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“Top 10 Startup Failures of 2019”
553 startups failed in 2019, with total funding of $1.9B.
Here’s the “Top 10 Startup Failures of 2019” by Adam Hassan. https://link.medium.com/62rK5jPYR2
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#MoneyTalksMondays Mysteek Naturals – Hair Color w/o Chemicals
Research shows that the global hair color market is expected to reach over $326 million by 2025; and Electra Davis from Alabama is already disrupting the industry .as the first African American entrepreneur to sell her chemical-free temporary hair color products on Amazon, the busiest marketplace in the world.
Support this 👑 @ https://mysteeknaturals.com/
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The Improbable Small Business Comeback of Flint – CityLab
Five years after the Michigan city was hit with its public health emergency, there’s good news—and signs of an entrepreneurial resurgence—coming out of Flint.
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Being your own Boss (by becoming your best employee)
Whether it’s your Dream business or your employer’s business….
Guess what? You’ll still have to work from the ground up!
Most want to start as “The Boss”. But that’s not how it works in employment nor entrepreneurship. Five of every 6 business entities in America, the entrepreneurs are the one and only employee. And often, even in the depths of Silicon Valley, many disciplined investors are financing the entity over the owner; often reducing him to a lower managerial role (if they keep him involved at all). Even granting institutions are more focused on your responsibilities over your title or “role”. In my experience owning and consulting small business owners, many titles often bring entitlements to the team; often dangerous before revenue has materialized yet. There’s plenty of Semi-CEOs and Barefoot Bosses in the business environment saying “be your own Boss”; but very few entrepreneurs actually separate, specialize, &/or regulate themselves for the entitiy’s interests (as a real boss should).
So use it as motivation! Start in your dream business as entry level! If you can’t work for you, who will? Separate your business, and it’s own interests, from your personhood. If you wouldn’t hire you; why should your dreams? Do you have that resilience?
Despite being chairman, I always humbled my role to my firm’s income level. In my first two businesses I’ve owned, I was a gardener (title: Materials Handler) for my landscaping company and a grounds keeper for my first real estate holdings corporation. With my business I’ve owned the longest (12 years)? I spent the first 4 of those years as my call center rep and admin asst.; then, another 6 promoting and demoting myself between a VP and sales rep. In a solar sales business my wife and I own, I was lead canvasser.
Aside from just sheer motivation, separate entity structures also allows us to leverage lots of taxes and expenses that market entry and state compliances (Cali is brutal) that sink most startups and small businesses. But most entrepreneurs ignore these perks because they often wear their businesses too much on their chest; so hard that the business concept never outgrows your personal circumstances to become the business you’ve dreamed of.
Sincerely,
RH Elliott
(Co-Founder, Chairman, & …) & VP of Strategic Partnerships
Stress Test: Aside from CEO/President, What position would your dream business hire you as?
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12 Ways To Make Our Money Work For Us (& Our Communities)
There are many ways to generate Black wealth in our communities.Here’s 12 sure fire ways to make your money work for you & your people:1. Shopping Together: Before you visit the grocery store, try checking your shopping list first through www.WeBuyBlack.com . As the world’s largest Black owned online shopping platform, they offer the best opportunity to buy, sell, & showcase Our products to Our global community!
2. Boycotting Together: Boycott from buying products from companies who support and finance legislation that negatively impact Our lives and livelihoods. Although we may differ on who deserves to be boycotted more than others, the corporations who support ALEC (whose responsible for Stand Your Ground, Voter IDs, and other “school to prison pipeline” tactics) have a direct conned on to our plight and should never see our money. Just as they advocate: no more free rides. Use the www.Buycott.com app and select an “ALEC” campaign to boycott purchases by who they fund to ensure not a drop of Our money will finance those directly against Our well being!
3. Saving Together: Sometimes the best thing you can do w/ your money now is save it for a we better use later. And while you put away Credit unions are one of the earliest and most successful forms of cooperative economics. Find a Black owned credit union near you, or form one of your own (www.AACUC.org), to take advantage of acquiring rates and adding leverage to your financial opportunities!
4. Banking Together: Find one of the 38 Black-owned/operated banks left for your financial needs. www.OneUnited.com is the Largest Black Owned Bank in America and offers Online & Business Banking at a competitive level as other popular banks. And the more we put our assets together here, the more banks like One United can become a more self-capable commercial player in developing our financial industry. Set up an online business account today!
