Inside a small, secure gymnasium and beneath a basketball hoop, Raven Blackwing pitched her business, Raven’s Haven, to two coaches seated in matching plastic tan chairs.
Blackwing told the two other women she is starting a “somatic breath work” company, where she — and eventually a staff of other formerly incarcerated women she trains — would help clients process trauma and stress through breathing and movement.
“I’m asking for $20,000 in seed funding to finalize my branding and domain, and create marketing materials, such as a website, and complete certification programming along with curriculum development,” said Blackwing, who was convicted of multiple felonies.
“I’m really asking for your support and healing the health — and therefore lives — of those around us,” she continued, “through my dedication and fierce drive. Because, again, with a superhero name like mine, how could I not create the space to safely transform?”
The two coaches clapped and cheered. Coach Marisa Johnson, a local business owner, said it gave her chills. But what’s one way Blackwing could improve?
“I definitely think that I could make it not sound so polished,” Blackwing said. “Ironically, I’ve noticed in this that some of the feedback has been, ‘You kind of lose me a little bit.’”
“100% disagree,” said the other coach, Dr. Sidni Shorter, president and CEO of the Utah Black Chamber of Commerce. “You delivered because you brought you to it.”
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) Dr. Sidni Shorter (center) and Marisa Johnson (right) listen to an “entrepreneur in training” give a business pitch at the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) A business coach hugs an “entrepreneur in training” as she practices her business pitch at the Utah State Correctional Facility on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
Blackwing and the 17 other incarcerated women in that gym were learning how to pitch a business as “entrepreneurs in training,” or EITs — the first cohort of women sponsored by Defy Ventures to come from the Utah State Correctional Facility. A class of men graduated earlier this year, and July 10 was the last day of the women’s competition.
They were also learning to pitch themselves — and to believe in what they are selling — so they can one day find work far from what landed them behind bars in the first place.
Anecdotally, the majority of business owners start a business “because they have to, meaning that nobody will employ them,” said Tim Cooley, director of entrepreneurship at the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity.
That is especially true for formerly incarcerated people, he said. Plus, in Utah, those inmates will be coming into a “very open ecosystem of entrepreneurship.” That’s why Cooley, who participated as a coach for the men’s cohort, said this program is “extremely valuable.”
Still, many participants will not start their own business. And that’s OK too, said CEO and president of Defy Ventures, Andrew Glazier.
“We use entrepreneurship not because we think everyone’s going to start a business. We know that entrepreneurship is hard, whether you’re formerly incarcerated or not. ..,” Glazier said, “But we know that for most people coming home, they’re going to need to get a job and get settled.”
This training, he said, will help them do that.
What is Defy?
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) Kimberly Cruz Romero speaks at Defy Venture’s business pitch competition at the Utah State Correctional Facility on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
Defy Ventures’ curriculum runs seven months. Cohorts study from four books and attend classes twice a week, said John Jackson, the executive director of Utah’s program.
There are no barriers for entry based on a person’s age, education or severity of conviction, Jackson said, but they need to show they’re committed. That starts with a 28-page application.
Once accepted, they will be booted if they miss two classes, if they are not following prison rules or are not doing the coursework.
“We have a high standard, not because we’re being strict; not because we’re being mean.” Jackson said. “But because when you get out and you don’t show up for work, guess what happens? You lose your job.”
It all culminates in a business pitch competition — for a chance to win money and resources toward starting a company once they leave prison. Then, a graduation. For some, like Blackwing, it is the first time they will wear a cap and gown.
Throughout the program, Jackson said, participants confront their pasts, their “self-limiting belief” and learn new coping strategies. They also learn how to harness the skills they already have — what Jackson called a “transferable skillset” — to build a better future.
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) John Jackson, executive director of Defy Ventures Utah, speaks to “entrepreneurs in training” and their volunteer coaches during the business pitch competition at the Utah State Correctional Facility on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
“Somebody who sold drugs, they’re a great salesperson. Somebody who was a gang leader, right — you can translate that into leadership skills of managing people,” he said. “You’ve just done it the wrong way for a long time, but the skillset is valuable.”
The women’s program started with 35 people, Jackson said. Throughout the course, at least two women were released. Ultimately, under 20 made it to the July 10 graduation, including a few inmates — such as Jodi Hildebrandt — who Corrections officials did not allow The Salt Lake Tribune to speak with.
Defy started in New York but has since spread into eight other states. When the program came to Utah, Capt. Jared Beers, who oversees the prison’s female housing units, said it was described as “Shark Tank” for inmates to learn how to come up with a plan for a business and pitch it.
