SHELBY — Olie Francis has a mission to help people be themselves through providing them with unique art.
Francis’ artwork includes customizable tags for wheelchair users and people with disabilities. The colorful tags can be Velcroed to surfaces as a way to decorate mobility aids and/or display medical information for use in emergencies.
The 18-year-old student received more than $2,000 to advance his business at the Young Entrepreneurs Academy investor panel pitch night on Tuesday.
Four students presented their business plans, cost structures, target audiences and goals to seven local business professionals, with the goal of receiving funds. The evening’s emcee was Drew Steensland, owner of Moto Re-cycling and 2017 YEA alumnus.
This year’s students included Francis with Olie’s Outlook, Soren Fox with Taste Protein, Josiah Walsh with Deathrow Airsoft and Ryan Carver with R.C. Lawn Care.
The investors included Jay Allred of Source Media Properties, Beth Delaney of Spherion Staffing & Recruiting, Kristine Lindeman of Alumni Roofing, Nathan Masters of Mechanics Bank, Jeff Parton of Park National Bank, Christina Rowland of KeyBank and Amy Wood of Mid-Ohio Educational Service Center.
Angie Cirone, Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation director, organizes the local YEA program. She said each of the four students came into the class with broad ideas and learned about business licenses, tax paperwork and marketing strategies across 25 weeks.
“Throughout the class, we had a foundation built on entrepreneurial and business education and all four of them are prepared for these businesses that they’re about to launch,” Cirone said. “I’m really proud of how far they’ve come and how hard they worked on their businesses.”
Allred spoke for the investor panel after announcing the cash awards with feedback for the students.
Taste Protein received $100 more than what Fox asked for to fund nutrition and packaging research for the chocolate peanut butter protein bars.
The panel suggested Walsh explore alternate names for Deathrow Airsoft to avoid sounding like “death row” as a punishment.
“We want people to think they’ve made a good decision when working with your products,” Allred said.
The panel also suggested Francis focus his investment money on mobility tags as the most unique product compared to the buttons, stickers and digital commissions he creates.
Allred said the panel agreed to fund the costs of Carver’s lawn care equipment but did not invest additional money into marketing.
“No one on this panel has had anyone in lawn care ever treat them with the same customer care, and that’s all the advertising you need,” he said.
The total cash awards were:
Olie’s Outlook — $2,253.34
Taste Protein — $409
Deathrow Airsoft — $1,031
R.C. Lawn Care — $1,557.66
Francis was also named the local Saunders Scholar, advancing him to the national YEA college scholarship competition in June.
The four students joined 50 other alumni of the local YEA program. This was the eighth year that the Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development hosted the program.
