Valerie Herskowitz never imagined she’d become an entrepreneur until her son, Blake, was diagnosed with autism. And though John D’Eri had several company launches under his belt, he too was motivated by his own autistic son to look to a new business model.
Herskowitz’s endeavor, The Chocolate Spectrum, grew out of an informal therapy program she had been running from her home kitchen in Florida. In 2016, she opened the doors of her new chocolate shop and job-training center to the public.
Nearby, John D’Eri, along with his son Tom, had launched Rising Tide Car Wash in 2013 as a means to boost the employment opportunities for his autistic son, Andrew. Today the enterprise has grown to two locations in Florida that employ more than 60 people.
Statistics show these kind of work programs are sorely needed. Approximately 80 percent of people on the spectrum are unemployed or underemployed. The good news? Herskowitz’s shop and D’Eri’s car wash are just two of a growing number of businesses working to create job opportunities for adults with autism.
Herskowitz met John D’Eri at an autism fundraiser. Through Rising Tide U — D’Eri’s related initiative that offers online courses to help aspiring entrepreneurs launch similar companies — she was able to turn The Chocolate Spectrum into a viable business.
“If we can really prove to the business community that there’s real value in employing people with autism, we’ll close the unemployment gap,” says Rising Tide’s Tom D’Eri.
Watch the video above to learn more about Herskowitz and the D’Eris — and the power of this new business model.
Tag: small business
An Entrepreneurial Learning Curve
As an art student, Pauly Ramirez didn’t see herself in the business world –– but that didn’t stop her from becoming an entrepreneur. After graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 2016, Ramirez co-founded Hermit, a platform that uses a unique algorithm to match artists with buyers looking to commission original work.
But Ramirez’s journey as a 24-year-old business owner hasn’t always been smooth sailing. “It was extremely difficult, not because I didn’t think I could do it, but because I thought I didn’t have the skill set,” she says.
Ramirez, who came to the United States from Mexico at age 6, is the youngest of five children and the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree. It took time for her to build confidence as an entrepreneur.
“It was learning from zero,” Ramirez says. “I had to find my mentors.”
While attending SAIC, Ramirez became an entrepreneur-in-residence, where she received support to get Hermit off the ground.
Ramirez and her co-founders have been bootstrapping the platform, currently in the beta-testing phase, with plans to launch it publicly in the coming months.
Watch the video above to see how Ramirez overcame her insecurities and grew into the entrepreneur she is today.
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This content was paid for and produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which works in entrepreneurship and education to create opportunities and connect people to the tools they need to achieve success, change their futures and give back to their communities.
A Startup With Eyes on the (Tiny) Prize
Akili Kelly and his wife, Ashlee, know a thing or two about new beginnings. The Jackson, Mississippi, couple recently welcomed their daughter, Alex, into the world. They also launched a startup: TinyJXN (pronounced “Tiny Jackson”), which plans to develop the city’s first tiny-house community. The process, so far, has taken over a year.
The Kellys met as grad students at Jackson State University and have put down roots in the city. As recent graduates with debt, they understand that Jackson’s difficulties in retaining an educated workforce is largely due to the lack of affordable housing options. So they started to explore the concept of tiny homes, which eventually blossomed into their side business.
“I was interested to see how you could squeeze everything you need into a smaller space, which is also more economical,” Akili says. “We want this to be a housing option that people in this community could benefit from.”
Sarah Stripp is TinyJXN’s first client. As tiny homes are a new concept for the city, Stripp’s challenges with homeownership and TinyJXN’s challenges with operating a startup have often been one and the same. The Kellys spent months working with Stripp to secure a loan and break ground on her tiny home. Banks weren’t accustomed to issuing such a modest construction loan, and local institutions didn’t always immediately grasp the concept.
But now, the Kellys have applied for a building permit and expect to begin construction on Stripp’s new home next month.
Like many neighborhoods throughout Jackson, whose population has been declining for decades, the area where Stripp’s tiny home will be built is pockmarked with empty lots. But where others might see blight, the Kellys see an opportunity to improve their city in a way that benefits both aspiring homeowners and longtime locals.
