The contest was judged by the likes of Seth Godin, John Lee Dumas, Danielle Canty and Natallie Ellis of BossBabe, and Neha Naik of Radix.

Radix’s .Store Domains recently announced the closure of their #IdeaToStore contest, sponsored by Shopify. The contest invited aspiring entrepreneurs to share their ideas for an online store, and nearly 5000 people signed up. The winners walked away with cash prizes up to $30,000 along with exclusive Q&A and mentoring from the judges. The grand prize winner will also be featured on David Meltzer’s 2 Minute Drill; aired on Bloomberg TV and Amazon Prime.

The winner and runner-up, Indira Andrewin and Erika Warner respectively, were both given the chance to pitch their ideas to a highly accomplished panel of judges along with four other finalists.

Judges for the contest included Seth Godin, Entrepreneur, Best-selling Author, & Speaker; Natalie Ellis, CEO & Co-founder, BossBabe; Danielle Canty, President & Co-founder, BossBabe; John Lee Dumas (JLD), Founder & Host, Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast; and Neha Naik, Sr Director of Channel Partnerships at Radix.

“I absolutely loved the contest,” said judge Danielle Canty. “I think it’s really allowed so many people to take that first step in their business.”; a sentiment shared by the judges as well as the participants. Finalist Luanettee Colebrooke said, “There were so many women (and aspiring entrepreneurs in general) that .Store Domains encouraged. I just want to thank .Store Domains so much for being a place where our voices can be heard and validated.”

Notably, the contest saw healthy gender and race diversity across participants. This is in line with the fact that women are responsible for more than half of online microbusinesses started in the U.S. since the onset of the pandemic. To be specific, as per the 2021 Microbusiness National Survey by GoDaddy, women-owned microbusinesses comprised 57% of new micro-businesses, up from 48% before March 2020. Further, microbusiness owners struggle the most with digital marketing (63%), access to capital (36%) and technical help in getting online (28%).

Suman Das, Sr Director, Brand Operations at Radix, said, “Through this contest, .Store Domains intended to make it easier for to-be entrepreneurs to put out their idea; the very first step in building a business. The prizes were planned in such a way that it sets the winners up for a good run with their ventures. The seed money, guidance from the judges around marketing and scaling, and the visibility that the contest has provided to the winners will go a long way in turning their ideas to stores, and hopefully successful ones at that.” This was .Store’s first such campaign. “We plan to continue taking more such initiatives to encourage aspiring business owners to embark on their entrepreneurial journey.” Suman Das further added.

Since the beginning of 2021, Radix has put out multiple end-customer campaigns that have focused on providing a platform for new ideas to come forth. From .Tech’s StartIn.Tech and Pitch.Tech, to .Online Business Academy and .Store’s IdeaTo.Store, Radix’s end-customer marketing campaigns are all about enabling new businesses.

About .Store Domains

Radix is one of the world’s leading new domain registries with 10 new extensions that include .ONLINE, .STORE, .TECH, .WEBSITE, .SPACE, .PRESS, .SITE, .HOST, .FUN and .UNO. Through these extensions, Radix is empowering business owners to get short, memorable and descriptive domain names that can be used for a website, email address, or a variety of other internet addressing purposes. For more details, visit www.radix.website.