(Image: ThinkStock)

How does someone who is running a startup think? Before answering that question let’s start by segmenting the workforce into two groups, “intrapreneurs” (employees) and “entrepreneurs” (self-employed/employers). Here’s how the workforce is categorized:

Builder: Intrapreneur (employee) is defined as a person who works for an established company or organization and is building their resume while building someone else’s dreams.

Leaper: Entrepreneur (self-employed/employer) is defined as a person who organizes and operates a business and assumes the financial risk. I am referring to these individuals as leapers, because they have taken the training wheels off and made the leap from working for someone else to the world of self-employment.

Now, we must discuss the mentality of the workforce. The U.S. workforce is hemorrhaging with an unemployment rate of 8.6% nationally with companies slashing headcounts, eliminating people they view as expendable. How do you position yourself in this type of unstable job market? Let’s start with the employee vs. startup mentality. (Note: An unbridled workforce without boundaries can be damaging to a corporate culture and the organization they are apart of. Understand my statements from a philosophical perspective.)

Employee Mentality: An individual that understands their job description puts the round peg into the round hole. This is a factory mindset and makes this type of worker expendable. These individuals typically work with their heads down doing what has always been done.

Startup Mentality: Startup founders have eyes that are wide open to the possibilities of what could be. They operate with their heads up.

Do you think with a startup mentality? Yes, if you are someone who can (1) Create solutions with limited resources, (2) Identify a specific problem that you solve better than anyone else, and (3) pitch or communicate their ideas and then turn them into a viable business.

Most people are educated and trained to think like an employee. Public education in the United States was designed during the industrial age to produce workers that could be trained to work in highly structured industrial/manufacturing environments. College education at most universities reinforces this same model. We are taught the following: (1) go to school, (2) get an education, (3) get a good job, and (4) work that job until death do us part. Universities are factories with efficient systems to produce workers, but are they preparing the next generation workforce to compete against a global talent pool?

Historically, as an employee you didn’t have to think about marketing yourself. You marketed yourself to get the job by developing a resume and cover letter, rehashing the answers that you knew the interviewer wanted to hear. Once you got the job you focused on living up to the requirements. This was the picture of a secure career path. But in today’s arena employees can no longer think of themselves as employees. To remain relevant you have to think about yourself in the following ways:

Business Model Development: Think about yourself through the prism of a business model, which is how any business makes money (i.e. authors: speak and sell books).

Platform Thinking: Every person needs to develop a platform, which is the specific idea that the business model is wrapped around through which you leverage your intellectual capital to create business opportunities (i.e. a platform could be small business development for mompreneurs).

In an unstable job market everyone needs to be positioning themselves for future opportunities that probably lie outside of the company, organization and/or position they are in today. It is time to re-wire how we think!

(Image: ThinkStock)

“Creativity and persistence is the new gangsta…”

—George Fraser

That quote from entrepreneur and networking master George Fraser defines the tech revolution that continues to course through African American entrepreneurial communities, from Silicon Valley to Detroit to Newark. In fact, this trend was evident last week with the unveiling of CNN’s Black in America 4: The New Promised Land – Silicon Valley, which highlighted a number of entrepreneurs BLACK ENTERPRISE has featured in our August cover story, “Geeked,” as well as articles and blogs on our Website. Across the nation, a series of screenings of that special placed a bright spotlight on a cadre of business visionaries as well as drove dialogue around African American participation in entrepreneurial development and STEM education. Such activity, in part, may help power further initiatives to transform urban centers into “21^st Century innovation ecosystems”—future hotbeds of start-up activity.

