MoCo Made’s Step-Up and Thrive Workshop Series Recap with Recording and Resources!
Overview: The MoCo Made Step-Up and Thrive Workshop Series provided business owners with valuable insights on sales strategy and pitching, understanding their target audience, and product pricing and financials. Participants had the opportunity to take part in the MoCo Eats Showcase as featured speakers to highlight their businesses. Best of all, the Food Council was proud to offer these opportunities FREE to MoCo Made businesses. All workshops in the series were led by Cureate, a unique food and beverage business partner that understands the industry and has guided 400+ businesses on their journey to success.
Workshop One: The Value of Customer Persona, led by Stacey Simmons, Creative Director, Cureate.
Thursday, January 30th, 1:00pm-2:30pm (watch recording here)
Food & beverage entrepreneurs learned to explore who their target customer was and why it was so important to define a target group. They imagined speaking directly to that person and began asking questions like, ‘Who is that person?’ ‘Why is this person more likely to buy my product than someone else?’ and ‘Where can I find that person?’
Workshop Two: How to Pitch to Buyers
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 10am – 11:30am (watch recording here)
Food & beverage entrepreneurs learned how to create an effective sales sheet and sales strategy to attract wholesale buyers. Additionally, participating businesses gained skills in pitching themselves to prospective buyers or potential funders.
- Resources: Upload your product sales sheet here. This folder is shared with local and regional buyers to highlight locally owned and produced products, helping to increase their visibility and boost sales to consumers.
Workshop Three: Financials & Bookkeeping
Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 2:30-4:00pm (watch recording here)
Figuring out food costs when starting or growing a wholesale program was one of the most challenging and important aspects of running a business. In this workshop, participants explored how to price their products, discussed key factors in bookkeeping, and learned about different financing options to achieve their goals.
Finale: Navigating the Startup Process for Small Businesses Panel Discussion at the MoCo Eats Showcase
Monday, March 31, 2025 (in-person)
Session Description: Provided by The Montgomery County Food Council and facilitated by Cureate, this panel includes diverse entrepreneurs and a retailer sharing experiences, challenges, and key strategies for launching and scaling food businesses.
ABOUT CUREATE
Cureate exists to shift the dollar back into our local communities by building an empowered food & beverage supply to meet a changing consumer demand. We’ve built a suite of services to grow small businesses, and one unified platform where big businesses can purchase from all their local vendors with only one invoice. Cureate has worked with 400+ food & beverage vendors across the Mid-Atlantic and the Heartland, connecting them with new business opportunities through our proprietary procurement platform, Cureate Connect. To broaden the pipeline of small businesses ready to meet institutional demand, Cureate Courses, our customized toolkits and bespoke small business curriculum will empower small businesses to navigate the steps required to grow and scale. Across all our work, Cureate has partnered directly with city governments, economic development organizations and food policy councils on planning projects to build the infrastructure to shift dollars back to local businesses.