Courtesy of Big Heart Tea Co.
St. Louis has a reputation for attracting some impressive budding businesses. Startup incubators are scattered throughout the city. Funding is provided by state and local government initiatives like St. Louis Partnership and the Missouri Technology Corporation. The scene has been called out by national outlets like FiveThirtyEight.
And we have Arch Grants, an annual competition that awards 20 startups $50,000 and additional support as long as they remain in or relocate to St. Louis for one year. Each fall, 40 finalists present their business ideas to judges in hopes of securing one of the coveted grants.
One of those finalists is Lisa Govro, founder of Big Heart Tea Co., a St. Louis–based tea maker and distributor. Govro had received notice that her company made it to the final round of the Arch Grants competition while she was on the production floor with her team. "We all just simultaneously freaked out together,” she says. Govro felt like it was a turning point, not just for the company but for St. Louis' startup community.
“I have been watching Arch Grants since it launched," says Govro. "And every year they have diversified it a little more in terms of who they are funding." But to date, Arch Grants has not funded a food-based business.
Before Pitch Day, Govro had practiced her presentation for hours, seeking out people who knew nothing about her business to gain feedback. But she was still nervous when she walked into the presentation room at Saint Louis University's Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business on August 14. She was accompanied by three of her team members; they all wore Big Heart Tea shirts. “I felt like we had kind of psyched ourselves out the day before," says Govro, reflecting on her presentation days later.
Photo by Amanda Honigfort
The presentation room had atrium-style seating, filled with 20 to 30 judges from diverse business backgrounds—executives of established companies, Arch Grants board members, previous winners, and prominent community members.
Govro had just 30 minutes to impress them. Big Heart Tea Co. is known for its brightly-colored packaged teas, particularly its turmeric-based Cup of Sunshine, found at many top dining spots around town. But Govro didn't pitch the tea her company is known for. Instead, she's hoping Arch Grants will support a new project for the company, Big Hearts Tea Co. Marketplace. The transparent sales website for herbs and spices lets users know exactly how much each farmer is paid for their product and the route the product travels to get to its final destination. Govro hopes that the marketplace will help ethics-based manufacturers ensure that "farmers are given the proper equipment they need to do their job and that they are paid a fair wage."
After Govro finished her presentation, the judges asked her questions about her company's market and revenue projections.
One of the founders told me later that they can tell how a pitch went by the types of questions the presenter receives from the judges. If the judges need the presenter to explain what the business does, that's a problem. If they ask high-level planning questions that expand on a pitch, it's a good sign. Govro's questions seem to have fallen in the second category.
"I thought it went really well,” she says. “It was our first time competing in something like that, so it was really interesting for us to get that perspective of what the startup ecosystem looks like in St Louis. If anything, it brought [our team] closer together. Even just making it as a finalist in Arch Grants says something about the validity of our concept, and that people believe that we have the expertise to execute our plan,”
Pitch Day may be nerve-racking, but Govro says that waiting to hear if her company won is still "very stressful."
Govro and her team won’t have long to wait, though; the winning companies will be notified any day now. They will just have to keep the decision under wraps—win or lose—until the Arch Grants Gala on November 16.
