The term “urban entrepreneur” has two principal connotations: someone who starts with no resources and builds a company or brand into a success; and someone who uses the perfect blend of book and street smarts to run their business well.
To help me determine the true characteristics of today’s urban entrepreneur, though, I decided to go straight to the source: 100UrbanEntrepreneurs.org, a nonprofit foundation that, along with its sister organization, TheCASHFLOW.com, offers talented urban entrepreneurs — of whom, I humbly note, I am one — $10,000 in strings-free startup financing and eight weeks of business mentoring. Here’s what some of 100UE’s funding-and-mentoring recipients had to say.
1) Urban entrepreneurs stand at the intersection of street smarts and business smarts. We are agile, passionate and inspirational.
Typically, UE’s admire the business moguls who have made use of the skills they learned in the streets to help them run their businesses. One obvious example is Jay-Z, who lifted himself from a rough upbringing in Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses and turned himself into a global icon.
2) To be an urban entrepreneur is to choose a different path — one built on creativity and resourcefulness. When resources are limited, we must create them; when unexpected barriers come up, positivity must kick in; when our peers say we can’t do it, we must continue to climb.
UE’s are loaded with great ideas and concepts for products, but generally have little startup capital to work with. In some cases, though, limited resources can be a gateway to entrepreneurship. One year a man named Michael Kittredge wanted to give his mother a heartfelt Christmas gift but couldn’t afford anything fancy. His problem ended up the greatest thing ever to come from crayon wax and rope: Yankee Candle.
In 1998, Kittredge sold his company to a private-equity firm for $500 million, having along the way inspired many other entrepreneurs — including his son, Mick, who founded his own company, Kringle Candle, last year.
