Fownders, a recently established non-profit incubator located in Newark, New Jersey, dove head long into the Newark entrepreneurial scene with its hosting of a Startup Pitch Competition on August 8 at nearby Red Bull Arena. Located in the University Heights section of Newark with September 1st as its formal opening date, Fownders was developed by Gerard Adams, co-founder of Elite Daily which was sold for approximately $50 million.
“We created Fownders because we wanted to encourage and help develop startups in urban communities like Newark’s University Heights neighborhood,” stated Adams. Fownders is now part of a growing Newark entrepreneurial ecosystem that recently saw the establishment of an accelerator by Newark Venture Partners that just closed a $23 million fund to be used to finance seed and Series A tech startups.
The Startup Pitch Competition showcased 12 entrepreneurs, both local and from afar, who were vying for the $10,000 grand prize, selection into one of five slots for Fownders’ twelve week accelerator program, and a one year free membership for all presenters. The winner of the competition, Arise Alarm, received the $10,000 grand prize.
“I have what I feel is a tool that most of America needs” said Jade, who is a Newark resident and a writer. Her inspiration for creating the Arise Alarm was to create an app that “wakes, inspires and impacts”. The app is an alarm clock that has no snooze option, in order to turn off the alarm, one must retype an inspirational quote shown in the app.
Jade wrote all the quotes herself and are intended to serve as inspiration to those who are depressed and or suffering from a lack of motivation. Jade stated in her pitch that her Arise Alarm app “impacts because I feel like if you change your mind, you change yourself, you change the world, you can go out and create change.”
The accelerator program is designed to teach entrepreneurs about a range of topics supportive of their success that includes personal development, financial literary, leadership, and emotional intelligence among others.
“I felt success without fulfillment was the ultimate failure” shared Adams explaining his reasoning behind selling Elite Daily in favor of starting Fownders. Adams says he “wanted to be able to really take that step forward to mentor and help inspire this next generation.”
The judges that served were entrepreneurs, developers, CEOs and CCOs. Workshops and panels prior to the pitch competition included: Gerard Adams, co-founder of Elite Daily and Fownders; Anthony Frazier of Newark Venture Partners, $50M venture capital firm in Newark; Lindsey Holmes, CEO of Usable Tech Co in Newark and Washington, DC; Charles Cording, co-founder and CCO of Shock + Awe; Vince Randolph, local entrepreneur who teaches code for the City of Newark; Taseen Patterson, local entrepreneur who created the Notebly app, which currently has over 1M users; and Lisa Ascolese, founder and CEO of Inventing A to Z.
