Startups start here. The First 3 Steps to Building a “Business for Good.”
Do you ever have a case of The Mondays? If you work for someone else, probably. What about working for yourself? Do you dream of being your own boss one day? Maybe, like me, you are already a few years in.
You may still feel stressed and pressure...who the eff isn't burnt out?!🔥 But working for yourself is very different. The feeling of freedom in being your own boss that is pretty singular.
The good part? It's all on you. ✅ If you are lucky enough to do it, your day is all about your vision, your ideas, and your purpose.
The bad? It's all on you. 🆘 You don't know what you don't know. You are not an army of 1; you are a human. Wearing all the hats isn't possible if you are walking around like a headless chicken; just go with me here-I'm tired!
I must acknowledge the huge privilege to have bandwidth and stability enough to pursue your passions. If you can pay a mortgage, feed your family, and still bootstrap a business...you are far ahead of the curve. Generational wealth plays a part here-but don’t be fooled. Black women started more businesses than any other demographic in 2019.
“Women started 1,821 net new businesses every day last year [2020. In 2019 it was 1,862]. 64% of those businesses were started by women of color. Latina women-owned businesses grew more than 87%.”
-Fundera.com
It may seem like everyone gets VC, but 80% of small businesses start that way with only money from friends, family, or ourselves. We need to change that ASAP of course. But knowing that can also be liberating. You can start with zero dollars (or about $100 depending on your state-no small feat but not thousands).
Lack of funding is a huge reason many don’t leave day jobs. Add to that the lack of support, healthcare, childcare, and time. The business world gaslights us and tells us to start nonprofits in order to get funding. The lack of resources for people who spend their workday ensuring they provide for others (i.e. Gen X and Millenials) makes being your own boss simultaneously impossible and an imperative.
As a parent, a partner, friend, or employee, there's always one more thing on the to-do list...and 100s more after that. Some days are overwhelming in ways you only imagined. The wins are often invisible and incremental.
Being a founder is similar, especially for womxn. There are many days that people won’t understand what you are doing or trying to create. People question how you spend your time, your money, or why you worry so much. You will have days where you say, screw it, and start looking for a J.O.B. You will mess up, a lot. No matter how you start, all founders, small business owners, or solopreneurs know it's tough. The would-be entrepreneurs know it too…which is why they haven’t made the jump.
Do it anyway. Seriously. The discrepancies and gaps in our economy aren't going away unless WE push through.
To reshape and redefine work, we NEED diverse voices building ethical, equitable businesses from the ground up. We need YOU to make money and to hire others who are typically left out of decision-making. We need YOUR products, words, aesthetics.
Hot take.🔥 After 25+ years in the workforce and the past decade working to make companies, brands, and communications less biased: This economy will stay homogeneous unless we build a new one.
The majority of companies (especially Fortune 500s) are not built to change. The ones advising them on the #FutureOfWork are the same builders of the past. Discrimination & harassment still run rampant in orgs touting diverse teams. The growth & hiring boom right now is mostly for white men. Pay inequity and wealth grasp are growing for everyone but them. Want data? I have literally hundreds of stats and sources, (and most of these are from 2019, pre-pandemic.)
This is my WHY. When you start seeing injustice everywhere, it's like every day is a "Monday" (fighting for a world of summer Fridays). My purpose: support startups, connect them with awesome people and diverse creatives, educators, consultants, and tech experts. This is how we “make work not suck.” We are here to help you, for real, every step of the way!!
I formed an LLC for Collective Flow Consulting in August 2019 to get out of toxic corporate cultures once and for all. No more harassment. No more yelling, No dick jokes to win pitches. coFLOWco is not yet the full Collective, workers cooperative & community I envision. That is a big YET. I know we will get there. After 2 years, I persist and those in our loose Collective do too. We are the future of work. The Future of Work does not work without us!
What is your purpose? Why you haven’t started that biz? What are you waiting for?
We need your voice. Stat. Janet Yellen made this very clear when giving the keynote on gender and racial diversity of the federal government's economists. (Brookings, 2019)
“The findings suggest the demography of inventors matters for what is inventive.”
Stop telling yourself you can't. You are an inventor. Don't say someday. Take an evening. Write it down. Sketch it out. (Download our free 3-Step LLC How-to guide.)
Less talk, more action. You gotta start somewhere, right?
