JumpStart Inc.

The meeting was supposed to last 12 minutes. It ran long. At VC Fest in 2024, Dr. Kesha Williams, founder of Cool Comforts, sat down with an angel investor couple to talk about VPod, her cold therapy device addressing an overlooked women’s health need. A few weeks later, they traveled to Cincinnati for a private fundraising gathering she hosted. Soon after, they invested. The investment provided more than capital. It launched an ongoing relationship.

JumpStart Inc. is pleased to announce that David Sylvan and Walter Avdey have joined its Board of Directors, bringing decades of leadership experience across healthcare innovation, strategy, commercialization, finance, audit, risk and governance. Their board service will benefit startup founders and small business owners as they grow their companies and create lasting economic impact.

When I tell people I work for a nonprofit venture development organization focused on helping small business owners and startup founders accelerate the growth of their companies, they usually want to know more specifically what that means—so what does JumpStart do? they’ll ask. I work on the tech side of things, so the first part of my answer often centers around our programs and services, the tangible pieces and parts of what JumpStart offers founders.

Healthcare market sizing gets messy fast. And one of the biggest mistakes founders tend to make is building a market model around patients instead of buyers.

JumpStart Inc., a nonprofit on a mission to drive economic vitality by connecting entrepreneurs to the opportunities and resources they need to succeed, today announced the speaker lineup for VC Fest. The two-day event focused on “Connecting Vision to Venture” returns to the Huntington Convention Center in downtown Cleveland on September 29 and 30, 2026, with premier support from Burton D. Morgan Foundation and presenting support from Thompson Hine LLP.

If you use LinkedIn to promote your work or your organization, there is something worth understanding. Organic reach is not what it used to be. You can spend time creating a post, hit publish and still not reach the people you thought would see it. I’ve been working on social media for years now, and algorithm changes are something I have to keep learning about because they force me to rethink how, when, where and what we post. Bear with me as I put this into words.

Presented with support from Burton D. Morgan Foundation and Big Kitty Labs, the afternoon will also feature a fireside chat, “Building the Next Billion-Dollar Company in Ohio,” with Bill Premier, former CEO of Hyland Software, and Kevin von Keyserling, CEO of ReadySet Surgical and co-founder of Keyfactor, moderated by Kris Beck, SVP Strategic Operations at Veroot, Startup Advisor and Investor.

Combs-Lemon brings more than 12 years of experience in small business support, workforce development, community development and entrepreneurship. She joins JumpStart from the Stark Economic Development Board, where she most recently served as Director of Small Business Growth and Entrepreneurial Development and connected business owners with credit readiness support, lenders and countywide resource partners.

JumpStart Inc. today announced two appointments to its leadership team: Terri Bradford Eason, who joined August 3 as its first Chief Revenue Officer, and Daniel Brown, who recently stepped into the role of Chief Services Officer for the nonprofit venture development organization. Eason brings more than 30 years in philanthropy, banking and relationship management to her new role.

JumpStart Inc., a nonprofit that provides advising and resources to growing Ohio businesses, today released its 2025 Economic and Fiscal Impact Report showing that entrepreneurs supported by JumpStart and its ESP Partners generated an estimated $1.9 billion in economic activity across the state in 2025, up 11 percent over 2024. Since 2010, assisted companies have generated an estimated $16.9 billion in cumulative economic activity for Ohio.