AKRON, Ohio – Akron’s Bounce Innovation Hub is accepting applications for a new program aimed at helping non-tech and minority entrepreneurs develop their ideas and small businesses.

The 15-week course, called MORTAR, was developed in Cincinnati in 2014 and is designed to launch sustainable businesses that contribute to local economic development.

Bounce has entered a two-year contract for MORTAR, with the $80,000 licensing fee split equally between donations from the GAR and Burton D. Morgan foundations. The City of Akron and the Greater Akron Chamber were also involved in bringing the program to Akron.

The weekly classes are set to start in early April and will be headquartered at Bounce, facilitated by Bounce staff and overseen by Ace Epps, Bounce’s director of inclusive entrepreneurship. The program cost for participants is $295, which will go toward the curriculum, facilitators and operational costs.

“I believe in having an initiative focused on local minority entrepreneurs to be able to start businesses in the actual neighborhoods – not downtown, not across town, but in the actual neighborhoods,” Epps told cleveland.com. “But more importantly, things in the neighborhoods that local neighborhood people will pay for and patronize.”

MORTAR will be the second track in Bounce’s three-pronged “GROW” Program, a nod to the motto, “Generating Real Opportunity and Wealth,” which is geared toward non-tech entrepreneurs and businesses, with a focus on minorities and women.

Ace Epps, director of inclusive entrepreneurship at Akron's Bounce Innovation Hub, will oversee the MORTAR program aimed at non-tech and minority entrepreneurs.

The first track, the 10-week Aspiring Entrepreneur Program, is for people with an idea to take what Epps calls a “small dive” into business development. The second track involves a “deep dive” in MORTAR. The third track is a business incubator where people who run businesses that make more than $10,000 a year can work one-on-one with Epps and his staff to address areas including rebranding, budgeting, retention and human resources.

Fifteen people participated in the Aspiring Entrepreneur Program in the fall, and a handful of them may apply to MORTAR as a next step. But MORTAR applicants do not need to have been part of the Aspiring Entrepreneur Program, or any program at Bounce.

MORTAR participants could range from an aspiring entrepreneur with a business idea, to someone who already has a business name and LLC, or someone who has previous small-business experience and is looking to start up again.

Each three-hour session will involve a lead facilitator, a co-facilitator, a program coordinator and Epps. Akron-area businesspeople and community leaders will also come in to provide information about topics including marketing and finance.

If a participant needs to leave the program, there are opportunities at weeks 4 and 6 to drop-out and potentially return during a future session.

Epps said anyone can apply to be a part of MORTAR or the GROW Program, but that the programs are geared toward historically disenfranchised communities.

“It’s not restricted to minorities,” Epps said. “…Even in our GROW department, which is primarily for minorities, we have all races, all genders in the class itself. We don’t turn anyone away.”

Epps hopes to offer future MORTAR sessions in Akron neighborhoods, so residents and business-owners don’t have to travel to Bounce’s downtown offices.

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