What is the name of your organization?
Skills Gap Advocate Inc.
What is the name of your solution?
Traction
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Tangible entrepreneurship access and education for each of us.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Waco, TX, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
USA
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
Across communities like Waco, Texas or Montego Bay, Jamaica where I'm from, aspiring entrepreneurs often face a fragmented path to launching sustainable ventures. Despite the presence of local incubators, chambers, and support organizations, most operate without modern tools to guide or track early-stage startup progress. As a result, those with potential especially young people, first-time founders, and historically underserved groups remain stuck at the idea stage or quickly stall due to lack of structure, support, or validation. Globally, over 100 million individuals express interest in starting a business each year, yet more than 90% of startups fail, and only one in three receive any form of institutional guidance. In Jamaica, youth unemployment hovers near 20 percent, while in U.S. mid-sized cities like Waco, entrepreneurship is often disconnected from workforce and economic development pipelines. Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) are positioned to bridge this gap, but they lack scalable tools to support founders from idea to traction. The problem is not ambition. It is infrastructure, accountability, and access.
What is your solution?
The Entrepreneur Traction Platform is a web-based tool that helps community organizations, incubators, and local governments support entrepreneurs through a structured, milestone-driven process. Rather than relying on informal mentorship or static business templates, the platform guides users step-by-step from idea to validated traction. Entrepreneurs can browse curated business ideas or submit their own, form teams, and follow AI generated roadmaps designed to help them reach key startup milestones. At each step, they submit proof of progress for expert review and receive actionable feedback. The platform integrates tools for sponsor engagement, mentor matching, and regional analytics, giving Entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) a fully functional digital incubator they can manage locally and generate revenue from. Built using the most up-to-date AI models, the platform is accessible on web and mobile. It is designed to reduce startup failure by replacing ambiguity with accountability, and turning curiosity into entrepreneurial skills.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The Entrepreneur Traction Platform serves first-time entrepreneurs, community-based founders, and the local organizations that support them. These include young adults, recent graduates, underemployed workers, and returning residents in rural towns and under-resourced cities, who have the ambition to launch a business but lack a clear roadmap to do so. Many are disconnected from high-growth startup ecosystems and face barriers related to income, access to capital, and mentorship. At the same time, Entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs) like incubators, chambers of commerce, and nonprofit hubs want to help but often lack tools to scale support across their communities. Our platform directly empowers these organizations to offer structured guidance, milestone validation, and sponsor-backed growth opportunities. For entrepreneurs, this means more than access, it means clarity, progress, and confidence. For ESOs, it turns support into measurable impact. Together, we’re helping everyday people go from idea to traction without needing to navigate the journey alone.