The KB is a Bad Girl Ventures Finalist!

The Spring 2013 Bad Girl Ventures Class. (That’s the KB first row, second to the left.)

Hello dear readers!

Once again it’s been a crazy month here for the Kitchen Bitch and I have lots of great stuff to report!

First and foremost, the KB, aka The Delish Dish,  is a Bad Girl (as if you didn’t know that anyway)! What that means is that I am one of 10 women-owned businesses to compete in the Spring 2013 Bad Girl Ventures program for a $25,000 loan to get my business, The Delish Dish, off the ground.

Bad Girl Ventures (BGV) is a highly localized micro-lending organization focused on funding woman-owned start-ups in the Greater Ohio region, specifically Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. As a nonprofit, BGV combines micro-lending with a 9-week business development course to help support women entrepreneurs in all the key elements of their business.

The 9-week business development course is open to anyone—woman or man; however, if you apply to be finalist, you not only get to take the business courses on scholarship, you also compete against 9 other women-owned businesses for a $25K loan provided by BGV.

In order to become a finalist, I had to complete an in-depth application describing my business and what I would do with the $25K loan. From 46 applicants, the BGV board of directors chose 14 women as semi-finalists. Each semi-finalist then had to give a 10-minute presentation to the board, bankers, and investors. This is where the fun began for me, because I was in Las Vegas for my first Catersource Convention and Tradeshow, so I had to give my PowerPoint presentation and speech over Google Hangout! Ah!Talk about stressful—there were definitely some technical difficulties! In the end, it all worked out, and I’m so proud to announce that I am a FINALIST in this spring’s BGV program, its seventh class since the nonprofit started in 2010. What’s so amazing is that each finalist is paired with a SCORE counselor to mentor her throughout the program and is expected to complete and submit a homework assignment for each class, a business plan, a marketing plan, 3-year financial projections, and a SBA loan application.

At the end of the course each finalist presents to the selection committee, which determines who receives the $25,000 loan. The loan is awarded at a graduation celebrating the completion of the course.

So. …. WOW! I’ve got a lot to do over the next 9 weeks, but I’ll be so happy to have all of these important documents ready to go and I know I’m going to make lifelong connections with other fabulous women-owned businesses.

I love my SCORE mentor already, and I’m so excited to really get my business moving in 2013 with the help of all these amazing people. After attending the Catersource convention for catering professionals and personal chefs, I’m full of great ideas for moving The Delish Dish forward. Look for a new Corporate Catering Menu in the near future, as well as some yummy new recipes.

You can follow The Delish Dish on Facebook and Twitter if you want to follow my progress over the next few weeks. I couldn’t have gotten this far without all the love and support of my husband, family, friends, and AMAZING clients and readers! Thanks guys for sticking with me 🙂

Becoming a BGV finalist means more to me than words can express—it means that the last 3 years of blood, sweat, and tears were worth it. And that my dream of owning and running my own business full time will be reality in no time flat. I realize that the hard work has just begun, but now that I’ve laid the groundwork for this business I’m ready to take it to the next level and bring the greater Cincinnati area my vision of gourmet cooking.

Look out, world! Here I come!

Lots of love, The KB