As Akili says, “You have to be able to see beyond what’s currently there.”
Watch the video above to see how Akili and Ashlee Kelly are turning their entrepreneurial dream into a reality, while fulfilling a need in the city they call home.
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This content was produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which works in entrepreneurship and education to create opportunities and connect people to the tools they need to achieve success, change their futures and give back to their communities.
Manufacturing Chainmaille in the Rural Midwest
For Edie Ramstad, retirement didn’t exactly go as planned. In 2011, she moved to the tiny city of Ada, Minnesota (population: 1,700), to settle down, but she quickly got bored. So she started a side business, called Weave Got Maille, that manufactures supplies for chainmaille, small metal rings that are woven together to create jewelry and are often seen in Renaissance costumes.
“I’ve always loved chainmaille,” Ramstad says. “Even though I made more high-end jewelry as a profession, it was chainmaille that I did as a hobby.”
Though her hobby-turned-business venture proved a hit, Ramstad faced challenges as it expanded. “It just took off,” she said. “It had a mind of its own, and it just kept growing.”
Weave got Maille was the first non-agricultural manufacturing business in the county. “We’re a very small farming community, and I was an internet company in a town that only had dial-up internet,” Ramstad says.
In 2013, Ramstad was so overwhelmed she decided to close the business. Seeking support, she drove an hour to Fargo, North Dakota, and attended 1 Million Cups –– a free program developed by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to connect entrepreneurs and provide resources for new business owners.
“It was life-changing,” Ramstad says about meeting other entrepreneurs. “I realized I wasn’t alone.”
With help from 1 Million Cups, Ramstad was able to manage her company’s growth challenges and keep the business going. Weave got Maille’s products are now sold in 76 countries and can be seen on HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
Watch the video above to learn more about how a novel networking community helped Ramstad and her business thrive.
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This content was produced in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which works in entrepreneurship and education to create opportunities and connect people to the tools they need to achieve success, change their futures and give back to their communities.
On Tap at the Local Microbrewery: Economic Opportunity
Throwing one back may be the key to job growth in America.
Yes, really.
Between 2002 and 2013, the percentage of Americans who consumed alcoholic drinks grew by 8 percent to almost three-quarters of the population, according to a 2017 study in the journal JAMA. This increase has coincided with a surge of interest in craft beers and local liquors. To meet the demand, the number of jobs in the alcohol manufacturing sector have more than doubled in the past decade for breweries, alone.
Microbreweries, specifically, are something of a Cinderella story. Thirty years ago, less than 100 independently run breweries were in operation nationwide. By 2016, there were more than 5,000, according to the Brewers Association, a trade group that analyzes and represents independent U.S. breweries.
Likewise, production from independent brewers has increased — growing from 35,000 barrels in 1981 to more than 24 million barrels in 2016, according to the Brewers Association.
“I call the entire craft beer movement the 30-plus-year overnight success story,” says Julia Herz, craft beer program director for the Brewers Association. “But the reason is, first and foremost, we’re still a beer-loving nation.”
Actually, that’s just part of the (t)ale. Another prevailing theory is that Americans have become punch-drunk by fancy food and drink. Just like evolving tastes have fueled a surge of fast-casual eateries and pour over coffee places, our palates have become more refined when it comes to what we drink at our neighborhood watering hole as well.
Between 2006 and 2016, approximately 61,000 beverage manufacturing jobs (such as bottling, sales, etc) were created. Breweries accounted for almost 33,000 of those new positions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly a quarter of all beverage manufacturing jobs can be traced back to brewers.
In contrast, soft drink manufacturers — which hire a significant portion of beverage manufacturing workers — have reduced their workforce during the same time period by double digits.
Craft brewers use local, high quality ingredients and artisanal techniques to make their brews — meaning that manufacturing jobs must be created nearby and can’t be outsourced to a foreign manufacturer. In comparison, large-scale, commercial beermakers mass produce their lagers and IPAs in various manufacturing facilities using the most cost-effective methods and ingredients.
“Craft brew is very inefficient,” says Herz, explaining that the production of craft beer is more hands-on. “Because they’re so inefficient compared to big beer, they need more jobs to brew the beer.”
