All the Hats

Seventy-four percent of Black women own businesses in sectors that represent only 20 percent of business revenue overall. Meanwhile, although wholesale businesses represent 24 percent of business revenue, only 1 percent of Black women entrepreneurs are in the sector.

Of the 607 U.S.-based startup companies valued at more than $1 billion, only around 11 percent are women-founded and women-led, and only 2 percent have Black founders. The list of Black and Brown female unicorn founders includes Toyin Ajayi of Cityblock Health, Suneera Madhani of Stax, Rihanna of Savage X Fenty, and Pat McGrath with Pat McGrath Labs.

In a survey, more than 50 percent of Black entrepreneurs whose businesses survived the pandemic reported still being very or extremely concerned about the viability of their companies. This concern could be directly attributed to having a more difficult time gaining access to credit.

"If you're struggling to build your business, it could be because you don't have the right kind of employees. If you were able to offer equity and convince a potential employee that your business has growth potential, you just need their help to get there--at that point, there's a mutual payoff." Entrepreneur Tan France and other experts share their advice about ways to get the right employees involved in growing your company. Read more.

Only 4 percent of Black-owned businesses are still in operation after three and a half years, compared with an average of 55.5 percent for all companies.

Companies have dedicated more than $200 billion to increase efforts toward racial justice since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Much of these funds are committed to providing affordable housing, lending in low- and middle-income and minority communities, and community development.

If you are looking for funding, you know how difficult it is for Black women-led ventures to get it. The most difficult part can be knowing where to look. These 14 funds focus specifically on funding women-led companies. Start here.

More than half of Black audiences say there's still not enough representation of their identity group on-screen. However, new data shows that African Americans spend more time consuming media than any other group.

Nearly half of consumers in the United States agree that companies should pledge to support Black-owned brands, suppliers, and vendors. Sixty-eight percent say their social values shape their shopping choices.

Only 29 percent of Black women entrepreneurs live in households with incomes over $75,000, compared with 52 percent of White men. Many Black women go into debt and have less personal collateral when starting their businesses.

Among Black entrepreneurs with full-time jobs, 35 percent feel they've been overlooked for career advancement opportunities because they have an additional business.

Black entrepreneurs are almost three times more likely than Whites to have profit negatively impacted by access to capital. This lack of capital reserves means that Black business owners often can't weather negative periods as their White counterparts do.

"Consider what would happen if we didn't only focus our attention and investment in what is high growth and high tech, but also paid attention to the microcosms of communities that are people-first versus tech-first: the daycares, coffee shops, bakeries, plumbing services, and more. What would our cities look like in that case?" Sherrell Dorsey, the founder, and CEO of the Plug, wrote this beautiful essay about the effects of making cities more livable for Black women.

Just 20% of Black Americans say that scientists as a professional group are very welcoming of Black people.

Although unemployment rates fell for most race and gender groups, Black unemployment rates continue to be almost the twice the national rate at 6.2%

AWS is launching a new AWS Impact Accelerator that will be committing more than $30 million over the next three years to early-stage startups led by Black, women, Latino, and LGBTQIA+ founders. From now until May 13, a startup can apply, and every qualifying founder will receive a $125,000 cash grant, training, and community for zero equity in return. Find out more here

According to IfundWomen, 72 percent of female founders cite lack of access to capital as the No. 1 barrier to starting a business. Founder and CEO Karen Cahn, a 2020 Inc. Female Founders 100 honoree, has said that while the majority of the customers on her crowdfunding platform were women of color, they weren't having as much success as the White women who used it. To remedy that, two years ago her co-founder Olivia Owens launched IFundWomen of Color, which provides community, funding, and coaching for women of color.

In 2020, celebrity stylist and Emmy award-winning costume designer Zerina Akers launched Black Owned Everything, an Instagram account highlighting Black-owned fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and design brands. With a boost from her client Beyoncé, it grew to a community of more than 14,000 registered businesses and over 200,000 followers. Today Black Owned Everything is an online marketplace with both established and emerging brands, and Akers hopes it will serve as a content hub for creators to virtually connect with designers through storytelling.

