A new crop of 23 local entrepreneurs is set up for continued growth after graduating from Cortex’s annual SQ1 Bootcamp last night. The 10-week intensive program shepherds businesses through fundamentals such as marketing, accounting, and building a business plan and a solid pitch, with guidance and presentations from established local experts.
“This program is called ‘Square One’ for a reason,” Gabriela Ramirez-Arellano, Cortex’s vice president for entrepreneurship, told the graduating cohort. “This is the launchpad. Now is the time for you to reflect on some of the learnings that you have [had] and really start to implement it.”
Ramirez-Arellano says a version of the training has existed locally since 1998, though it has morphed in that time to respond to community needs. One example is the addition in recent years of a track focused on food entrepreneurship, along with existing tracks focused on information technology, advanced manufacturing, and the service sector.
“There are a lot of folks with innovative ideas in [the food track] and they really had very little choices [of] where to go to help build their businesses, grow their businesses,” says Cortex’s president and CEO, Sam Fiorello. “We said, We’ve got a basic model that works in other industries and we can do that for this track as well, and it’s been incredibly successful.”
Why It Matters: It can be hard to know how to get established and gain traction as an emerging business, attests SQ1 graduate Danielle Fogg, who runs Charlee’s Body Butter, a vegan skin care brand for people with sensitive skin. She says she’s been working on her business “behind the scenes, very quietly” for a handful of years but didn’t know some best practices, like proper accounting.
“Sometimes we were in class and we’re like, Oh, I was supposed to do that for business?” Fogg says. “We’re all horrible at accounting. Well, at least I am. So it was really beneficial.”
Fellow graduate Matt Factor of Factor Medical Devices says the bootcamp was vital for him to get reps pitching his medical device, which can reposition spine segments without the need for surgery, instead using therapeutic pressure.
“I needed a lot of pitching practice and you can only do it so many times in front of the mirror. There’s a lot of stuff when you’re in the industry that you don’t know that other people might not be aware of,” he says. “When you talk about it, they can tell you, I don’t understand that. Then you get a better idea and can explain it in a way that more people can understand.”
What’s next: Applications for the yearly bootcamp open next summer, though Cortex has shorter four-week programs whose applications are rolling from December 15 to May 31, 2026.
As for Fogg, she says she’s gearing up for the holiday market season, having refreshed her labels and packaging. She’d like to get her products carried in gift shops and boutique hotels. Factor says he’s looking to begin clinical testing and continue improving his company’s prototype device. —Eric Schmid
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