How a Miami-area entrepreneur won a $15,000 grant. What you can learn

Business admin September 28, 2026 0 Comments

How a Miami-area entrepreneur won a $15,000 grant. What you can learn

Opa-locka entrepreneur Fathiyyah “Tia” Doster, the owner of juice bar JuiceDefined, recently walked into Liberty City’s Sandrell Rivers Theater with a three-minute presentation. She was nervous, but pitched her business anyway.

She walked out as the winner of a $15,000 grand prize.

“My hands were sweaty,” Doster said. “I was the only one with jeans and sneakers.”

Doster is one of many entrepreneurs who have learned the value of participating in pitch competitions and sharing your business idea with potential investors, funders or collaborators. Her presentation in early September earned first place among the seven semifinalists at the Miami-Dade Economic Advocacy Trust’s Pitch Fest

Being able to pitch your business to investors and donors is key to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Here are six tips Doster has for other small business owners about entering pitch competitions and gaining support from investors:

1. Carve time to create the best pitch

Doster had been in competitions before and still took a week to make sure her presentation fit the three-minute time limit.

“I already had a rough draft of a presentation and fine-tuned it with the numbers to make sure the vision was intact,” she said. “It took me a good week to just kind of update my slides and I didn’t want to read off a piece paper.”

2. Build your pitch around data and information about your business

For her pitch competition application, Doster had to create a three-minute video. She focused on making sure the video had important data and statistics about her business.

“The video was the thing that took the most time,” she said. “I worked on the video for three days. Any entrepreneur would tell you it can be challenging to capture the entirety of the business for three minutes.”

3. Pitch competitions get you feedback for your business

Doster values the outside perspectives of her business that only pitch competition judges can give.

“I think every entrepreneur should experience it at least once,” she said. “A lot of times we know what our customers and supporters tell us. But when we get out in front of people that don’t know us, judges that can look at us from a different perspective, we get a level of insight that we don’t have ourselves.”

4. If you’re nervous, do it anyway

Reflecting on her own nerves, Doster recommended that all entrepreneurs enter pitch competitions to get outside perspectives on their work. All three of her experiences helped her improve as a businesswoman.

“In business, you do yourself a disservice when people sugarcoat things. Just do it even if you’re scared. There’s no other way you will learn how.”

5. Know how you will use the grant money if you win

Doster emphasized the importance of knowing how winners of competitions will use the money for their business if they are selected.

“You have to be very clear in terms of what you need the money for,” she said. “Generally, this money will help us to grow our production capacity, hire one or two more people, market better to reach more corporate clientele.”

6. If you don’t win or place in a pitch competition, keep going

While Doster is excited about her recent victory, she wants other entrepreneurs to know that participating is a win in itself. Learning about what works and what doesn’t work can help business owners moving forward with pitching their work.

“The first time I didn’t place at all,” she said. “Me and the girl that won became friends. I took note of what went well through that presentation. For me, it wasn’t a loss so much, it was a learning experience.”