Cortex’s Square One Bootcamp is a Bridge for Budding Entrepreneurs

On a recent evening inside the Cortex building at 20 S. Sarah, Khutaija Noor was the brave one. She stood up, took a microphone, glanced at her two dozen fellow students, and let fly a single-sentence pitch for her fledgling company: “We are offering a data-driven decision-making tool to help healthcare organizations reduce wait time for patients needing mental-health treatment.” It was a mouthful, but everyone clapped. Later, out in the hallway, she mulled where to adjust. “Today, my approach was more technical,” she said. “It has to be more layman.”

This is what students do at the Square One bootcamp organized by Cortex, the innovation district in the Central West End. Over 10 weeks, aspiring St. Louis entrepreneurs in the tech, manufacturing, service, and food sectors get practical instruction in more than 15 areas. These include communication, customer research, marketing, pricing, contracts, negotiation, hiring, and accounting. The cost is $250 but full scholarships are available for most students, who have tended over the last five years to be women and people of color. And in that time period, a lot of students have found upward economic mobility, according to co-instructor Gabriela Ramirez-Arellano: She says she has seen students graduate and not just grow businesses but also run for office, get promotions in their current jobs, increase their credit scores, and pay off debts.