There is an unwritten rule in business that once a company goes public, the original founders must be ousted. The myth: entrepreneurs are great for getting a company started, but not so great when Wall Street is looking over their shoulder. Part of this thinking is that founders of companies are mavericks, passionate doers with a vision, nontraditional in their approach to management and outspoken – the kind of rabble rousing that makes investors uneasy. (What is rabble rousing anyway?) (more…)
Tag: entrepreneurship definition
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Entrepreneurship – Craze of Present Generation
An Entrepreneurship sets up an enterprise for profit motive and rightly so. But if you start your business with the ‘Show me the money’ attitude, rest be assured that you will not go very far! Ever wondered why in the world of Entrepreneurship, some carve a niche for themselves and stand out from the crowd, while others, even though successful, have a mundane existence? (more…)
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What Makes An Entrepreneur Tick?
It is only natural that when you start a business, you are doing something different than most people. They not only will look at you because you stick out like a sore thumb but human nature will cause people to naturally ridicule what you are doing. They will tell you all types of things like: “You’re not business material.” “You can’t make a living working for yourself.” “You’ll fail because nobody can ever make any money that way.” (more…)
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The 10 Great Strategies On How To Improve Your Personal Finance Immediately
Below are 10 strategies on how to improve your personal finance. (more…)
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Do I Have What It Takes to Be an Entrepreneur?
Looking into a viable business opportunity, many young potential entrepreneurs have the same question in mind. Do I have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? Is this a good time to quit my job and invest all my time into this exciting proposition that I have chanced upon? Before you get into the in-depth details about how good the business is, maybe you need to do some soul-searching and explore your personality. Read ahead to find out about the important traits of successful startup owners. (more…)
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The Cautious Entrepreneur
Entrepreneur, someone who begins a business and assumes the risk for profit. Is it no wonder some of us are reluctant to become an entrepreneur with “Risk” involved. It stops most of us dead in our tracks. (more…)
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Entrepreneur Advantages and Disadvantages
Entrepreneurs enjoy the freedom of making their own business decisions and becoming their own bosses. In addition, they also gain the stability and control that could never be achieved as a regular employee. If you have been dreaming of becoming one of these entrepreneurs, you should find out the disadvantages and advantages of taking on this role. (more…)
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Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Part of the romanticism of entrepreneurship is the thought that entrepreneurs are creative, innovative, go-getters, risk takers, driven. All of that implies a high self-esteem and determination. In reality, having a clear understanding of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship allows managers of institutions and corporations, as well as individual, manage each area differently to get the best results. (more…)
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The Real Career Risks of Entrepreneurship
The majority of people are perfectly comfortable working for somebody else. They have no desire to launch their own business, mostly because they perceive entrepreneurship as a highly risky option. Most of these concerns come down to four types of risk – financial, career, lifestyle, and ego. They imagine that the potential for success is very small and the likelihood of ruin high. They assume that the type of person who is willing to put all that at risk must be fearless and crazy and have completely different priorities than everyone else. (more…)
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Entrepreneurship: What does it REALLY mean?
In a world where ideas drive economies, it is no wonder that innovation and entrepreneurship are often seen as inseparable bedfellows. The governments around the world are starting to realize that in order to sustain progress and improve a country’s economy, the people have to be encouraged and trained to think out-of-the-box and be constantly developing innovative products and services. The once feasible ways of doing business are no longer guarantees for future economic success! (more…)
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Business tip for a civil servant who wants to be an entrepreneur by Strive Masiyiwa
Statements like “income generating project” reminds me of a civil servant who, having decided he is not making enough income at his job, embarks on a scheme such as raising chickens as a means of supplementing his income. As long as what he (or she) is doing does not interfere with paid full-time work, or use state time and resources, there is nothing wrong with it. -
After her struggles as a widow and single mother, she started an organization to support other widows and orphans
Nsoh Jacklin, a native of Zaare in the Upper East Region of Ghana started her organization to help prevent other widows from going through the struggles she went through looking after her sons and daughter after the death of her husband. (more…)
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Smart Entrepreneurs Wear Six Hats
Originally defined by psychologist Edward DeBono, the Six Thinking Hats are a structured creativity tool to help you look at a situation from different perspectives, to solve a problem or to foresee and minimize risks before they turn into problems.
Entrepreneurs are necessarily optimistic. You need to be, it allows you to see the possibilities around you and act on them.
However, the downside is that your emotional attachment can blind you to problems that are otherwise obvious to someone who is not as personally invested in the project.
