STREET ENTREPRENEURS
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Mission Statement
Street Entrepreneurs is an inclusive community-driven accelerator, focused on creating human, social, and economic development in the Washington D.C. metro area.
About This Cause
Street Entrepreneurs is ignites the power of entrepreneurs by investing in their grit through business education, mentorship and a showcase that connects entrepreneurs to start-up capital. Our participants most commonly describe our education workshops as hands-on, and creative. We create collaborative communities around each of the topics we cover: allowing participants to exchange knowledge and solve problems in teams. An iterative process is part of every workshop, teaching our entrepreneurs to constantly prototype and rebuild their solutions. Our ‘In-the-Making’ workshops focus on: (1) Ideation – Design Thinking (identifying growth goals for a business) (2) Leadership and Emotional Intelligence (developing and enhancing leadership skills) (3) Business Planning and Story Telling (refining and articulating a business growth opportunity) (4) Marketing and Selling (understanding customers) (5) Strategic Growth Through Operations (increasing operational efficiencies and improving profitability) (6) Money and Metrics (basics of budgets, bookkeeping and financial projections) (7) Legal Structure, Registration, Licensing and Paperwork. (8) Access to Capital (crowdfunding and beyond) The talent exchange allows participants to trade their skills with one-another. When entrepreneurs donate their time to aiding another participant, they receive a time credit they can exchange with others in the Street Entrepreneurs community. Our mentorship program facilitates access to coaches, peer partners, and advisors. Coaches target a specific skill that entrepreneurs want to develop. Peer Partners are MBA students or business students that assist entrepreneurs refining their business plan. Advisors are there to provide support and connect the entrepreneur to their network. Coaches and Peer Partners are fueled by short-term micro-commitments, whereas the Advisor program is an eight month program which requires bi-monthly check-ins. In addition to building social and human capital through education, talent exchange, and mentorship, we connect participants to financial capital. Entrepreneurs that are pitch ready upon the completion of the ‘In-the Making’ educational program are invited to present at a community event that will be broadcasted through Facebook live. At this event, the digital and physical audience have an opportunity to preorder, donate, or invest in the business being presented. In addition to the money raised through the community audience, the Street Entrepreneurs start-up fund and distinguished advisory panel awards grants to over achieving participants. Grants are disbursed at three intervals throughout nine months and are matched to milestones. Recipients of these grants are expected to pay them forward to future participants once they have reached economic sustainability. At Street Entrepreneurs, we are open to entrepreneurs of all incomes and backgrounds. Furthermore, we are committed to ensuring an entrepreneur's current economic limitations do not inhibit their development, which is why we provide free of cost access to low-income entrepreneurs and discounted rates to middle-income participants. We are supremely intentional about making sure all ethnicity, genders, sexual orientations, cultures and religions are represented in our program. We recruit in underrepresented communities; seeking raw hustle, heart and drive in places others overlook: the streets, community centers, immigrant communities, historically black colleges, unemployment fairs, and under-invested neighborhoods. In order to ensure we are attracting individuals of all backgrounds we collect demographic information. Thus far nearly 200 entrepreneurs have signed up for our education services. Though a randomized survey of nearly 50 entrepreneurs we have found that our participants truly come from all backgrounds. Their ages range from 18 to 63 years of age. The ethnicity of our participants are: 59.1% Black African American, 20.5 % White European Decent, 18.2% are of Latino, 2.3% Asian, and 4.6 mixed races. 20.4% of our participants identify as LGBTQ.