NITRO! Bootcamp Boosts Tech Access for Minority-Owned Businesses

Event dedicated to helping startups thrives in Cincinnati

Imagine starting your own business. You have big dreams, and great ideas — you know you can make an impact. Now imagine starting that same business without access to important technology tools: they might be too expensive, or you’re unsure how to use them. Suddenly, that lofty dream seems harder to picture. For Cincinnati’s NITRO! Bootcamp, entrepreneurial dreams are so important, the event organizers and sponsors believe nothing should hold back those who dare to pursue them. In order to level the playing field, the intense, one-day event focuses on providing small businesses with the necessary technology to accelerate growth.

“We partner with a lot of global organizations that are going to get on the ground floor with these companies to give them a chance to expand their business,” said Henry Molski, marketing manager at Cintrifuse. “The event is sponsored by JPMorgan Chase and is the brainchild of Maurice Coffey, the Procter & Gamble Executive in Residence at Cintrifuse. We’re trying to make sure women and minority-owned entrepreneurs who might not normally be exposed to an environment like this feel like they’re a part of something, and that their business can benefit from this bootcamp.”

For these business owners, limited access to technology can be a very real setback. Instead of facing billing, communication or document cloud storage problems alone, NITRO!’s goal is to equip entrepreneurs with the tools they need including StartBlox, Gusto, Primary Hosting, Xero, Fuze and Google Suite.

“For these entrepreneurs the deck is stacked against them in many ways and tech obstacles are definitely one of them,” said Molski. “This is an area where we felt uniquely equipped to close that gap. Through the event, we see what we can do in one day to help them. We sit down and give them access to the resources that we use in our offices and our tech-enabled startups. For these small, mom-and-pop shops, it can really be a game-changer.”

For the businesses that are selected to participate in the event, the support doesn’t end after their one-day tech infusion with NITRO!. As a program powered by Cintrifuse, a partner of Ohio Third Frontier, participants will get access to co-working space and will receive additional mentorship to encourage their collaboration within the StartupCincy community.

“The Cincinnati startup system has been focused on tech startups for a long time,” said Molski. “When Cintrifuse helped originate the idea of StartupCincy, we were saying, ‘Hey, if you don’t want to go through an accelerator, there’s still a whole community of collaborators here.’ So even if these small business owners think, ‘Oh I’m not a startup,’ or ‘Oh I couldn’t scale this business,’ yes, you can. The idea is that you are a part of the Cincinnati startup scene whether you’re just a fan or you’re starting your own business.”

NITRO! Bootcamp will be held February 23 at Union Hall, Cincinnati.