GrowAm Articles

Unexpected Surprises

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I suppose that all surprises are unexpected, but some are even more unexpected than others. Two weeks ago, we participated in the final round of the Grow America Springboard Competition. While we didn’t win any money, we gained much through the experience. (To read more about that, you can see this post.)

After we left that day, we reviewed our other options for raising money and started making plans. Then came an unexpected surprise. Two days after the competition I received an interesting email. It reminded me of half a dozen scams where they tell you that you have won some great prize and all you need to do is share every piece of your personal and financial information in order to get it. What I could see of the email without opening it was, “Dear Chris & Katie Chapman, One of your friends wants to give you a financial…” I thought, “Yeah, sure!” Then I realized it was my business email, where very little garbage email ends up (knock on wood). I almost deleted it as Spam, but then decided, “Eh, it can’t hurt to at least read the thing.” So I clicked it open.

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Success in Failure

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For the past couple of months we’ve had the chance to participate in the Grow America Springboard competition. It was tough to decide if we should enter, since our time is already spread so thin. However, like-it-or-not, it takes money to run a business, and this felt like a good fit. Looking back, we are really glad that we entered. We did not win any money, but we learned a lot and gained confidence in our ability to communicate what we are doing to business folks (especially when they’re not research geeks).

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