Vishion, a company that creates a search engine that allows users to find furniture and other decor in the exact color they are looking for, has joined prominent Cincinnati accelerator, The Brandery, for its tenth cohort.
The nationally ranked program offers an annual, 12-week program for high-growth branding, marketing and design-focused startups. At the conclusion of the accelerator, which also provides access to an "elite mentor network" and creative agencies at the likes of Kroger and Procter & Gamble, startups present their concepts during a demo day event. They also receive $100,000 in funding, more than $200,000 worth of benefits and a year of free office space.
“We had 697 applicants apply for the Batch 10 cohort. The Brandery team traveled to 25 cities, hosted 275 in-person office hours, 152 virtual office hours resulting in a highly competitive group of finalists," said The Brandery Managing Directory Jeff Boeh. "Ultimately, we selected five companies with very different backgrounds focused on big opportunities within the CPG, marketing and advertising space. We are excited to get to work with the cohort and help them continue to grow over the next 12 weeks.”
The participating startups hail from Cincinnati, Nashville, Toronto, Tampa and Charlotte, with 60% of the cohort's founders identifying as female, a release on the batch states.
Charlotte Inno was able to chat with Vishion founder Sam Smith to hear what the acceptance means for her and the company she leads, which officially launched this summer and won the D.C. regional SoGal pitch competition earlier this fall.
Responses have been edited for length and Inno style.
Charlotte Inno: Since Vishion officially launched earlier this summer, it's gotten a lot of headlines, pitch wins, opportunities to share your product, etc. Can you get our readers up to speed regarding some of your more recent accomplishments?
Smith: It's been a great couple months since Vishion launched; we've seen more than 6,000 color searches and now feature 880,000 products in our search engine. Now that we've launched, it's been a lot easier for people to understand what we're doing and the pain points the app is fixing. We've recently won the SoGal Regional pitch competition in Washington, D.C. and were accepted into the Brandery accelerator.
CI: What drew you to The Brandery program? Smith: We know the key to our success is finding the best strategy to spread the word about Vishion to interior designers and design lovers. With a startup budget and resources, we wanted to make sure we took the most intelligent approach possible when it comes to brand awareness. With a marketing-focused accelerator, we are already seeing so much value as we lay the groundwork for our growth.
We've been paired with Borne Content, an amazing agency that is going to help us find our voice, better connect with our audience and build our community. Honestly, it's unreal how much assistance we will be getting from the agency and this program. We're only two weeks in and I am confident that this was the best thing we could have done for our startup.
CI: Will you be relocating to Cincy or coming in and out? Smith: I'll be in Cincinnati until Christmas, then traveling around on a multi-city tour most of January with the other startups to pitch investors.
CI: How will you measure a successful accelerator experience? What do you want to accomplish during the program? Smith: We have two goals: to create the best marketing strategy for this stage of our startup and to close our seed round.