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Entrepreneurship and Project Management – The Missing Link
There has been a great deal of emphasis on entrepreneurship and the need for more and more entrepreneurs in the region to help create jobs for the future of the region. There is also a lot of enthusiasm and encouragement for new entrepreneurs – but are we forgetting something? It is great to have the “spirit” but is spirit enough? Do our prospective entrepreneurs know how to take their dreams from the idea into effective operation? Is business planning over emphasized or is it enough? This article will offer an opinion and try to answer these questions and offer a suggestion on what is missing. It is the author’s opinion that Project Management is the missing link that could make the crucial difference between success, challenge, and even failure.
The Need for Entrepreneurs
Various sources and global studies show that small & medium organizations / enterprises (SMO / SME) have huge contributions to economies around the world in term of gross national product and employment. Studies in the Middle East show that SME contributions in our region are lower than developed countries. However, many in government and private sector leadership recognize the need to change this in order to deal with the tremendous challenge of the needs for job creation across the Arab World.
All of private or government initiatives share in playing a role to promote the “spirit of entrepreneurship,” but is spirit the only thing that we need? What is missing? Let us say someone quit his / her job to become an entrepreneur, then what?
There are too many challenges facing an entrepreneur today – some of it is legal structure and regulations. Other challenges are related to the fear of failure and the stigma associated with that. Even if we overcome the fear of failure we will encounter the challenge of availability of capital. With capital resolved or at least somewhat solution, do we have the right infrastructure to help the entrepreneur launch the business? Do we have the necessary support? How about beyond the launch? The support that is available (business / cash / logistics / management / etc.) is available for someone following a dream, but only to realize that realizing the dream is much more challenging than expected. How do we help the entrepreneur or the small business owner sustain and grow?
Business Planning
Most, if not all, venture capital, foundation, and other sources for funds — in addition to business schools and MBA programs focus on a business plan as an essential deliverable / requirement to seek funds or start a business. Here we ask once again: Is the business plan enough? It is our view that a ‘traditional’ business plan is not enough. Quite a few business plans, that we call ‘traditional’, focus on the business aspects with a heavier focus on operation of the business. The question is: Do these traditional business plans provide a proper focus on the venture (most call a “project”) from idea to launch of the business?
The Missing Link
It is interesting to point out that many call a new venture a “project”, as we mentioned in the earlier section. We like the word “project,” but most definitions of the word “project” mean something that is temporary. So is the venture temporary? We hope not! So is the word ‘project’ the wrong one to use? Yes and No. The business is not a project; it is a business, a venture. So to be academic, the word “project” is not the proper one to use for the new business. Let us call it venture or business. Yet to launch the business is exactly what we call a project – the launch project is to take the venture from the idea to operations. Our objective here is not to get into an English lesson; rather we aim to define the proper use of words in order to have the proper context and fully understand the missing link. So what is this missing link? Well if launching the business is a project, then how do we manage it? Where is Project Management in managing the launch? The next section will provide a methodology to follow in launching the business.
A Proposed Sequence
Our proposed model will focus on the venture launch from idea to initial operation, using the missing link – Project Management. Future articles could focus on the use of Organizational Project Management to help build and sustain a small business and grow it.
The proposed model, which is derived from Customizable and Adaptable Methodology for Managing Projects ™ it isa project life span model that divides the project life span into three distinct phases; which we explain here.
Business Concept
The business concept is a crucial phase of the project that spans a period from the idea for the venture until an initial decision to go ahead and encompass a feasibility study. The idea owner is likely to be the entrepreneur who has an idea for a business that could be a passion, an income opportunity, filling a need, fixing a problem, among other drivers for the business.
This is the time for dreaming, but one has to be careful that the dream is realistic and it is possible to achieve. It is highly risky for someone to launch a new venture without proper understanding of the challenges and opportunities, although one could argue in rare cases that spontaneous action could also result in good profit.
Therefore, the entrepreneur (small business owner to be) has to study the feasibility of his idea, and for this we think that existing business planning techniques are very important to use at this stage. However, in addition to the focus on the financials, competition, market demand, operation and other factors, the entrepreneur needs to also think about Project Management including proper Project Management planning. Proper Project
Management planning includes understanding of the government and their expectations and requirements, setting realistic time and cost targets, have a fair understanding of the project and venture risks (threats and opportunities), in addition to other factors.
Development of the Business Concept
The earlier phase emphasizes the feasibility study and the requirement for business planning. With the business basics in place, Project Management will become more important and the entrepreneur becomes a project manager.
So what do we do now? The project manager / entrepreneur needs to think and act per two aspects, two sides of the same coin. On one side he needs to think about the project from idea to initial operations, but he cannot ignore post project completion, which would be leading and sustaining the business (operations).
