7 Entrepreneurs Driving Change and Inspiring Others

Radin Rahimzedeh
Fore Transit Inc.

Fore Transit provides novel aerodynamic kits to save fleet operators money while traveling greener. Our novel and patented technologies provide accessible and affordable solutions that significantly reduce both energy consumption and emissions for medium- to heavy-duty vehicles.

Carve your core values in stone from the very beginning and lead with them in mind across all phases of the business. Do this, and you will always be surrounded by inspiring, creative, and supportive team members, advisors, service providers, and overall community. Taking the time to connect, collaborate, and hire based on values may be slow in the beginning, but it will allow you to move fast in the future.

Joining communities that are values-aligned such as the Nasdaq Entrepreneur Center, and helping fellow entrepreneurs along the way. By taking the time to invest in the success of other startup founders, Fore Transit has also been the benefactor of support, connections, and advice.

Fore Transit solves for the high energy and emissions cost of moving people and goods. Clean, efficient, and sustainable transportation is an integral intersection between UN SDGs 9, 11, and 12. Fore Transit's novel solutions result in both healthier air for communities and responsible resource management for the industry.

The incredible stewards of Milestone Makers, Colin Mahin and Nicola Corzine, have opened pathways of opportunity for Fore Transit through programming, speakers, and direct connections. Most importantly, Fore Transit now has a network of champions and friends within the climate tech community to create and collaborate together.

Dare Odumade
Chekkit Technologies Corp.

The ChekkitApp differentiates original products from fakes and reports scam products. Chekkit develops the fabric for an end-to-end finished product with anti-counterfeiting and traceability coupled with last-mile engagement, loyalty reward distribution, and data intelligence-as-a-service, powered by both blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies.

If you're solving a key problem and have a unique solution, but are yet to hit high volumes or demand, persevere because the break is coming. Get to understand your industry value chain and optimize your distribution (you may not need upfront cash to do this) to position your business for high impact in a short period. The key is to always solve a real problem and pay close attention to how people are already solving the problem to spot key opportunities.

It was difficult to figure out what partnerships or networks we should be building until we outlined our value chain, identified key stakeholders, and implemented strategies to create win-win scenarios through key partnerships, which has been the key to our success in the distribution of our services in the pharmaceutical industry.

Every year, due to the illicit trade of pharmaceuticals and consumer goods, more than 1 million lives are lost around the world. The problem highlights a need for consumer engagement and exposes a healthcare failing for a population who are not able to give their feedback after using such products. Our products are tailored for rural areas with low internet penetration. Our solution drives support for SDG 9, 11, and 12.

The Milestone Makers program has been very favorable for us in knowing how to best craft our impact pitch, better position our business to be attractive to investors, and also gain access to new markets. Overall, it's the mentoring for me from experienced CEOs and successful CEO coaches. I have learned how to build operational processes from the ground up, and how to drive these processes into my team culture.

Gilberto DeSalvo
Delphire Inc.

Delphire provides real-time detection of wildfires at ignition. Our goal is to reduce the time to detection of grid-related fires, currently measured in hours, to mere minutes so that we can synergize with the aerial response times that can be achieved today by CalFire.

Recurring revenue is what your investors will want to see, along with proof of early traction. There are often ways to rethink or pivot the company towards leasing instead of outright sales that can make your company more appealing from an investment standpoint. These lower upfront entry costs can also make your product more marketable.

We joined programs like Milestone Makers, the Long Beach Accelerator, and the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. These programs provided us with the working knowledge, mentors, connections, and introductions that are necessary for our success. They each helped hone a different part of our strategy and help position us for success.

Everyone knows that the sooner you detect a fire, the better to keep our communities safe and breathing healthier air. Our solution is aimed at electric utilities to provide innovations on early wildfire detection. Our goal is also to help the nearby communities to make them safe and resilient from wildfires while ensuring that our electric consumption is sustainable and less damaging to the environment.

The Milestone Makers program has helped us by providing us with expert mentors and providing focus that would allow us to work on our messaging. Overall our goal was to develop and validate positioning and marketing, which we achieved. This will help our business in the coming months as we seek pilots and make it easier for us to explain to our customers what we do, how we do it, and what makes us different than anyone else in a concise and intuitive way.

Shelkie Tao
Water Efficient Gardens

Water Efficient Gardens is an eco-friendly online landscape design service. By converting our lawns to drought tolerant landscaping using native trees and plants in our yards, we can use water much more efficiently, provide habitat for wildlife, make our environment more sustainable, and reduce energy use related to water delivery and treatment, as well as reduce energy required for air-conditioning, which decreases carbon emissions.

Entrepreneurs are essentially problem solvers. Our environment is facing the real threat of climate change, the many negative impacts of which we can clearly feel in our day-to-day life. If you are passionate about a problem and have a solution, build it out and see how it does. The bigger the problem you can solve, the more successful you can become.

I received a project inquiry, which turned out not to come from a typical homeowner client, but from a Homeowners Association (HOA). They said they saw very nice reviews of my service on NextDoor. They had some unique requirements as an HOA. I was able to come up with a solution that addressed all their needs. After all the discussions, they just confirmed they will give Water Efficient Gardens the project. This is a huge win for us, as it opens the door to the highly attractive HOA segment.

Our business helps solve all these problems at the same time: low efficiency of urban water use, the biodiversity crisis, and climate change.

