October’s business pitch competition wasn’t Brittany Peregoff’s first rodeo. Start Peninsula hosts pitch competitions every year for entrepreneurs in Hampton Roads and Peregoff first participated with her husband in 2018.
The couple loved off-roading but were having trouble finding trails in the area. They pitched a business that would build small-scale offroad parks, but that model would have required a ton of permitting and money to buy and develop land, Peregoff said.
“We kept hitting roadblocks,” she said. “We weren't getting anywhere. And it was not easy to scale.”
They didn’t win that 2018 contest.
On the advice of the judges, they found a landowner and created an obstacle course to see if anyone would come. People showed up and kept coming back. Then, other landowners reached out, interested in inviting off-roaders to their property, she said.
It led to Where2Wheel, which connects off-roaders and rural landowners with trails. Peregoff called it the “Airbnb of off-roading.”
In October, Peregoff won a micro-pitch competition, which qualified her for the championship round. In November, she was crowned as one of Start Peninsula’s three champions for this year, all of whom walked away with $5,000 for their nascent businesses.
“It was very exciting, kind of a full-circle moment,” Peregoff said.
Entrepreneurship in Hampton Roads has been steadily growing since the pandemic and continues to grow, according to Jolie Spiers, the executive director of the Hampton Roads Small Business Development Center.
Every year, the center works with roughly 900 small businesses. She said around 40% of them are so new they aren’t in business yet.
“(Entrepreneurship) is still, I think, part of the American dream,” Spiers said.
And the region has more resources to make that dream become a reality than ever before, said Zack Miller with Innovate Hampton Roads, an organization that highlights the work of local entrepreneurs.
Local options for funding and coaching include REaKTOR Technology Innovation Center, 757 Collab, Veterans Business Outreach Center, The HIVE resource center in Virginia Beach, mentorship programs, colleges and universities.
Start Peninsula’s pitch competition was developed in 2012 to be “the first door that you open when you're really trying to validate and figure out where your business is,” Miller said. “Does it have legs?”
Twelve entrepreneurs competed in the competition's championship round this year. The race was the closest one yet, Miller said.
“There's a lot of good companies that are coming out of the ballpark and are ready to play ball,” Miller said.
Malena Applewhite was another of the Start Peninsula champions this year.
She said the pitch workshops through Start Peninsula were “pure gold” and helped her refine her vision Haus of Vibes DIY, a creativity studio where people can make their own perfumes, lotions and other self-care products.
For Applewhite, the hardest part of starting a business was finding funding. But once an entrepreneur taps into local resources, she said opportunities abound.
“You do have to do some digging,” Applewhite said.
The pitch competitions helped her overcome her nerves and introduced her to other entrepreneurs and business leaders in the area, she said.
Edward DeVries, the third Start Peninsula pitch contest champion, said that the most difficult part of starting his business was “going from stability into the unknown.” He left his job as a project manager for the Department of Defense to start TRO Energy Solutions, which provides at-home EV infrastructure for service member families living in military housing.
He said he’s leaned on the Hampton Roads’ network of business leaders for support.
“Everyone is like your biggest cheerleader, as well as your number one strategist,” he said.
Efforts that help small businesses grow, like Start Peninsula’s pitch competition, is good news for the region, Spier said, noting small businesses create jobs and give Hampton Roads personality.
“We need the types of large investment that come from larger businesses, but it's the small business community that is the backbone of our local economy,” she said.