“And then the winner gets the money to start it when they parole? I’m like, ‘Sign them up,’” he said, “because that’s that’s exactly what we need here.”
He said he has seen the program build the women’s confidence, and he has seen it build connections among groups who might not have previously gotten along.
To allow them to accomplish all their coursework, Beers said, the prison had to do some things differently. For instance, he doesn’t have enough staff to watch over study groups, which the women needed to pass the class. So he started to allow small groups to study together without full-time supervision.
“That was a total cultural shift from what prison is thought about being, and the staff embraced it, and [the inmates] have been great about it,” he said. “When the staff go check on them, they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
‘Hustler in here is another word for entrepreneur’
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) Kimberly Cruz Romero pitches her business, Tread Queen, during Defy Venture’s business pitch competition at the Utah State Correctional Facility on July 10, 2025.
In this cohort, all dressed in the standard Utah State Correctional Facility maroon jumpsuits, Kimberly Cruz Romero — and her business idea — still stood out.
She’s small statured, standing at around 5-foot, but her presence and charisma were big.
“I was a hustler,” she explained. “It was, ‘You make it through life any way you can, whether it’s legally, whether it’s illegally.’ And unfortunately, a lot of the ways were illegally.”
“Hustler in here,” she continued, “is another word for entrepreneur.”
She said one of her favorite parts of Defy is that it has made her feel like she is a person with a future outside of prison — someone who doesn’t have to wear a jumpsuit, whose drive can get them somewhere.
“We’re used to wearing these reds, right? And it gives us a label, a stigma. When we’re in Defy that doesn’t exist. We’re in our regular clothes,” she said, “maybe not physically, but we don’t see it that way.”
(Tanner Moulton | NinetyEight) Kimberly Cruz Romero (left) and Raven Blackwing (right) celebrate in graduation gowns after gradauting from Defy Venture’s business pitch program at the Utah State Correctional Facility on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
Cruz Romero, a first-generation American whose parents are from Mexico, wants to open a mobile tire repair business. She learned how to fix cars from her “machista” father, who wanted his kids to be independent.
Once she’s out, at Tread Queen, Cruz Romero will change tires, repair flats and install air-pressure sensors — whatever her clientele may need, wherever they may need her. She also wants to teach women how to do some of that themselves.
Savannah Bushman, who is formerly incarcerated herself, volunteered to coach the program this year after the prison changed its rules that barred ex-inmates from returning to speak to the current population. She also regularly teaches a class to inmates on transition and reentry to society.
Bushman grew up with drug-addicted parents and entered the justice system as teen, at 16, she said. Now, she has been out of prison 14 years, sober for 13 and her children, Bushman said, “don’t know what drugs are.”
“I broke a generational cycle,” she said. Bushman wanted to return to the prison as living proof “that it doesn’t matter where you come from, that hope is possible and change is possible.”
Cruz Romero’s was Bushman’s favorite pitch. And by the end of the day, Cruz Romero had won the business competition and the peer favorite award, too.
(Defy Ventures) Kimberly Cruz Romero poses with two giant checks while wearing a graduation cap and gown after she won Defy Ventures business pitch competition on Thursday, July 10, 2025.
That means when she gets out, she will get $600 in seed money, free incorporation of her business through LegalZoom and in-person resources at Defy’s Utah offices — plus support from as many entrepreneurs as she was able to connect with at the event.
That’s the other side of the program, Jackson said — showing the coaches in the business sector that someone’s conviction doesn’t define their future; maybe now they will be more likely to hire someone with a criminal history.
In November 2023, when Cruz Romero was about to be sentenced for cases that included the aggravated sexual abuse child, she sent a letter to the judge in her case, trying to explain herself and asking for mercy. She discussed her difficult childhood as the seventh of eight children, born to busy immigrants who tried to give their children a better life but couldn’t give them the supervision they needed. And she wrote of her history of being abused by people she trusted and how that abuse dashed her dreams of motherhood.
“How do I prove to the world that I have changed? That I take accountability for my actions,” she mused. “That I am not a bad person, just a person who made a bad choice?”
On Thursday, in that gymnasium, Cruz Romero said now she knows when she gets out, “I’m going to be just fine.”
Her life isn’t “over,“ she said. This is ”just a pause,” she feels, on the way to bigger and better things.
(Defy Ventures) Volunteer coaches with Defy Ventures pose for a photo outside the Utah State Correctional Facility in Salt Lake City on Thursday, July 10, 2025.