Back when Amy Witizigreuter’s son was young, she was a mother on a mission. Faced with multiple health problems, including an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnosis, Amy was doing everything in her power to help her son Paul find relief and optimize his health outcomes.

By the time he was eight, Paul had received both a liver and kidney transplant but was still experiencing severe gastrointestinal issues that had an impact on what he could and couldn’t eat.

Amy began experimenting with nutritional interventions, eliminating gluten, dairy, eggs and corn from her family’s diet and spending a lot of time in the kitchen to create food she couldn’t find on the store shelves.

While concocting recipes and flexing her culinary creativity, Amy found herself running into a recurring problem: there were very few healthy snacks that Paul could safely eat. So, she started perfecting her homemade granola to have on hand for the whole family whenever they were hungry.

Equally important as the ingredients in Amy’s granola was the process she used to ensure it was digestible for Paul – pre-soaking the nuts and seeds overnight and then dehydrating the granola in the oven at a low temperature. From there, Amy adds spices, fruits and maple syrup to create seven different flavor combinations including Lemon Raspberry, Chocolate Honeyberry and Pumpkin Spice.

Amy’s tasty granola won over not only her husband and their three children, but her friends and extended family as well. In 2018, she launched Witzi’s Raw Granola and started selling her product at farmer’s markets around the Northeast Ohio region.

While her granola was well received, she wasn’t making the strides she needed to grow her business into a full-fledged career. After attending a few of JumpStart’s signature events, she signed up for services and was paired with advisors who could guide her on her entrepreneurial journey.

“When you’re an entrepreneur, you’re passionate but you’re often alone and you’re wearing all the hats,” Amy explains. “So, it was great to have experienced people to run ideas by and coach you along.”

Amy says the personalized support JumpStart provided allowed her to hone in on her product while the Small Business Impact Program and access to available funding helped her achieve some important business milestones.

As someone with a sales background, Amy says one of the most valuable lessons she’s learned from JumpStart is the management of cash flow.

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“You can’t move forward unless you have a solid understanding of that – you have to know your costs.”

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The financial education and cost analysis assistance she received from JumpStart allowed her to reconsider her distribution model. While her sales were strong at the farmer’s markets, she had failed to account for her time and labor, which is a common oversight for entrepreneurs. JumpStart’s financial advisors took a holistic look into her business and after reviewing her cost breakdown, they realized that farmers markets were actually more of a marketing effort than a sales strategy.

“I had no idea what I was missing until we sat down and talked through it,” Amy says. “And that increased knowledge has given me a comfort level that’s going to help the brand grow.”

Additionally, Amy is devoted to the impact that Witzi’s can have on the community; not only providing nutrient-rich, organic snacks to people who have food allergies or specialty diets, but also supporting young adults with autism.

Now a teenager who has been thriving ever since receiving intervention, treatment and education at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Autism, Paul’s journey continues to shape his mother’s entrepreneurial endeavors. After reading a national study that found people with autism are more likely to be unemployed compared to their peers with other challenges, Amy decided to take matters into her own hands.

“As children like Paul age out of a school-based system there are not many other opportunities for them to gather skills,” she explained.

With Paul’s future in mind, Amy partnered with his school to bring students into the commercial kitchen where she manufactures her granola for weekly hands-on vocational training. By teaching transferable skills through production tasks like heat-sealing packages, prepping orders and stocking shelves, Amy hopes to help these students cultivate opportunities for employment in the future.

Today Amy is looking ahead; she’s planning to work with a large-scale distributor to take her brand from its Cleveland roots to the national stage.

“Granola here and granola everywhere,” she chuckles. “So long as it’s clean and purposeful and we’re supporting the health and well-being of our community – we’re all in.”

It is often said that ‘necessity is the mother of invention,’ and for Nicole Paolozzi, founder of OndeCare, her past life as a single mom working a demanding job in Chicago planted the seeds for her current company’s success.

“Back then, when I was traveling to the UK every six weeks, I used to dream of a taxi dispatch service that would drop off someone I implicitly trusted—a retired teacher or nurse or paraprofessional—to watch my child so I could balance the demands of my career with my home life,” Paolozzi says.

Years later, the dream resurfaced. Though the situation changed, her need for quality caregivers was as imperative as ever. With her mother-in-law in a wheelchair and her father-in-law diagnosed with Parkinson’s, Paolozzi moved her family back to Ohio to help support them as they aged.

“We were failing them miserably,” Paolozzi continues. “The available resources – the home care agencies couldn’t help. I was calling the fire department to go pick my father-in-law up off the floor and I thought to myself, ‘there has to be a better way.’”

When her father-in-law passed away, Paolozzi set out to deconstruct the problem she had been mulling over.

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“You have to learn the depth of the problem before you can build the solution.”

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She used her experience from previous jobs to evaluate market potential and competitive analysis. Through her research, Paolozzi realized an improved marketplace solution was the answer. From there, she began to create OndeCare—short for On Demand Care.

OndeCare is a one-stop app that matches families with professional, in-home care for their loved ones of all ages and needs while creating worthwhile caregiving jobs. The platform empowers caregivers to set their schedules and pay rates, offering flexibility and providing a platform to promote their services. The app does the heavy lifting—pairing open assignments with users’ requirements, automatically inviting bidding opportunities and providing 24/7 guidance and support. A concierge team manages each client-caregiver assignment and helps navigate any challenges or changes that may arise.

As for Paolozzi, she is wary of being deemed an entrepreneur. Not only does she insist she’s an accidental entrepreneur, but she clarifies further, pointing out that she’s actually an operating entrepreneur when asked about her experience as a tech startup.

