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Preparture, Iyobosa Ero
Iyobosa (Iyo) Ero and his then-girlfriend, now wife, were stuck in an airport for six hours with nothing to do. As a resourceful IT professional, Iyo comments, “I had an idea to create an app that could help people find interesting things to do while waiting for their flight.” That’s how Preparture was born. Iyo started this business in 2016 as a mobile app to help travelers find small local adventures before an airport departure (“pre-departure”), but he’s learned to grow in the travel-tech space. When he began his journey to entrepreneurship, one of the first things Iyo did was Google, “How to start a business in Chicago.” That’s how he found SCORE. Iyo attended a social media marketing workshop hosted by SCORE, which helped him align his business development goals with a short and long-term social media marketing strategy. His next step was to work with a mentor, which is when he was connected to Steven Lome. “Steve has been phenomenal!” raves Iyo. “He introduced me to the resources SCORE has, helped me register my business, and create every step of my business plan. He’s helped me leverage my path to entrepreneurship in ways I could not have done without him.” Steve and Iyo would meet weekly, at all hours, to talk through strategic ideas, plans and opportunities. Steve introduced Iyo to Chicago’s business accelerator space, in 1871, where Iyo met other tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. Iyo says, “Steve introduced me to a community of fantastic advisors. Without this, I would have made a ton of mistakes. Instead, I launched my app and had 100,000 downloads within the first three months. Now I’m ready to launch new online software for travel agents and content creators to complement the Preparture app. I’m also ready to launch my first seasonal travel, tourism, and lifestyle travel magazine, which highlights the diversity of travel and tourism.” If Iyo were to meet a budding entrepreneur, he would tell them to immediately contact SCORE: “They go above and beyond to help small business owners, because of SCORE, my business is awesome-tacular!”
Preparture launched successfully and has been made available on Apple and Android platforms. Iyo reports more than 50,000 downloads and more than 35,000 active users.
Iyo attended a social media marketing workshop hosted by SCORE, which helped him align his business development goals with a short and long-term social media marketing strategy. His next step was to work with a mentor, which is when he was connected to Steven Lome.
“He introduced me to the resources SCORE has, helped me register my business, and create every step of my business plan. He’s helped me leverage my path to entrepreneurship in ways I could not have done without him.”
“They go above and beyond to help small business owners, because of SCORE, my business is awesome-tacular!”
Im a generalist with diverse business background from computer programming to real estate...
