If you’ve ever talked yourself out of applying for grant funding because you assumed you weren’t the “right kind” of business, this episode is your reality check.

In this breakdown, I'm walking you through exactly how the first Hey Helen Grant winner was selected — and more importantly, how she wasn’t. Industry favoritism? Nope. Revenue bias? Also nope. Platform size, niche appeal, or whether the business felt “cool enough”? Completely irrelevant. What did matter was something far less glamorous and far more controllable: the clarity of the application itself. If you’ve ever wondered what grant reviewers are actually scanning for once they’re 50 applications deep, this episode delivers the answer (at least for me!).

Resources mentioned:

1. Learn more and apply for the Hey Helen Grant
2. Learn more about the grant winner, CeCe Cheng, and her company, ShareWell
3. Access my grant training (no opt in required!)

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What’s inside this episode

1. What I noticed almost immediately once I started reading applications — and how fast unclear ideas got eliminated
2. The real reason traction matters (and why you don’t need customers yet to prove it)
3. What most founders think impact means — versus how reviewers actually recognize it
4. Why saying [insert big flashy statement here] works against you unless you can back it up with receipts
5. The framework I use to evaluate grants that founders can reverse-engineer for themselves

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