Price Hill Will and XU partner to offer free entrepreneurship workshop

If the thought of starting a business has ever crossed your mind, you’ll have the chance to take that thought one step further at LaunchCincy.
 
LaunchCincy is a free, three-part entrepreneurship workshop offered in partnership by Price Hill Will and Xavier University’s Sedler Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
 
“You can come with a business idea or just the idea to own a business, and we’re going to step back either way and teach people how you observe your environment—whether at a coffee shop or a grocery store—and look at what people are struggling with and then see those as potential business ideas,” says Diana Vakharia, Price Hill Will’s director of economic development. “Any idea is a solution to a problem.”
 
Problem identification is the focus of the first workshop, while other topics in the series include creating a business plan, marketing and fundraising. Each session is led by a combination of business professionals, Xavier faculty and MBA students.
 
“It’s a very unique opportunity to have that sort of expertise guide you in the early stages as you’re developing an idea,” Vakharia says.
 
Price Hill is a prototype for the series, but according to Vakharia, the goal is to take the workshops to other neighborhoods throughout Greater Cincinnati so they, too, can allow community members to grow their own small businesses.
 
“There will hopefully be individuals who, after the program, can move into an incubator space and share rent and work out their business idea in a safe environment, and maybe eventually get a storefront,” Vakharia says. “It’s in a theoretical state right now, but that’s what we’re envisioning.” 

Do Good:

• Register to attend LaunchCincy. The workshop series is free and open to anyone in Greater Cincinnati.

• Connect with Xavier X-Lab on Facebook.

• Connect with Price Hill Will on Facebook.

By Brittany York
Brittany York is a professor of English composition at both the University of Cincinnati and Xavier University. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.