Latest / Earn Your Leisure / Cliff Notes: EYL & Kamala Harris Discuss Lack of Access to Capital for Black Entrepreneurs

Transcript

Cliff Notes: EYL & Kamala Harris Discuss Lack of Access to Capital for Black Entrepreneurs · Earn Your Leisure

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  Speaker 1: Earners.
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  Speaker 2: What's up.
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  Speaker 3: You ever walk into a small business and everything just
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  Speaker 3: don't hesitate. Let's Square handle the back end so you
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  Speaker 3: can keep pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought
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  Speaker 3: to you by P and C Bank, a lot of
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  Speaker 3: Member FDIC.
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  Speaker 4: Another major issue for entrepreneurs is access to capital. We
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  Speaker 4: know that I think less than one percent goes to
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  Speaker 4: black businesses. So what are some steps that you guys
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  Speaker 4: are doing to kind of correct that issue which suffocates
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  Speaker 4: a lot of businesses from getting started or from expanding.
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  Speaker 2: So here's where I come to this point. None of
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  Speaker 2: us have achieved success without support, none of us and
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  Speaker 2: without someone or people who understood our talent and our
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  Speaker 2: dreams and encouraged us to achieve it and showed us
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  Speaker 2: how to achieve it. And as much as anything. The
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  Speaker 2: spirit behind the push for access to capital, and in
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  Speaker 2: particular on this tour, focusing on minority small businesses and
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  Speaker 2: black owned small businesses and small businesses and entrepreneurs who
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  Speaker 2: are black men, is to recognize the disparities that have
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  Speaker 2: existed around the access to the opportunity to achieve success. Again,
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  Speaker 2: I will say, because success is almost always a function
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  Speaker 2: of some investment from a community or others that went
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  Speaker 2: into the individual who then achieved success. So the access
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  Speaker 2: to capital push that we have made has been about, yes,
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  Speaker 2: getting more federal dollars into community banks. It has been
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  Speaker 2: about getting the private sector and the big banks to
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  Speaker 2: invest because they will admit and we know they are
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  Speaker 2: not necessarily in the place where they are where we
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  Speaker 2: need them to be situated to know the community access
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  Speaker 2: to capital encompasses a commitment to also making sure that
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  Speaker 2: we are doing the.
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  Speaker 1: Teaching to then create the access to markets. So it's
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  Speaker 1: about financial literacy.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of what we talked about before around helping
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  Speaker 2: people know how to start a business and keep a
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  Speaker 2: business going. And it's also about understanding that our small
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  Speaker 2: you know, I know, I use I interchange the word
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  Speaker 2: entrepreneur in small business. I think basically depending on the generation,
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  Speaker 2: someone considers themselves an entrepreneur in terms of younger small businesses,
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  Speaker 2: but it's all entrepreneurship, right. What we also know is
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  Speaker 2: that our entrepreneurs are small business owners, are not only
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  Speaker 2: leaders in business, but community leaders, civic leaders, hiring locally, mentoring,
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  Speaker 2: creating opportunities for economic development and growth within individuals and communities.
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  Speaker 2: So the work we are doing to extend access to
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  Speaker 2: capital is about tapping into the ambition that exists, the
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  Speaker 2: aspirations that exist, and then giving people the resources that
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  Speaker 2: are necessary money and other resources to actually achieve success.
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  Speaker 1: Can you talk a little bit about how.
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  Speaker 2: You all achieved your success and how this kind of
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  Speaker 2: a approach would lend itself to others having a story
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  Speaker 2: similar to yours.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we started with an iPhone and I did.
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  Speaker 4: That's what we always say that we wouldn't have any
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  Speaker 4: capital when we started, right, And that's the beauty of
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  Speaker 4: social media. Technology has really empowered everybody and kind of
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  Speaker 4: level the playing field. But what we're seeing is that
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  Speaker 4: when we're interviewing, you know, other entrepreneurs that may not
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  Speaker 4: have the same business model as us, they have an
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  Speaker 4: extremely difficult time and especially when we look at the
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  Speaker 4: next generation of unicorn companies and billion dollar multi billion
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  Speaker 4: dollar companies, those are mostly tech companies, and you do
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  Speaker 4: need a lot more money to start a tech company.
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  Speaker 4: So I feel like the entrepreneur and Morehouse and Spellman,
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  Speaker 4: they have just as good ideas as Mark Zuckerberg and
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  Speaker 4: Jeff Bezos, but they don't have the capital, so they
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  Speaker 4: either abort those ideas or they work for or those companies.
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  Speaker 4: But even that's an issue because we know that we
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  Speaker 4: are not hired at the same rate in Silicon Valley
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  Speaker 4: as other people as well. Right, So even talking to
