Make Startups

The Make Startups Certificate of Entrepreneurship is a financial industry certification that improves access to capital for entrepreneurs and allows disadvantaged entrepreneurs to qualify for financial assistance through the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA). Make Startups provides a programmatic framework that helps entrepreneur support organizations (ESO’s) leverage a nationwide network of financial institutions and training providers to organize their local lenders and workforce boards to provide training, mentorship, and access to capital funded through existing legislation that provides approx $10bn in discretionary funding to every community in America.

• Through this program we will work with 10-15 communities to organize local partners and obtain program approval from their state and local governments. 

• Establish accredited entrepreneurship training programs meeting workforce development funding requirements

• Provide training to 250 disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

• Launch 200 new businesses in traditionally underserved communities

• Document successful capital attainment for 60 businesses

• Develop sustaining revenue model to support Entrepreneurship Service Organizations (ESO) serving disadvantaged and underserved populations across rural and urban areas of the southeast

• Despite the importance of developing and supporting new entrepreneurs, new business starts are declining nationwide outside of a handful of innovation clusters with systemic  funding advantages to support entrepreneurship. A vast majority of communities lack  sustainable funding for ESO’s to support the education and growth of new entrepreneurs, thereby limiting utilization of locally available commercial capital.

• Unlocking $60,000,000 in federal funds will enable the sustained long-term efforts essential to growing social innovation, access to capital, and reversing societal negative health trends  including unemployment, poverty and economic collapse of Main Street America and small  business owners.

• The Department of Labor provides  significant workforce development funds, with a $9.4b discretionary training budget to  support local training needs across the country. Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act  (WIOA) legislation, through the Department of Labor, is specifically written to include  entrepreneurial skills training, however, due to a lack of credentialing within entrepreneur  education programs, there are virtually no examples of successful WIOA supported  entrepreneur skills training programs.

  A vast majority of communities lack  sustainable funding for Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESO’s) to support the education and growth of new entrepreneurs, thereby limiting utilization of locally available commercial capital.
  

  We developed this calculator tool using census, bureau of labor and statistics, and kauffman foundation data to determine the number of entrepreneurs in any given county throughout the country, the cost to implement programs, and economic impact of provided this support: https://www.makestartups.com/p... (Our home state of Georgia alone has over 6,000 entrepreneurs facing poverty)   

Entrepreneurship today is a path that is far more readily available to those who are White, male, and wealthy. We cannot begin to make this opportunity available to all until we address the underlying and systemic issues that make it so. Entrepreneurship can be a path that leads to sustainable growth and prosperity, but that can only be the case if we take meaningful action to address barriers to entry. 

 Capital remains among the most impactful ways to strengthen access to entrepreneurship. Today, at least 83% of entrepreneurs do not access bank loans or venture capital when launching a business, tilting the scales in favor of the privileged who possess the wealth to create new businesses. The ongoing impact of past discriminatory policies, such as redlining, must be countered and new investments made to ensure we are supporting entrepreneurs of color as well as women and rural Americans who have less access to funding in the private market.

Our solution is a formalized growth ready solution to provide federally funded training and support, and to automate access to capital for those who have been historically excluded.

We target all entrepreneurs in our region and the program is open to individuals regardless or of their race, ethnicity, income or age. We are specifically trying to assist and target individuals who are low to moderate income and who are seeking to create long-term meaningful employment in underserved areas.

Make Startups program participants to date are:

• 100% entrepreneurs of color

• 83% women owned businesses

• 25% veteran owned businesses

• 75% facing poverty while starting their business

Georgia  - Augusta GA (servicing CSRA Region which includes 13 Georgia counties as well as North Augusta and Aiken South Carolina), Metro Atlanta GA, Columbus GA, Savannah GA, Macon GA 

In addition, we have obtained state approvals and are working with local organizations to launch programs in South Carolina, North Carolina and Colorado.

To launch small business -

theClubhou.se mission is to foster a culture of innovation and collaboration in mid-size and rural communities through educational and community building programs to support inclusive entrepreneurship and technology development. Innovation economies thrive when everyone has the resources and opportunities to meet their potential. To make this possible, our offerings are as diverse as our community.

Make Startups mission is to ensure a free, just, and equitable society through robust entrepreneurship training, support, and access to capital. Our goal is for everyone, everywhere to have the tools and resources they need to Make Startups.

Traditional workforce training programs must demonstrate an 80% rate employment to conform with Department of Labor performance metrics. This means that for every 5 people trained, 4 jobs are provided in disadvantaged communities.

Kauffman’s Indicators of Entrepreneurship show that 4 out of 5 entrepreneurs survive their first year and on average create 5 jobs in their community. This means that for every entrepreneur that is trained and given adequate support and resources, 4 jobs are created. For the same investment in training 5 people, entrepreneurial skills training has the potential to provide 20 jobs in disadvantaged communities, a 500% improvement in outcomes.

Make Startups industry recognized credentialing presents a key opportunity to establish ongoing investments from entrepreneur support organizations to build a professional practice around the support.  To increase the economic vitality of minority and BIPOC communities, new business creation will improve the community health with more jobs available and raise the standard of living. Entrepreneurship Skills Training Certification will be the evidence that capital partners can use to validate a new business owner with micro-loans and access to credit or small business grants. 

The majority of employment gains are from new businesses less than five years old, however entrepreneurship rates are declining nationwide and are especially exacerbated in low and moderate income populations that often lack the skills and environmental support necessary to operate a business and acquire affordable capital. Sustainable quality training and support is essential to provide them with an equitable opportunity to succeed. However, despite existing legislation to encourage the use of workforce development funds to support entrepreneurial skills training and microenterprise services, the workforce development system has not adopted entrepreneurship as one of its primary training pillars. This leaves most communities without a sustainable model to provide equitable access to effective training.

