INVANTI Cohort 2 Begins with Entrepreneurs from New York, Ireland, Miami, D.C., St. Louis, and Mishawaka

7 entrepreneurs have moved to South Bend for 6 months to work on issues facing America’s small business owners.

Supporting Small Businesses for the Future

Small businesses make up the backbone of our communities and our economy. Family-owned businesses employ over 60% of the US workforce, create 78% of all new jobs, and generate 64% of the United States GDP (source). But being a small business owner is difficult. Half of all small businesses hold a cash buffer of less than one month, 36% have an issue meeting basic operating expenses, 46% have trouble accessing credit or capital to expand (source).

Small business owners have to constantly switch between working in their business and working on their business — this creates a huge opportunity to make their lives easier. However, most of the entrepreneurship and innovation world is focused on building enterprise-level solutions, and while they have versions marketed to small businesses, they don’t really understand the reality and differences between a national enterprise and a main street business. We believe that there is an opportunity to learn from small business owners about their struggles and create ventures with solutions specifically aimed at them. Supporting these businesses can have a huge impact on the business owners, their families, and our communities.

The Focus

Cohort 2 will look into a range of issues that face America’s small business owners. Managing finances and inventory, planning for growth and expansion, pricing and purchasing, training and retaining great employees, navigating permitting and regulations, and much more will be explored to find places where scalable ventures can be built to support them.

Why South Bend?

There is no better place to learn about the ups and downs of being a small business owner than a community where they play such an important role in our daily lives. South Bend has a vibrant small business scene, which will allow our Cohort 2 entrepreneurs the chance to learn what happens in the day-to-day of running a business. This insight, combined with the national level research and network that INVANTI has curated, is the secret sauce behind building a venture that resonates with individual customers but also has the ability to scale nationally.

Our Approach

INVANTI is a full-time commitment in which we dig deep into problems, spend a lot of time in coffee shops meeting with lots of different people, and ultimately use those insights to decide what solutions we can build and quickly test. INVANTI is the perfect place for people we call initiators. Our group of entrepreneurs are people who are not afraid to just get started, whether that means sitting in a coffee shop with a sign that says “I want to talk to you about medical bills!” or flying across the country to test a prototype made from post-it notes (shout out to Cohort 1!). There is something powerful about a group of like-minded people in the same room, all passionate about building important things. Starting a venture is hard. But for those who aren’t afraid to start, we’re building a place for them at INVANTI.

We sum up our approach in four steps:

1. Define a Problem

We research big, important, complex problems facing the majority of Americans and define broad opportunity areas for new ventures. We engage startups, existing businesses, non-profits, and government to understand the problems from many perspectives and hunt for places where new solutions may be possible.

2. Recruit the people

Great entrepreneurs are problem finders before they are problem solvers. We recruit people who are hungry to solve important problems by starting a business, but don’t have an idea yet including:

• Generalists — 2+ years in consulting or a startup
• Experts — 2+ years experience with the problem
• Technologists — 2+ years in software hardware

We intentionally recruit women, Black, and Latinx aspiring entrepreneurs.

3. Generate a Solution

We dig deeper into the problems and opportunities with our entrepreneurs and generate new solutions and business models. We emphasize testing assumptions about the solutions early and often with those who understand the problem best.

4. Build a Company

We invest in and support our entrepreneurs to build and launch their ventures. We help find the first customer or pilot, build the first version of the solution, and setup back-end services to make sure that the entrepreneurs’ time is spent building a great product/service.

Stay tuned over next couple weeks as we introduce each new member with a blog about their experience and thoughts heading into Cohort 2. The first one is out today: Nicola Brown from Miami, FL

INVANTI is a startup generator in the Midwest.

We recruit entrepreneurial talent and provide them deep insight into the most important problems facing Americans today. We then generate new solutions and business models and ultimately build companies that matter: invanti.co