For the project aspect, the project manager needs to put in place all of the requirements in details for launching the business, including defining the success factors, time line, required resources, licensing, legal, financial / funding requirements and alternatives, regulations, budget for the launch, time line, communication with owners, procurement strategy, in addition to risks identification, assessment, and management. All of these activities focus on planning to taking us from the idea through project completion but primarily to produce a detailed plan that would give us the necessary information to make the final decision on whether we should continue with the venture or not. This detailed plan is used extensively in the next phase.
For the business aspects, the project manager needs to start planning for operation readiness; which means identifying all of the things needed once the business is operating; such as financial control, human resources, policies, operational processes, in addition to marketing and business development. If the venture is not for profit, it would still require most of these activities but may be with the addition of the needs for volunteers and volunteer management or the need for sponsors.
Project Delivery (Launching the Business)
With a plan for the project and a plan for operation readiness, it is time to start implementing the project leading to initial operations. In this phase we implement the activities that we identified in the detailed plan. For example, in the plan we specified we need a permit, then it is time to do the activities necessary to obtain the permit. In the plan we defined the need for a marketing plan, it is time to define the marketing plan and develop the necessary collateral, whether print or online.
Therefore, the primary purpose of Project Delivery is to perform all of the activities necessary to produce the required deliverables that would be critical for the successful launch of the new business and start initial operations.
Throughout this document we discussed “initial operations” and “operations” as two independent terms and this is intentional. We use initial operations to define the period of time that starts with opening our doors as a business or a not for profit organization. We call it initial operations because as we start to offer services we might recognize that forms need to be adjusted, some documents might be missing something, among other things that might not go as well as we planned.
Therefore, initial operations will allow us to make the necessary refinements before we go into steady and normal operations. In some situations, we might eliminate initial operations and go straight into normal operations. In other scenarios we might have a “soft start” as an initial operations period, which we might call also as a pilot period / trial period. Which approach to take, it all depends on the nature of the business and if it allows a trial period / initial operations or not.
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This 103-Year Old Woman is Still Running a Pie Business She Opened 68 Years Ago
Woodruff’s Café & Pie Shop first opened in Monroe, Virginia by Mary Woodruff and her husband James in 1952 when there were very few Black-owned businesses in the country. Now Mary is 103-years old and is still hands-on in running the family business!
The married couple started the café downstairs in the apartment that they were living in. The business kept going strong until they had to briefly close it after 30 years in 1982.Their daughter, Angela Scott, thought it was a good idea to reopen the business to keep their family legacy alive. With her husband, she opened the café again in 1998, mostly selling sandwiches. However, it was a very hard time for the business as customers weren’t showing very much interest in their products.
“It was off the beaten path. It had been closed for so many years. There were days that we didn’t have a customer, maybe one or two,” Scott told WRCBTV. “But Mama just kept going, ‘Angie, you gotta have faith, it’s gonna be fine.’ I think if it hadn’t been for her, I probably would’ve closed.”
That’s when Scott decided to bring back the family’s staple recipe of pies. Ever since the sign for “Pie Shop” was put up outside the storefront, people started coming back for their variety of pies and other recipes. She is also grateful that her mother can still help run the business despite her old age.
For more information about Woodruff’s Café & Pie Shop, visit their location at 3297 Elon Road, Monroe, Virginia 24574 or order online at www.woodruffspieshop.com
Blackbusinesses.com
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Financial Tech Firm Raises $3.5M in Seed Round As They Advance Efforts to Address the Wealth Gap
MoCaFi provides innovative financial tools that foster economic mobility in underbanked communities through their mobile banking platform
Newark, NJ — Mobility Capital Finance [“MoCaFi”], a financial technology company that is committed to bringing financially underserved communities in the United States into the digital banking economy, has closed $3.5 million in a Series Seed funding round. Wole Coaxum, founder of the company, is an African American former Wall Street and insurance industry executive.
The Series Seed round was led by Radicle Impact Partners with other institutional investors including Newark Venture Partners (NVP), Partnership Fund for New York City, Social Venture Circle of Philadelphia, SustainVC, WinWin, Portfolia, and Capital Access Holdings. Several family offices participated as well. Winston & Strawn served as Company counsel.“MoCaFi delivers high quality, appropriately priced products and services to communities across the country,” said Coaxum. “Financially vulnerable people, especially communities of color deserve the opportunity to bank smart and build their credit. The funding that we have received will be utilized to focus on expanding opportunities for traditionally underserved communities, bringing more people into the financial mainstream – lowering their cost to borrow, increasing their access to quality products and services, and providing a resource in the journey of creating wealth.”
