Benditt Like Balm Box: World Cup isn’t over for this KC entrepreneur; she’s competing for $20K

Liz Benditt hasn’t earned a trophy for surviving cancer six times, but her rebound did inspire the Kansas City area mom to launch Balm Box — thoughtful support boxes for cancer recovery. Now Benditt’s nearly 20-year entrepreneur journey is taking her to Sunday’s FIFA World Cup final.

But first, she must take the pitch Friday.

“My claim to fame is I am a six-time cancer survivor,” said Benditt, who debuted Overland Park-based Balm Box in fall 2020. “I am an overachiever. First one was in 2009. The last one was in 2025.”

“So it’s just been weird,” she continued. “My children are 18 and 20 and I date things by my kids. So it’s just always been part of our family life.”

Liz Benditt, Balm Box, pitches June 19 in the regional semi-final of the Verizon Small Business Super Pitch competition; courtesy photo

Her story — and the business intertwined within it — earned her a shot at $20,000 as one of four national finalists in the Verizon Small Business Super Pitch competition. Competitors face off Friday in a Shark Tank-style event at New York New Jersey Stadium (renamed from MetLife Stadium for the World Cup) and are guaranteed tickets to see a match between Argentina or Spain that the whole world will be watching.

“I’m super excited,” Benditt said. “And I know it’s really controversial, but I’m just as excited for Madonna (at halftime) as I am for the soccer.”

Though she admittedly wasn’t much of a fan before the World Cup, Benditt acknowledges she’s become more invested thanks to Verizon’s pitch competition and the overall burst of excitement in Kansas City surrounding the games.

“How can you not be excited about the World Cup stuff, especially as a host city?” she continued. “I’ve gotten into it for sure.”

Judges for the final round are expected to include Carli Lloyd, a two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion, author and entrepreneur, as well as prominent leaders from the small business community.

Liz Benditt, Balm Box, pitches June 19 in the regional semi-final of the Verizon Small Business Super Pitch competition; courtesy photo

Embracing the challenge, innovation

For Verizon’s Super Pitch competition, 20 small business owners — who registered for Small Business Digital Ready and completed at least one course or attended one event in the Winning Customers category — were selected to compete in regional semi-final, in-person pitch events in Kansas City (June 19), Houston (June 22), Los Angeles (June 24) and Philadelphia (June 26). Five business owners competed in each city and the four runners-up from each regional semifinal received tickets to a local World Cup game.

“I won an all-expenses paid trip to Kansas City,” Benditt joked. “I got a $500 voucher to cover my travel costs. I’m like, ‘Cool, that covers gas right now.’ It was so funny, but it was awesome. They were so generous.”

She initially found out about the competition after one of her email newsletter for entrepreneurs pointed her to the Verizon Digital Ready program, she noted.

“Free money was the No. 1 objective,” she continued. “I still own 100 percent (of the business) and have grown it through reinvestment. So I’ve just been really reticent to sell equity to grow. I’m — again — incredibly privileged.”

Part of Benditt’s three-minute pitch is set to include how the Verizon program has helped Balm Box, she said. As someone who earned an MBA, teaches a marketing class at the University of Kansas, and worked as a vice president of marketing at a commercial finance company before going full-time with Balm Box, Benditt said Verizon’s AI trainings were the most informative element for her.

“It isn’t like there’s any one particular piece of insight that has made a difference,” she explained. “It’s more understanding how the AI brain — for lack of a word — learns, which has given me so much better insight as to how to give better prompts and how to make better use of everything from our Claude subscription.”

An example: getting the push she needed to let go of Balm Box’s human-based white glove chat support.

“There’s a lot of tasks that I still am not quite comfortable giving to an AI chat bot or a robot in general, that was a good one,” she added. “That was a good one, and so I just am trying to stay on top of what its capabilities are, where the failure points are, so they can be thoughtful about those.”

Patients in recovery don’t need pink

As a six-time survivor — melanoma twice, breast cancer twice, thyroid cancer, and basal cell carcinoma — Benditt knows that cancer patients don’t need another “My tatas tried to kill me” T-shirt or teddy bear, she said.

For her, the best gift was receiving a Jello shot delivery from a friend each time she had a cancer diagnosis, Benditt recalled.

“It tops Balm Box, but only by a hair, because it acknowledges ‘This sucks. It’s stupid,’” she said of cancer. “And Jello shots sometimes are the only answer, even when you’re in your 50s.”

The flowers and trinkets most people send also are well-meaning, she noted, but not what patients need at the time.

“What I really needed were burn salves and an ice pack that wouldn’t leak through my clothes,” she continued. “I wanted lotion and stuff to do, because I was tired and couldn’t function — my brain was broken — but you’re still awake. It’s not like I’m sleeping 12 hours a day.”

That’s where Balm Box comes in, Benditt explained.

Inside Balm Box; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

The thoughtful boxes are packed with practical items — like game books, scent-free lotion, an anti-nausea acupressure wristband, a seat-belt pillow, a coloring book with pencils, and sweat-free ice packs — to support cancer patients through chemo, radiation, surgery, and recovery.

The company also offers patent-pending surgical drain holders, which she developed after her breast surgery in 2023 when she had to figure out a way to shower with dignity.

“Cancer patients rate functional things like lotion and blankets five times higher than teddy bears and tote bags,” she said of a survey she conducted before starting the business. “Seventy percent of adults have bought a gift for a cancer patient in the past 18 months, but they’re buying food, flowers, and trinkets.”

“So the survey showed this huge gap between what people want or need and what they’re actually getting,” she added. “Balm Box was the idea to close that gap.”

Liz Benditt, Balm Box; photo by Nikki Overfelt Chifalu, Startland News

Benditt first had the idea for the functional boxes in 2017 when she had breast cancer for the first time. She had to endure a lumpectomy and 35 rounds of radiation that caused her skin to turn purple and fall off in chunks, she said.

“Chemo is worse, but, man, that sucked,” she explained. “All these friends and family wanted to do something. I received so much pink shit. The only thing I did with those teddy bears is gave them to (my dog) Maggie to chew up, which gave me some visual pleasure. It’s so well meaning, but it’s just landfill.”

“But I’m just constantly grateful for how much support I had,” she added.

Even before the pandemic hit, she started saving up to launch Balm Box. When she was laid off in 2020 and KU reached out to her about teaching, she knew it was time to make the leap.

“The moons aligned,” she acknowledged. “I was like, ‘OK, it’s meant to be.’”

In 2024, after outgrowing her guest room, garage, and dining room, Benditt moved Balm Box into an office space in Overland Park.

“My husband was like, ‘I love you, but get out; this is not a place of business,” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Fair.’”

“In all that time, we’ve just been growing, growing, growing,” she added. “There’s been a lot to deal with beyond my health — all of the tariff crazy and now the fuel crazy — but you gotta just zig and zag.”

Now that she’s cancer-free — “knock on wood, that’s it,” she noted — Benditt has her sights set on acquiring an East Coast competitor and finding local hospitals to partner with for her drain holders.