Fownders Event to Award $10,000 Prize Today to Local Entrepreneur

Newark, New Jersey, August 8, 2016 (Newswire.com) - ​​Tonight, about the time most people will be commuting home from work, 12 local entrepreneurs will be in Red Bull Arena pitching their startup business ideas for the chance to win $10,000.

And while the winner will go home with the grand prize of $10,000 for their business, five entrepreneurs with the best pitches will win the opportunity to join Fownders’ 12-week accelerator program beginning September 1st, which will teach how to take a business from seed to scale along with personal development, financial literacy, leadership and emotional intelligence.

"We created Fownders because we wanted to encourage and help develop startups in urban communities like Newark's University Heights neighborhood," says Gerard Adams, entrepreneur and co- founder of Elite Daily, the online Millennial news platform that sold for $50M in 2015.

Gerard Adams, Chairman

Organized and hosted by Fownders, a non-profit startup incubator in Newark, NJ, the Fownders Startup Pitch Competition will take place today in Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ from 4:00 to 10:00 pm.

Admission is free, and there will be live art, music, food and drinks, and free workshops in addition to the Shark Tank-like pitch competition.

The entrepreneur behind it all is expecting a crowd of people from all backgrounds.

“We created Fownders because we wanted to encourage and help develop startups in urban communities like Newark’s University Heights neighborhood,” says Gerard Adams, entrepreneur and co-founder of Elite Daily, the online Millennial news platform that sold for $50M in 2015.

“It’s easy to say that entrepreneurship is available to everyone today because of technology, but I know from experience that success is more likely when entrepreneurs are surrounded by others who are also chasing big goals, when they have a community that provides support, collaboration and mentorship.”

The Fownders Startup Pitch Competition schedule of events:

4:00 pm – Doors open, enjoy music, food and drinks. Live art provided by Darrick Rousseau, Sebastian, URNY, and Bradley Theodore.

5:00-7:00 pm, workshops given by Gerard Adams, co-founder of Elite Daily and Fownders; Anthony Frazier of Newark Venture Partners, $50M venture capital firm in Newark; Lindsey Holmes, CEO of Usable Tech Co in Newark and Washington, DC; Charles Cording, co-founder and CCO of Shock + Awe; Vince Randolph, local entrepreneur who teaches code for the City of Newark; Taseen Patterson, local entrepreneur who created the Notebly app, which currently has over 1M users; and Lisa Ascolese, founder and CEO of Inventing A to Z.

7:00-9:00 pm – 12 entrepreneurs pitch their startups to the panel of judges, followed by awarding of prizes.

Fownders is a not-for-profit incubator space located in the University Heights neighborhood of Newark, NJ. Developed by Gerard Adams, co-founder of the wildly successful online Millennial platform Elite Daily that sold in 2015 for $50M, Fownders is a startup learning community developed for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. Adams plans to expand the Fownders concept to other inner urban communities across the country.

For more information contact:

Gerard Adams
Fownders
48 Norfolk St.
Newark, NJ
973-277-7674

Source: Fownders