Six Million Dollar Ladies

Keywords for this post:
Business plans for angel investors
Custom business plans
Women in business

They each took center stage for four minutes:

• Bonnie Plotkin of Bonnie Plotkin Bail Bonds, Huntington Beach, California
• Desalene Jones of Cha Cha's Doggie Day Care, Sacramento, California
• Gena Nonini of Marlan Farms, Fresno, California
• Sharon Shaheed of Plano Play Music Systems, Sherman Oaks, California
• Leni Romas of Little Twig, Manhattan Beach, California

Four minutes to convince the judges what she would do with $45,000 to turn her business into a million dollar enterprise.

Actually, four of the finalists already had revenues above half a million dollars, and the other two exceeded $350,000. These ladies were winners. Before making it the finals, each had submitted a business plan, including financials.

The contest, called "Make Mine a $Million Business" was sponsored by OPEN, a division of American Express, and Count-Me-In, a micro-lender based in New York. On top of the $45,000 loan, the winner would receive a year of free mentoring. Count-Me-In founder Neil Merlino had already overseen competitions in Chicago and Dallas, and had seen what a difference the prize made in the lives of the winners.

Now it was time to choose the winner in California. Which would you have picked? Well... the decision was made....

All six entrepreneurs were declared winners. All of them!

"This has never happened before," a Count-Me-In spokesperson said. "But these were very impressive businesses. The women worked very hard on their business plans."

And they were all winners.

I love happy endings. Don't you?