TBED Community of Practice webinar highlights practical advice for SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition applicants

The most recent TBED Community of Practice webinar, “SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition in Action,” featured two previous winners of the GAFC who provided tips on how to prepare for and what to expect from the competition. A representative from SBA was also on hand to give the agency’s perspective.

Jack Henkel from the Florida High Tech Corridor, which received a State II GAFC award in 2023, outlined that program’s overall plan for the award, describing their planning and processes for bringing their Cenfluence initiative to central Florida, particularly rural areas. He also talked about the companies that benefitted from their program, highlighting a few as top success stories.

Rick Lloyd from FuzeHub talked about their more recent 2024 award. He described how the project is reaching out to people in New York State who do not have access to universities to develop entrepreneurship, explaining that the project’s first task was to identify organizations in the state that lack such access.

Both award winners addressed questions of general interest to those considering applying for the award. They detailed how their project evolved from Stage I to Stage II. They gave tips for people applying for the award, which included talking to potential partners early in the process, being concise and clear in the application, and being transparent about the problems you are facing in your system.

Conrad Holloman from the U.S. Small Business Administration stressed that the story, to be told in narrative form in the application, is extremely important. He also emphasized that for applicants for Stage II, SBA is looking for evidence of the forward motion of the organization from Stage I.

For more tips and details, watch the replay of the webinar and access the slides here.