Here we go.
Building a small business is really hard work. Now, imagine winning
an award for years, 3100 Minnesotans applied.
And now it's down to 90 entrepreneurs and start up centers
all competing in the annual statewide business competition called
Min Cup. And we have Min Cup associates
director Ken
Oliver with semifinalist Kayla Malmgren
with Reach juggling and this is your business start up. Yes, let's start here.
What is Mint Cup?
And what are you trying to do to inspire these companies to get off the ground?
Absolutely.
So Mint Cup is the largest statewide start up competition in the nation.
We run an annual competition that really,
our goal is to support emerging entrepreneurs and start
ups across the state of Minnesota across all industries.
As you see, we have juggling today.
And what we do is we're providing mentorship, access, networking, access,
education,
expert feedback from volunteer judges.
And then we provide $400,000 in no strings attached cash at
the end of the competition to really drive these companies forward.
It's great.
Yeah,
it's
to the cross school business.
Absolutely
awesome. Very cool.
All right, let's talk about the company that, that you started here.
What is it?
Well, it's called Reach You juggling club.
And what we do is we allow kids to come in and we teach them how to juggle.
So if we think of a dance studio or a martial arts studio,
we run very similarly to that, but we're juggling studio
and we're the only one currently operating in the United States right now
and the kids were looking for someplace to juggle.
And so we opened up, reach,
what does juggling do for you? I mean, a lot of people have a lot of hobbies,
but there's gotta be something about juggling that sort
of centers your focus and maybe is almost meditative.
Oh, absolutely. Well, for one, we use juggling as a vessel for mentorship.
And so we really wanna provide these students with as much support as we can.
But ju
in general, it's great for the mind.
So if you struggle with mental health,
the juggling can be really good in getting you out of your mind.
It's also good for screen time. So if your kid is stuck on their phone,
you can't juggle while holding a phone in your hand. So that's what it's good for too.
Well, that is the great fight of the next 10 years. It is.
Get your kids off the phone and learn a skill.
You want to try and teach me how to jog. Absolutely.
I would love to put the ipad down here. Excellent.
So I'm gonna give you one ball,
I've messed around with apples and the kitchen didn't work that well
that
yeah.
OK. We're gonna go back and forth just like this. OK. Perfect. Sure, perfect.
You can try this at home too. Where do your eyes go?
When you juggle, your eyes are on, keep them up just like that.
You're not staring at the ball, staring at the ball, keeping yourself right.
locked up. OK.
All right.
So then once you're ready for two, you borrow a second ball for a second,
you're gonna throw the first ball just like
you did and then the second ball underneath.
So not at the same time
and not passing underneath. There you go. Now try it with the left hand.
What this like that? Yes, but start with your left hand like this.
Yeah, there you go. There you go. There you go. Try it one more time.
Ok? Perfect.
And then once that second ball is in the air,
just like when that first ball is in there,
that's when you're going to add that third ball.
Ok. 123.
look at that. We got a natural over here. That's it. That's exactly it.
How do you do the bowling pins?
Well, that's going to take a little more effort, but you can learn at reach.
All right. I want to talk about the Min Cup as well. What are the,
so you have different categories?
Of all these companies we do such as so we have
nine different industries that we function out of with the competition.
Kayla's in the student division, which is for undergrad and graduate students.
But we really just fill all of the different industries that
you can have a business in. So food and AG
CBG company, we have the Life Science division, high tech General,
there's nine of them. So there's a lot.
But yeah,
it helps us kind of categorize the companies and then we can bring
in experts in those specific industries to
provide really helpful feedback for companies,
like just priceless for companies off the
ground.
Absolutely. Well,
we appreciate what you're doing and thanks for coming on the show.
We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is fun. Absolutely.
So, the semi finalist reception,
it's open to the public.
It is, it's next Wednesday, June 5th, University of Minnesota's Hanson Hall,
right?
You can see a full list of the semifinals on the website carole.com. Thanks guys.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Chris.
All right, coming up, we're going to check in with our.