What’s needed to maintain forward momentum for the emerging digerati? You guessed it—capital. Financing continues to be elusive: Less than 1% of venture capital-backed companies have been Black-owned entities. But for those seeking to make connections with angels and VCs, one of the places to be last week was Newark. The invitation-only event—“A Gathering of Angels Urban Entrepreneurship Summit”—was organized by Rutgers Business School’s Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CUEED) and The America21 Project, an outfit founded by a trio of tech innovators in their own right—A. Michael Green, Dr. Chad Womack and Jonathan Holifield. Green, a Huffington Post blogger and developer of digital education games, and Womack, a biotech entrepreneur and White House adviser, shared the idea for this innovation confab with me over lunch at the National Association of Black Journalists Conference in August. (Holifield, who helped create one of Ohio’s first IT-based high schools, and CUEED founding director dt ogilvie were also instrumental in its development.) They more than kept their promise of bring together heavyweight backers like  Timothy Reese, co-founder of the Minority Angel Investor Network; Terrence Hicks, VP of the investment group at Ben Franklin Technology Partners; William Crowder, a managing director with DreamIt Ventures and entrepreneurs such as BlackEnterprise.com blogger Hajj Flemings, founder of gokit.me, a personal branding strategy firm; Wayne Sutton, business advisor and creator of one of the industry’s leading blogs, SocialWayne.com; and Hank Williams, CEO of KloudCo, an early stage developer of a new data management platform.  Flemings, Sutton and Williams were all participants in the SiliconValley-based NewMe (New Media Entrepreneurship) Accelerator.

Click here to continue reading…

(Image: ThinkStock)

The day I attended the conference, several start-ups, from an expansive social discovery site to a fitness app producer, shared concepts in the entrepreneurial pitch session. During a tech entrepreneurship panel, speakers offered war stories and advice: “How many of you are Angelist.com? I don’t mean Angie’s List,” Sutton says of the site that facilitates fundraising through a community of start-ups and investors. “We have to be there.”

In a session on Black capital, financiers like Ben Franklin’s Hicks revealed the following: “How do you get to the money? Get to know [a investor group's] members. Find a champion.” Marc C. Mathis, executive director for Early Stage East, one of the nation’s largest venture capital conferences, added that his Club Pitch events rarely attract African Americans. “You have to get to spaces that will create capital resources…there must be outreach to the vast majority,” he says. “At my event, I can count fewer Black entrepreneurs than the fingers on one hand.”

Fraser echoed a similar theme related to the importance of building personal, operational and strategic relationships to achieve goals. “Strength is not in the wolf…it’s in the pack,” he asserted, citing that African Americans spend 9% of their time networking to garner roughly 50 contacts versus their White counterparts who employ 19% of their time and develop about 125 connections.

But Holifield, a former football player and economic development expert who has led, among other things, industrial innovation and tech workforce development efforts in Ohio, says African Americans can orchestrate high-impact business turnarounds and convert urban centers into “innovation ecosystems” if they act “more like more trim tabs,” the device that enables rudders to “turn big ships.”

He identified assets such as entrepreneurial talent; capital; customers; educational institutions; commercial research; philanthropic institutions; and professional services in his presentation. Next, he stressed entrepreneurs must “comprehend the speed of the game, ” understanding that today’s business strategy can’t be approached like the civil rights struggle since they now operate in a flatter, hyper-connected global environment driven by an increased democratization of information. “Everyone will not be entitled to innovate,” he said. “In fact, this is the most meritocratic economic period ever.”

Another principle calls for connection of vital components—innovation councils, university and corporate research capabilities, capital sources like angel networks and VCs, incubators and advance manufacturing operations—through what he calls “innovation asset stewardship mapping.” And his execution process is driven by A.O.L. (not to be confused with the Internet site) in which “you aggregate key wealth and resources; organize them into actionable forms; and leverage them to achieve the desired impact.”

Holifield approach requires flexible, enduring trim tabbers to effectively move rudders, ensuring the ecosystem remains sustainable but adaptable. “In this model, we encourage entrepreneurial churn. We must discard the old notion of economic stability. In [that type of environment] the lowest rates of business failures resulted in the lowest rate of business start-ups,” he says. “Entrepreneurs should not be risk averse but risk astute. That will create greater energy, vitality and creative destruction. You will have losers but you will also create new customers.”

