Recreate Now, a Valley company formed to assist and inspire women over 40 to start their own businesses, held its first pitch event for eight entrepreneurs on Jan. 15, a sort of graduation ceremony for its initial cohort of recruits.
The company’s Recreate Action Tank pitch contest, held at the Fabric fashion startup space in Tempe, featured a "Shark Tank" style pitch contest with a panel of six judges choosing the winner. The fledgling business founders went through a six-month program to get to that point.
After all of the on-stage pitches concluded, the winner of the event — who received a check for $2,500 — was Chris Landberg, a longtime tennis player and the founder of Put Away Bags. Landberg is looking to design and sell what the company describes on its website as the customizable “perfect tennis bag.”
Landberg, 57, told AZInno that she first picked up a tennis racket at age 8, though she ended up playing varsity volleyball rather than tennis when attending Depauw University in Indiana. She relocated permanently to the Valley four years ago with her husband.
She said her eureka moment for the tennis bag came about 18 months ago when she was playing tennis with Kimberly Mylls, a co-founder of Recreate Now, and they were both complaining about different aspects of their bags. Landberg then joined the cohort in 2021 to put her business plan into action.
Looking to build prototypes
Landberg said the $2,500 she won in the pitch contest will be put to use right away to help create designs and build some prototypes of the tennis bag later this year at the Fabric facility. She estimates she has spent $14,000 so far to get Put Away Bags off the ground.
"We'll carry [the prototypes] to play tennis for a week and beat them around to see if we need to make any adjustments," Landberg said.
She is looking at several options to select a fabric for the final concept, including a waxed canvas or a flexible fabric known as Crypton. Landberg's goal is to have the products made in the US, but said she is just starting her search for a manufacturer.
"Winning [the pitch contest] is the coolest thing. It's made me even more passionate and excited than I already was," she said.
The judges for the event included Heidi Jannenga, WebPT co-founder and chief clinical officer; My Little Mascara Club founder Christie Kerner; Stealthmode Partners co-founder Francine Hardaway; Catherine Alonzo, CEO of Javalina Consulting; Kathy Lynn-Cullotta, co-founder of I3 Ignite and managing director of Golden Seeds, a group that invests in startups founded by females; and Kathryn Blackwell, founder of The QOR Group LLC and CEO of Open Dør Dispensaries, both based in Scottsdale.
Recreate Now was formed by Valley entrepreneurs Melissa Lamson and Kimberly Mylls in August 2020. The company has been looking at setting up similar cohorts in California, Denver and Boston, and Lamson said the first cohort set up outside Arizona will soon be announced in the Bay Area.
Recreate Now is seeking applications for the 2022 Arizona Action Tank cohort, click here for more information.
