This excellent series of free webinars designed to help small business owners succeed in a challenging world — offered by the Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) — is back with a can’t-miss Business Education Workshop Webinar on Wednesday, August 10th at 3 pm Central. All their webinars are free and open to the public, and many are offered online, which means that anyone can attend — they’re not restricted to Chicago small business owners.
I wanted to highlight this upcoming session in particular; it’s part of the SCORE Chicago Funding Webinar Series. In case you’re unfamiliar with SCORE (the Service Corps Of Retired Executives), it’s an amazing resource funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration, offering education, mentorship, and tools to help people start, develop, and grow businesses. The Chicago Chapter is particularly robust and offers many opportunities for training, as well as a free suite of templates — such as business planning and financial projections.
Both SCORE and BACP offer many sessions on raising capital, which you can watch on the Chicago BACP YouTube Channel, or SCORE’s Online Webinar Library.
This webinar should be of special interest to our readers, as it’s an interview with two small business owners who will walk through the experience that they had working with SCORE to access capital through different methods of financing, in different rounds throughout the stages of their business growth. For me, hearing “how we did it” from other small business owners is not only educational, but inspiring, and I hope this upcoming webinar will offer you both angles.
Wednesday, 8/10 Webinar at 3:00 PM
How We Did It: Raising Capital for Your Business
Presented by Score Chicago
(Part of a Score Chicago Funding Webinar Series)
In this webinar, you will learn how two Chicago entrepreneurs, former SCORE Chicago clients, and founders of Tiesta Tea Dan Klein and Patrick Tannous raised 4 rounds of financing totaling over $8 million. Tiesta Tea has also used many different methods of funding including friends/family, factoring, purchase order (PO) financing, SBA loans, Angel Investors, and VC funding. Dan and Patrick will share their experiences raising capital during the different growth stages of their business.
Tiesta Tea is a company that used SCORE Chicago to get started in 2010. Dan and Patrick know first-hand how important mentorship is for aspiring entrepreneurs and established businesses seeking mentoring from SCORE to accelerate the growth and success of their businesses. The founders, Dan Klein and Patrick Tannous, started with nothing but an idea to sell tea, and fast-forward 10 years, they have sold over $54MM of their product. They sell their teas in thousands of retail stores, including Walmart, Jewel, Mariano’s, Amazon, Costco and many more.
Please email BACPoutreach@cityofchicago.org with any webinar questions.
Visit BACP’s YouTube for all webinars.
BACP Entrepreneur Certificate Program
The Chicago Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection (BACP) Entrepreneur Certificate Program is a free and optional program available to attendees of the free BACP business education workshop and webinar series.
For program details (enrollment, requirements, contact information, etc.) and to enroll go to Entrepreneur Certificate Program.
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