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.