What Makes a Good Vogt Awards Candidate

What Makes a Good Vogt Awards Candidate

By: Lisa Bajorinas, Vogt Awards Program Director

The Community Foundation of Louisville’s Vogt Awards program is the longest-standing startup accelerator of its kind. It’s unique in that it not only provides founders with $25,000 in grant funding while allowing them to retain full ownership of their business, the program also offers 10 weeks of education and mentorship to grow their startup. We’re looking for coachable founders and entrepreneurs of promising startups ready to take their business to the next level.

This year’s winners will join the ranks of Vogt Awards alumni RxLightning, Stuccco, BrainSTEM, Forecastr, Unitonomy, FreshFry, WeatherCheck and Inscope Medical, to name a few. You’ll receive coaching from CEOs of scalable startups, advice from mentors who are a step ahead of your startup, and the camaraderie of the founders in your cohort. To cap it all off, you’ll present the progress of your startup at this year’s Demo Day.

A Vogt Award winner in the making is passionate about solving a big problem. You want to disrupt your industry through innovation, customer acquisition and strategic partnerships. And you’re able to tell us why you’re the best ones to solve this problem.

The ideal Vogt Award candidate’s business model is being developed, validated and refined, and is flexible enough to pivot as needed. We highly prefer your company to have at least 1 full-time founder and, ideally, a co-founder. Your key development work is likely being outsourced at this juncture. Your team has built a working prototype and has a product roadmap. Your annual revenue is $250,000 or less, and your team is on track to capture your initial target market. Financing to date is less than $500,000, generally from grants, accelerators, seed investors, friends and family.

Sound like you? Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of the 2021 Vogt Awards program! We encourage you to apply and tell us about your startup by May 30, 2021.