Category: Business Skills

Suggestions for How To Run A Crowdfunding Campaign When A Founder Is From A Marginalized Community

This article from Forbes discusses the increasing popularity of crowdfunding as a funding option for early-stage startups, especially for female founders from marginalized communities. In general, crowdfunding provides an innovative solution for raising funds to launch or grow a businesses.

The article highlights specific difficulties faced by these marginalized founders in obtaining traditional funding and provides tips for running successful crowdfunding campaigns, including setting realistic goals, explaining the product or service clearly, promoting the campaign through multiple channels, building social proof, and offering attractive rewards to participants.

“Your Financial Maven” Podcast Episode

Samantha M. Besnoff is a CPA, podcast host AND early graduate of our very own Women’s Entrepreneurship certificate program. Samantha reached out to our Program Director, Kirsten Barker, to have a conversation about financial considerations that go into launching a business.

We are so pleased that Samantha has stayed in touch with the Institute long after completing the program and is dedicated to improving financial literacy with her Your Financial Maven podcast. If you are interested in listening to her chat with Kirsten, you can tune in on @iheartpodcast, @applepodcasts, or wherever you listen: https://apple.co/3BAVTms

Six Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail

The article from Business News Daily discusses six common reasons why small businesses fail and provides advice on how to minimize or avoid their negative impact. These reasons include poor cash flow, inadequate leadership, disengaged employees, lack of business planning, strong competition, and failure to adapt to changes in the market.

The article suggests that to address these challenges, small business owners should prioritize financial planning, establish clear organizational structures, foster employee engagement, create comprehensive business plans, conduct competitive analyses, and be adaptable to industry trends. Additionally, the article highlights the importance of cultivating a supportive and collaborative work environment and investing in leadership development programs to ensure that businesses are well-positioned for success.

Less Is More – Building a Convincing Argument

A recent podcast from Hidden Brain entitled “Less Is More” discussed some important realities on how to make a make a convincing argument. Specifically, it is often a better choice to limit yourself to presenting only a few strong points rather than going for quantity and adding in more points that carry less weight than your original few.

While this discussion does not specifically target entrepreneurs, small business owners are constantly faced with the challenge of pitching themselves – either for funding or to make a sale or to hire a team. Understanding how to make the most convincing argument is bound to help in all those arenas. Hope you have time to give the free podcast a listen!

REPOST: Spreadsheet with funding resources for 2023

Each month, we send an email blast to students enrolled in the program with a list of funding opportunities and business resources. In between the monthly email blasts, we keep this spreadsheet updated daily with new opportunities that we find (the last column indicates the date when the item was added to the spreadsheet): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zU5SUCYBopz64FM4q_nqp2wvILmcdItq_PRWQRXFUB4/edit?usp=sharingMore

Success Is Never Guaranteed And Requires Perpetual Work

Monique Rodriguez, self-made millionaire and founder of Mielle Organics, founded her natural hair care brand in the wake of losing her son at eight months of pregnancy. She decided to leave her career as a nurse and pour her energy into her startup which would also enable her to cope with her post-partum depression. That creative outlet that helped her get through the trauma of losing her son has become a multimillion-dollar brand sold in over 100,000 stores across the U.S. 

Rodriquez mentions that the best career advice she’s ever received came from her husband who said, “Success, if not owned, is rented — and rent is due everyday. Don’t get complacent, don’t get comfortable, and never feel like you ‘made it.’ Because when you get to that place, there’s always someone trying to take your spot. You have to continue working and striving as if you know [your spot] is not guaranteed.” To read more about Rodriguez’s journey, check out this piece on CNBC.

Extra Education Supports Becoming An Entrepreneur

According to this piece in Fast Company, during 2021 alone, over 5 million new companies were registered in the US alone which is an increase of 23% over the previous year. While some of this increase can be attributed to the impact of the global pandemic, research is suggesting that education is playing a role as well.

While some experts have felt that continuing education is more about “signaling rather than skill development”, this new research is providing evidence that additional years of post-high school education can boost self-employment in high-growth industries. Research goes on to point out that, “for women, education may have an even greater impact on encouraging them to jump into entrepreneurship by increasing their confidence in addition to their skills.”

Education is certainly something we believe in at the Institute! If you (or someone you know) would benefit from our free 12-week entrepreneurship certificate program,  go to this page and click the “Join the Waitlist” button. We enroll on a quarterly basis and reach out to those on the notification list in the order that they are there. 

Passing on Generational Wealth

As we head into Thanksgiving this week in the US, many families will be gathering around tables where multiple generations are present. In this interview and podcast from NPR’s Life Kit, Pamela Jolly, founder and CEO of the strategic investment firm Torch Enterprises shares thoughts on what generational wealth includes and how to create structures in which it can be shared. Specifically, Jolly states that wealth isn’t just about cash. It can be whatever you want it to be – from your relationships to your education and knowledge to the things you own – “wealth” can be anything you can pass down to make your mark on the world.

Turning a Personal Brand Into Side Hustle Income

Patrina Dixon, author of It’$ My Money and graduate of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Certificate program at Cornell was recently featured in this article in Business Insider.

In this piece, she shares her thoughts on how to generate side income. Specifically, she states the importance of determining your existing skills, experimenting with different opportunities for growth and outlining income streams that best work for you and your needs. Keep up the amazing work, Patrina!