Three startup founders from New York and California who spent a year living rent-free in Huntsville say the experience was transformative. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s very clear that our company would not exist if it wasn\u2019t for the opportunity to live there,\u201d Maurice Landers, chief technology officer of Doctours, who has since relocated to San Francisco, Calif., told AL.com.<\/p>\n
Doctours, a medical tourism company, connects people experiencing hair loss with overseas hair transplant clinics offering lower prices than U.S. providers. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have had jobs,\u201d Landers continued. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be helping people with these medical procedures that they\u2019ve been thinking of and dreaming about.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Doctours co\u2011founders Landers and Girum Tihtina were living in New York, and NEET SHEETS founder Ruth Young\u2011Loaeza was living in California, when they won the Sweet Home Alabama grant. NEET SHEETS sells patented ergonomic bed sheets designed to make bed\u2011making faster and easier.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the grant, the trio moved to Huntsville that fall<\/a> and stayed at the Metronome apartment complex in MidCity. <\/p>\n The Decatur-Morgan County Entrepreneurial Center, or The E-Center, conceived the grant idea as a job growth driver, executive director John Joseph told AL.com.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason that we want to continue to promote entrepreneurs and promote entrepreneurship is because that\u2019s how we create more good paying jobs for the people who already live in Alabama,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The E-Center proposed the idea for the grant to Innovate Alabama<\/a>, a statewide public-private partnership focused on entrepreneurship, technology and innovation, which provided about $145,000 in funding.<\/p>\n Joseph said 12 out-of-state entrepreneurs stayed for one year in Alabama, mostly in the Huntsville and Birmingham areas. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to recruit multiple entrepreneurs,\u201d Joseph said. \u201cAnd what that means is we\u2019re getting people who want to start companies, and they\u2019re here, and they\u2019re trying out Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n Partners included Apollo Coalition, the nonprofit arm of MidCity developer RCP Companies, and gener8tor, a startup accelerator and venture firm.<\/p>\n \u2018The grants let us focus\u2019<\/p>\n Tihtina, Doctours\u2019 CEO, said the Sweet Home Alabama grant meant they could devote more time to building their company. <\/p>\n \u200b\u201cWe were going to build this company part-time instead of full-time,\u201d he said. \u201cThe grants let us focus on that full-time. There was also a bunch of things that you wouldn\u2019t risk. <\/p>\n \u201cWe had maybe $100,000 in the bank, and we spent a third of it buying doctours.com, which is a huge investment. If we had to pay rent, we wouldn\u2019t be taking these larger risks. But because we had a safety net, we were able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n The three entrepreneurs capped their one\u2011year stay with September pitch\u2011competition wins and secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in investor commitments.<\/p>\n The founders of Doctours said they got $900,000 after winning first place in Huntsville at a pitch competition organized by California<\/a>-based Halogen Ventures. <\/p>\n