Prepare that elevator pitch.
On Saturday, June 3, about 10 of Tucson's entrepreneurs will step in front of a panel of judges to pitch their businesses.
And you could be one of them.
But don't expect it to be quite as harsh as ABC's "Shark Tank."
"It's not so cutthroat and competitive here," says Victor Mercado, the director of the Women's Business Center of Southern Arizona. "There is a sense of abundance here in Tucson. We all support everybody, and you need that community."
The local YWCA's Women's Business Center is hosting a Tucson competition that will feed the larger InnovateHER 2017 contest put on by the U.S. Small Business Administration since 2015.
All of the products and services pitched must serve and impact women specifically. The panel of judges here will be made up women leaders in Tucson.
Entrepreneurs can choose between two categories — pre-venture or startup. The winner in the pre-venture category won't move on to the national competition, but will instead earn yet-to-be-determined non-cash prizes — mostly likely resources that will support the business they pitched, Mercado says.
The winner of the startup category, a company that already has revenue, will move on to compete on a national level with winners from other local competitions.
And that's where you can win the big bucks: $40,000 for coming in first nationally, $20,000 for placing second and $10,000 for third.
Mercado adds that even those who don't move on to the next phase should look at the contest as a networking opportunity.
"Our role is to help propel women," he says. "How can we create spaces for women to network and thrive?"
There are three criteria to participate: Your business must impact women and families, it must have the "potential for commercialization" and it must "fill a need in the marketplace."
The deadline to apply is Wednesday, May 24. Anyone who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident and 18 and older can apply. Out of the submissions, a handful will be selected to pitch their ideas on 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 3 at the YWCA Frances McClelland Community Center, 525 N. Bonita Ave.
To learn more or submit an application, go here.
Trusting Connections
Trusting Connections founders Malkin and Prather go way back.
To middle school, to be exact.
They roomed together at the University of Arizona and the launched their nanny agency in August 2011.
"She's my work wife," Malkin says, laughing.
During their years at the university — Malkin studying nutrition, Prather studying political science — the friends worked as nannies to earn some cash. That's when they joked about one day opening their own agency.
"If you would have asked me in college if this is what I would have been doing, I would have laughed at you," says Malkin, who graduated from the UA in 2009 and began work as a postpartum doula.
Prather graduated the year prior and began working in tutoring. It was Prather who brought up the old joke, Malkin says. But this time, she was serious.
"It's always Rosalind's idea," Malkin says with a laugh. "I remember the phone call, and it was in January of 2011, and she said, 'Tucson needs this. We just need to do it.' So we started researching."
Unlike many nanny agencies, Trusting Connections employs its nannies, shouldering that responsibility so families don't have to.
"When I was in college, I had a family give me a 1099 and I ended up owing the IRS a lot of money," she says. "I did some research and learned that the IRS does say that nannies and sitters are employees of a family, and so it was from personal experience that triggered me to do research and I realized that this is a really big missing piece in the industry."
Trusting Connections has two major components.
