“I started Inventorspeak in January,” Cohen said. “I am a B2B (business to business) company. I work with an organization or a company that makes physical products or software products. This is for any business that has technical teams that might have mechanical engineers, computer programmers or software engineers in it.”

Cohen’s background is in physical product design. Cohen observed a disconnect between what the technical team worked on and what other teams like sales and marketing needed to improve a business’s bottom line and the needs for the business overall. “There might be changes requested by the executive or sales team to the technical team and that can be very frustrating when the reason behind the changes are not really clear,” Cohen said.

Similar frustrations can arise when the tech team makes changes without a clear explanation to other teams. “These decisions can lead to missed deadlines, product misalignments and inefficiencies,” Cohen added.

Inventorspeak can “help technical teams communicate better with the rest of the organization,” Cohen said. He observed that tech-minded people, “tend to spend time with people that think the same way.” Cohen said that can be different from the sales and marketing teams who at times like to tell a story. “Teaching engineers what the rest of the world cares about and how those messages can be shared helps with the company overall.”

“The idea was generated when an engineer tried to express his invention in a business sense and was not able to do so very well. I started coaching this person one-on-one to improve their skills.  I realized I could have a much bigger impact when working with entire teams. So I shifted that to a B2B model,” Cohen said.

Cohen heard about the competition from a group called 1 Million Cups, a local entrepreneur group. 

“The grant money helps me establish my LLC and create my website,” Cohen said. This will help Cohen connect with potential clients. “I understand how mechanical engineers think and speak. This is a critical skill and there is a big gap with this group of people.”

“I think in the age of social media or virtual work that communication skills are more important than ever,” Cohen said. Currently, his new business is out of his home office. He is providing workshops for businesses in person or virtually.

This is the first year for the challenge and it will continue monthly. The deadline is the first Wednesday of each month. The competition is held virtually and the winner is notified around the third week in the month.

The grant money of $500 is an opportunity to get a new business idea off the ground and running.

The competition is from the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity’s Startup State Initiative and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. More information can be found about the Get Started: Business Idea Challenge by visiting startup.utah.gov. λ