Posted on September 12, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Suggestion on how to Startup Black America by Mike Green via Huffington Post

Originally posted by Mike Green an Award-winning journalist; public speaker on Huffington Post.
Here’s an excerpt from Startup Black America… Where Do We Start?

Here’s an idea:
Let’s produce job growth in Black America now. I propose we invest in creating an entrepreneurial ecosystem with a goal of generating 150,000 jobs in the next 12 months.

Let’s learn from the existing entrepreneurial and risk capital ecosystem and develop our own. Let’s develop centers of innovation across the nation and construct bridges to the 21st century economy where a new ecosystem can thrive.

That would benefit America as a whole.

Black America… Can We Talk?

Perhaps we can start our discussions within a framework in which questions are addressed with solution-oriented ideas. I propose we use our HBCUs, urban communities and our churches as “meetup” locations to engage in community-level “Startup Black America” partnerships.

Black America has high net worth individuals, middle-class and even lower socio-economic classes of folk with investment capital. We also have talented entrepreneurs, both slow growth “lifestyle” entrepreneurs and high-growth entrepreneurs within our midst. Identifying our innovators and providing education, training and resources are things we can do.

Innovative Infrastructure

Connecting entrepreneurs to pools of investment capital within our own communities is something we can do.

The business model for job growth and wealth generation exists in plain sight, yet we have not recognized it. The activity that exists in Silicon Valley and other geographic hotbeds in the entrepreneurial ecosystem is activity we can discuss developing and innovating in Black America using existing education and community networks.

Imagine 5,000 communities investing in just 10 lifestyle entrepreneurs who each hired just one person. That’s 50,000 new jobs created by our “private sector.” And if each of those communities also invested in a couple of high-growth entrepreneurs whose enterprises ballooned to hire 10 workers each, that’s 100,000 new jobs.

Imagine 150,000 new jobs in Black America over the next 12 months.

Let’s get together and talk about this… let’s get started.

You can read the entire post here: Startup Black America… Where Do We Start?

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