Access to capital, people and resources remains a huge challenge for entrepreneurs in black communities.
How to obtain? “Intros are not given. Just ask,” Zawadi Bryant, president of Acute Care Pediatrics, a clinic in Sugar Land, Texas, told Mednax Services, a physician-service provider in Sunrise, Fla. In addition, she said, “We have to get out of our comfort zone and be okay with being the only ones at the table, because then we can grab others and bring them to the table.”
Bryant spoke at a recent Inc. National Small Business Town Hall on Black Owned Businesses, a streamed panel event led by Teneshia Carr, founder of Blanc Media and Blanc fashion magazine. While she agreed, Carr also argued that a seat at the proverbial business table isn’t enough.
“I don’t want my own table. I want to build my own house with no doors,” said Carr, curator of All the Hats, Inc.’s new destination for black women entrepreneurs. “What is a table? I have other rooms in this house. I need a whole house.”
The panel also included serial entrepreneur Kevin Lloyd, co-founder and CEO of MYLE, an entertainment software and data analytics company based in Columbus, Ohio; and Jennifer Martin, co-founder of Pipsnacks, a food company in Brooklyn, New York. The group tackled a range of topics, including pandemic challenges and inequalities affecting their communities, and exchanged stories about how they turned ideas around and tackled problem solving.
The conversation was inundated with advice for entrepreneurs looking to build and grow resilient businesses. Watch the clips below for highlights from key takeaways.
On why entrepreneurship can be lonely, but doesn’t have to be:
What budding founders can really expect when starting a business:
Why even the most experienced founders learn on the job:
This post Watch: Black founders reveal their biggest takeaways of the pandemic was original published at “https://www.inc.com/anna-meyer/pipsnacks-myle-acute-care-pediatrics.html”
