Spotlight: Alyssa Gill – Founder of Hometeam and Venture for America (VFA) Fellow in Providence, RI

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My name is Alyssa Gill and I’m a Venture for America (VFA) Fellow living and working in Providence, Rhode Island!

VFA is a fellowship program that connects recent college graduates to startups in cities with emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems. As Fellows, we commit to working for one of VFA’s partner companies in Providence, New Orleans, Detroit, Baltimore, or one of the other 14 VFA cities.

By working for an entrepreneur for a couple of years, Fellows are able to learn hands-on what it takes to build a company. VFA provides access to a vast network of other current Fellows, Alumni, and mentors, as well as ongoing professional development and monetary resources to help prepare us to launch companies of our own.

My passion for cities and the organizations that help grow their economies led me to join VFA, and ultimately launch my new company – Hometeam.

Hometeam creates city-themed apparel and accessories that mimic sports uniforms with a two-fold mission in mind: to foster city pride and create an easy way for people to contribute to local economic development. I think that if you’re representing your city on your clothes, you should also give back to its growth! The Hometeam brand allows you to do both at the same time.

To help get Hometeam off the ground, I participated in the VFA Innovation Fund – an annual crowdfunding competition in partnership with Indiegogo. The Hometeam campaign placed in 3rd , and surpassed my $5,000 fundraising goal!

I’m excited to be piloting Hometeam in Providence to give back to my VFA city in the form of 10% of campaign funds raised going directly to entrepreneurs out of Social Enterprise Greenhouse. In creating the product prototypes and materials for the campaign, I’ve proudly enlisted other Providence entrepreneurs including videographers, designers, and screen printers. My hope is to uphold this model as the business scales to other cities across the country beginning in Fall 2017.

Although the campaign is now closed, please take a look at the campaign page and video online at igg.me/at.hometeampvd to learn more about the brand!