Episode 7

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Published on:

10th Feb 2026

BTS of Choosing Our $10,000 Grant Winner and How Applications Were Evaluated

If you’ve ever talked yourself out of applying for grant funding because you assumed you weren’t the “right kind” of business, this episode is your reality check.

In this breakdown, I'm walking you through exactly how the first Hey Helen Grant winner was selected — and more importantly, how she wasn’t. Industry favoritism? Nope. Revenue bias? Also nope. Platform size, niche appeal, or whether the business felt “cool enough”? Completely irrelevant. What did matter was something far less glamorous and far more controllable: the clarity of the application itself. If you’ve ever wondered what grant reviewers are actually scanning for once they’re 50 applications deep, this episode delivers the answer (at least for me!).

Resources mentioned:

  1. Learn more and apply for the Hey Helen Grant
  2. Learn more about the grant winner, CeCe Cheng, and her company, ShareWell
  3. Access my grant training (no opt in required!)

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What’s inside this episode

  1. What I noticed almost immediately once I started reading applications — and how fast unclear ideas got eliminated
  2. The real reason traction matters (and why you don’t need customers yet to prove it)
  3. What most founders think impact means — versus how reviewers actually recognize it
  4. Why saying [insert big flashy statement here] works against you unless you can back it up with receipts
  5. The framework I use to evaluate grants that founders can reverse-engineer for themselves


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About the Podcast

Scale Your Vision
Scale Your Vision is dedicated to women founders, entrepreneurs, and business owners who have a big vision and want to scale it in a way that is operationally sound with human-first leadership, first class customer experience, and robust profit margins.

About your host

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Adriane Galea

Adriane Galea is a nonprofit founder turned business and scaling strategist, creative entrepreneur, speaker, and multi podcast host. She launched her first business at age 12, transforming it from a spare bedroom in her grandparents' house into an internationally recognized performing arts school and professional theatre company with multiple locations and hundreds of students. During the pandemic, Adriane began helping other business owners scale their operations, specializing in messaging, funnels, and operational strategy for 6- to 8-figure service businesses. In 2024, she founded Visionaries, an education, events, and media company on a mission to help passionate, purpose-driven founders and entrepreneurs scale their vision while working smarter, playing always, resting often, dreaming bigger, and making bank.