\e industry to food justice organizations in a flash.
“When I got the email [about the competition],” said Ryan, who was listed in our recent 20 People to Know in Nonprofits: “Literally, I was like, ‘OK, what can I pitch, that I'm not already doing?”
Ryan, whose organization has approximately 20 key partnerships to propel its effort, was inspired by the recent victory of having $400,000 of surplus from Trader Joe’s rerouted to food-scarce families in West Louisville.
“We know it's a working model, because we already do this,” Ryan said.
A Paducah powerhouse
Although the event drew in plenty of diverse founders from the Louisville metro, several other in-state and out-of-state participants presented as well. Two of the five semifinalists named on Tuesday evening were not based in the commonwealth.
On the day known as "Thurby" at Churchill Downs, the five semifinalists presented again. Out of the that group emerged three finalists, each of whom were awarded with $5,000 in prize money.
One of the in-state finalists hailed from Paducah, Kentucky — and is certainly no stranger to KY Inno readers after winning the 2023 edition of our KY Inno Madness competition last month.
That would be Stevens Bonhomme, the co-founder of Feedcoyote, who could make a case for being one of the hottest startups in the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem — having started Techstars Atlanta accelerator ($120,000 in funding), having won a 5 Across competition ($5,500) at Awesome Inc.'s 5 Across pitch competition and the KY Inno Madness event (state/global bragging rights) all within a few months.
“Amazing,” Bonhomme told me when I asked him to sum up the state of his startup, which, in essence, provides a multi-faceted collaboration platform for freelancers.
He was only a few hours into his first trip to Louisville and had given the presentation that would make him one of five semifinalists for the competition.
When I first spoke with Bonhomme in December 2022, Feedcoyote was growing about 30 users a month. Since its start in the summer of 2022, the company has increased its number of users by 119% month over month.
Now, it’s picking up about 1,000 users a week, as the company has recently accepted users not just from the U.S. but other countries as well. In turn, it has also expanded the platform to be able to work in five other languages besides English — Spanish, French, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese and German, to be exact.
“We are considering more languages as we build because we were studying the regions where our users are coming from,” said Bonhomme, who said he's raised 9% of a $3 million seed round.
His users — and the rest of the freelance community — showed its muscle when it came to sending out votes for Bonhomme and his team in the KY Inno Madness competition. Bonhomme said that he reached both locally within the state and far beyond to get the votes needed, saying that the overall experience was “intense” as he managed to defeat Farmers Plus from Leitchfield, Kentucky, in the finals.
“It was amazing to see that people were rooting for us to win,” Bonhomme said. “And when I reached out to them to vote, they were like, ‘Hey, I did it. Good luck. Keep going, and we’re gonna tell our friends to vote, and we’re gonna tell other people to vote,’ because they wanted to see us win because they were part of that community, which is where the power of community comes into play."
Back in December, Bonhomme was still working remotely for Microsoft after having moved from Seattle to Paducah as part of being one of the winners of the 1ST50K competition that was co-sponsored by Paducah-based Sprocket and Codefi out of Southeast Missouri.
That too has changed as Bonhomme ended his time at Microsoft in February to fully focus on the operations of his company. That was also when Techstars began, a mostly remote venture that has sent him to Thailand; Las Vegas; Austin, Texas, and next week New York City for a demo day.
Still Feedcoyote’s surge in popularity falls within his initial expectations.
“We expected that a lot of freelancers will join our platform because the demand is there,” he said. “When you take the current state of the world basically, whether it’s the pandemic, the Great Resignation, or layoffs … They’ve contributed to folks using their expertise to now start their own freelance gigs and businesses.”
Three survive ... prepare for October
The other two finalists are:
- Tony Mudd, founder of Sensori Safety, a Louisville-based startup that uses data to prevent workplace accidents. Services offered include return-to-work evaluations and situational awareness training.
- Latrice Anderson and Carly Kessinger, founders of Oasis Wellness & Hydration Software Solutions, a Louisville-based health tech startup that provides IV hydration therapy services.
The three founders selected to move on will receive approximately six months to refine their presentations using a variety of available resources through the support of the competition’s judges and committee members — as overseen by Keionna Baker, the director of community engagement at Amplify Louisville, and the committee chair for this year’s Ideathon.
The overall champion will then be named, and that founder(s) will walk away with a check for at least $15,000 (and possibly more, if additional sponsors are established, according to event organizers). Last year, the husband-wife duo of KidVestors, Darius and Courtney Pettway, were given a check of $25,000 before later being named as one of our 2023 Startups to Watch.
