Founders: Channing Moreland and Makenzie Stokel

What the company does: Nashville is Music City, because in addition to hosting the biggest bands around, there are also oodles of amazing independent bands rocking out all over town, all the time. And they are always looking for gigs. Everybody has to pay bills, after all.

That’s where EVAmore comes in. The platform, which just launched in November, will help independent bands and event producers find each other. Out of the gate, EVAmore EVAmore aims to be the go-to source for Greek social chairs of fraternities and sororities to find bands to book for their events.

One of the companies in the first class of Project Music, EVAmore is being built by two 21-year-olds, Channing Moreland and Makenzie Stokel. They are both still in college at Nashville’s Belmont University, and expect to graduate this summer. Juggling classes, the accelerator program and running a business has not been easy. But Moreland and Stokel seem to thrive on the hustle. “It was never a question to us that Saturday at 8 a.m. was when we needed to get together. There was never a question that there just couldn’t be weekends, because you just need to do it,” says Moreland of her dedication to building the business. And, their success has not gone unnoticed. The lady entrepreneur duo recently won the Nashville’s Young Entrepreneurs of the Year award.

The process of building EVAmore has made both ladies evangelists for the idea of entrepreneurship. They say they are both addicted to the feeling of empowerment they feel from building their own destiny. “Seeing that this really can be our job, this is really possible that we can make money and live off something that we are so passionate about is pretty exciting and pretty crazy,” says Stokel.