5. Fund Together: We can never truly build w/ full autonomy until we depend on ourselves for affording it. But when we need to crowdfund for causes or businesses, we need to stop thinking “gofundme” and start thinking www.BBnomics.com ; Our largest crowdfunding platform in America! Start or support a campaign today!
6. Choose Who To Fund Together: Worried about if the right businesses get funded? www.OurOwn.Life provides a crowdfunding platform that we can fund, get informed & even vote together on the best projects in your own community! You can join their mission to build & diversify Our dollar starting as low as $1!
7. Start/Run Our Businesses Together: Seeking to start (or grow) a business? Don’t “LegalZoom” it. Just “Black-Tie” it! Black-Tie offers a plethora of start-up services for under $100, free consultations, & also subcontracts work to other Black-owned businesses & professionals; creating a full-service environment for business development. They’ll also pay you $50+ for each referred friends and family use them to start a business. Visit www.Black-Tie.Biz to book a free consultation on how to best afford and develop your ideas, dreams, causes, & passion projects grow into real businesses!
8. Network w/ Businesses Together: When it comes to business, it’s not only who you know but who knows you! There’s nothing like getting Enter E-GrassRoots Business: the largest online Black business network & directory . Download their app at www.EGrassRootsBusiness.com , & join their FaceBook group “Black Owned Businesses” to network, engage, & grow w/ over 43,000 verified Black owned businesses & service professionals real-time!
9. Trade Together: Buy, Sell, Converse, Lend, Socialize, Act, etc……Black Trade Circle offers boundless ways to connect and empower each other in this Information Age! Their innovative approach focuses on the core elements of Our social consciousness, entertainment, culture, community & economics to make the Global Village work similar to Our villages in past histories; how civilizations were born since the beginning! Download the app at www.BlackTradeCircle.com .
10. Invest in Markets Together: While many financial service platforms offer credit repair, budget tactics, and savings plans (as they should); they don’t really dive into the invest world. There’s more to investing than mutual funds and index funds. And, the Black Market Exchange ( www.TheBMEX.com )are the #1 urban investment education site for millennials and aspiring investors that have been under-served & under represented for generations. Plus, their unorthodox approach of blending Hip-Hop and investing in the financial arena will have you learning & running your investment portfolio. Join their 30 day challenge today!
11. Invest in Real Estate Together: We can either continue to let others gentrify us out of our neighborhoods; or Buy the block back! www.BuyTheBlock.com enables Our communities to buy & profit from real estate together as “BlockVestor”, starting as low as $25! And as Block Developers, Buy The Block helps us acquire financing and develop Our own communities; a new mechanism to raise capital via the internet through our real estate crowdinvesting platform w/ massive databases of BlockVestors.
12. Insure/Retire Together: Embarkers Group Benefits is a full-service brokerage firm providing solutions in every aspect of your employee benefits portfolio. Even if you’re already insured, Embarkers can also fill in the gaps with medical, dental, vision, life, retirement, & a wide array of supplemental and ancillary cafeteria benefits involved with affording a longer, fulfilling life with your livelihood! Get a free quote here today: www.Embarkers.net
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How you were “Framed” from the Start…
Entrepreneurship is a team sport. Without sincere help from those with real-world business experience, your small business or non-profit cause may continue to be “framed” as inferior to your competition.
Once upon a time, the Small Business was “framed”. They were not accused nor charged with any crime. But their Fortune 500 competitors spent countless resources to groom the public (customers especially) into believing the Small Business was incompetent & obsolete. But owners decided they “weren’t going to take this lying down”! So they fought to get their good name back; regardless of cost & adversity! This story may sound familiar. We hope so. It’s about you!
Since 2006, the founders of Black Tie’s unique consulting service has found success for its clients by not playing by their corporate elite rules. We don’t cater to the Fortune 500; but exclusively for the Unfortunate 500,000 small businesses that usually fail within every couple of years!
After helping hundreds of startups and small businesses, dozens of success stories, and even a couple of self-made millionaires later, Black Tie has proven its unique services as invaluable to those who need real-world business help at unbeatable prices!
If you need help with starting or growing your small business or organization, contact us for a FREE consultation! And because we only charge for actual execution & results, the only risk you should be concerned with is finding better problems to have!
