Customer-HD BPO Launches “Dream Big” Contest for Belizean Entrepreneurs

The owners of Customer-HD BPO are encouraging Belizeans to dream big for a chance to win twenty thousand dollars. The outsourcing company has launched a competition to inspire creativity among Belizean entrepreneurs. Through a website, people can submit applications and business ideas that will be judged by a panel of US investors. The person with the best idea will then be chosen and provided with an opportunity to make their dream a reality.  Co-owner of Customer-HD BPO, Paul Schmidt, explained how you can enter the “Dream Big” contest and compete for a shot at being your own boss. 

Paul Schmidt, Co-owner, Customer -HD BPO: “The main context of the contest is you can go on the website, upload an idea. The application form is very simple. There’s no financials that need to be printed. There’s no big marketing plan or business plan. In fact, the first question on the form is describe your business in seven words or less, which is actually one of the hardest things to do when you’re ideating a business. And we’re going to choose five of the best ideas that come in over two months. So it started April 1st through the end of May. We’re collecting ideas. We’ve already had almost 50 applicants from all over, all over Belize, actually almost every area of Belize we’ve had applicants and we’re going to narrow that down to five. Then those five are going to be interviewed by our judges, which are all American investors from from Silicon Valley. And those out of those five a winner is going to be chosen and that person is going to win a prize a cash prize of twenty thousand dollars and then second through fifth will win twenty five hundred dollars and that money can be used it doesn’t have to be used to start the business it’s a prize and then Customer HD and our partners, we’ve got great partners, NEO People it’s a great company here, and a number of others we’re going to incubate that idea for six months and try to help them get it either started or to the next level if it’s an existing business. So anybody can enter whether it’s just an idea or they’ve actually been operating for years.”

Schmidt says the motivation for the contest comes from the company’s core values of helping others. He explained how it went from a concept to a career-changing contest. 

Paul Schmidt, Co-owner, Customer -HD BPO: “One of the things that’s been amazing to us since we started Customer HD is the number of entrepreneurs in Belize and even among our agents. We realized, as you know, everybody in Belize has a side hustle. Everybody got a little something that they’re doing on the side, a little something to make a little extra income. And for us, we view that all as being incredibly entrepreneurial and incredibly innovative. And so as we started to think about how else can we have an impact here in Belize as a company, our tagline is “People Helping People. And so we look at that as not just focusing on our employees or our clients, but also the regions in which we operate. And so the next thing for us to start working on is to see if we can help inspire entrepreneurship in the country. And that’s what launched the Dream Big competition. I was actually in a chamber meeting and we were challenged in the chamber meeting as business owners to dream bigger and if you say something like that to me I’m somebody who will actually go dream bigger. And so I went to my business partner, Jonathan, and said “we need to do something.” And we came up with the concept of launching a contest for ideas, which is all located at DreamBig.bZ”

Schmidt added that people can apply more than once and can do so by visiting www.dreambig.bz.