When Entrepreneurship Is the Only Option

It was a childhood lie that sparked the entrepreneurial fire in Geraud Staton and set him on a path that would eventually transform his community.
When he was 14, Staton’s older cousin bragged about how he’d been creating comic books and selling them at school for a dollar. “I thought, ‘He’s making money. I can do the same,’” recalls Staton, who now mentors other aspiring entrepreneurs in Durham, N.C. There was just one problem, though. “He told me later that he was absolutely lying — he was just trying to impress his little cousin,” Staton says. But the idea had been planted in Staton’s mind, and by the time he finished freshman year he had his first taste of entrepreneurial success: buying candy in bulk and reselling it to his classmates for a profit.
People who succeed in launching businesses typically have unfettered access to advice and support from a parent, a grandparent or an uncle who was an entrepreneur themselves, he says. “But there are people in communities, including mine, who did not have that. I wanted to be that uncle,” says Staton, whose mission to help what he calls “entrepreneurs of necessity” led him to found the Helius Foundation, a nonprofit that provides free coaching and mentoring to under-resourced small business owners in Durham who have struggled to find living-wage jobs.
“It’s incredibly hard to be an entrepreneur,” says Staton, who attended the Kauffman Foundation’s inaugural ESHIP Summit in June, where NationSwell caught up with him. “But it’s even harder for this particular group of people to find dignified jobs.”

Paying It Forward

Staton credits the early support he got from adults like his teachers and principal with having an outsize impact on his future. “I assumed at the time that everyone had the same encouragement and opportunity,” Staton says of his younger self. As he matured, however, he realized that for many of his peers — Staton grew up in a predominantly lower-middle-class African-American neighborhood in Durham — that simply wasn’t true.
Many of the minorities and women Staton works with have marketable skills but lack business sense. “These are people who can’t afford to fail, starting businesses that are often the first to fail,” he says. To remedy that, the Helius Foundation provides them with free coaching and mentoring services, helps them develop a strategic plan, and teaches them marketing basics.
Though Helius has a short history, having launched in 2015, it’s already given several program participants a much-needed leg up. One mentee, Connell Green, had worked in restaurants until an I-beam fell on him, temporarily paralyzing him. After the accident, he lost his family and his home. “He used baking as a way to heal and focus his attention, and help get some of his mobility back,” Staton says. Now he’s the owner of a successful bakery.
Another mentee is Ayubi Easente, who at just 14 years old is running a thriving business refurbishing high-end sneakers. “He doesn’t know if this is what he wants to do for a living,” Staton says, but Easente is gaining skills that will serve him throughout his life no matter what he eventually pursues.

From Obstacles to Opportunity

The Helius Foundation is based in Durham’s Hayti district, an area that used to be home to a flourishing African-American community with many black-owned businesses; it was once known as the “Black Wall Street.”
But thanks in part to the construction of an interstate that divided Hayti in the early 1960s, the community suffered a serious decline. Today, 46 percent of African-Americans live at or below the poverty line, Staton says, and fewer than 18 percent of local businesses are black-owned. “Those numbers are just horrifying,” he says, adding that changing them “would be huge for our city.”
But building a local ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship is a challenge. When you ask residents what the community needs, Staton says, “jobs” is always the answer. But he doesn’t believe that a large corporation relocating to the area is the best solution to the region’s challenges. “If we can get 1,000 people to start a small business and hire one or two people, we get the same number of jobs, but more sustainability,” he points out. “That money gets to stay inside our community.”
A large part of what Staton does is simply encourage people to try entrepreneurship. “I’ve got people who come in and still believe that they can’t make it,” he says. “I’m having to do a lot more psychology than I thought I would.” In a sense, he’s passing on the gift his cousin gave him: “Someone told me I could do it, and I went out and did it,” he says. “We have a lot of entrepreneurs who just don’t know they can do it, so my job is to show them they can.”

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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. In June 2017, the foundation hosted its inaugural ESHIP Summit, convening 435 leaders fighting to help break down barriers for entrepreneurs across the country.

10 Ways to Break Down Barriers for Entrepreneurs in Your Community

How do you build a thriving community of entrepreneurs? At a time when the doors of economic opportunity seem to be shutting out so many people, entrepreneurship is crucial to local neighborhoods. The Kauffman Foundation’s inaugural ESHIP Summit brought together more than 400 diverse entrepreneurial community leaders from all over the country to answer this question.
Below, these entrepreneurial ecosystem builders — people who build communities to support entrepreneurs — share their top tips for energizing entrepreneurship in their communities, no matter where in the world that is.