Our solution fits right into UN SDG 11. In California, this is the state's second extreme drought in 10 years. With climate change, the situation will get even worse. Since 50 percent of urban water is used on outdoor landscaping, our solution (water-efficient landscaping) can play a huge role in helping cities save water and make them more sustainable.

Mentors and coaches. They are the best! The advice they provide is just so valuable. And the Intern Ready Workbook. It helped me tremendously with onboarding a new intern.

Jakson Alvarez
Evolectric

Evolectric provides software and hardware to convert existing commercial vehicles to 100 percent electric. We take a pragmatic approach that reduces emissions, waste, and accelerates EV adoption.

Look at the journey as a marathon instead of a sprint. It is important to keep a strong sense of urgency at all times, but building a company that brings value to its customers at scale and makes sustainable profits takes time. It has been important for us to keep the long-term mentality focused on building a real solution that provides real value and is scalable.

We have joined various programs designed to help early-stage companies, like Milestone Makers. Being part of these amazing programs has helped us with critical mass and getting help in areas that are key to growth. These programs have exponentially increased our network, and the direct support they have provided will have a lasting impact in the company.

Fleet owners of commercial vehicles need better solutions that enable them to transition their fleets to fully electric vehicles economically and quickly. This transition will take several decades if we rely solely on new zero-emissions vehicles replacing old internal combustion vehicles. We develop and deploy the modular software and hardware needed to extend the life of existing commercial vehicles on the road by transforming them into 100 percent electric.

Access to zero-emissions solutions needs to be more equitable for wider impact. Independent, small, and medium-sized business fleet owners are being left behind in the shift to zero emissions. Evolectric is providing solutions that target urban use cases and makes EV technology more equitable.

Milestone Makers has been very helpful in providing access to mentors and coaches who have extensive experience and bring insights from various points of view including sales, marketing, and as investors. It has also been a great experience to meet other outstanding entrepreneurs and share with each other the ups and downs of our business.

Martha Montoya
AgTools

AgTools provides real-time data to help the food and agriculture industry improve logistics and efficiency. We provide business-critical access to accurate, objective, and real-time trusted information. With data, participants execute better planting, harvesting, buying, selling, forecasting, and lean logistics decisions.

Search for a source of passion, and then find a solution. This could be one that exists and needs to be adjusted, or create a new one. This will give energy to you, your family, friends, and team members to keep going for many years. And when it becomes lonely, as it will, that passion will flame up again to give you energy.

Human beings stepping up and helping me personally—my family, and my team members have given me a lift. The passion of our mission and vision has created a village and source of kindness and energy that was not expected.

Our agriculture and food supply chain is fragmented with many contributors and a large geographic reach. Each link has limited market intelligence visibility from farm to distribution centers locally and across the world. The disconnection leads to production and consumption mismatches, food waste, and unnecessary financial, human expenditure, and CO2 impact.

Agtools data becomes easy to understand from the smallest farmer to the most complex buying office to managing processing/packing plants to logistics, delivering to markets what is available and in season at better prices for both producers and consumers as well as avoiding waste, from food to utilities.

The goal was to save farmers through our market data for supply chain decision makers. Through the program, I discovered the original reason: growing up and seeing a lack of food while others wasted both food and financial resources. Leveling the playing field with market data for all will solve many challenges across the globe. More important, it has motivated myself and the team to adopt more enthusiastically our mission, vision, and values.

Priscilla Munoz-Prior
CelBlox

CelBlox's Insulating Concrete Forms are a durable, disaster-resistant building material for home construction. We create homes that are secure from fires, tornados, hurricanes, flooding, and earthquakes.

My advice to other entrepreneurs would be to seek help early and often. There are many resources out there to help you in your entrepreneurship journey. Start with the Small Business Association. They are the most comprehensive and will direct you to many other helpful resources. Different agencies offer classes, coaching, community, and networking. The advice and resources these agencies provide are not only invaluable but are offered at no cost to the small business owner.

During the COVID lockdown, the supply chain for raw materials from overseas was shut down. However, because we were a small company, just starting out, we were able to easily pivot to suppliers here in the United States. Because of our comparably small orders and good relations with our resin suppliers, we were able to keep our supply chain flowing. As a result, our competitors' lead times to fill orders lengthened into months, whereas our lead times remained at just one to two weeks. This lead to an unexpected bonanza for our company when people and builders learned that we were still able to fill orders in a reasonable amount of time and that we were maintaining our high standards.

Climate disasters have devastating effects on families' financial and housing security. The families most affected are the socio-economically disadvantaged, and families who have faced housing discrimination that boxes them into the least desirable areas that are the most prone to bearing the brunt of climate-caused disasters.

Communities affected by climate change are often impacted by multiple natural disasters in a relatively short period of time, destroying homes that often had just been rebuilt from the previous disaster.

CelBlox® Insulating Concrete Forms are the better way to build. Our homes are better for the environment. Our homes have fewer greenhouse gas emissions than stick homes, and they save trees and save energy. We create homes that maintain a healthier and more comfortable living environment without heating or air conditioning.

CelBlox helps attain UN SDG 11 because it's durable—with an expected lifespan of 200 years—reduces the direct economic losses caused by disasters, and is sustainable, resilient, and resource-efficient. It's not made from trees and is completely recyclable.

MILESTONE MAKERS IMPACT

We are now in the position of needing to raise funds so that we can scale our business. Milestone Makers has provided me with a coach and a mentor who have not only provided me with information and resources for preparing to fundraise but have helped me see more clearly my reason, my mission, and my passion for what I am doing.