MoCaFi — based in Harlem (NY) and Newark (NJ) — is addressing a market failure that exists in the United States where far too many people rely on expensive products to handle their banking needs. It seeks to disrupt the estimated $196 billion alternative financial services market, which includes payday lenders, car title lenders, and check cashing services by leveraging innovative mobile strategies, financial literacy, analytics tools, and digital user acquisition strategies.
MoCaFi’s mobile banking platform has partnered with St. Paul-based Sunrise Banks to offer its customers affordable FDIC-insured bank accounts, works with Mastercard to provide cards to the financially underserved and collaborates closely with Equifax to empower its customers to build their credit using their rent payments as a key component of their credit score. MoCaFi also has a marketing partnership with Facebook.
“We are honored to support MoCaFi’s mission of building a more economically just society where all people have access to safe and beneficial financial services,” said Kat Taylor, Co- Founder and General Partner of Radicle Impact. “MoCaFi is particularly focused on Black and Brown communities who have historically been excluded from wealth creation and who continue to experience harm from predatory financial practices. MoCaFi provides the first step to economic mobility and prosperity for its customers and will be a critical tool in addressing our nation’s severe racial wealth gap.”
A key part of MoCaFi’s business model is to create a framework that addresses limited economic mobility and lack of financial equity in Black and Hispanic communities across the United States. The FDIC estimates that over 50 percent of Black and Hispanic households are either unbanked or underbanked.1 According to a study by Prosperity Now and the Institute for Policy Studies, the median wealth for Black and Latino families in this country will be zero in the coming decades if present trends continue.2
Dan Borok, Managing Partner of Newark Venture Partners, stated, “MoCaFi is bringing financial access and opportunity to underbanked communities by meeting them exactly where they are. Wole and his team built this mobile platform with the belief that everyone should have the opportunity to earn, save and build wealth – and their innovative work reinventing the way credit scores are calculated in these communities show they are exactly the right team for the job. MoCaFi’s differentiated offering for the large and growing underbanked market represents a big opportunity and NVP and our community of corporate partners are excited to help them succeed.”
MoCaFi completed NVP Labs, Newark Venture Partners’ 12-week bridge-to-seed accelerator program that gets startup to scale. The program included capital investment, execution support on sales and marketing, and access to a fulltime growth team as well as mentors and corporate partners.
“MoCaFi is tackling key barriers to economic mobility and helping the unbanked and underbanked build a solid financial future. Building a robust fintech sector in New York City is one of our top priorities,” said Maria Gotsch, President and CEO of the Partnership Fund for New York City. “We are happy to support a company focused on giving all New Yorkers access to the digital economy.”
“MoCaFi’s focus on improving financial mobility and helping the underbanked across the United States build a more secure future aligns perfectly with the thesis of our Rising America Fund,” added Trish Costello, CEO of Portfolia. “Successfully addressing this huge unmet need holds the potential for significant venture level returns. Wole and his leadership team are truly driving change in Black and Latinx communities underserved by the current financial system, and we are proud to be an investor.”
1 2017 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.
2 The Road to Zero Wealth: How the racial wealth divide is hollowing out America’s Middle Class, September 2017, Institute for Policy Studies & Prosperity Now.
About Mobility Capital Finance [“MoCaFi”]
MoCaFi helps communities to achieve economic equality through affordable, credit-building financial products. Their products enable MoCaFi members to perform essential banking services at affordable rates and empower customers to move from financial vulnerability to stability to prosperity through the convenience and security of their smartphone. MoCaFi is focused exclusively on transitioning marginalized communities from unbanked and underbanked to living financially stable lives. Watch founder/CEO Wole Coaxum discuss the MoCaFi platform on WABC TV’s Here and Now with host Sandra Bookman.
About Radicle Impact
Radicle Impact is an investment fund that partners with exceptional people to build businesses where financial success creates meaningful social change. Radicle Impact supports technology- enabled businesses that have the potential to transform three critical systems: energy, food and financial services.
About Sunrise Banks
Sunrise Banks, N.A., based in St. Paul, Minnesota, seeks to radically change the way urban communities and underserved people thrive by empowering them to achieve their aspirations. Sunrise is certified by the U.S. Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), a designation earned by approximately 100 banks nationwide. Sunrise Banks is also a member of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values and is a certified B Corp for its demonstrated commitment to transparent corporate governance and positive community impact. Learn more at sunrisebanks.com. Sunrise Banks is Member FDIC and an equal housing lender.
For more information, please visit MoCaFi.com
For press inquiries, contact Marjorie Fields Harris at Marjorie@mocafi.com or 919-480-6383.
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