Crowdfunding: Black Owned Business
Donation protected
Hello, everyone! My name is Paola Castillo and I am a New York-based creative and entrepreneur. Many of you may know me as, “Castle.” I’ve been living and working in New York for about five years as a strategist, director, photographer amongst many other things. At the beginning of the year, I decided to embark on a journey to transition into the health and wellness space fully and work towards launching a brand in this industry. As a Black, Afro-Latina woman that has worked in various corporate industries, I want to create opportunities for those like myself who have struggled to attain leadership roles, get proper pay, or have felt ostracized and oppressed by the system. The health and wellness industry lacks diversity and it’s time we start investing and giving back to our communities.
Brand Mission:
While I don’t feel comfortable sharing a traditional pitch/business plan on this platform, I will address the overall goal and mission.
Psycheum will be a brand and platform dedicated to wellness, that will educate and provide our customers with tools, knowledge, and products that promote, and create mindfulness — cultivating habits that lead to a healthy lifestyle. We will be dedicating a percentage of our profits to working with organizations and internally organizing brand initiatives to create resources and give back to our community. Furthermore, this will venture will create new roles and opportunities for BIPOC within the health and wellness industry.
Currently, we are in the development stage and in order to move to the scaling stage, we need to raise about $45,000 for logistics, marketing, and growth cost. Timeline wise we’d like to accomplish launch between 2-3 months from now. If we can reach the goal in a timely manner this will give us lead time, to prepare campaigns/initiatives.
For context and given the current events I’d like to shed light on a few factors that hinder many minorities from creating sustainable businesses, as well as the struggles they face to attain funding. You can read about it below. If you would like to get in touch about private investing please email [email redacted]ncy Thank you and I hope together we can accomplish this goal!
CONTEXT / STATISTICS:
The underrepresentation of minority business owners is not because of a lack of aspiration or knowledge. Psychologists have shown that there are no statistically significant differences between white people and black people on the characteristics that predict success as an entrepreneur.
The median white family has roughly 10 times the amount of wealth as the median minority family, meaning minority business owners generally have less cushion to deal with economic shocks. Minority-owned businesses suffer from historic and persistent underinvestment even when the economy is booming.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 1% of Minority business owners obtained loans in their founding year, compared to 7% of white business owners, according to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Not surprisingly, Black people represent 12.7% of the U.S. population but only 4.3% of the nation’s 22.2 million business owners.
Lack of capital and cash flow is the biggest challenge for minority, small business owners. Fewer minority small businesses are approved for financing, often at lower amounts of money with higher interest rates, according to a report in The Washington Post. Guidant reports that “Wealth gap also contributes to financing challenges…making it harder to [get] financing. Without the funds to invest in as many resources as other businesses, such as hiring talent or marketing and advertising, competing for contracts or attracting clients becomes exponentially more difficult.”
Small business can be a lonely venture. A report, "8 Insights on the State of Black Entrepreneurship," from American Express reports 47% of African-American small business owners run their businesses by themselves, compared to the 33% of average small business owners. And African-American businesses have fewer employees: 38% have 2-5 employees and only 7% have 6-10 employees. This compares with the average small business owner, with 41% employing 2-5 workers and 12% employing six to 10 workers.
More Minority small business owners (44%) use cash to fund their businesses than the average small business owner (37%), according to the Guidant report. Only 15% get help from friends and family, which was the second most popular source of capital for Minority business owners. Many minority-owned businesses did not survive the Great Recession; Brookings’s Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu found that about 60% of white-owned businesses that existed in 2002 were still around in 2011, compared to 49% of Minority-owned firms.
Brand Mission:
While I don’t feel comfortable sharing a traditional pitch/business plan on this platform, I will address the overall goal and mission.
Psycheum will be a brand and platform dedicated to wellness, that will educate and provide our customers with tools, knowledge, and products that promote, and create mindfulness — cultivating habits that lead to a healthy lifestyle. We will be dedicating a percentage of our profits to working with organizations and internally organizing brand initiatives to create resources and give back to our community. Furthermore, this will venture will create new roles and opportunities for BIPOC within the health and wellness industry.
Currently, we are in the development stage and in order to move to the scaling stage, we need to raise about $45,000 for logistics, marketing, and growth cost. Timeline wise we’d like to accomplish launch between 2-3 months from now. If we can reach the goal in a timely manner this will give us lead time, to prepare campaigns/initiatives.
For context and given the current events I’d like to shed light on a few factors that hinder many minorities from creating sustainable businesses, as well as the struggles they face to attain funding. You can read about it below. If you would like to get in touch about private investing please email [email redacted]ncy Thank you and I hope together we can accomplish this goal!
CONTEXT / STATISTICS:
The underrepresentation of minority business owners is not because of a lack of aspiration or knowledge. Psychologists have shown that there are no statistically significant differences between white people and black people on the characteristics that predict success as an entrepreneur.
The median white family has roughly 10 times the amount of wealth as the median minority family, meaning minority business owners generally have less cushion to deal with economic shocks. Minority-owned businesses suffer from historic and persistent underinvestment even when the economy is booming.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 1% of Minority business owners obtained loans in their founding year, compared to 7% of white business owners, according to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Not surprisingly, Black people represent 12.7% of the U.S. population but only 4.3% of the nation’s 22.2 million business owners.
Lack of capital and cash flow is the biggest challenge for minority, small business owners. Fewer minority small businesses are approved for financing, often at lower amounts of money with higher interest rates, according to a report in The Washington Post. Guidant reports that “Wealth gap also contributes to financing challenges…making it harder to [get] financing. Without the funds to invest in as many resources as other businesses, such as hiring talent or marketing and advertising, competing for contracts or attracting clients becomes exponentially more difficult.”
Small business can be a lonely venture. A report, "8 Insights on the State of Black Entrepreneurship," from American Express reports 47% of African-American small business owners run their businesses by themselves, compared to the 33% of average small business owners. And African-American businesses have fewer employees: 38% have 2-5 employees and only 7% have 6-10 employees. This compares with the average small business owner, with 41% employing 2-5 workers and 12% employing six to 10 workers.
More Minority small business owners (44%) use cash to fund their businesses than the average small business owner (37%), according to the Guidant report. Only 15% get help from friends and family, which was the second most popular source of capital for Minority business owners. Many minority-owned businesses did not survive the Great Recession; Brookings’s Joseph Parilla and Sifan Liu found that about 60% of white-owned businesses that existed in 2002 were still around in 2011, compared to 49% of Minority-owned firms.
Organizer
Paola Castillo
Organizer
Brooklyn, NY
