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Prepared for takeoff: Matthew Byrd wins inaugural Launchpad initiative

Byrd wins inaugural Launchpad initiative

Photo provided Matthew Byrd won the 2016 Launchpad competition Wednesday evening at the Parkersburg Art Center. He was awarded $5,000 to go toward the growth of his business.

PARKERSBURG — Matthew Byrd, 19, of Harrisville has won the 2016 Launchpad competition, which has a $5,000 grand prize.

Byrd was among the seven finalists that were selected for the inaugural Launchpad initiative for local entrepreneurs. The finalists pitched their ideas for business models to a panel of five judges and an audience Wednesday at the Parkersburg Art Center.

Byrd, the founder of Byrd’s and Bee’s Honey, was selected as the competition winner after the finalists explained their business plans.

Byrd began beekeeping with two hives in the spring of 2014 when he was 17 years old. In 2015 he grew his apiary (a collection of beehives) to six hives, and plans to increase the number of hives. Byrd is a freshman at West Virginia University studying wildlife and fisheries management.

Byrd’s business partner is Katie Cook, a first-year master’s of agriculture student at the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design. During her first semester at WVU, Cook took an entrepreneurship class where she was introduced to Byrd. They created Byrd’s and Bee’s Honey and formed a West Virginia LLC in 2016.

Byrd said he plans to use the prize money to expand the company and “be able to launch next year with phase one of my business plan.”

Byrd said his business plan is to sell high quality honey that is exclusively made in West Virginia and he plans to grow West Virginia’s economy by using West Virginia bees.

Byrd’s and Bee’s Honey operates out of Harrisville, where the beehives are kept and taken care of by Byrd. They sell their honey in 6-ounce honey jars that are labeled with a custom logo and label created by Cheryl Carr at Creative Designs of Parkersburg.

Launchpad was sponsored by the Mid-Ohio Valley Regional Council, The Ross Foundation, Vision Shared, the Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley, the Pleasants Area Chamber of Commerce, Huntington Bank, Ritchie County Economic Development Authority and the city of Parkersburg.

The pre-launch reception was from 5 p.m. until 6 p.m.

The pitch contest presentation began at 6:15 p.m. and concluded at 7:30 p.m., with Jill Parsons of the Chamber of Commerce of the Mid-Ohio Valley as the master of ceremonies.

Once the “Shark Tank”-style competition began, the finalists stood in front of the audience and give a five-minute description of their business model. Following their description each contestant had an additional five minutes to take questions from the judges.

The judges were Eric Peters, the executive director of the Tyler County Development Authority; Laura Cox, owner of Cox Pharmacy; Carl Guthrie, the executive director of the Pleasants County Development Authority; Patsy Hardy, the operating owner principal of S & P Harley Davidson, and Cory Dennison, the president and CEO of Vision Shared.

The judges and the audience selected Byrd by voting for their favorite business model. They voted on ballots that were placed into a sealed box to be counted following the competition.

The other six contestants were Shannon Reilly of Ellenboro, Kristian Lenard of St. Marys, Mark Meredith of Parkersburg, Jade Kalinofski of Friendly, Stephen Cogar of Ravenswood and Tina Matheny of St. Marys.

Guthrie said Launchpad is a great format for contestants to pitch their ideas and he was impressed by the business plans he heard.

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