“Technology is a way to improve processes and I used the solutions available to me to make it happen,” she explains. “While we are a tech-enabled marketplace, OndeCare is a service organization.”

Taking Care of Business

Paolozzi might be particular about how the details of entrepreneurship apply to her, but her background in Six Sigma—a data-driven business strategy that focuses on reducing uncertainties to solve process problems and eliminate defects—made her ripe for the startup world.

Paolozzi even built the first iteration of OndeCare herself, purchasing a basic instance and augmenting the MVP to suit her needs.

Paolozzi’s journey to scaling the OndeCare platform is a testament to the power of network connections. She was first introduced to JumpStart when working with her husband at their business consulting firm and creating market opportunity assessment training for economic development organizations. Her work with ecosystem players like Team NEO and the Youngstown Business Incubator put her in the same circles as JumpStart.

After a few attempts applying for funding from local lenders, Paolozzi worked with a JumpStart advisor to perfect her pitch, prepare for capital and secure an innovation grant from GLIDE. From there, Paolozzi joined national programs like Techstars and gBETA which helped her connect to investors on her target list.

“From JumpStart to GLIDE to Techstars—those were the stepping stones for OndeCare,” she explains. “We wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t have those resources.”

As a woman tech founder, raising the venture capital necessary to expand her platform is a challenge. A 2021 report from Springboard found that on average, only 3% of VC funding goes to women-led startups. Black women founders receive even less. But women-founded companies in VC portfolios often outperform those founded by men, generating a 35% higher ROI than their male counterparts.

“You can get disenchanted and angry if you let yourself,” she says. “If I focused on the facts and let those get me down, I would have closed my doors years ago. Instead, I accept the reality, reframe my thinking and consider what’s positive.”

Currently, Paolozzi leverages JumpStart’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence services to talk through sales, digital marketing needs and reducing her customer acquisition costs. At the end of last year, OndeCare launched in the DC metro area, and she is finalizing an agreement with a regional health insurance payer so OndeCare can be offered to their Medicare Advantage members.

Paolozzi believes the future for tech startups in Ohio is promising, especially as more investors are taking notice of the region and bringing venture capital to the state.

“My view is what’s good for Columbus is good for Cleveland,” Paolozzi suggests. “Let’s not engage in a competition until there’s real money to compete for.”

But just like the success rates of women entrepreneurs raising VC funds, she doesn’t give much attention to rivalries.

Angela Flowers has spent her career counseling at-risk kids challenged with emotional wellness and social issues. Her years working in Cleveland’s public schools showed her the power of providing intervention directly in the learning environment. That set the stage for her to develop a business model to bring specialized support to as many kids as possible.

THE SOLUTION

Angela’s idea was to build a network of licensed counselors and arm them with a thoughtful curriculum to help troubled kids thrive. Her counselors would provide services onsite at schools, giving kids the mediation needed at the right place and time to maximize impact.

THE FUEL

Through JumpStart, Angela received the advice, connections and funding needed to drive the growth of her business, Making A Difference Consulting.

“Making A Difference Consulting can now help hundreds of thousands of children, because JumpStart helped me see the possibilities for my business.”

– Angela C. Flowers, Co-Founder, Making A Difference Consulting

THE IMPACT

With help from JumpStart, Angela has hired 15 new employees and quadrupled her revenue in just two years. She’s also secured funding to further enhance her curriculum to prepare for expanding the business nationwide. Angela continues to hit every milestone she sets for her business. But, her real measure of success is when she knows that Making A Difference Consulting has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of kids around the U.S.

Anjua Maximo was working at fashion giant lululemon while teaching fitness in Los Angeles when she was first inspired to open a boutique studio focused on fitness and personal development. When her career led her to Cleveland, Anjua decided it was time to make the dream a reality. Her first consideration: Was there even a market for this type of studio in Cleveland?

THE SOLUTION

Turns out boutique fitness studios were in-demand in Cleveland, particularly among young adults looking for a sense of community. To stand apart, Anjua brought together the best of the latest fitness trends to break through the standard “big box” gym offerings. GrooveRyde’s high-energy workouts came with a positive mind, body and soul experience – exactly the vibe that attracts new, young talent destined to help Cleveland thrive.

THE FUEL

GrooveRyde was operating one location on the east side when Anjua connected with JumpStart. She participated in JumpStart’s Core City: Cleveland Impact program, which included a 12-week accelerated business assistance course that enabled Anjua to gain a clear understanding of her finances. Mentors at JumpStart helped her secure funding and build a strong business plan. This support fueled the expansion of GrooveRyde’s unique blend of fitness, inspiration and community into Downtown Cleveland.

“When I connected with JumpStart, I knew someone was in my corner. I fully leveraged their resources and expertise. They empowered me as an entrepreneur, so I could elevate my team and clients.”

– Anjua Maximo, Co-Founder, GrooveRyde

THE IMPACT

GrooveRyde has experienced a 50% increase in sales since she participated in the JumpStart program. The studio has opened an additional location near Reserve Square in Downtown Cleveland, which increased its roster of employees to more than 50. This new location brings the type of energetic vibe that attracts young professionals and gives businesses another perk to help retain talent.

THE FUTURE

Anjua anticipates that GrooveRyde will have upwards of 50-60 employees with her second downtown location. She plans to open a third boutique fitness studio soon. Anjua actively speaks to entrepreneurs about JumpStart and plans to keep supporting the organization that helped bring her vision to life.