1. Find Common Ground . . .

Participants came to the ESHIP Summit from 48 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 10 countries, each facing their own challenges. But as attendee Alistair Brett of Rainforest Strategies in Washington, D.C., says, “What works in one place may not work in another, but the core of this kind of work is the same for everyone.”

2. . . . But Don’t Copy Silicon Valley 

Despite its huge concentration of high-tech startups and venture capitalists,the Silicon Valley model has its weaknesses, particularly when it comes to diversity and inclusion, says Kate Stewart, the executive director of JAXCoE, a network of entrepreneurs and supporters in Jacksonville, Fla. “The more inclusive a company or an ecosystem is, the more robust it is,” she adds. Philip Gaskin, the director of entrepreneurial communities for the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., agrees: “As the demographics in the nation are changing, you need equal representation in your businesses, in your leadership and on your boards to reach your customers and understand their needs.”

3. Unearth Potential 

“The capital of economic development is no longer businesses moving from place to place; it’s talent moving from place to place,” Sly James, the mayor of Kansas City, Mo., told the Summit. Many communities also have massive untapped potential in populations that haven’t previously had access to the resources needed to start new businesses. “Women in our state are just now beginning to find their footing” and connect to the support they need, as are minority entrepreneurs, says Shannon Roberts, program manager at the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center.

4. Get Ideas Out of the Lab

Professors and students are conducting cutting-edge research and generating innovative ideas. But the town-gown gap can be hard to bridge. The key is understanding how the motivations of academics differ from those of traditional entrepreneurs, says Lydia McClure, vice president of scientific partnerships at the Translational Research Institute in D.C. Researchers tend to be driven by the impact they can have and aren’t necessarily as interested in creating the next big startup. Everyone involved should be asking themselves, “What do I have to offer?” McClure says.

5. Challenge Stereotypes 

What does the typical entrepreneur look like? Accion, an organization that provides microloans to small business owners, often works with low-income minorities who are opening businesses to provide for their families. But no matter the scale of a business, “entrepreneurship is a source of income, job creation, asset generation, and products and services that create value for the community,” says Anne Haines Yatskowitz, Accion New Mexico’s CEO. And with their tenacity, resourcefulness and perseverance, she says, “entrepreneurs can be incredible role models.”
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6. Reach More People 

Preston James, the CEO of DivInc, a startup pre-accelerator that supports entrepreneurship among people of color and women, is trying to solve a problem he sees in the otherwise thriving startup ecosystem in Austin, Texas. “What we’re doing in Austin is expanding the ecosystem by being more inclusive of a broader audience,” James says. DivInc connects underrepresented entrepreneurs with mentors, educational opportunities, domain experts and other resources that help lay the foundation for successful new companies. “Some of the other hubs that are up and coming, the sooner they can do that, the more successful they will be — faster.”

7. Consider Your Impact 

“I have a fundamental belief that business’s role on the planet is to make life better for people,’’ says Kim Coupounas, the director of B Lab, an organization with offices around the country that supports businesses aiming to be a force for good. Coupounas believes companies should think about their social impact from the beginning. “A huge source of innovation is when companies really consider how they impact their stakeholders,” she says. Ecosystem builders should be thinking about how they’re affecting the world around them too, she says. “It’s not just about creating jobs; it’s about creating good jobs.”

8. Keep It Simple

One successful company can jump-start an entire entrepreneurial ecosystem, and just one connection can help information flow more freely through it. “If one tiny connection fails in your computer, it won’t work,” says Alistair Brett. “But if you make that one tiny connection, it’s back to working.” Adds Wayne Sutton, cofounder of Change Catalyst in the Bay Area, “It’s not rocket science. We’re not talking about going to Mars; we’re basically talking about working with people. You just have to put in the work.

9. Forge Connections — and Friendships

“Entrepreneurship is a lonely experience without community,” says Scott Phillips of Civic Ninjas in Tulsa, Okla., a nonprofit whose network of coders strives to solve societal ills through technology. So is trying to support entrepreneurs, particularly underrepresented ones who are up against real economic, political and cultural barriers in their attempts to access to opportunities. “It’s very isolating sometimes to fight something that seems as big as this is,” adds Geraud Staton, founder of the Helius Foundation, which mentors and coaches entrepreneurs in Durham, N.C. The power of connecting with other people doing similar work can’t be underestimated.

10. Focus on the Future 

“Entrepreneurship, to me, signals taking responsibility for how the future develops,” says David Witzel of RASA, an organization in Oakland, Calif., devoted to regenerative agriculture. Keeping an eye on the future makes this work meaningful. “I have two young grandchildren,” says John Bost, the president of the Clemmons Community Foundation in Clemmons, N.C. “They need a future they can grow into, and it won’t be the past I’ve lived out of.”

