Teams Selected for Sweet 16 Round in 2023 VIBE Business Plan Competition

At the 2023 VIBE Business Plan Competition Sweet 16 round, you can vote for your favorite start-up proposal that you want to see advance to the final round of the competition.

“I told all the teams they are in for a long, hard day,” said Thomas Kuljam, director of VIBE, the Veterans Incubator for Better Entrepreneurship. “They will be ‘on’ from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., delivering their pitches dozens of times as attendees wander through Philip Hall.”

At the event, each team will set up a display booth, “just like a trade show,” said Kuljam.

As attendees enter the venue, each will be handed five $100 “VIBE Bucks” bills. After making the rounds of all the booths, attendees will decide where they want to invest their VIBE Bucks. “They could spread them out over five different teams, or they could give them all to one, or split them up whatever way they like,” said Kuljam.

“We’ll be keeping track of the number of Bucks we circulate,” said Kuljam. “Not that we don’t trust everybody, but we would know pretty quickly if there was something funny about the totals.”

At the end of the day, the five teams that have amassed the biggest stacks of VIBE Bucks will be advanced to the final round of the competition, on Feb. 23 (also open to the public), where each team will make their final presentation and a panel of judges will select the winners.

This year, judges include David Parr, Homestreet Bank Executive Vice President; Dave Morrell, Pierce County Council District 1; Brenda Miller, owner of Velvet’s Big Easy food truck and catering; Tanja Stack, CEO and founder of Chi-Chack LLC, a Tacoma-based professional and educational services firm; and David Combs, owner of Shirt the City, a Hilltop-based screen-printing company.

The 2023 competition is sponsored by Homestreet Bank, and teams are competing for a $30,000 Grand Prize ($15K cash, $15K in-kind support), $5,000 for second place and $2,500 for third place.

• 2023 VIBE BPC TEAMS – SWEET 16 TRADE SHOW
• Black Forest Mushrooms (agriculture)
• TAG (soap company)
• The Tiny Umbrella Academy (social services – homelessness)
• Thriftapalooza (sustainable thrifting market)
• The Bomb Soap Company
• JNS4KIDZ (catering and food delivery)
• RAE Enterprise LLC (business development and marketing for small businesses)
• ALLI-FI
• Valor Housing Group (affordable housing for student and non-student veterans)
• Sikh Details (auto detailing)
• Advertly
• Nightly Nimble
• Nurse Staffing Solutions
• CompetiZone
• World Fusion Eats
• Credible Staffing, LLC