The Social Impact Incubator Program, hosted each year by DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, brings together professionals from various industry backgrounds to learn, share ideas and grow their businesses. The eight-week bootcamp, held from January to March, provides participants with the knowledge, tools and support needed to better understand the world of entrepreneurs and to develop their business further.
In this blog post, we asked two participants from the 2023 program to reflect on their experiences and share how the program helped them and their businesses.
Sina Ansari, Founder of StreamMD and Assistant Professor of Management & Entrepreneurship at DePaul University
StreamMD is a platform for doctors to efficiently practice medicine via scalable continuous conversations with their patients. It optimizes access, coherence, and depth of care for patients.
During the program, I had the opportunity to learn about various business models that can be applied to my specific industry or business. This helped me discover new ways to generate revenue, reduce costs and increase efficiency. Additionally, I gained knowledge on how to create a sustainable business model that will allow my business to grow and thrive over time. For instance, I learned about the potential of using crowdsourcing websites even for B2B businesses as a way to get a better understanding of potential customers’ needs.
Expanding my network was another valuable takeaway from the program. This involved meeting new people in my industry or related industries, building new relationships and learning from their experiences. For example, I was introduced to a legal consultant and a potential angel investor.
I also had the opportunity to gain new skills, knowledge and experiences during the program. This helped me develop a business model using business model canvas, marketing strategy and learn how to effectively pitch to investors. Additionally, I gained insights into emerging trends in my industry and learned about new technologies or tools that could help my business.
Dr. Cedric Salone, Founder or Bedewed Skin
Bedewed Skin is a non-medicated, plant-based skincare line that uses minimal fragrances but instead clean, rich ingredients to combat dry, itchy skin. The journey to creating Bedewed Skin started after the realization of how many individuals with dry/dehydrated skin need high-quality, long-lasting skin hydration.
I wanted to share a few examples of how the SII incubator helped my brand with website enhancement. Please note that at the time of my website changes, I was in transition to another mentor so I cannot attribute any of my successes (as far as website enhancements) to that one particular person. However, I am working with a new mentor and we seem to be a great match but we are in the very early stages of our relationship.
PageSpeedInsight- I used this website,PageSpeed Insights (web.dev) to find out if the speed of my page was up to par with other websites that sold the same types of products as my brand does. I found out that my page was too slow and didn’t meet the standards of having fast, reliable speed. Meaning, my products and videos were uploading much slower than normal. This could be a turn off to customers and lead them away from my site. To fix this, I am working with a team of individuals who took the suggestions of the report given to me on how to correct the speed of the website and they fixed most of the issues. I had no clue this type of site existed until one of the guest speakers told me that it was a great tool to use to ensure that my website speed was great.
Color Scheme- Being in the beauty industry, it is important that my brand has a cohesive color scheme throughout my entire website. I used the Psychology of Color website to check my brand colors and thankfully I choose correctly. Before this website, I relied on walking down the aisle of skincare lines and choose colors other brands have based on if it was marketed to a male or a female. Now I have an actual tool to use.
Overall, the incubator program has provided me with knowledge that I have searched for two years in literally eight weeks. The guest speakers and their lectures were awesome and invaluable. To be honest, I am still soaking up some of the knowledge and have plans to apply different tools, one by one, over the course of the year to see how my business develops. I am super excited about the information I received, and am grateful for being a part of this cohort.