By: Cynthia Munrayos
Central Providence Small Business Support Office
If you’ve passed by Biz Bodega on Manton Avenue in Providence, we are a community business support office that specialize in assisting early stage startup businesses. Biz Bodega is an initiative of One Neighborhood Builders, and managed by Innovation Studio. We help provide free business support services for all of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The real meat and potatoes of our services are our startup business programs, which consist of INSPIRE, CREATE, SHARE, and GROW. Biz Bodega is our main headquarters in Rhode Island, and serves as the main location for in-person Innovation Studio classes.
INSPIRE (English / Spanish)
- Objective: We teach the fundamentals of creating new businesses and how to develop the characteristics to be a successful entrepreneur.
- Who can apply?: All aspiring entrepreneurs with a business idea are encouraged to apply.
CREATE (English / Spanish)
- Objective: We teach how to develop your business idea, discover the ideal client and understand the demand of your market. The program ends with an in-depth review of the main sources of financing available to small businesses in Rhode Island.
- Who can apply?: Low-income up and coming business owners such as street vendors, small business owners, artists & creators, Freelancers, consultants, etc with a concrete business idea.
SHARE (English Only)
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- Objective: We teach how to communicate and pitch your business idea. As can be seen, you will not only learn how to pitch to future capital investors, but you will also get the opportunity to pitch your idea in front of a real audience through our Demo Day.
- Who can apply?: Anyone that has gone through an Innovation Studio program with a solidified business idea.
GROW (VIRTUAL | English ONLY)
- Objective: We advise small business owners on how to grow and expand their sales.
- Who can apply?: Small business owners with more than a year in the market seeking to increase customers and sales.
Other services include Olneyville Business Coffee community meetings, Secretary of State Office Hours, and one on one expert mentorship sessions.
Having started in Massachusetts in 2013, through a partnership with Venture Cafe and Cambridge Innovation Center, we have been serving the entrepreneurial field in New England for more than 10 years now. In 2021, Innovation Studio was able to open the Biz Bodega resource hub to reach out to different demographics and diverse business ideas to help create more opportunities in lower income neighborhoods like Olneyville, Providence.
Biz Bodega is a one stop shop for aspiring and existing business owners to walk in during office hours and find out about different resources available to them. In addition to sharing our free startup programs free of charge to the community to help spread the foundations of entrepreneurship. We offer our programs in Spanish and English to make it more accessible to non-english residents in Central Providence. Fast forward to today, Innovation Studio is currently in its third year of operating the Biz Bodega space.
Biz Bodega also can be purposed as the following:
- Co-working space for program alumni and partner organization meetings
- Workshop/Training Rental
- Innovation Studio Programming
- Conference Room Rental for Personal Office Hours
Above all, we like to say we are teaching people about what entrepreneurship is instead of immediately starting a business. Entrepreneurship is a great idea because it provides another opportunity to create new opportunities for yourself. Understanding what it takes to be a successful business owner from the beginning is what we strive for. Generally, our INSPIRE program is one of our most popular and recommended courses because it teaches individuals whether their idea is profitable or not.
Biz Bodega is Innovation Studio, and we are here to help spread the word about entrepreneurship and creating opportunities to the Central Providence community and throughout Rhode Island.
