It’s one thing to develop an innovative business idea — it’s quite another thing to sell it in five minutes before judges who well know a good thing when it’s presented to them.

That was the case Wednesday night (April 30) at Market Hall as the Innovation Cluster Peterborough and the Kawarthas hosted its third LevelUP Pitch Competition, with two female-owned businesses coming out on top.

At the centre of the competition, with $10,000 up for grabs, were presentations by eight graduates of the Innovation Cluster’s 12-week LevelUP business accelerator program to a panel of four judges. Each entrepreneur had five minutes to summarize their venture, growth strategy, and business case.

When all was pitched and done, Her Yes Club founder and CEO Carmen Doucette was deemed the winner of the $10,000 grand prize, with Happy Cramps founder Monica Singh deemed the runner-up, earning her three free months of tailored Innovation Cluster client services — a $6,000 value.

Her Yes Club is an on-demand platform that connects mothers with safety-screened home daycares that match their needs, schedules, and preferences.

A working mother of two, Doucette’s founding of Her Yes Club was rooted in her frustration finding suitable home daycare for her children. That led to researching and networking, a process that connected her parents and childcare providers.

Now incorporated as a Canadian business, the Her Yes Club app is close to a full roll-out, with those looking for home daycare and those providing that service invited to join as members at heryesclub.ca.

“I’m obsessed with solving this problem because I’ve lived it,” noted Doucette during her pitch, adding “I’ve experienced the stress and inequality that inaccessible childcare creates … and it isn’t pretty.”

“Every year, $134 billion is lost in earnings and productivity due to childcare challenges. This impacts those not only seeking care but those who are providing it, specifically home daycares.”

Noting home daycare providers “lack the tools to effectively manage and advertise their businesses,” she added “This affects providers and parents because they’re navigating a fragmented system … they rely on manually tracking information through text messages and emails once care is secured.”

Her Yes Club, she explained, is an all-in-one mobile app that seamlessly connects those in need of home daycare with providers of that service.

“We’re positioned to capture $1.9 million of this market in the next three years by focusing on home-based daycares in Ontario who care for a maximum of five children, and don’t rely on agency support,” she said.

Over the next seven years, added Doucette, the plan is to capture $16 million across Canada, with the bigger goal of capturing a $160 million untapped market opportunity.

Judging her pitch and asking questions, as they did of each of the seven other entrepreneurs, were SHiFT Selling Inc. chief catalyst Craig Elias, Ameresco asset sustainability vice-president Kelly Hagen, Maddison Wong Investments CEO Jaime Wong, and Peterborough County economic development general manager Rhonda Keenan.

“What I was impressed with was how practical a lot of these applications were — they were solving real-world problems,” said Keenan.

“I always take that really practical approach. Have you done really your homework? Do you really have a client? Do you really have an audience? Have you really solved the need, and are you doing it best?”

“The person who can show that to me — that they have thought this through and have a plan and can say ‘I have a problem and here’s how I’m going to solve it’ — is the one who gets my vote.”

The winning entry checked all those boxes, according to Keenan’s criteria.

Doucette later told kawarthaNOW that the LevelUP program “prepared me for this moment,” adding “The 10 grand will really propel my business forward … it’s 10 grand but it might as well be $10 million.”

“All of the experts in residence (at the Innovation Cluster) that I met with helped me in ways that I didn’t even know I needed help with. The really late nights and the early mornings and the weekends, the sacrifices I’ve had to make to get to this point, make this validating. It’s that pat on the back to keep me going.”

Speaking to her LevelUP cohort, Doucette said while the competition “was fierce, everybody was so supportive of each other.”

“We’re all in such a specific stage of our businesses,” she said. “We want to do the same things, we’re interested in the same things, so we truly have each other’s backs.”

Meanwhile, as runner-up, Monica Singh was no less thrilled her pitch for Happy Cramps caught the judges’ attention.

Noting 15 per cent of women experience severe menstrual cramps, resulting in lost work productivity, she’s developed a patch that, when applied to the lower abdomen, provides up to eight hours of natural oils-based relief. Singh concluded her pitch by asking the judges to help her “be a happy cramper.”

“I really wanted to communicate what the product and innovation is,” said Singh afterwards, also heaping praise on her LevelUP experience.

“The mentorship — the experiences getting advice — was very valuable. And the friendships you make in entrepreneurship end up lasting a lifetime. I’m happy I made that community. I’m going to be keeping in touch with all of them.”

Sponsored by Matrix Venture Studio, Launch Path, Innovation Venture Farm, and ANC, the pitch competition also saw the following entrepreneurs take to the stage.

• Fiona Laygo and Batool Kazmi of Chérie AI, an AI-powered app that transforms makeup shopping by analyzing users’ photos to recommend products based on their skin tone and type.
• Sahar Rastgar of NiniChef Educations Labs Inc., an online platform for kids aged 5 to 9 years old that teaches life skills through interactive cooking lessons, personalizing content by age and gender while helping them apply and develop math and science skills.
• Mehran Aria of Reziland, an AI-powered app that transforms high-rise living by combining building management tools with community-driven features, from amenity bookings and maintenance requests to local marketplaces and social networking.
• Rime El Bakri of Salleo, an AI-powered business analysis platform that automates requirement gathering, stakeholder management and product delivery for IT teams, with the result being boosted productivity, cost savings, and project timeline acceleration.
• Eduardo Yonathan of Sanostrategy Corporation, which produces and installs high-efficiency, durable, and cost-effective wind turbines geared specifically for rural residences and businesses.
• Issam El Missaoui of Yadag Technologies Inc., an end-to-end platform that connects food growers with seasonal farm workers, streamlining hiring, compliance, and task management to save farmers’ time and ensure more efficient food production.

Prior to the pitches, the audience heard from Innovation Cluster board chair Nicole Stephenson, Peterborough County Warden Bonnie Clark, and Peterborough Mayor Jeff Leal. All three praised each competitor for their entrepreneurial spirit and courage to move forward on their ideas.

“LevelUP has demonstrated that Canadian innovation is world class,” noted Stephenson in a post-event media release. “This cohort raised the bar even higher, showing just how ready our SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) are to scale and lead.”

“Congratulations to Her Yes Club, Happy Cramps, and every founder in this program. Your hustle, creativity, and grit are exactly what Canada needs to keep pushing innovation forward.”

Based at the VentureNorth building in downtown Peterborough, the Innovation Cluster supports small and medium-sized enterprises in clean tech, health and medical tech, agri-tech, the nuclear ecosystem, and digital tech. A non-profit organization, it’s dedicated to fuelling regional innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development in Peterborough and the Kawarthas.

The Innovation Cluster is now accepting applications for its next LevelUP cohort planned for this summer. The program is open to technology-based businesses with a minimum viable product (MVP) launched into the market and ready for scale, To learn more and apply, visit innovationcluster.ca/levelup.