Breaking the Blueprint / 21 posts found
Discrepancies Experienced by Black Content Creators (Expert Insight)
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. This piece is in collaboration with HubSpot Podcast Network’s Amplifying Voices campaign partnership with The Gathering Spot. In 2019, Charli D’Amelio shared a video on TikTok doing the Renegade dance. The video blew up and is inarguably her claim to fame. Since then, she’s amassed 150M followers […]
7 of the Best Cities for Minority Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Innovation and creativity are driving the new workforce, and many underrepresented professionals are making career pivots to monetize their talents through entrepreneurship. The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship report more than four million minority-owned companies in the United States today. Despite these numbers, minority […]
17 Events and Conferences for Black Entrepreneurs in 2023
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. It can feel isolating if you’re the only one in the room who looks like you. Meeting peers and mentors with a unique understanding of your lived experience and business roadblocks can help you connect the dots needed to grow your business and community. However, finding spaces for this […]
How to Use Black-Owned Banks to Start Your Business
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Black-owned banks have been pillars of the Black community since the late 1800s when they were founded to fight against the economic inequality Black Americans felt in accessing financial services. Despite being in a new millennium, these banks are still some of the few institutions that offer […]
12 Resources for LGBTQ Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. The LGBTQ community is small but mighty, contributing trillions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the economy each year. Despite this, LGBTQ individuals still face marginalization. The community continues to fight against historic and current systematic discrimination, which can present barriers to achieving equity and equality […]
10 Events and Conferences for LGBTQ+ Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. LGBTQ+ people often face higher rates of isolation and discrimination, meaning that this community can especially benefit from gatherings that foster support and connection. This is especially true for LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs and professionals, as finding opportunities to learn from people who share similar life experiences can be challenging. […]
5 Networking Tips for Entrepreneurs with Disabilities
Running your own business can be a great career choice for people living with long-term disability or health condition. This may relate, in part, to the increased flexibility around working hours that self-employment brings. Working for oneself can also promote a sense of being a master of one’s destiny and not having to contend with misconceptions and discriminatory attitudes from others that are often encountered while job hunting. For entrepreneurs of any background, business networking, be this receiving the support and advice of others, identifying collaborative opportunities, or expanding the customer base, remains an essential undertaking. Unfortunately, as in almost […]
8 Networking Tips for LGBTQ+ Professionals at Conferences and Events
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Networking is connecting with other business professionals, building relationships within and outside your field, and diving into your story to establish the “why” behind your work. Effective networking highlights your expertise and that of your peers so that you can find a middle ground of opportunity, collaboration, and collective […]
19 Black Influencers To Follow and Learn From
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. Zippia found that 67.5% of all content creators and influencers are white. As people look to influencers to find someone like them to take inspiration from, the overwhelming amount of White content creators means that Black consumers likely have a hard time finding what they’re looking for. […]
The 5 Best Cities for Black Entrepreneurs
Welcome to Breaking the Blueprint — a blog series that dives into the unique business challenges and opportunities of underrepresented business owners and entrepreneurs. Learn how they’ve grown or scaled their businesses, explored entrepreneurial ventures within their companies, or created side hustles, and how their stories can inspire and inform your own success. White-owned businesses receive an average of $18,500 in outside equity at funding, compared to just $500 for Black-owned businesses. On top of that, it can also be challenging for Black entrepreneurs to find mentorship, resources, and even community with other business owners with their shared experiences. Thankfully, there are […]