The 2020 Girls United Virtual Summit was filled with moments that left us shedding happy tears, but the most fulfilling among them was the moment that two rising young Black women entrepreneurs found out that they’d won $10,000 each for their businesses.
Keeping us in suspense from beginning to end, the McDonald’s Making Moves Now Virtual Pitch Competition saw a total of 5 Black women between the ages of 18 and 25 share their business ideas with 3 judges for a chance to win big. Along with thousands of dollars in monetary support, free business coaching from the New Voices Foundation was also on the line.
The first winner announced was Janice Newson, co-founder of Lillian Augusta Hair company. Asked how she was feeling in the moment, Lillian was left speechless.
“I have to catch my breath! It’s a great feeling,” she exclaimed. “Especially knowing we’re getting ready for our launch next year. This is really going to be very beneficial to get things in place for us.”
MIVE Fashions co-founder Maya Caine was nearly moved to tears as the judges called her name next.
“I wanna call my sister…I’m so excited,” she said. “We’re gearing up for a beta test with 2,000 women across the country. So, being able to prep for that, recruit the women and have them be the first testers of MIVE is so exciting. This is gonna help us make a seamless process for that before we do our full launch of the app next year.”
Other participants in the competition included III Athletics co-founder Sasha Robbs, Soulbites founder La Shay Green and BStarPR founder Brandy Merriweather.
Watch the video above to see the McDonald’s Making Moves Now Pitch Competition in full and then head back over to essencestudios.com to see more of everything you missed at the 2020 Girls United Summit.
The 2020 Girls United Virtual Summit is sponsored by ULTA Beauty, McDonald’s and STARZ.