{"id":86099,"date":"2017-04-06T07:12:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=86099"},"modified":"2017-04-06T07:12:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T12:12:00","slug":"2017-business-plan-winners-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2017\/04\/06\/2017-business-plan-winners-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 Business Plan Winners announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>i<em>ndependent editor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Winners were named Wednesday for the 2017 Entrepreneurship Fair\u2019s Business Plan Challenge, which judges new business owners on a financial plan they create for their companies.<\/p>\n<p>First-place winner this year was Sabrina Niagu, owner of Touches in Time Antiques, 120 S. Washington St. She will receive $2,500 in cash (donated by the Van Wert Revolving Loan Fund), as well as a one-year membership in the Van Wert Area Chamber of Commerce, a 12-hour QuickBooks training course at Wright State University\u2019s Lake Campus, and 500 business cards from either Burcham Printing or Wilkinson Printing.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_86100\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-86100\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-86100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Business-Plan-Challenge-winners-4-5-17.jpg\" alt=\"2017 Business Plan Challenge winners include Dalton Heppeard (left), runner-up, and first-place winner Sabrina Niagu. Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent\" width=\"350\" height=\"239\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-86100\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>2017 Business Plan Challenge winners include Dalton Heppeard (left), runner-up, and first-place winner Sabrina Niagu<\/strong>. <em>Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Second-place winner was Dalton Heppeard, owner of baked goods business Wavie\u2019s Kool Distributor, who received $750 in cash (donated by First Bank of Berne), the 12-hour QuickBooks training, and 500 business cards from one of the two local printing companies.<\/p>\n<p>Stacy Adam, executive director of the Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation, said both winners had good business plans, with Niagu\u2019s extremely detailed and specific to her business.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Niagu) did a great job of really building a financial plan: cash flow projections that really was detailed, realistic, and extensive,\u201d Adam noted. \u201cThere was a lot of attention to detail.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The economic development director also noted that Niagu was originally a retail manager for a women\u2019s fashion chain who was also a vendor at Touches of Time before she decided to purchase the business from its former owner.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe is undoubtedly passionate about what she does,\u201d Adam said. \u201cShe loves that, she\u2019s excited about that, and I think that\u2019s good for Van Wert.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Adam noted that Heppeard, who is still in high school, was notable in that, not only is he interested in being an entrepreneur at such a young age, but that he encourages other students he goes to school with to also be entrepreneurs, while also employing them in his business.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the competition, participating business owners receive information on how to create a business plan, as well as tips on growing their businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor Winners were named Wednesday for the 2017 Entrepreneurship Fair\u2019s Business Plan Challenge, which judges new business owners on a financial plan they create for their companies. First-place winner this year was Sabrina Niagu, owner of Touches in Time Antiques, 120 S. Washington St. She will receive $2,500 in cash (donated by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-04 20:01:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}