Of course, I abbreviated Holifiled’s convention-bending model. The end game, however, is development of high-growth businesses to ignite true wealth formation and produce the multiplier effect of job creation and urban resurrection. In fact, Hajj Flemings, who co-hosted a Motor City screening with the Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program that brought 212 students and parents to the UAW/GM Building, seems to embrace this philosophy when he says: “Detroit was the Silicon Valley of its day with the automotive industry and Motown… My plan is to be part of a Detroit comeback…”

The merger of creativity and persistence. Now, that’s gangsta.

Is Michael Arrington Racist?

After watching the video clip, where he states, “I don’t know a single Black entrepreneur,” and reading his blog post, “Racism: the Game,” I truly don’t believe that Michael Arrington is a racist based upon those two slices of information. What I do believe is that whether he thinks he was bamboozled or hoodwinked into the CNN interview, it is clear that he was stating how he truly felt—right, wrong or indifferent. The reality is that Arrington is not alone in his sentiment. He may be the most outspoken but, definitely not alone.

My NewME Accelerator Experience

Why am I jumping into the conversation? First, let me provide you some context of who I am. I’m a 39-year-old mechanical engineer from Detroit and co-founder of a startup called Gokit (the startup world would call me a non-technical founder because I don’t code.) I was one of the 11 startup founders in the NewME Accelerator this past summer, which was the first minority led tech accelerator. I had a very eye-opening experience living in Silicon Valley. For anyone in the tech startup space spending time in Silicon Valley is imperative if you have the opportunity. It provides you a contextual understanding of the startup ecosystem: veteran entrepreneurs, angel investors, startups, events and venture capitalists (VCs).

During the nine-week program, I had the opportunity to be immersed in the startup culture spending time at Facebook with their platform developer, Mitch Kapor, a mentor who commercialized the spreadsheet at Lotus, and much more. I found that there are some very good people in Silicon Valley that see talent and are willing to provide information for those who get access.

The reality of Silicon Valley hit me the first week of the program when I heard two terms/phrases that embodied my trip and the obstacles that many African American founders face in launching successful startups: “meritocracy” and “pattern matching.”

Let’s first start by defining both terms:

• Meritocracy is defined as opportunity being determined purely based upon talent, merit, credentials, and education alone.
• Pattern Matching is a selection criteria based upon built in basis, meaning that I select people that look and are like me.

In the U.S. it’s pretty safe to say we don’t live in a meritocracy and Silicon Valley and the startup space is not exempt from that. I will go on the record and say that Silicon Valley is absolutely diverse in terms of an ethnic perspective, but there is a total void of an African American presence.

Our experience is captured in CNN’s Black In America 4: The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley. This documentary is groundbreaking. Think about this point; when way the last time you saw a group of African Americans on primetime TV and they were not athletes or entertainers?

Is Silicon Valley Diverse?

Is Silicon Valley unique in the sense of this issue on diversity? According to data in the CB Insights, a report on startups that focuses on gender and race, the answer is absolutely no. The reason that I make this statement is that the report covers New York (Silicon Alley) and Boston, and the issues are the same in those markets. Currently, there is a huge demographic that is totally excluded from the startup space in terms of representation, this group is African American founders, which make up 1% of VC backed startups nationally.

In The Year 2042 Minorities Become the Majority

Where do we go from here? According to the U.S. Census, by the year 2042 minorities (primarily Blacks and Hispanics) will be the majority of the population. How will this change the mindset of the startup space as we move towards that date? Tristan Walker refers to this point in his recent interview with Laurie Segall of CNN Tech Money.

“[2042 is] the year underrepresented minorities—Blacks and Hispanics—will no longer be the minority. They’ll be the majority, and if that’s the case, we need to start thinking about putting folks—Blacks and Hispanics, among others—in positions of leadership and/or leading companies [toward] that goal and that year… There aren’t very many folks who look like me in positions of leadership all around the Valley, and I think that’s something that needs to be discussed and hopefully changed.”

Writer, producer, director, entrepreneur: Pete Chatmon (Image: Courtesy of subject)

Let’s face it. Not all projects are the same. They come in different shapes and sizes with a variety of adjectives to define them. You’ve got your “cool” projects, your “big idea” projects, your “pet” projects—I could go on and on. But, no matter how your project can be described, if it’s not fundable, it’s a waste of your time.

