News

It’s always important for our team to reflect on the previous year’s highlights and accomplishments. 2022 brought new team members, clients, events and more to our organization and for that, we are extremely grateful! We have a lot to celebrate as we head into this year! Entrepreneurial programming and clients served Here at Bounce, our number one priority is serving entrepreneurs and helping build successful businesses. In 2022, we are proud to report that we served more than 195 clients through our five programs for entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses. Early numbers show we made 86 connections for our clients and spent almost 12,000 hours helping clients.  Read here for more specific stats regarding our technology programs and GROW programs. Fourth-annual Startup Showcase On September 29, we hosted our fourth-annual Startup Showcase, which celebrates our programs and companies and brings together the entrepreneurial community. The event included an afternoon and evening full of speakers, workshops, presentations and networking. We were grateful to have Wesley the Keeper, owner of Akron Honey, speak to our afternoon attendees. During the evening portion, we showcased our promising startups and small businesses from our five entrepreneurial programs. Feature showcase companies and entrepreneurs included:

• Time2Talk, Marina Jackman — Software Accelerator
• Corrolytics, Anwar Sadek, Ph.D — Technology Incubator
• Dustin Whapham — Aspiring Entrepreneurs
• Black Culture Candles LLC, Lori Parnell — MORTAR at Bounce
• Given Charge Services LLC, De’Juana Waters-Herald — Next Level Business Incubator

Operations and building occupancy Providing affordable, clean and safe spaces for startups to grow and thrive is not only a part of Bounce’s mission, but an important revenue stream for the organization. We ended 2022 with 45 tenants and 84% of our rentable space occupied. We welcomed the following tenants in 2022:

• Hazel Tree Interiors
• Inergy Advisors
• LightscreenDotArt
• Secret Creative
• TonDone
• Work Studio LTD
• Zsense

Funding In addition to earned income, Bounce has a number of funding sources in the form of grants and corporate support. Major Grants (> $75k/year) in 2022:

• Ohio Third Frontier
• Burton D. Morgan Foundation
• GAR Foundation

We also received additional grants ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 throughout the year. These grants included support from:

• Akron Community Foundation
• Barberton Community Foundation
• Huntington Akron Foundation
• Key Bank Foundation
• National League of Cities
• PNC Foundation
• Shoreline Fund

Major Corporate Support (> $75k/year) in 2022:

• Presenting Partners:
  • City of Akron
  • Akron Children’s Hospital
  • Bridgestone
  • Medical Mutual
• One-Time Gift:
  • Draper Triangle Ventures

Bounce also benefited from numerous corporate sponsors and donors that contributed from $500 to $17,000 throughout the year. And our annual Giving Tuesday campaign raised more than $3,900 from individual donors. Thank you to all who give to Bounce! Team updates and new hires The following team members joined Bounce in 2022:

• Adrian Chestnut, entrepreneur in residence
• Cheryl Glencer, sr. finance and admin manager
• Susan Berg Herman, chief administrative officer
• Emmanuel Hilton, vice president, strategic initiatives
• Timothy Hinton, program coordinator
• Dr. Constance Peek-Longmire, entrepreneur in residence
• Da’Shika Street, entrepreneur in residence

In addition, Selina Garcia was promoted to program manager in October. Selina oversees our MORTAR at Bounce program. Molly Carpenter was also promoted to community and event manager in November. Molly manages events in the Generator and oversees community engagement. We also said goodbye to Doug Weintraub, CEO; Ace Epps, director of inclusive entrepreneurship; and Vicky Fleet, finance and admin manager. The Generator Our first-floor Generator space is ideal for entrepreneurs, small businesses, freelancers and more! We stayed busy last year with conference room and event space rentals. Here are some fun stats regarding visits and memberships:

• Total visitors: 16,632
• Total large events: 255 (non-conference room rentals)
• Total members: 131

• 10 office members
• 23 reserved desk members
• 31 coworking members
• 12 sponsor members
• 1 corporate membership
• 54 tenant members

• Total day passes sold: 419

Every day our team works hard to build a sense of community for visitors, tenants, clients and coworking members. Whether celebrating March Madness during the spring or supporting food entrepreneurs during Food Truck Wednesdays in the summer, we want to create opportunities to connect, have fun and collaborate. 2023, here we come! We are kicking off this year busier than ever and you won’t want to miss a single thing. Stay up to date by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and/or LinkedIn. You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter here. Cheers!