What's the Startup?!

Fuel Your Startup Income Accelerator with Jill Morenz: Introducing the Program Every New Entrepreneur Needs

• Sprocket • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In this episode, we’re joined by Jill Morenz, CEO of Aviatra Accelerators, to dive into their game-changing program, the Fuel Your Startup Income Accelerator. Designed specifically for early-stage entrepreneurs, this eight-week program provides the tools, strategies, and expert guidance needed to overcome some of the biggest challenges new business owners face—like managing time, generating revenue, and creating clear messaging that drives sales.

Jill shares her personal entrepreneurial journey, insights from working with countless founders, and why mastering messaging and sales is foundational to building a sustainable business. We also discuss how the program integrates risk management, AI, and automation to help entrepreneurs optimize their time and scale their businesses effectively.

Whether you’re struggling to find balance, figure out what to prioritize, or simply want to take your business to the next level, this episode is packed with actionable advice and inspiration. Plus, learn how Sprocket is partnering with Aviatra to bring this program to our community—and how you can apply for a scholarship to participate!

Tune in to discover:

•The biggest struggles new entrepreneurs face and how to overcome them.

•Why direct sales and clear messaging are essential for early-stage businesses.

•Surprising factors that can impact your revenue and how to safeguard your business.

•How to leverage AI, automation, and expert resources to optimize your growth.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the Fuel Your Startup Income Accelerator and how it can help you turn your passion into a profitable, sustainable business.

Ready to take the next step? Visit sprocketpaducah.com/aviatra to apply today!

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Sprocket Podcast! If you’re ready to dive into the world of startups and innovation, visit us online at Sprocket WKY to learn more about our mission and how we support entrepreneurs like you.

Ready to check out the space? Book a tour with Tiffany, our Community Coordinator!

Got a business idea? Apply for a mentorship session with one of our experienced mentors!

Stay connected and join our growing community on Instagram for the latest updates, inspiration, and behind-the-scenes looks at what’s happening at Sprocket.

Let’s turn your ideas into reality—together!

Sprocket is proud to be supported by Team Kentucky, the Commonwealth's Cabinet for Economic Development. Learn more about their initiatives and resources at ced.ky.gov.

Kaylan:

Jill, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and the work that you do to support entrepreneurs through Aviatra Accelerators?

Jill:

Yes, and thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and talk with you. So my name's Jill. I had two businesses of my own. I had an interior design business and I had a business that helped business owners write their email newsletters and focused on email marketing. And then I was also, most of the time in my business ownership, I was was doing them as side hustles. And at the same time I had jobs working for nonprofits in Kentucky. And so when Aviatra's leadership, so Aviatra is a 15 year old nonprofit. And when the CEO position came available, I realized that it was such a great fit for me because I had the nonprofit experience and the entrepreneurial experience. And luckily the board also thought it was a good fit. So I got the job. So we help entrepreneurs start, grow, and fund their businesses.

Kaylan:

So you've worked with many new business owners. What do they often identify as some of their biggest struggles, their biggest obstacles along their journey that you help them work through?

Jill:

Yeah, that's a great question. I think the biggest the two biggest things that people struggle with are time management and just bringing in income.

Kaylan:

Yeah.

Jill:

Revenue. It's there's a, especially when you're a new business owner and you're just learning the business part, like you probably are already good at what you do, but the business part of it might be new to you. And there's a lot that goes into it. It's the invoicing and the billing and the payments and setting up your finances, your financial platform and all the marketing and the delivery of your service or product and all of that. And it becomes overwhelming. And I think the idea of. what to focus on the strap, like your overall strategy. You haven't been at it long enough to really make an educated guess about what your strategy should be. So you're trying all different kinds of things and it gets it's very time consuming and I'm most new business owners feel very scattered. And, but ultimately they really need money. And they need to make the sales, they need to start making some income. And so I think those are the two Things that they struggle with the most at the beginning. And really that's why we created the program that we have called fuel your startup income accelerator.

Kaylan:

So that program is coming up. Sprocket is Offering we're sponsoring participants. So I think we have about 15 to 20 seats that we'll be sponsoring. So people here in the sprocket community can apply to participate in this upcoming program, and it's an eight week program, Fuel your startup income accelerator, tell us more about this program. What inspired the creation of it and how does it help entrepreneurs? Yeah we looked

Jill:

at the things that that impact a business's income and, it's income, but it's also how much do you keep. How are your, what are your expenses and what's your risk management strategy and all of that. And so we designed the program. We start with. Messaging and sales, which, huge. You have to be able to communicate what you do and why people should work with you or buy from you. And then the actual sales about, how do you talk to people about what you do? We actually have a role playing. This is new in our, we had just added this. To the most recent cohort and the upcoming cohort that sprocket is sponsoring where there's a role playing component for the sales conversations in a, it's nice to have it in a safe space. It doesn't matter if you make a mistake or you stumble over your words, it's all good. It's all a learning experience, but getting comfortable with talking about your business and asking for the sale, all of that, um, is so critical in the beginning, because most of the sales that you're going to make as a new business owner are from people that you've actually. I've met. So it might not be your friends and family, but people that you're meeting at networking events or whatever, it's not usually not this kind of engine where, you post on social and you make a bunch of sales. It's usually initially more of a, the personal relationships. And so that's a big piece of it. And then talking about how you grow and, how you can streamline your processes and better utilize your time. And then eventually. Hopefully bring on some people to help you. So it's all part of that program.

