Black Business Opportunity Report with Heartland Forward
Our latest report with Heartland Forward, Black Business Opportunity Strategy: The Journey of Black Business Owners in Memphis, speaks to the challenges and opportunities for the black business journey in Memphis. Memphis is unique because it has the highest Black population share among metropolitan areas with 1 million-plus people. This means Memphis has a larger Black population than St. Louis, Boston and San Francisco, for example. Entrepreneurship is a wealth-creator and can be a powerful economic development strategy for communities and regions, especially when entrepreneurs are given the tools they need to succeed.
Key Facts – Did you know:
- Memphis has a density of Black-owned businesses, but they are disproportionate to the population size. Forty-six percent of the adult population in the Memphis metro is Black, but only 7.3% of employer firms are Black-owned – employer firms employ more than just the business owner herself, an indicator of entrepreneurship success.
- Memphis is home to a large number of Black-owned non-employer firms that, if supported, can reduce the employer firm disparity. There are 1,158 Black-owned employer firms in the Memphis metro, compared to 12,968 white-owned employer firms. There are 54,500 Black-owned non-employer firms, compared to 57,000 white-owned non-employer firms.
- Business ownership creates positive externalities for personal wealth generation and communities. Fifty-nine percent of Black individuals whose main source of income is self-employment are homeowners, compared to 50% of Black individuals who work for someone else.
Read the full report here:
Black Business Opportunity Strategy: The Journey of Black Business Owners in Memphis
Net Positive Economy
An Innovation Driven Economic Development Model whose economic and community creation activities must outweigh the region’s destructive forces. Job and talent creation must be greater than job and talent destruction. Holding economic initiatives accountable to producing net positive results is critical to competing globally and will be the standard to creating a regional innovation movement.
Read more about the Net Positive Economy here.
Catalyst30 (Smarter Community)
Catalyst30 is accelerating Memphis’s participation in the global innovation economy through investment in smart city infrastructure – fiber, data and technology solutions – as the fuel for regional and cluster-based entrepreneurship and digital inclusion. This strategy sits at the center of creating meaningful jobs, creating empowering places to live and work, building trust and relationships for an inclusive society, and forging collaborative governance through public and private partnerships — the four proven keys to building regional innovation economy.
Catalyst30 provides Memphis the opportunity to achieve in 10 years (by 2030) what would normally take 20 years by serving early stage startups, local government, quasi-governmental agencies, corporations, civic institutions, and the residents of Memphis. Catalyst30 builds a better quality of life and a better business environment by using data and technology to solve complex problems in a first-of-its-kind effort.
It is this strategic plan that gave life to The Digital City and its building of a digital continuum to advance Memphis further into the innovation economy. Our work with Zero Gravity; albeit greatly needed, underestimated the need for a “smart and connected” community where data is a key driver for solving a community’s problems
For more information please click here.
The 800 Initiative (Black Business)
Like most cities Memphis has struggled with minority business participation in local sales receipts and other disparities having underserved populations on the outside looking in. Originating in Mayor Jim Strickland’s Office of Business Diversity & Compliance, Start Co. co-authored The 800 Initiative, an effort with public and private partners addressing and bringing more attention to how few black businesses have paid employees and the lack of attention paid to them in the grand scheme of business supports to the ecosystem. Various programs, methods, and advocacy strategies are underway with partners Shelby County Government, Epicenter, Chirstian Brothers University, FedEx. The City of Knoxville & the National Black MBA Association have benefitted from methods and building practices from The 800 Initiative.
For more information please click here.
Zero Gravity (Digital Advancement)
In 2104 Start Co. began exploring the major implications of the digital divide and how it impacts the Memphis community; after a 7 month research and development phase of exploring data, research, and best practices across the country, a report was written called Zero Gravity. Elements of this work have been adopted and is currently being applied to distressed zip codes within the City of Memphis. All of this work is rooted in a core philosophy, The Social Envelope:
For more information click here.
MEMx: Partners for Exponential Entrepreneurial Growth
MEMx is a regional innovation strategy for the city of Memphis with entrepreneurship as the key ingredient. Start Co. engaged Jumpstart America (Cleveland, OH) to help assess the region in terms of entrepreneurial opportunities and gaps, and provide a specific growth plan. It is important to note that entrepreneurship is not simply about startups. Entrepreneurship is an approach to problem solving. Entrepreneurship is a mindset that favors action over discussion. Entrepreneurship provides a set of tools and a methodology to begin to address seemingly intractable problems. Entrepreneurship is a path that leads to breakthrough solutions and continuous improvement whether the context is the private market, public institutions or charitable organizations.
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