And it isn’t just beermakers that are getting fat off the proverbial hops. Small businesses are, too. Herz calls this the trickle-up effect, where, for example, craft-beer-only bars and retailers have opened near an existing microbrewery, creating even more jobs.
“The beer category over time has evolved. You have more beer towers at restaurants, more expanded beer menus at restaurants,” says Herz.
Cities are thirsty to be a part of the booming craft beer industry. In an effort to grow its local economy, one town in Oregon has even offered financial incentives to a craft brewer opening a new business in its community.
Craft distilleries have also experienced a boom — albeit on a much smaller scale.
For the past decade, the number of brick-and-mortar independent distilleries has grown by the double digits every year, according to a study financed by the American Craft Spirits Organization. The report also found that the amount of liquor distributed increased by 18.5 percent annually.
Interest in craft distilled liquors may have helped local business owners, says Celebration Distillation Founder James Michalopoulos. His distillery in New Orleans is the first craft distillery in the U.S. to bottle rum, supplied by the large amount of sugar cane that grows nearby.
“It piqued my interest that there was so much sugar cane, and not one distillery in Louisiana — or the even the U.S.,” Michalopoulos says.
His company has been able to grow its operations from two to 18 employees — an increase of 800 percent — with most of its hiring occurring during the past decade, a time period during which Louisiana experienced a doubling of its unemployment rate after Hurricane Katrina.
But anecdotally, Michalopoulos says, the market is more volatile than many make it seem. The barrier of entry for distilling includes steep prices and stiff competition against larger companies — all unfavorable conditions for small business owners.
“If you want to truly characterize the marketplace, it’s pretty skewed,” he says. “What there is are small businesses with people working very hard on a local level, and rightfully getting a certain interest in the product. And they’ve taken a very tiny sliver of the market and working it, but with limited success.”
Nonetheless, growth continues within the industry, primarily in states such as California, New York, Washington and Colorado, which house more than a quarter of all distilleries in the U.S.
If craft distilleries maintain this upward trend — much like craft breweries have — there’s tremendous potential for more jobs to be created within the sector. Cheers to that.
Homepage photo by Eddie Hernandez Photography/Getty Images.
How One Local Government Intelligently Invests in Local Business, A City That’s Keeping Housing Affordable for All and More
Berkeley Votes to Boost Co-op Economy in the Face of Gentrification, YES! Magazine
The co-op already thrives in Northern California. But in an effort to keep locals in the area (which has an extremely high cost of living), the city council in Berkeley, Calif., is throwing even more support behind the model. Similar to initiatives already passed in New York City; Madison, Wisc.; Cleveland; and Richmond, Calif.; Berkeley’s move provides tax incentives, support for worker-owners and financial aid to small businesses — making it easier for co-ops to become powerful job generators.
The Miracle of Minneapolis, The Atlantic
The Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn., metro area has a higher median household income than New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago. Despite the Twin Cities’ wealth, affordable housing remains in reach for most residents. Unusual plans that encourage rich neighborhoods to share tax revenue with middle class and low-income residents — a move referred to as “fiscal equalization” — means that the American Dream is alive and thriving in Minnesota.
Giving Students What They Really Need, Bright
No matter how good a school is, a child’s learning suffers when he or she is subjected to chronic stress. But schools often add to or ignore kids’ anxiety and tension, instead of teaching tips and strategies to diffuse it. Turnaround for Children* is teaching social-emotional skills, such as stress management and self-regulation, in the classroom, enabling all kids (namely low-income ones and those that suffer from abuse or neglect) to be high achievers in an academic setting.
*Editors’ note: Pamela Cantor, founder of Turnaround for Children, is a NationSwell Council member.
These Beautiful Art Projects Saved One Rust Belt Community from Economic Ruin
Construction projects wreak havoc on everyone’s lives. Residents become sleep deprived when the jackhammers wake them each morning, and commuters stress about detours adding minutes to their daily travel. But local business owners may suffer the most harm, as merchants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side near the Second Avenue subway construction and West Los Angeles storeowners coping with the new light-rail extension cutting through town can attest. Noise and dust drives away customers and businesses lose millions as a result.