Kaylan:

Amazing. What can they expect to experience throughout this program? I know here at Sprocket on our end, we're going to be hosting some, what we call sprint sessions where people can come in every week and co work together, but in terms of the program, what does that experience feel like as a participant?

Jill:

Yeah, and I love that you're doing the sprints. I think it's so much fun, such a great such a great addition to the program. So the program is live, but virtual. It's an hour and a half over the lunch hour once a week on Wednesdays for eight weeks. And we do record them so that if you missed one, if the participant missed one, they could watch again, or if they just want to review the material they could certainly do that. And then, so I guess the way it's going to go this coming program with Sprocket, we'll do the session on a Wednesday, then the following Tuesday, people can meet in person and work on their homework, and then we, have another session on the Wednesday. And I know the people who have done the sprints in the past. Have really found a lot of success because they're dedicating their time to working on it. It's so great to have the information, but then to, it's sometimes difficult to set aside the time to work on it. And so each module, each lesson, each session has a downloadable workbook that you can work on the worksheets or just take notes. And then, figure out how you're going to put those strategies or that information into practice in your own business. And then at the very end, there's a celebration, a graduation celebration, which I think you're going to have in person as well. Yes.

Kaylan:

Yes. That's what we did last cohort. So this is the second time to my knowledge that we've run feel your startup. So we did this, I think the same time last year ish, man, the year has gone by so fast because it feels like it was just a couple of months ago. But yeah, that graduation ceremony was incredibly fun. We had some of our mentors come in and it's just so nice when you do the sprint sessions to have everyone come in person, you can see the people that you're Zooming along next to and build some relationships here in the community and in the space too.

Jill:

I know that's one of the things that Sprocket does really well is bring business owners together. That's a big part of what we have found to help people be successful is bringing them together so that you're learning from each other and you don't feel alone and other people who get it, get what you're trying to do, get how the, time management becomes a real issue and all of that. And it feels I have a, so I was in a I've been in two masterminds In my, when I was business owner and one of them one of the women in it had never really, she didn't really bring us like the really thorny, deep questions. She would just when it was her turn on the hot seat, she would just have a, more basic question like do you think I should make this blue or green? Something like that. And so I asked her one time are you we love having you in our group. We get a lot from you, but do you get anything from us? And she said, What I get from you, the biggest thing I get is you make me feel normal.

Kaylan:

Oh, because

Jill:

yes, she doesn't have anybody else in her life that is an entrepreneur. And so people just don't understand this whole drive to create something of your own and it built on your own skills and your knowledge and your talents. And so to be around other people at Sprocket is just game changer.

Kaylan:

Yeah. We're all a little crazy. And when you get together, the crazy is just normal. Exactly. That's perfect. Yep. But I think to your point too, you also realize that the questions that you have are not unique. And I think when you're alone, you have these questions, you feel like I've got to figure this out before I come in, before I join any of these groups, because These people are not having these questions. They're having further along questions. And I'm just not at that level yet, but that's not the case at all. All questions are normal along the journey. And I bet that somebody else is either has the same question, Or they just solved it, have a perspective that can give you some insight too. Yes.

Jill:

And then you can help them with the things that you have solved. And so it's just this wonderful, supportive environment. that is not it doesn't include competition. There's no feeling of that. That's rocket. It's all lifting everybody up and working together to help everybody.

Kaylan:

Yeah. So when you feel like, Oh, I have something to give too. That's a huge identity shift as an entrepreneur and just. So one of the key focuses of this program is messaging sales. Why are these so such critical pieces for early stage startups?