According to the Federal Reserve, 37.9 percent of Black business owners said that their primary reason for not applying for a loan was that they were "discouraged," meaning they believed they would be turned down for a loan even if they applied. Just 12.7 percent of White business owners felt the same way.

Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management found that between half a million and a million jobs could be created if higher-income Black households spent just $1 of every $10 at Black-owned businesses.

According to a recent survey of more than 1,000 Black adults, more than 6 in 10 who are not working in digital or IT would consider a career change to work in the sector. However, more than half (55 percent) reported they were unsure where to start, or felt they lacked the financial resources (51 percent), skills (52 percent), or industry connections (45 percent) to launch a tech career.

Nyakio Grieco of Nyakio Beauty and Patrick Herning of 11 Honoré co-founded and developed Thirteen Lune, an e-commerce platform built on the idea of supporting and uplifting Black and Brown beauty and wellness brands. Thirteen Lune carries 100 brands; 90 percent are founded by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, while the remaining 10 percent are ally brands. The company recently announced a $3 million funding round led by Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm by women of color, for women of color. Thirteen Lune's most recent partnership, with JCPenney, has scaled its brick-and-mortar footprint--the company's beauty shop-in-shop experience will be in 600 stores nationwide by 2023.

In 2019, the median White household in the U.S. held $188,200 in wealth--7.8 times that of the typical Black household ($24,100). That wealth gap reveals the effects of accumulated inequality and discrimination and differences in power and opportunity that can be traced back before the inception of this country.

Black Americans bought more beauty products in 2019 than any other group of consumers, according to a report by Nielsen. The research firm found that Black Americans outspent other groups by $573.6 million, or nearly 19 percent.

Survey data collected in 2018 and 2019 from Harvard Business School graduates revealed that for women--and especially women of color--well-being at work was suffering long before the pandemic. A quarter of women respondents, and nearly 30 percent of women of color, said that they often or very often experienced burnout, compared with 17 percent of all respondents.

That's 80 percent more than the $1 billion raised in all of 2020--but still less than 1.5 percent of all startup funding for the period.

Nearly all people of color are underrepresented in the legal profession. In 2021, 85 percent of all lawyers were non-Hispanic Whites, a decline from 88 percent a decade ago. By comparison, 60 percent of all U.S. residents were non-Hispanic Whites in 2019.

At AAA and JAMS, the two largest consumer and employment arbitration providers in the country, 88 percent of arbitrators are White, and 77 percent are male. The lack of diversity in arbitration is a problem made worse by the fact that women and minorities are more likely to be subject to forced arbitration than men or White non-Hispanic workers.

Leigh Trimiew, Layla Nielsen, and Natalie Robinson are the three co-founders of Hella Black, an e-commerce platform focused on working with the most sought-after Black-owned brands and products. The cousins grew up in the Washington, D.C., area together with lives that centered around the family jazz club, Twins Jazz, which their twin mothers started. Inspired by their family story and driven by the entrepreneurial spirit they inherited, they launched in 2019 to tell the stories of all Black entrepreneurs living out their dreams.

Across all STEM fields, Black women have earned only 2.9 percent of bachelor's degree. Despite accounting for over half of the college-educated workforce, women in the United States made up only 29 percent of those employed in science and engineering occupations in 2017.

Tackling problems that are interesting to solve rather than those that serve a market need was cited as the No. 2 reason for failure, noted in 35 percent of businesses surveyed by CB Insights.

With an abysmal number of Black-founded companies recieving venture captial funds, platforms like Fundblackfounders.com have taken the opportunity to empower the community by allowing us a chance at funding. A few frustrated Black founders launched the rewards-based crowdfunding platform to enable more founders to establish and fund their businesses.

California, New York, Massachusetts, and Texas control 80 percent of venture capital dollars, leaving the rest of the states to share the other 20 percent, which means that only a tiny sliver gets it out of all the small businesses in America.

"Want to scale but don't know where to start or what to do first? These five books provide the incredible stories of their authors and great advice for small-business leaders that will inspire you to take charge of taking your startup to the next step."