Bring proven entrepreneurship training
to your community.
Partner with us to deliver the Kauffman FastTrac curriculum, the same program used by universities, economic development agencies, and correctional education programs nationwide.
Your members and constituents get world-class entrepreneurship education without the overhead. We bring the curriculum, the instruction, the materials, and the facilitation. You get credit for programming that produces measurable economic development in your own community.
One of roughly 150 authorized FastTrac affiliates nationwide. Jim Greear is a certified FastTrac facilitator and an authorized affiliate of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Kauffman FastTrac®, delivered locally.
FastTrac was launched by Ewing Marion Kauffman on a straightforward conviction: that everyone has a fundamental right to turn an idea into an economic reality, regardless of who they are or where they come from. It is taught by universities, economic development agencies, and community organizations across the country.
The program equips aspiring entrepreneurs with the business knowledge, tools, resources, and peer networks needed to start and grow a real business. It is a structured pathway from idea to viable venture, not a lecture series. Participants leave with a validated concept, a tested business model, and a plan they can actually execute.
Delivered through Focus Efforts, participants also get something the curriculum alone cannot provide: a facilitator who has spent three decades doing this work for a living, and a peer cohort that continues after the program ends.
Three settings, one curriculum.
The material adapts. The standard does not. We deliver FastTrac in the places where entrepreneurship education changes the most lives, including the ones most providers do not go.
Chambers, EDCs, and municipalities
Programming your board can point to. FastTrac graduates start businesses, create jobs, and generate tax revenue inside your jurisdiction, which is the outcome your funding conversations are built around.
Prisons, work camps, and reentry programs
Entrepreneurship is one of the few paths that does not require someone else to hire you first. We teach FastTrac inside correctional facilities and reentry programs, equipping returning citizens with a legitimate route to income and ownership.
Colleges, universities, and incubators
A proven curriculum for entrepreneurship centers and incubator cohorts, taught by a practitioner rather than delivered from a textbook, and paired with mentorship that continues past the last session.
You bring the community. We bring everything else.
You already have the trust and the relationships in your community. What most organizations lack is a curriculum worth putting their name on and someone qualified to teach it. That is the gap this partnership fills.
Position your organization as a catalyst for local economic growth. Entrepreneurship programming is one of the few community investments where the results compound. Graduates create jobs, generate tax revenue, and contribute to community prosperity, and those outcomes belong in front of your board and your stakeholders.
No upfront investment required. We provide the instruction, the proven curriculum, all materials, and ongoing support. You help us connect with the entrepreneurial community you already serve.
Graduates stay connected. Many become ongoing members, sponsors, or volunteers, which strengthens your organization long after the cohort ends. Partners consistently report increased membership inquiries, stronger relationships with local government and business leaders, new sponsorship conversations, and deeper ties with regional ecosystem partners and lenders.
Taught by someone who does this for a living.
Your cohort will not learn entrepreneurship from someone who studies it. They will learn it from someone who has spent three decades in the room when the decisions got made.
Jim Greear
Since founding Focus Efforts in 1993, Jim has been the advisor struggling businesses call when they need results and growing companies rely on when they are ready to scale. He has executed turnarounds for companies on the brink, built growth strategies that multiplied revenue, developed custom technology platforms, and structured deals that changed entire organizations.
What your participants get is not academic theory. It is what actually worked, taught by someone who has personally guided hundreds of businesses through the problems your cohort is about to face. When a participant hits a real obstacle, they get a framework that has already survived contact with the marketplace.
- Kauffman FastTrac® authorized affiliate and certified facilitator
- SCORE certified mentor and presenter
- National Entrepreneur Center advisory board member
- UCF Business Incubation Program mentor
- SBA 8(a) and DBE mentor
- Former FAVACA international public speaker
- Author of more than a dozen business books
- Corporate chaplain and ordained minister
Five modules, concept to launch.
Each module builds on the one before it, so a cohort develops both the strategic thinking and the practical skills to build something that lasts. Here is what participants actually accomplish.
Discover the potential and validate the concept
Lifestyle assessment and goal setting, personal and professional vision development, idea evaluation and refinement, and an elevator pitch workshop. Participants gain clarity on whether entrepreneurship fits their life before they invest in it, and learn to assess a concept objectively rather than emotionally.
Validate the market and the competitive position
Market research methodology, customer profiling, competitive analysis, the Business Model Canvas, pricing strategy, legal structure selection, and exit strategy options. This is where guesswork gets eliminated and a business model gets tested rather than assumed.
Build the model and the go-to-market strategy
Brand development from name to promise, digital marketing, distribution and sales methodology, financial projections and cost analysis, intellectual property protection, and a legal compliance framework. Participants leave with multiple revenue pathways rather than one hope.
Secure resources and plan for growth
Team building and organizational development, cash flow management, break-even calculation, funding strategy and investor preparation, and full business plan development. Participants learn exactly when the business becomes profitable and how to present it to someone who can fund it.
Execute and lead with confidence
Launch planning and execution, leadership and team management, organizational culture, financial analysis and performance measurement, and scalable systems and workflows. The module that prevents the operational breakdown that so often follows early success.
Right for your cohort if they look like this.
Considering the leap
Local professionals weighing entrepreneurship as a next career move, and recent graduates or career changers exploring business ownership.
Already started
Existing small business owners ready to scale, pivot, or fix operations, and side-hustlers prepared to move into full-time ventures.
Rebuilding
Returning citizens and reentry participants building a legitimate path to income and ownership, and anyone with a concept who wants honest validation before investing.
Three steps, and we handle the logistics.
Initial consultation
We discuss your community’s needs, ideal class size, and scheduling. Cohorts typically run 8 to 20 participants across 6 to 8 weeks with weekly three-hour sessions, adjusted to your calendar and setting.
Marketing and recruitment
We provide co-branded marketing materials and help promote the program through your existing channels. You leverage the trust you have already built. We handle the logistics behind it.
Delivery and follow-up
We deliver the complete program at your location or virtually, provide all materials, and continue supporting graduates afterward. You receive progress reports throughout.
“Your network is your net worth.”Porter Gale
“You don’t build a business, you build people, then people build the business.”Zig Ziglar
Central Florida entrepreneurship resources.
A few organizations worth knowing for business owners across the greater Central Florida region. We are not affiliated with these and receive nothing from listing them.
Everyone has the right to turn an idea into a living.
That was Ewing Kauffman’s conviction and it is why this curriculum exists. Regardless of who someone is or where they come from. It is the reason we teach it in chambers and incubators, and the reason we teach it inside prison walls where almost nobody else goes.
Let us schedule a brief conversation about customization for your community, timing that fits your calendar, marketing and co-branding support, and how success gets measured and reported back to you.