When a year-long, $5.5 million repaving project threatened Cleveland’s now-thriving Collinwood neighborhood near Lake Erie, one civic group came up with a solution. Northeast Shores, a community development corporation, asked 225 artists to beautify the half-mile under construction with 52 community art projects. Funded by a relatively modest $118,000 grant, the initiative helped keep all 33 participating merchants in business.
“It’s pretty typical in Cleveland that a streetscape project results in business loss,” Brian Friedman, executive director at Northeast Shores, tells the blog Springboard Exchange. “People decide not to come thanks to the orange barrels.”
Ravaged by the decline of the city’s manufacturing industry and the onset of another recession, vacancies used to dominate Cleveland’s central thoroughfare, Waterloo Road, and more stores were boarded up than occupied. By 2013, however, a new generation of small businesses was reviving the neighborhood, but infrastructure improvements needed to catch up.
To create a distraction amidst the chaos, Northeast Shores drew inspiration from a similar arts project in Saint Paul, Minn. The development agency offered small monthly grants, made available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Storeowners instantly crowded outside their offices, clamoring to get in.
“We were a little distressed by the number of merchants who were literally waiting for us to open so they could shove paper at us seconds apart from each other, to make sure they could be included,” Friedman recalls. “We didn’t think it was a good community-building moment for us to have merchants sitting in front of our office at 5 o’clock in the morning, arguing with each other about who got there first.”
With a streamlined application process, projects soon got underway. Mac’s Lock Shop, for instance, helped sculptor Ali Lukacsy put up luggage locks stamped with individual messages (Locks of Love) on fences. Storefronts and open spaces filled with crafts.
Not only were beautiful surprises scattered throughout 10 city blocks, but the venture also helped to solidify lasting partnerships and sparked community involvement from artists who could’ve hunkered down in their studios until the streets were clean. Creative businesses — art galleries, performance spaces, fabric stores and design agencies — proliferated, and now, Waterloo Road is considered the city’s hotbed of arts and entertainment.
That strong civic fabric will be vital as Cleveland shifts its image from Rust Belt holdover (derided as “The Mistake on the Lake”) to an attractive destination for Millennials (with a new nickname of “The Comeback City”). “I want Waterloo to be a mini Austin or Nashville,” Cindy Barber, co-owner of Beachland Ballroom, a longstanding live music venue on Waterloo Road, tells the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. “We have to dream big to expand what we’ve been doing here to get people to Waterloo.”
The artwork gets visitors to stop and look. From there, closing the deal should be the easy part.
From Empty Parking Lots to Bustling Stores: The Ingenious Way That Cleveland’s Improving Its Economy
Until recently, downtown Cleveland had a retail problem. Once anchored by eight department stores, lower Euclid Avenue and its offshoots had fallen from glamorous rival of New York’s Fifth Avenue to a nine square blocks of parking lots and numerous vacant buildings.
Retailers in the city’s historic Warehouse District struggled to keep up with their rent, finding their goods couldn’t fill the vast industrial warehouse spaces like trendy restaurants and popular nightclubs could. It seemed that mom-and-pop stores didn’t have a place downtown, and as a result, Victorian-era buildings were razed for parking lots.
But a creative idea by the folks at the district’s development corporation turned the area’s history as a center for wholesale storage and distribution on its head: They filled a large, ugly parking lot with three salvaged shipping containers. Fronting a busy sidewalk, each box now houses a miniature store, including Banyan Box and The Wandering Wardrobe, two boutique clothing stores, and an outlet selling paraphernalia for hometown football favorite, the Cleveland Browns.
“The way the project’s designed, they simulate a storefront wall, facing the sidewalk,” explains Thomas Starinsky, associate director of the Warehouse District Development Corporation. “They’re pretty simple. Take a shipping container and cut a hole in it.”
Perhaps because of its simplicity, the ingenious idea has worked. It’s diversifying the neighborhood and proving to other businesses that the district is a hip place to set up shop. Even during the winter, holiday shoppers turned out in droves. What was initially thought of as a risky bet has paid its rewards. Starinsky now has a waiting list with more than 40 businesses.