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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. In June 2017, the foundation hosted its inaugural ESHIP Summit, convening 435 leaders fighting to break down barriers for entrepreneurs across the country.

Things Are Heating Up in This Los Angeles Kitchen

You’re heard the warning about having too many cooks in the kitchen. But for Mott Smith, it’s a warning that might be better unheeded.
As the developer of the new L.A. Prep, Smith has designed a space for co-worker cooks. Opening next month, this 56,000-square-foot former warehouse has been transformed into 50 fully licensed, professional kitchens — complete with a chef in each one, according to Next City.
The L.A. County Department of Public Health mandates that all food producers (except those on the smallest scale) utilize restaurant-style kitchens to meet strict health codes. Businesses run into problems, however, when they want to expand. Normally, they have two options: (1) expanding to a larger kitchen that can cost thousands of dollars or (2) become a “gray market” operator and use restaurant space at night.
That is, until L.A. Prep popped onto the scene. The place will give cooks access to upscale kitchens without the crazy overhead normally associated with it. Chefs can bring in their ingredients on day one and walk out with goods ready for sale.
Leah Ferrazzani is one of the first tenants scheduled to move into the space. Her company Semolina Artisanal Pasta previously ran out of her home’s kitchen. Limited by space and time, Ferrazzani is optimistic about her move to L.A. Prep, as she estimates that it will double her production from 45 to 90 pounds per day.
L.A. Prep will be the first of its kind, occupying the middle ground between cottage production (at-home production that is sold directly to consumers) and large-scale industrial food markets. While it took some finagling with the Health Department, Smith was able to get approval.
Right now the health department is starting to see that there are a lot of ways that they can still keep people safe but also be more open-minded about the way they regulate things,” Ferrazzani tells Next City.
For Smith, L.A. Prep represents the opportunity to expand innovation.
“I’m passionate about experimentation and innovation in cities,” Smith says. “Everything I’ve done is about opening up the marketplace at the entry level…making it easier for small businesses to do their thing, innovate and realize that awesomeness that is implicit in L.A.”
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Despite a Major Setback, This Young Woman Continues to Fight for At-Risk Youth

It’s tough running a small business, especially for a 24-year-old.
But one Kansas native refuses to lose when it comes to achieving her dream of running a boxing gym. At only 5-foot, 3-inches, E-Lisa Moreno may be small in stature but she knows how to pack a punch.
Moreno first launched her gym, RNE Boxing, three years ago in the Kansas City suburb of Merriam, Kansas. After realizing her passion for boxing and teaching youth, Moreno convinced her father to help her open shop.
“I love seeing a kid who people saw as ‘bad’ become someone who has accomplished something,” she told the National Journal. More than 10 of RNE Boxing’s members are at-risk youth.
As a teenager, Moreno found her love for sparring while passing time at a gym where her two younger brothers took boxing classes. A coach allowed the 17-year-old to slip on a pair of gloves that would eventually lead to her destiny. After just a few months, Moreno dropped almost 50 pounds, and soon, she began spending more time at the gym while her father assumed the role of her coach, traveling with her to compete throughout Kansas.
Her hard work paid off. Moreno took second place in her weight category at the 2010 National Women’s Golden Gloves tournament in Florida. While attending community college on a scholarship from the Kansas City Golden Gloves, Moreno pursued her professional boxing career and coached children as well.
But it was her belief in a 13-year-old girl that inspired Moreno to open a gym. After coaching the tween to three national championship titles, her student passed away in a traffic accident. Instead of returning to the gym where she trained the girl, Moreno decided it was time to open her own place to coach.
In memoriam of the young girl, Moreno named the gym after her student’s initials, RNE. Business was booming when they first opened. Just six months after RNE Boxing opened its doors, the gym boasted around 500 members.
But within a year, local regulations for a sprinkler in case of a fire led Moreno and her father to downsize. The building owner refused to pay for the upgrade, and the Morenos had no choice.

“The cheapest estimate we got was $20,000,” Moreno said. “So we started looking for another place.”

Now, RNE Boxing is run out of a smaller building that can only hold around 60 people, which led to members abandoning the once spacious gym. But that hasn’t stopped this twenty-something from chasing her dream of working with troubled teens.

Moreno now works a day job as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant while her father has also taken a day job. When she thinks about whether she should have made another career choice, she remembers, “It’s all about the kids,” she said. “It’s always been about them.”

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