Perfect Pitch

In July, Flavors Culinary Group founder Samia Bingham won the Small Biz Challenge in Los Angeles by wowing Shark Tank’s Robert Herjavec with an improvised pitch using a slide deck she’d never seen before. “Samia didn’t have a single ‘um’ in that pitch,” s

Robert Herjavec picks the winner of the Small Biz Challenge.

1 The Fort Washington, Maryland-based entrepreneur entered the competition to raise money for Flavors Culinary Group, the food-startup incubator she hopes will become, in her words, the “WeWork of kitchen spaces.”

2 Awarding a total of $25,000, the contest pitted Bingham against two other founders— of music therapy provider Maine Music & Health and landscape planner Garden in Minutes—in five timed trials of entrepreneurial skill.

3 While big names like WeWork and the Wing have taken co-working spaces prime time, a champion brand has yet to emerge from the kitchen and food incubators servicing the $140 billion specialty foods industry.

4 When Bingham launched her startup, landlords were reluctant to convert their properties into commercial kitchens for what they thought was a fad. So she focused on running a co-working space where food startups could work on administrative tasks like ordering and payroll.

5 “Co-working isn’t enough,” Bingham says. With a background in government bid consulting, Bingham has been helping her food startup clients secure contracts, negotiate distribution deals, and enhance their reputations with culinary media.

6 Bingham will use the $14,000 she won to secure the property, permits, and equipment she needs to finally build a kitchen space for her food startups to rent, and to bring all of her services under one roof.