Now, before we dive in here, let’s take a moment to define “project”. Whether it takes shape as a product or a service, a project is something you do or create with the ultimate goal of generating revenue and further establishing your brand.

Here’s a real world example of how you can make a project fundable:

Before anyone ever hired us to do anything, and I mean anything, we were our very first client. The project, was my debut feature film, “Premium”, for which we needed to raise over $500,000. This was no small sum for a kid not born with a silver spoon and less than $1,000 in savings. I’d spent more than five years writing the script, traveling the festival circuit with short films I had directed, and teaming up with a squad of hungry artists and entrepreneurs selected to assist in transitioning the film from script to screen. I had a plan, yes I did! As a matter of fact, you couldn’t tell me that the project wasn’t fundable, but for many years — it simply wasn’t.

Entrepreneurs often consider funding or investment in our projects a preordained reality. We wouldn’t be working on the project if we didn’t think we’d see it through to completion and completion means we’ll secure the funds necessary to execute. But, why then are so many of our friends, colleagues, as well as our very own projects perennial eyesores on the proverbial to-do list? Because we easily fall victim to that all too common entrepreneurial ailment: assuming that people care about our project as much as we do.

All those years, I woke up every single day and thought first about “Premium” and then about going to the bathroom. I am sure that’s a little TMI, but it was that serious. What I failed to understand was that no one else shared my obsession. Until I could ignite similar feelings — until I took the time to ponder what aspect of the project would inspire support and investment—I’d have an un-fundable project on my hands.

After more than 300 meetings across two coasts hadn’t panned out as desired, I decided to take a closer look at our approach. I realized that there were gaps in our presentation that caused potential investors and collaborators to tune out. Once I finally accepted that no one cared about my dream as much as I did, I developed a handful of key strategies that enabled our team to meet our financial goal and cast some amazing talent in our “little film” including Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek).

Click here to see the five key steps my company uses to ensure our projects, as well as the campaigns we create and manage for our clients, are fundable. The same strategies can you a little time and heartache while you work tirelessly to fund your own project:

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1. Set A Timeline
   This is more for you than anyone else. Once you set a deadline for each stage of your project, starting with the fundraising period, you tend to wake up with the same priorities I mentioned above. It also illustrates to potential investors, collaborators, and supporters that you are serious. Only a person who means business would say “I intend to have x-amount of funding by this day.”
2. Shape the Path
   Sure, you’ve got the whole thing figured out, but your project is a meal you will not be cooking alone. Outline the ingredients, the process, and the all-important hows and whys behind every single move. The more people can understand the plan, the sooner they can be as excited as you are about seeing your project come to life. This helps your project become their project too.
3. Profile For Your Cause
   Think about every person or group you hope to speak with and create a profile. What I mean is, you just need to be prepared with something that appeals to each of these different groups so you can speak to the points of your project that would be of most interest to them. For “Premium” there were friends and family, people looking to diversifying their portfolio with a film investment and there were folks who supported the script’s positive portrayal of African-American life. There were also a few investors who saw some of themselves in my hustle, as well as those who may have responded to things I did not foresee. Think about the authentic, organic elements of your project that would appeal to each potential group and don’t be afraid to lead with your best punch. The words you speak must not only be heard, they must provide impact.
4. Educate Your Audience
   Every time you pitch your project is a teachable moment. Whether it’s a film, a new technology, or the next great soft drink, explain the art and science behind what you are doing. This transforms you from a beggar to an educator and allows everyone you come in contact with to be that much smarter because of their conversation with you. Yes, you. Do this right and they’ll also be thinking about how they can help this exciting new project come to life.
5. Tap Into Your Community
   Once you’ve determined the best way to navigate all of the above, it’s time to start testing the waters. Make all of the introductory information on your project easily accessible online, and then work your network like you’re Barack Obama trying to win the Iowa Caucas.

Article originally appeared on theyec.org. Reprinted with permission.