Make Startups is currently serving 60 students throughout Georgia and we are expecting to serve 160 students in our second year with the potential to serve over 3000 students nationwide in our 5th year of operation.

We serve a community of entrepreneurs that are industry agnostic and ready to learn more about how to open and sustain their new business. From mobile apps to store front businesses and retail and service based businesses, our stakeholders are those that benefit from the economy improving. Our team and board of directors work with our members and strategic partners and sponsors to make sure that decisions for programming are inclusive and equitable.  Capital institutions, other ESO’s, and mentors are stakeholders making sure that the program is successful through regular convening.

Our work is place-based having launched in Augusta, Georgia.  Our programming over the since our creation has worked locally to launch no-cost internet service in urban areas, provided online local educational resources, partnered with Title 1 and Charter schools for sumo robot league and teaching kids to code, and provided new business training in addition to housing, food and transportation in a 12 month accelerator for disadvantaged entrepreneurs.

Pulling from our previous experiences and our identity as a very diverse midsized community, we are equipped to understand and identify the challenges and opportunities that exist in communities across the southeast.

We believe that every  community deserves a place where people can connect with others, share ideas, find support, and learn new skills. Where these places exist, people create opportunities and local economies thrive. Our mission is to foster a culture of innovation and collaboration in mid-size and rural communities through educational and community building programs to support inclusive entrepreneurship and technology development.

Historically, the way progress and innovation are started and sustained is by adopting a hub and spoke system. The system creates central intersection points for commerce and decision making and it creates a gravitational center at the hub for resources such as money and talent while isolating spokes from one another. This system works well for the hubs, less well for the spokes and not at all if you are neither a hub nor a spoke. Small and mid-sized cities  do not have the opportunity to benefit from hub and spoke systems. 

Modern technology and social organization theory present an opportunity for an alternative to the hub and spoke model, a mesh network. A mesh network is a distributed network where each point acts as a collaborative node and is connected directly to multiple other nodes. A mesh network increases the number of connections presented by the network, amplifying its value by enabling greater access to resources across the full network instead of concentrating all values at a central point. In its ideal form, a mesh network stimulates localized progress and innovation among all network nodes by enabling each of them to share resources, talent, and money across the entire network in the same ways that are traditionally only available to a central hub.

By engaging ESO’s across the southeast, we can create a peer-to-peer best practices for implementing the Make Startups Certificate of Entrepreneurship.

Our success is contingent on the success of the community we serve so it is very important that we engage in storytelling that highlights the people and businesses we support.  We work with local organizations, media groups and support outreach strategies with partnerships at community organizations to engage our citizens to participate. Our monthly newsletter highlights small businesses in our membership with cross promotions.  We highlight every other week a blog and video series for our entrepreneurship in our programs. Our media relationship with the local news channels, magazines, podcasts, local social media influencers, and newspapers ensures that our small business owners get recognized for their achievements on a regular basis. 

We have 230 members and have helped grow 200 companies that create over 1500 jobs. Our events and programs serve over 25,000 people and our classes help thousands learn new skills in technology, business, and design so they can thrive in an innovative economy. Over the next five years we intend to engage with other ESO’s across the region to support 5,000 entrepreneurs and at least 10 more states across the country. 

Eric Parker is an architect, entrepreneur, investor, non profit founder, and community servant. He has dedicated his career to advancing American ideals by supporting innovation and entrepreneurship in all communities.  Entrepreneurship is, in his view one of the greatest tools to fulfill the promises of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Without it, the vibrancy and resilience of our communities and nation are challenged. Over the last decade, Eric has supported the growth of hundreds of businesses and thousands of jobs. He has led education and training programs in entrepreneurship and technology for thousands of adults and children, and helped over $100m in investments in community and economic development. He has testified in Congress and at the Georgia State Legislature, and spoken at dozens of conferences to advocate and provide strategies for supporting these communities.

Grace Belangia is an award winning ecosystem builder supporting entrepreneurs to create and build sustainable businesses locally and virtually. Daughter of an entrepreneur immigrant, she is a collaborative strategist with 16 years experience and expertise in organizing, directing and launching solutions to catalyze strong community development and economic growth across the nation. She has a proven record of production, management and analysis of initiatives and programs rooted in public-private partnerships, valued at over $3 million including grants from private foundations and national sponsors. She contributes a unique perspective to Augusta, Georgia having grown up in Silicon Valley, a graduate from UCLA in Political Science, she also holds a M.S. degree in Communications and Public Relations.­­­

We feel strongly that we have solved the systems level issues of how to navigate and align workforce development to support entrepreneurs. The partnership with Truist Foundation and MIT Solve will help us to expand our financial industry relationships to support the credentialing process and open new capital pathways for entrepreneurs. As long term small business owners operating in a limited geographic area we will also greatly benefit by working together to refine our operating business model, impact measurement, and storytelling as we transition towards scale.

Partnerships with marketing, PR and media agencies for reaching new ESO’s and startups to participate

Partnerships with Financial institutions to reduce friction satisfying CRA requirements

Partnerships with other philanthropic agencies who see value in supporting economic development as a viable resourced entity in the non-profit landscape

Partnerships with Venture Capital Investors for deal flow consideration, scouting and prospecting new startups.

The Kauffman Foundation (funding)

Machenzie Scott (funding partner)

National News (60 Minutes, Wall Street Journal, NY TImes, USA Today)

Y Combinator (deal flow for graduates)

Techstars (mentorship)

Banks (automation of financial vehicles for graduates)

Credit Agencies (alignment of certification and improved credit scores)

Education Research (Certification improvement and validation)

Pro Bono CTO (assist in mapping technology strategy)