10 Business Grants for AAPI Entrepreneurs (+ Where to Find More) Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Courage and hope reside at the heart of building a business. Hope for a better quality of life, financial stability, and, if we’re lucky, generational wealth for our families. However, for Asian American and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs, spinning an idea into a profitable business requires startup funding that is often difficult to access because of systemic barriers. As an alternative to venture capital, angel investments, and loans, business grants can help bridge this gap by awarding money that doesn’t require repayment or equity exchange. This post will explore where AAPI entrepreneurs can find business grants, and how to apply for them successfully. Why are grants helpful for AAPI business owners? Although the AAPI community owns around 2 million enterprises, including small sole proprietorships, and is the most rapidly growing ethnic group in America, grant opportunities specifically for AAPI businesses are scarce. Beyond the absence of support for these aspiring business owners, AAPI entrepreneurs are also hesitant to apply for the small number of available funds and grants due to cultural and language barriers. According to a survey conducted by Bank of America, 37% of...

Disability-Owned Business Enterprise Certification: Everything You Need to Know Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Everything You Need to Know about the Disability-Owned Business Enterprises (DOBE) Certification Minority-owned business certification dates back to the 1970s but only gradually began being considered potentially applicable to entrepreneurs with disabilities some 15 years ago — decades after the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. This explains why, in 2023, there are only 500 DOBEs across the country despite the numerous commercial advantages. What is the disability-owned business certification? A disability-owned business enterprise (DOBE for short) is a for-profit business that is at least 51% owned by an individual with a disability. The DOBE certification process is wholly administered across the United States by Disability:IN, a global leader in business disability inclusion with a network of over 500 major corporations, and, once completed, brings with it numerous competitive advantages like: A nationally recognized certification Preferential supply chain access through public and private sector clients with supply chain diversity commitments Education, training, and networking opportunities that are exclusively available to certified DOBEs Additionally, Disability:IN can provide direct introductions to key procurement leaders and corporate buyers whilst also assisting DOBEs in ensuring...

Discrepancies Experienced by Black Content Creators (Expert Insight) Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot. In 2019, Charli D’Amelio shared a video on TikTok doing the Renegade dance. The video blew up and is inarguably her claim to fame. Since then, she’s amassed 150M followers on the app, done brand deals with household names, and her family has an unscripted reality docuseries called The D’Amelio Show. Thousands of TikTokers followed her lead, did the dance, and attributed it to D'Amelio, but she didn't create it — Jalaiah Harmon did. Harmon’s erasure from her dance is attributed to racial bias as she’s Black and D’Amelio is White. Harmon’s experience is just one of thousands, as many Black content creators face inequalities, from receiving credit for trends to late payments to algorithm biases. In this post, we’ll delve deeper into some of these inequalities and share expert advice from Natasha Pierre and Ross Simmonds on overcoming these roadblocks. Table of Contents Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators - Key Stats Discrepancies Experienced By Black Content Creators (+ Expert Thoughts) How can Black content creators...

7 of the Best Cities for Minority Entrepreneurs Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Innovation and creativity are driving the new workforce, and many underrepresented professionals are making career pivots to monetize their talents through entrepreneurship. The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship report more than four million minority-owned companies in the United States today. Despite these numbers, minority business owners still face systemic barriers to accessing capital, resources, and support. These barriers prove why choosing where to start or scale a business is essential. Read ahead to learn about some of the best cities supporting underrepresented founders in elevating their businesses. 1. Houston, TX Houston, Texas, is one of the top cities that offers ample economic opportunities for minority entrepreneurs. As one of the most diverse cities in the nation, minorities make up 30.45% of the 5,600 startups in Houston’s metro region, according to JobSage. Although people of color make up 64% of the area’s population, they still face inequities that continue to take place in the rest of the country. As a result, officials, community members, and organizations offer substantial support for minority entrepreneurs. For example, The Houston Minority Supplier Development Council, Inc, The Greater Houston Black Chamber,...

How to Use Black-Owned Banks to Start Your Business Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Black-owned banks have been pillars of the Black community since the late 1800s when they were founded to fight against the economic inequality Black Americans felt in accessing financial services. Despite being in a new millennium, these banks are still some of the few institutions that offer equitable support for Black business owners. Read on to learn more about the history of Black-owned banks and how you can use them to start your business. The History of Black-Owned Banks Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company was the first bank to serve formerly enslaved persons in 1865. Capital Savings Bank opened in 1888 in Washington, D.C., as the first bank organized and operated by Black Americans. A year later, The True Reformers Bank in Richmond, Virginia, became the first chartered Black-owned bank in the country. Maggie Lena Walker became the nation's first Black female banker when she founded The St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, in 1903. A few years later, nine businessmen founded Mechanics and Farmers Bank (now M&F Bank) in Durham, North Carolina, in 1907. They were among the 134 Black-owned banks that served the Black community from 1888 to 1934. Unfortunately,...

12 Resources for LGBTQ Entrepreneurs Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. The LGBTQ community is small but mighty, contributing trillions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the economy each year. Despite this, LGBTQ individuals still face marginalization. The community continues to fight against historic and current systematic discrimination, which can present barriers to achieving equity and equality — even when trying to start or grow a business. While progress is slow and not always linear, the good news is there are many resources intended to help give LGBTQ entrepreneurs a leg up. We’ve assembled a list of some of the best out there, which can help LGBTQ business owners thrive through peer networking, educational and leadership training, mentorship, and funding opportunities. Resources for LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs 1. NLGCC (National LGBT Chamber of Commerce) The NLGCC, the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce, offers the only third-party certification for LGBTQ+ businesses in the U.S. If you complete their program and become a Certified LGBT Business Enterprise®, it opens the door to a new world of sales, networking, and educational opportunities. Government bodies, and many corporations, have supplier diversity requirements — and obtaining a certification like this can put you in the procurement pipeline. The...