Doors Unhinged wins a $50,000 Re-X prize. Andrew Ellsworth explains how working with his Entrepreneurs Forever peer group helped lay the groundwork to grow his business.
If you’ve dreamed of winning a cash prize to invest in your business, know that Entrepreneurs Forever member Andrew Ellsworth is living that dream.
His six-year-old business, Doors Unhinged, was recently named a winner of a Re-X Before Recycling prize. And the award was big: $50,000.
The Re-X prize is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and was launched to encourage businesses to “develop innovative ways to extend the lifetimes of products or parts via reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, or repurposing before recycling.” Competing required Andrew to submit a written narrative, have a solid business idea that fit the "reuse" requirements, be beyond the germination stage, and create a YouTube video.
Doors Unhinged was a perfect fit — Andrew's business rescues and resells landfill-bound doors from commercial buildings. And now, Andrew plans to put the cash prize towards his business's next pivot.
“We’ve been in business for six years, and are trying to level up. One of our challenges is that prospective customers are looking for uniformity, and we can’t really deliver it with as-is products, our existing model. So we are developing a process for refinishing that will allow us to bring in a bunch of doors that all look different and send them all out looking the same. The timing on this prize is great,” says Andrew, who also notes that the prize money may help him expand into new markets too.
Andrew has been a member of Entrepreneurs Forever’s Homestead (PA) Group for four years. “I’m a huge supporter of the program — it’s been a game-changer for me. I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I have without the support and mentorship of my peer group,” he says.
“Entrepreneurship can be a lonely endeavor and isolating. But Entrepreneurs Forever creates a community and safe space that gives me room to be vulnerable, to lay everything out and talk through challenges, and share successes and wins too. Entrepreneurs Forever isn’t teaching me to be an accountant or how to run HR,” says Andrew. “The program is focused on helping me be good at what I want to be.”
Read more about the Re-X competition
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