And the winner is....
user
<em> </em><p><em>Please welcome
back </em><a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.findingwhatmatters.com/"><em><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Carolyn
Kepcher</span></em></a><em>, who is here
with the announcement of the <strong>Grand Prize
Winner</strong>! Our </em><a rel="nofollow"
href="http://seedsforsuccess.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/index.php"><em><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Seeds for
Success</span></em></a><em> winner will
receive an additional $10,000 and additional mentoring and web
hosting resources. <br><a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.dapplebaby.com/"
target="_blank"></a></em></p><em></em>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dapplebaby.com"
target="_blank"><img alt=""
src="http://a323.yahoofs.com/phugc/I8RBLfI_nVdv/photos/e03958c474cc9b9975748fa369820e45/ori_1fe84e79b283f0.jpg?ug_____DB5knuhgy"
align="left" width="159" height="87"></a>Wow! What a
fantastic ride the <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://seedsforsuccess.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/index.php"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Seeds for
Success</span></a> grants progr<a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.dapplebaby.com/" target="_blank"></a>am
has been…for all involved! This grants program, designed to
benefit women entrepreneurs, kicked off several months ago, when we
began to review the 5500+ business plans submitted. Through an
intense judging process, we selected our three finalists, <a
rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dapplebaby.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Dana Rubinstein of
Dapple</span></a> , <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.redkoala.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Abby Port of Red Koala Canvas
Co</span></a> ., and <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.head2toepub.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Karla Duncan of Head 2 Toe
Publications.</span></a> </p> <p>All three
finalists have done an outstanding job in using the resources that
have been given to them by <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Yahoo! Small
Business</span></a> and my fantastic team at <a
rel="nofollow"
href="http://shine.yahoo.com/write/314423/www.findingwhatmatters.com"><em><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">fwm</span></em></a>
. The grant included $20,000 per finalist, up to $5,000 in free
technical services from a Yahoo! Small Business partner to build a
company web site, free Yahoo! Web hosting for two years, and
promotional support from fwm and
Yahoo!</p><strong></strong> <p>Abby, Karla,
and Dana have an essential quality in common – all three are
very passionate about their businesses. I’ve always said that
passion is first in starting your own business, so
<strong>thank you </strong>all for confirming for me
that we made the right selections when we chose you! </p>
<p>Our finalists spent six months growing their businesses,
with the help of our expert team of <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://seedsforsuccess.smallbusiness.yahoo.com/mentors.php"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">mentors/advisors</span></a>
. Our mentors weighed in, along with the original <a
rel="nofollow"
href="http://blog.findingwhatmatters.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">fwm</span></a>
and Yahoo! Small Business judges, on the finalists’ progress.
They were judged in areas such as marketing, partnerships,
distribution, sales, and utilization of the Seeds for Success
grant. </p> <p>We also received invaluable help from
the voting public, who cast over <strong>650,000
</strong>votes on our website! What a response! </p>
<p>When all of the votes were tallied and the judging
criteria was weighed, a clear choice was made:</p>
<p>Heartfelt congratulations to our winner, <a
rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.dapplebaby.com/"><em><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Dana
Rubinstein</span></em></a><em> !!
</em>Her company, <strong>Dapple</strong>, which
sells a line of natural-based, baby-safe cleaning products ; is on
a highway to great success. Dana and her partner have looked at
their company from all angles and because of that, they have found
numerous unique opportunities to get the word out about Dapple.
Their creativity in this area is unmatched. </p> <p>To
our two splendid runners-up, we express our admiration and thanks
for a job well done. <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.redkoala.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Abby</span></a> ,
a great lady with a great idea! After speaking with her I was
immediately envisioning customized canvas art in my kids’
rooms – she had me sold. She, too, has the potential to take
her business to a new level – and my advice to her is to
think realistically and never skew from her initial passion.
</p><span style="text-decoration:underline;">
<p></p></span><a rel="nofollow"
href="http://www.head2toepub.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Karla</span></a>
has embraced this program for everything that it has to offer and I
admire that immensely! <span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Every</span> mentor has
taken the time to contact me to let me know how efficiently she has
taken advantage of all the resources that have been made available.
I see nothing but great success ahead for you, Karla. Your passion
is overwhelming and your focus is second to none. <p>To all
those who have been following Seeds For Success, we hope that from
our mentors’ advice and our finalists’ progress you
were able to draw out some vital ingredients to help you to start
and grow <em>your </em>idea into a thriving business.
Help is always available from <a rel="nofollow"
href="http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/"><span
style="text-decoration:underline;">Yahoo! Small
Business</span></a> , <em>the</em> best
place on the web to build a web site quickly and easily, and
without prior technical knowledge. We also look forward to hearing
from you on FindingWhatMatters.com, whenever you need advice from
the experts.</p> <p>I intend to keep tabs on all three
of these women…I predict that we’ll be seeing great
things from all of them in the years to come.</p>
<p></p>