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  Speaker 4: Robert Smith and a lot of other people like that,
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  Speaker 4: this is a very complex problem. But I think from
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  Speaker 4: our perspective, we have a unique perspective because we actually
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  Speaker 4: get to talk to entrepreneurs every single day. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 4: we can understand how one hundred thousand dollars could just
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  Speaker 4: accelerate their business, right, fifty thousand dollars can accelerate their business. Right.
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  Speaker 4: And even looking in the crowd, we have entrepreneurs. I
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  Speaker 4: see Pinky Coal, I see east Side Golf, and these
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  Speaker 4: are young entrepreneurs that went out on the limb and
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  Speaker 4: bet on theirself, right, but a little bit more capital.
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  Speaker 4: They can be the next McDonald's. Yes, they could be
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  Speaker 4: the next Nike, right, and that's what we need in
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  Speaker 4: our community. So they can employ, that's right, So they
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  Speaker 4: can employ not just one hundred people, but one hundred
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  Speaker 4: thousand people.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, right, And that you'd hit it on the head
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  Speaker 2: in terms of how we feel about this. This is
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  Speaker 2: you know that, yes, there are going to be those
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  Speaker 2: who need twenty thousand dollar loans, but folks need million
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  Speaker 2: dollar loans.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 1: And when we talk about a small.
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  Speaker 2: Business, it will be it could be a dozen employees,
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  Speaker 2: but it could also be two hundred employees. And it
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  Speaker 2: is that piece of it that is about getting to
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  Speaker 2: that next plateau. That is very much how I'm thinking
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  Speaker 2: about this tour and the work that we are doing.
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  Speaker 2: So yes, it's about startup capital, but also what is
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  Speaker 2: required then to grow and to scale and have it
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  Speaker 2: be sustainable. One of the pieces I failed to mention before,
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  Speaker 2: but I'll mention now is the President and I when
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  Speaker 2: we first came in, made a commitment that we are
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  Speaker 2: going to increase by fifty percent the number of federal
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  Speaker 2: contracts going to minority owned businesses. And we're on track
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  Speaker 2: to get that done. So part of the point of
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  Speaker 2: this tour has been to give folks information about how
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  Speaker 2: you apply for a federal contract. The reason that we
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  Speaker 2: made that commitment is because we then put in place
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  Speaker 2: more information that is available to more people about how
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  Speaker 2: to get a federal contract, because a lot of that
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  Speaker 2: historically has been who you know, and when you get
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  Speaker 2: a federal contract, it is potentially yours for life, and
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  Speaker 2: it's very sustainable and can be the source of great
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  Speaker 2: growth for that individual who owns that business and beyond.
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  Speaker 2: I'll also say this, and I was saying it to
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  Speaker 2: a few folks earlier. The work that we have accomplished
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  Speaker 2: as an administration, be it the Infrastructure Bill and what
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  Speaker 2: we are doing to invest It'll be trillions of dollars
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  Speaker 2: in infrastructure, roads, bridges, sidewalks, all of that, transportation, public transportation.
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  Speaker 2: What we have done with the the Chips and Science Act,
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  Speaker 2: which is about investment in technology and research and development.
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  Speaker 2: What we are doing with the Inflation and Reduction Act,
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  Speaker 2: which is about at least a trillion dollars invested in
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  Speaker 2: the climate but a clean energy economy. One of the
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  Speaker 2: compelling reasons for me to start this tour now and
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  Speaker 2: to ask all the leaders here for help and getting
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  Speaker 2: the word out about what is available to entrepreneurs and
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  Speaker 2: small businesses. Is because we are in the process of
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  Speaker 2: putting a lot of money in the streets of America
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  Speaker 2: for this growth, and we want to make sure everyone
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  Speaker 2: has access.
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  Speaker 1: To the opportunity to take advantage of the contracts and
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  Speaker 1: the work that is being generated by this policy push.
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  Speaker 1: And so we want to make sure people know about
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  Speaker 1: it and then know where they can receive the support
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  Speaker 1: to be ready to take on the work and then
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  Speaker 1: to grow their capacity. I was very surprised to learn
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  Speaker 1: that over seventy percent of construction companies in America, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that number is still correct, seventy percent
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  Speaker 1: of construction companies in America employ twenty or fewer people.
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  Speaker 1: Those are small businesses right who.
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  Speaker 2: When we're building back up America's infrastructure, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: that's construction work. Got to make sure people know about
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  Speaker 2: what's available.
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  Speaker 1: To them to actually take those jobs.
• 10:26
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