CO.STARTERS

Have A Food Business Idea But Don't Know Where To Start?

WHAT IS CO.STARTERS?

CO.STARTERS is a program designed to provide you with teh insights, relationships, and tools needed to turn your idea into action and your passion into a sustainable and thriving business.

CO.STARTERS @ Flint Food Works

CO.STARTERS is a ten-week program that equips aspiring entrepreneurs with the insights, relationships, and tools needed to turn business ideas into action and turn a passion into a sustainable and thriving business.

Details:

  • Who Should Apply? We are specifically looking for entrepreneurs that are interested in creating a food product. Priority will be given to businesses that are seeking to explore their business plan for devloping consumer packaged goods and value added food products here in our area.

  • Classes will be held from 4-6pm at the Flint Farmers' Market on Tuesdays from May 3rd through June 28th (9 sessions).

  • You must be able to commit to all of the sessions to qualify.

  • Cost is $200 per person/business. This pays for the CO.STARTERS binder and class materials.

FOOD.Starters

This program will focus on helping food business entrepreneurs start, shape and/or grow their food based businesses during our first CO.STARTERS @ Flint Food Works For FOOD.Starters

Participants will fine tune their businesses and business ideas in a hands-on, approachable way. Utilizing the business model canvas, participants will test their ideas, tweak next steps through real-time customer feedback, learn valuable management and marketing skills, and receive constructive feedback from advisers, peers and local business owners. This specialized curriculum will also address essential food-biz topics, including food branding, navigating local and state food regulations and financial planning.

Curriculum

During CO.STARTERS, you’ll develop and fine-tune your idea, critically examining every part of it and tweaking your next steps through real-time feedback from people in the community. Over the nine weeks, we’ll cover the following topics >>>

  • Week 1: Know yourself- Dig into what’s driving you and understand what it will take to achieve your dream.

  • Week 2: Understand your customers- Pinpoint what your customer wants and how to adapt to their needs.

  • Week 3: Business solutions & starting small- Test your solution by starting small and making adjustments as needed.

  • Week 4: Getting, keeping, & growing customers- Build customer relationships through your messaging & marketing.

  • Week 5: Revenue, pricing, & distribution- Figure out your logistics and how you’ll make money.

  • Week 6: Legal & accounting- Understand the systems and structures you’ll need to support your business.

  • Week 7: Financial modeling- Determine your costs and whether your business model is financially viable.

  • Week 8: Funding & Raising Capital- Know your options for finding the funds you need to grow sustainably.

  • Week 9: Growth plans & goal setting- Gain momentum and leave with a strategy for achieving your goals.

See How CO.STARTERS Has Helped Other Entrepreneurs

Drawing from the experience of successful entrepreneurs and start-up veterans from around the globe, CO.STARTERS Core walks creative small-business owners through lean, effective business modeling methods in a simple and intuitive way, and with the help of a supportive community. Rather than treating a start-up like a large corporation and writing a detailed business plan, CO.STARTERS participants are encouraged to build and test small models first. In the process, participants receive real-time customer feedback, update their models to meet customer needs and avoid creating businesses based on incorrect assumptions.