Jill:

Yeah. So I imagine, the sales, the direct sales is probably a lot of what you're going to be doing initially. And it's a lot of us are not really comfortable with self promotion or asking for the sale directly. And, but yet we have to be like, we have to be, we have, we don't have to brag, but we have to say actually I'm, this is what I do. And I can help you. And so figuring out the way that you're going to say that you're comfortable with. And then the mental shift that it takes to ask for the sale of whatever that looks like, if you'd like to go deeper with me, we can do this or, whatever the wording is that you kind of workshop it's, you have to be able to do it. And that's just a fact of entrepreneurship. And so if you're, as you grow to be a bigger business, as you, if you're taken out of the sales process at some point, you're still going to have to sell your ideas to your team or, there's, or to funders or something. So there's still a big a big component of that. So getting comfortable with it early on is just really critical. And that messaging part is the same. If we're, if you're not clear on what value you bring you're not going to convince somebody else to pull out their wallet and work with you. And that's just foundational. And that's why that's our first couple of lessons and modules, for a few of your startup are that and then they and then everything builds on that. And whether one of the modules is fund your dreams. And so we actually bring funders on and Talk about, what that looks like with grants or loans or crowdfunding, but, and that's a piece of it, potentially, but when you're a new business, you generally need to be able to make enough money from what you do so that you can prove that this is something that people want and that it can become a sustainable business. And so that's why we really, that's foundational for this program.

Kaylan:

At the end of this eight weeks, what will people walk away with that they didn't necessarily have before?

Jill:

Yeah. So they'll be very clear on their messaging. Then they will understand they'll have practice and some some verbiage or some phrases that they will have sort of road tested, field tested for their sales conversations. You'll be able to understand how funding works and what that could look like for you as you grow. We have a piece of it called protect your assets. And so that's understanding the like the trademarking and contracts and insurance, that kind of thing. And they'll have a better understanding of how to tell their story and talk about the success stories that they've helped their customers, achieve for themselves. Also better understanding of how to grow their team and use leverage some of the AI tools and automation that's out there to help their business grow before they add a team member. And then at the end as a bonus we offer a website review. So once they have, are clear on their messaging, we take that messaging and use it to do a kind of a website review or an audit to see whether or not their messaging is reflected in their website and suggestions for how to do that.

Kaylan:

Oh, that's a huge value add.

Jill:

Yeah. It's powerful.

Kaylan:

Yes. So you mentioned that the program touches on leveraging AI and automation. Brilliant. How do these tools fit into the framework for early stage entrepreneurs? What benefits can they expect from using them?

Jill:

Yeah. One of the people that we have teach this part she runs the biz access hub, which is an organization out of Northern Kentucky university that helps train people on AI and how to use it. And. She is has a firm belief that the, that we will see the first billionaire business owner that is a one person team. Wow. Because of all these tools that are available now. And how once you leverage them, once you understand which tools to what and how you can use them, all the different ways that they can help. And then the similar with automation, which is, not intelligent, but it's. But it's helpful, right? It's trainable, right? It doesn't bring the intelligence, but you can train it once once you implement those, then you have this whole system that's working for you all the time. If somebody comes and download some freebie then you have this system that sends them an automatic email sequence, right? These are basic things, but that's an example of automation so that you're keeping top of mind with them. And you personally aren't having to go in and write those emails again, every single time. So all of that really helps. A solo entrepreneur scale up and grow even before they have to hire somebody which is. huge cost savings. And then that's the time savings too. So if they have all this stuff happening, that's optimizing their business and optimizing what they're doing on the back end, that they don't have to manage each day. Imagine what they could do with that time. They could make more sales. They could start, create new products, new programs. Grow what they're already doing. It can really be transformational.

Kaylan:

So it helps them fill in that gap too, as they scale. So it gets them or stretches out that time where they have to, between being solo and hiring a team and helps them find more work life balance while they build that.

Jill:

For

Kaylan:

sure.

Jill:

Yeah. Even if that's not your goal at the moment, cause sometimes when you're starting a business, you're like that's a dream, but But it helps you optimize your time so that you're spending your time on things that are really moving the needle. All the other stuff needs to happen, but when you're doing it, every single thing, each time, then that's fewer hours that you have to spend on the income generating activities, like doing client work or packaging up your product and mailing it or making having the sales conversations. Who is the perfect participant for this program? Yeah, this program was developed for people who have been in business for about, I would say, six months. So it's not for brand new business, or it's not for people who have an idea, but haven't yet officially started their business. We want to have a little bit of data and some things that are set in place, even if they end up changing from the program, just some kind of, they have started already. And then generally speaking, up to two years, although if you've been doing your business as a side hustle, or. Maybe not just focus solely on your business. It's certainly it can be people, longer in business than just two years. But I think it's generally speaking, six months to two years of business and can be any kind of a business product service, health and wellness. Retail what else is there? All the things, all the above. Yes. Can so and tech also, although, we have that funding component in the program, but it's not the venture capital type funding. It's loans, grants, crowdfunding. So it's not if you're a tech business that is seeking venture capital, this is probably not the program for you. But if you're a business that, maybe uses tech or maybe doesn't use tech a main street business, as they say, and services and all that's perfect for this program. Okay.

Kaylan:

So leaning into that, why should someone join this program? Yeah,

Jill:

I think it's as a new business owner, you've been making up as you go along.

