignite Pitch segment.
Halal investments for Muslims
Ridwan Sanusi was hoping his pitch will help bring more funding for his investment app called Halvest, which aims to help Muslim people invest their money without compromising their religious values.
“As Muslims, we’re not allowed to invest in gambling, invest in pork, invest in anything that is strictly forbidden in our religion. So Halvest is there to create solutions,” he explained.
“One of the things that we set out to do this year is to expand our product offerings to two million Canadian Muslims.”
Sanusi won $5,000 in the LiftOff Newcomer Pitch.
Monopoly trading app
When Joshua Seale downloaded the Monopoly Go! app on his phone, he quickly realised there was a market to help players trade tokens more effectively.
“Trading is ineffective and inefficient. There’s a huge problem, mostly in safety and security of an individual trade and finding people to trade with,” he said. “[My app] connects Monopoly Go! players together so they can find the best person to trade with.”
He says there’s a huge market because Monopoly Go! is currently the most downloaded free game on the Apple app store.
“The game released about a year ago and I’ve been building this solution ever since then,” Seale said.
Expanding local catering business
Also hoping to win was Vanessa Simon, who runs her own catering company called Vanessa’s Cuisine.
She was pitching for capital to help expand her thriving catering business.
“We cater to 25 per cent of the school board, not counting the university, not counting daycare, not counting our other customers, weddings, vice versa,” she said, adding the prize money would help meet growing demand.
“Our bake mixes will be going into Costco and so many other stores are reaching out to us to say, ‘Hey Vanessa, the packages look amazing.’ So we’re actually in four Caribbean stores and we’re in No Frills and FreshCo,” she said. “It’s a guaranteed return.”
Winners
The winners from the pitch competition were:
- LiftOff Newcoming pitch – Ridwan Sanusi for Halvest ($5,000).
- LiftOff Ignite pitch – Kosisochukwu Nwagbara for Nigerian Foodie Hub ($5,000), Carol Spooner Portraits ($2,500) and Precious Julius for Last Minute Gallery ($1,000).
- LiftOff Launchers Pitch – La Vance Dotson and Colleen Dotson for Woo Your Boo, Tony Colley for B12 Give, Japhet Ikuni for Skyned Consult, and Kingsley Madu for Expedier. Each of these winners received $5,000.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of.
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