Natural hair small business Koko and online marketplace Guyana Premier emerged winner and runner-up of the 2017 Scotiabank Vision Achiever LivePitch Business Plan competition, following the conclusion of the three-part event earlier this month.
Denisha Victor of Koko and Davindra Laltoo of Guyana Premier successfully pitched their way to $500,000 and $250,000 respectively from a field of six finalists. The other finalists were New Generation Great Minds, CWYN’s Domain, Shermol’s Cleaning Services and Freedom2Love Agency.
From left Stephen Eze (Freedom2Love), Hilary Benjamin-Byer (NGGM), runner-up Davindra Lalltoo, winner Denisha Victor, Hostess of Scotiabank’s Money Moves television show Wanita Huburn, Scotiabank Marketing Manager Jennifer Cipriani, finalist Colwyn Abrams and ActionCoach Head Vishnu Doerga in studio following the announcement of the winners of this year’s competition.
The competition, a partnership with the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry to promote entrepreneurship, commenced in April when a public call was made for budding entrepreneurs to submit a 60-second video pitch for a new business or expansion of an existing business.
The videos were posted to the Scotiabank Guyana Facebook page for public voting. The three videos with the most likes were automatic finalists while the judges were tasked with identifying two wildcard picks, not necessarily based on number of votes. Since there were six entries into the competition, it was decided to send all to the final rounds which comprised a written business plan and a television pitch to a panel of judges.
ActionCoach Guyana provided several weeks of training to help the finalists with crafting the business plan and launching and improving their business, which was done using the Scotiabank free online Business Plan Writer tool. The judges were Lance Hinds, CEO of Brainstreet Group; Dr. Rosh Khan CEO of SocialRank Media and the Masterclass Institute; and Brian Hackett, Scotiabank Branch Manager.
The Scotiabank Vision Achiever Programme LivePitch competition is one of the Bank’s initiatives to celebrate Small Business Month in September. This is the third year (under this format) for this exciting competition which was first launched in September 2015. Previous winners are Wafugee Inc. and Privileged Clothing for 2015 and 2016 respectively.