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Why Acknowledgement Is Power
In the past generations, the attainment of knowledge was as challenging as its comprehension & usage. Now, we carry access to all known knowledge the world has to offer. But without acknowledgment, our challenges for comprehension & usage of knowledge worsen. Consider this: What’s Knowledge without Acknowledgement? In other words, what’s the value of simply being informed if there’s no commitment for how its used? It’s your Acknowledgment that holds yourself accountable to make your knowledge powerful!
That’s why there is no binding contract nor verbal agreement, no creed nor code, not anywhere in the world, nor anytime in history, without Acknowledgement!
Acquiring knowledge should be a lifelong habit. But don’t assume knowledge inherently empowers, or entitles, us to unlimited success & accomplishment. Many typically hang their hat on the knowledge they’ve acquired. But acquiring knowledge only proves you have stored useful information. At best, acquiring knowledge proves to yourself and others that you have the “potential” to make your information useful to your lifelong circumstances and goals. And without your understanding & commitment to how the information is useful, which is acknowledgement, that “potential” is all but lost.
Your goals are deserving of more informed commitments over merely having informed conversation. Don’t just get knowledge (i.e. useful information). Get acknowledgement (i.e. your understanding & commitment to that information’s use)!
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Why it’s Never the Thought that Counts
Let me guess. You woke up this morning with Spanish question marks dancing all around your head. And after you jump in the shower while dressed with your morning coffee (or something like that), those question marks begin to stretch into exclamation points. And before you know it, your newest idea is born!Great idea! But what’s next? Here’s why, in entrepreneurship, it’s Never the Thought that Counts…
Congratulations are in order. Having an idea means you’re still alive. But like meeting your new born child for the first time, the beauty & astonishment of the first nine months of discovering something new doesn’t prepare you for the lifelong work ahead. Just the sheer excitement of your newest innovation persuades you to believe that an idea, which was literally born yesterday, can somehow fend for itself in the real world. Why?
One significant difference between your idea and a real newborn is that you wouldn’t hesitate calling the proper authorities if the newborn’s safety and growth was in jeopardy. But your ideas? Well, you’ve just met those little strangers & haven’t made any substantial commitments to its upbringing. And since you refuse to be accountable for them, no one else will.
The Point: Your ideas need your commitment to grow. It can’t do it alone! You can never be certain of “Tomorrow’s New Idea”. Terms like “New”, “Idea”, & even “Tomorrow” have never been companions of certainty.
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“Do you sell Tires or Nails?”
A failing tire shop placed an ad to hire a new sales representative. After receiving, assessing, & finalizing the two best applicants, the desperate owner scheduled them both into his office for a joint interview. But after the callous exchange of the usual questions & answers, the perplexed owner sought a clearer way to distinguish which of the two candidates could salvage his business from bankruptcy. So he asked the candidates to each sell something in the store to a visitor. The first candidate, naturally, picked the latest, cutting-edge tire in the shop. He then found a well-dressed window shopper and eloquently explained the details, warranty, & affordability with precision. And although the well-groomed browser didn’t purchase that day, the owner was impressed by how much of the product knowledge & technical jargon he already knew about his product. The second candidate rummaged through the remaining tires; finding one of the replaced tires with a long, rusty nail still lodged halfway within. He carried it to the next visitor & asked a simple question that led to the sale of a full 4-set of tires, an annual membership to the shop’s loyalty rewards program, & the hiring of a new sales representative:“Could you believe that something this little could stand in the way of you getting to your family?”But in the end, the tire shop survived for just another year before closing; four months after their best sales rep moved on to much “greener” financial pastures. And although the owner blamed the young sales rep’s departure for his business failing his lenders, he never truly embraced the real problem: selling tires (features & slogans) instead of nails (needs & benefits). As a consultant for entrepreneurs & small business owners, over 90% of my clients’ financial problems were first salesmanship problems. Regardless of what’s being sold, the everyday customer is not interested in your product’s features, technical jargon, nor your company’s own aspirations of dethroning your competition. They’re only interested in the benefits your product has towards solving their own needs! So everyday, the associates at Black Tie Business Solutions challenge ourselves, our colleagues, & especially our clients who struggle in sales with a very simple question: “Do You Sell Tires…or Nails?”
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