“The economic effects have been overwhelming, more significant than I imagined,” Starinksy says. “Just the fact that we have three new businesses downtown, and we’re actually adding jobs to the community with each 160 square feet.”
Small boxes, it seems, hold big commercial possibilities.
A Hot Commodity on the Job Market: Nerds
Looking for a nerd? Although this sounds like a strange commodity, on HourlyNerd.com, they’re abundant and ready to hire for the “odd jobs” of the consulting world. With a tough, changing job market, this startup is connecting employers with capable MBAs to work on projects that otherwise couldn’t be funded.
This idea started back in 2013 when four Harvard Business School students decided to turn a class project into a business. They realized that it was difficult for graduates with MBAs to find work, as well as hard for small businesses to afford consulting advice and help. So the students started a business where MBAs can find jobs in a wide range of areas, including analyses of competitors or starting social media sites for non-profits.
Freelancing and a master in business administration aren’t usually associated, but with the changing work environment, which emphasizes individuals with unique, specific skill sets, it’s not such a crazy notion. With just a year under its belt, HourlyNerd already boasts 32 employees who work with a multitude of businesses to find work for around 8,000 MBA freelancers.
HourlyNerds’ service benefits both employer and employee. The website is a place where MBAs can market their own individual skill sets. Furthermore, the hours are very flexible, allowing workers to create their own schedule. At the same time, employers are receiving valuable work at a low long-term cost.
Services offered by HourlyNerd include interviews with employers to match their needs to specific workers, help creating project proposals and figuring out appropriate prices. For big projects, there is even a competition which ensures top quality work. Based on skill set and proposals, employers choose the best candidate and work with them to agree on a cost.
Peter Maglathlin is one of the founders of HourlyNerd and cites the flexibility and adaptability of the programs and the workers as a major attraction for employers.
“What we have established is an open marketplace,” Maglathlin tells National Journal. “The cost of bringing on a full-time employee right now is very, very high. Companies are searching for other ways to grow aside from hiring a person full time. We’re giving companies that option.”
MORE: Why More Cities Are Creating Innovation Labs
The Company Helping Businesses Bring About Civic Change
For many, the way to strike change into a system is by running for office or joining a nonprofit. However, while still valuable, there’s a new wave of millennials looking to tackle civic problems from a different angle: business. And it’s these people that business accelerator Tumml is working to make big.
The origins of Tumml can be traced back to a meeting between founders Clara Brenner and Julie Lein at the MIT Sloan School of Management. While there, the two women became intrigued by businesses that had both a social mission and a profit motive.
As a result, the two moved to San Francisco after graduation and formed Tumml in 2012, a business that helps civic minded businesses get off the ground.
Headquartered in the South of Market neighborhood, the company has worked with 17 companies worldwide.
So what does Tumml do for its clients? Well, the purpose is to support “urban impact start-ups” who are looking to improve the functionality of civic systems — whether it is education, transportation or small businesses.
Once selected, Tumml provides each client with initial funding, workspace, mentors, help with managing and operating a business and the chance to meet and work with local government and nonprofit leaders who are addressing the same topics.
Chariot, founded by Ali Vahabzadeh, is one of the startups working with Tumml. Vahabzadeh was amazed by how inefficient the San Francisco transportation system was compared to those in London and New York City, so he started his own company, which services residents in the crowded community corridors of the city.
Tajel Shah is another entrepreneur working with Tumml. The mother of a preschool student, she was aggravated with the application process for private preschools, where a paper application had to be filled out for each individual school. Her company, KidAdmit, streamlines the process by working like the college common app: one online application that can be sent out to Shah’s network of 150 private schools in San Francisco.
For Brenner, these problems are exactly what they are trying to address: the small things that make life tick.
“If you want to solve a problem in your own community, in your own backyard, there isn’t really a place for you to go,” Brenner tells National Journal. “Where would you go find money to do that? I couldn’t have told you two years ago. So we decided an organization to try to change that.”
MORE: Why More Cities Are Creating Innovation Labs