Kaylan:

That's

Jill:

great. You have to try things and then learn from it. That didn't work. Oh that actually was great. People love that. I'm gonna do more of that. Initially it's just figuring out where you fit into the market and whether you like doing that thing too. Sometimes people I'm, I was a branding person, but I found myself making websites. I don't really want to though. And so then that becomes a strategy. Then how do you get out of that? And so this idea of, just throwing things at the wall, seeing what happens, seeing what sticks that's great. You've been doing that. Now let's put some strategy and some intentionality behind it and grow that business without really making a significant investment necessarily. It's just about that, the strategy and where you should be spending your time and how you're doing what you're doing with that time. And yeah, if you can find some balance during all of that would be amazing as well. You're here. Yeah.

Kaylan:

Is there anything about the program that we haven't touched on that you think we need to spend some time on?

Jill:

I think one of the things that people don't expect in a program that's called an income accelerator is to have a conversation about risk management. That. We, you end up working so hard, but then if you don't have the contracts properly in place, or you don't have a trademark or a patent, or you don't have a business insurance you can be like a colander or you put in a bunch of stuff and then it's escaping out of the holes in the bottom. And so that we have a whole module on that. And I could speak personally to the insurance thing. When I was doing interior design, I had a, I was at a client's house and I had a tote bag and I set it down on her dining room chair. And when I picked it up to leave, there was a wet spot on the chair. And I thought maybe I, maybe it was wet. Like maybe it was on the bottom, on the floor of my car and it got wet or something. It turns out that what had happened was a little hand sanitizer in my bag had broken open and it made a faded spot on her chair. These were very expensive chairs. And, I was just lucky that they had that particular piece of suede that matched all the others. Cause otherwise I would have had to replace all the chairs, but this one chair costs 2, 000. Oh my gosh. And if I hadn't had business insurance, I would have had to pay for that. And so I was very relieved that I thought ahead to pay for that. And you learn a lot of other things too, with, from this module where, you know for example, if you have your name on the outside of your car and you get into a car accident with somebody, they can sue your business. And if you don't have the right coverage, then you'll lose your business potentially. So just all these things to think about this risk management of. Busting my butt, work in here to get this, grow this business. But on the other end, we have to plug those holes at the bottom of the colander, so you're not losing what you're working so hard for it. So that's a significant part of the program as well. And it's been really impactful for the entrepreneurs through the program.

Kaylan:

So important. Who knew?

Jill:

Yes, I know. Little things can just really add up so much. It's a great way to stop that. Unexpected. Yes. Yes, or for example, another thing I learned from the guy that teaches the that often teaches the insurance pieces if you are storing business equipment, or let's say like you make something out of wood and you store the wood at your house. and it's for your business and something happens to your house, like a flood or a fire, the home insurance will not pay for that. So you'll be out all that money if you don't have business insurance to pay for that. So just things like that, they're like, Oh my gosh, this is really critical. I need to learn this. And so we're we're really pleased to be able to bring it to people's attention early in their business journey before something happens.

Kaylan:

So that brings up another point that I want to touch on really quickly is that this program isn't just led by one single person. You're curating experts in all these different fields to lead their work. the modules that they own.

Jill:

Yes, that's a great point. So I only teach two two sections of it. I teach the messaging piece and I teach the sales piece. I lead that sort of sales strategy, or the sales the sales understanding, like understanding the customer's journey and the buyer's journey in general. And then I facilitate the role playing for the sales piece, but yeah, everybody, everything else is taught by experts in their field. So we bring in the people. Who know what they're talking about. And you don't have to pay them. It's all included. And you get time with an attorney and time with an accountant to figure out how we have a, I didn't mention that, but we have a piece where, you, we learn, we talk about how to budget and how to forecast with your, using your financials to forecast your, for, so you can make decisions in your business. And all of that we And all of it. The A. I. The process is the automation. Very good team. All of that is outside experts. Yeah, it's we're really pleased to be able to, as you said, curate that experience and the experts for the participants.

Kaylan:

So how much does this program typically cost?

Jill:

So it costs 245, 245 typically. And then yeah, with Sprocket's support people can apply for free scholarships to participate. So it's really a huge value that Sprocket is bringing to the community.

Kaylan:

Head over to our website, sprocketpaducah.com/aviatra, and that will take you to the application page, and then we'll be, as a team, reviewing applications, and we will let those who will be participating in this program, we'll let them know. That they have been awarded their scholarship. But Jill, I can't wait to meet them. I know I'm so excited for this. It's going to be so good. So classes begin January 22nd, I believe. That's correct. We'll hit the ground running. Jill, thank you so much for joining us today. Telling us all about the program.

Jill:

Absolutely. Thanks so much for To sprocket and to you for showcasing this opportunity for the entrepreneurs that you serve. It's really exciting. And it's just such a great value that you bring. So thank you.