HustleSBE holds graduation ceremony for its seventh cohort
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The South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership graduated its seventh cohort of entrepreneurs from the HustleSBE program on Tuesday at the St. Joe County Public Library.
With a focus on women and minority entrepreneurs, the business bootcamp fosters peer connections and supports accountability among business owners in the region.
The program prioritizes business owners that have been in operation for at least a year and are interested in exploring new solutions, innovating business practices and creating a solid foundation.
“Much of Hustle is Main Street-type businesses because those are the foundation of the community. These are the people who are hiring locally, sponsoring the little league team, working with their chambers of commerce, shaping our communities,” Jess Koscher, HustleSBE facilitator, said. “So many of the Hustle grads are just out doing great things, learning to scale their businesses appropriately.”
Launched in 2018, the bootcamp has supported over 60 entrepreneurs in the region and disbursed more than $40,000 to its students.
Koscher, a HustleSBE alum and CEO of Write Connections, an Elkhart-based design, marketing and strategy firm, has facilitated the last three cohorts.. Koscher participated in the third cohort.
“What HustleSBE did for me was give me that time to think about where’s this going, what’s my endgame?” Koscher said. “I made a distinct decision that I didn’t want to be a huge marketing firm; I wanted to be a boutique firm that got to pick who I worked with and wasn’t so driven by numbers, but quality of work. So it really helped me consider my options early on.”
Koscher recently stepped off her role volunteering on the regional partnership’s diversity and inclusion committee after serving for nine years. She drew on her experience working with United Way Worldwide.
After she was let go from her job, Koscher launched Write Connections in 2019, following much encouragement from her network.
“I had spent my entire career in nonprofits. I have a master’s degree in nonprofit management and I was like the poster child for nonprofits,” Koscher said. “I had never considered being a for-profit business owner in my life. Basically when I started the firm, I just threw everything that I had done in my career up on the wall and offered it as a service.”
Koscher was inspired by her own business trajectory and her experience working in a not-for-profit to create the new HustleSBE curriculum.
Jess Koscher speaks about the way HustleSBEs curriculum has evolved.
“If you have a taco truck, you know how to make great tacos. It doesn’t mean you know how to read a profit and loss statement or draw up a contract,” she said. “So Hustle became eight weeks of helping participants shine a light on dark corners. When we’re afraid and we don’t venture into those dark corners, we’re not in control of our business. There’s other forces that are. We have to own those spaces.”
Participants also graduate from the program with an extensive network of connections to accountants, lawyers, marketers and many other professionals who are willing to help.
Nicky Foust, a graduate in this year’s cohort, got a mysterious email advertising the program. Foust, who moved back from Colorado in 2021, was looking to connect with other business owners in the area and loved the idea of being a part of the bootcamp. So she applied.
“I thought this was going to be a great way to not only learn a little bit more about business in this community, because it is different than it was out in Colorado, but also to be able to meet some other business owners,” Foust said. “Community within anything you’re doing is really important. Having people that you could go to and if you’re struggling with something or if you want to celebrate something.”
Foust runs the Elkhart-based Chef for Seniors franchise, a meal service that delivers a chef to prepare food for seniors in their homes. While the company markets towards seniors, Foust is able to take on other clients who may need her service.
“It just made sense. It’s definitely a thing that is really needed in this area, so the opportunity was there,” Foust said. “And I thought, these guys as the franchise will take care of a lot of things that I don’t love taking care of like putting together marketing, website maintenance and things like that, and I could focus on the actual business.”
Foust was one of 15 businesses admitted to HustleSBEs seventh cohort. For her, the biggest lesson has been the importance of taking time to work on the business and not just in the business.
“Taking the time every week to actually attend the class and be there and spend that time thinking about other things in my business is really important,” she said. “It’s also nice to get that reinforcement that I’m not the only one struggling with certain things. It’s just nice to know you’re not alone.”
Another graduate heard about the program from her landlady. Beautypreneur Lyz King has been in business since 2019, although she started doing makeup in 2009. After a few years of managing a MAC Cosmetics location in Indianapolis, King moved back to South Bend to be with family and start her own business.
“This is where I started my career in beauty so my whole goal was to come and open up a beauty bar here and then get other locations,” King said. “My landlady’s very supportive and randomly sends me different grant applications. She’s a super sweet lady. She’s been in business for a long time so she’s just in support of women in business.”
The beauty professional runs Beauty King, a beauty bar providing makeup services and a coworking space for other beauty professionals to work out of.
“Once I became independent, my focus was growing my business, figuring out ways to advance, figuring out ways to try to expand and make this bigger,” King added. “I’m always seeking opportunities to learn and to grow and to network and create relationships and connections with other businesses in my area, so it just seemed perfect for me to see what the opportunity was about.”
King, who has participated in other small business workshops, appreciated the signature focuses of HustleSBEs curriculum.
“It’s really great that they have these people that specialize in these different areas that are very important to the run and just even the build of your business,” King said. “People in finance, accounting, marketing, just all the different avenues that you may need some guidance.”
In the course of the program, King was alarmed to find out how much she was spending compared to how much she was making from her business.
“One of the things that stood out the most for me early on was mapping out how much I actually spend, because I provide refreshments for the clients and for the stylists,” she said. “When I sat down and thought about how much I’m really spending, I was shocked. It helped me have a better plan and have everything accounted for because it’s easy to get distracted.”
HustleSBE accepts applications on a rolling basis, and admission is highly competitive with only 15 businesses chosen for each cohort. The next cohort will run out of Elkhart and is expected to start in September.
“One of the things we are really concerned about is letting people that can benefit from the class know about bootcamp,” Koscher said. “That’s always a challenge because even though you go to your chamber of commerce, that’s not really where those people are. So anything we can do to help minority and women owned businesses with at least one year of experience know about this would be great.”
You can learn more about HustleSBE by clicking here.