HSN seeks to discover more Joy

By now, the story of entrepreneur Joy Mangano is a familiar one, thanks to the 2015 semi-fictionalized biopic Joy. The flick, starring Jennifer Lawrence, told the story of how Mangano and her detachable, self-wringing mop became wildly successful thanks to the marketing power of home-shopping giants QVC and St. Petersburg-based HSN Inc.

In July, QVC acquired HSN — though the networks will continue to exist and operate independently of each other. The latter has since announced it's partnering with the SCORE Association, a nonprofit network of volunteer business mentors, in an effort to help more people like Mangano convert their product and business-venture dreams into reality.

The centerpiece of the HSN-SCORE collaboration is a new business education program called the American Dreams Academy. The inaugural two-day forum was held recently in Washington, D.C., and gave 125 aspiring entrepreneurs from across the East Coast the chance to attend educational workshops and pitch products to business experts who could evaluate and give feedback about the participants' ideas and plans.