In today’s age of Social Media, writer/producer/director, Pete Chatmon is the guy you want behind the lens. Whether feature filmmaking, commercials, music or viral videos, Chatmon develops content with one focus: to engage and entertain audiences and consumers through honest storytelling. Double7 Images, his media production and marketing boutique, is based in NYC.

YEC Urban is an initiative of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentorship, and resources that support each stage of a business’s development and growth. YEC Urban’s members are successful minority business owners, entrepreneurs and thought leaders.

Many people know me as a bit of chatterbox, especially when it comes to something I’m passionate about. Whether it’s commentary on the latest news, opinions on celebrity fashion, or the constant flow of ideas that clutter my head, I’ll talk … and talk … and talk about it with excitement to any and everyone willing to listen.

But when it comes to making real boss moves, I’ve found that many of my friends and colleagues doing big things often move in silence, not letting the cat out of the bag until something is up and running or confirmed.

Much of their “talking” is strategic: You wouldn’t know about a new project until it officially launches via a press release or an invite to join in celebrating a new venture, career advancement or personal achievement.

People who talk a lot about their aspirations and what they are planning to do are what my Granny calls “I’mas,” and she constantly warns me against becoming one of them: “Don’t be an ‘I’ma’ … Always saying, ‘I’ma do this … I’ma do that.’ Those people never do what they say they’re gonna do, so busy talking and looking like a fool when all the talk amounts to nothing.”

I’ve met many I’mas in my life. One would often boast about upstart ideas he had and ask me for insight on how he could make his visions reality.

“I’ma get rich with this one!”

“Ima send you the business plan tomorrow!”

“Ima call you so we can trade some ideas next week!”

I’ma … I’ma … I’ma …

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Real bosses move in silence (Thinkstock)

There was never any effort on his part to get started. As a result, I felt it a waste of time to spend any extra effort to help him, though his ideas were awesome. His wishy-washy, dream mentality was a turn off, and I’m sure prospective investors would have had a hard time taking him seriously.

The people achieving success, especially in their careers or in business, are doers, driven by trial and error. They are self-motivated and are too busy DOING; not talking.

One doer I know closed on a new condo, and though we’re tight like a Venus and Serena team-up, I knew nothing about it until visiting her new address. We laughed over dinner as she told me about how happy she was to own her first home.

Another entrepreneur friend of mine added beauty products to her fashion and beauty consulting brand recently. One day, as we were meeting to have a ladies night, she offered me a chance to try her body butters which were already packaged and available for sale. I knew nothing about it until that night.

A father and enterprising actor I recently interviewed just celebrated founding a publishing company he started with his daughter. “I saw the potential in my daughter and what she was offering … I asked her if she wanted people around the world to read her books. She agreed, and we just did it.”

Point. Blank. Period.

I find this to be a great skill to develop and cultivate—managing the chatter until the talk becomes reality. Less talk. More doing.

Unless talking will take you straight to the bank (hence my entry into the world of media, LOL), less talk and more action is often key to making moves for success in life.

Here’s a  challenge: If you have something you’ve always wanted to do, just do it. And if you have something you’ve been procrastinating about, talking won’t get you further to completing that task. Just get started.

Don’t be an I’ma. Time to show and prove.

To get ahead in today’s business world entrepreneurs have to be on the cusp of burgeoning trends and the latest resources. In 2010, 565,000 new businesses were started per month by both new and repeat entrepreneurs, the same rates as in 2009, according to the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity. Some opt to get ahead by reading trade magazines and books, while others work the networking events and conferences like the annual Black Enterprise Entrepreneurs Conference. The digital world puts all this at your fingertips, so why not take advantage of the resources available to you in 140 characters or less? Get your thumbs ready because BlackEnterprise.com has compiled a list of the top 10 Twitter resources entrepreneurs should follow—just in time for Small Business Week 2011.

SBA (@sbagov)

The U.S. Small Business Administration keeps its more than 8,000 followers informed on ways to advance your small business. Expect tweets to align with the governmental organization’s 3 C’s of service: capital, contracts and counseling. See tweets and retweets spanning first-hand accounts of starting a small business to ways the government can support your small biz.

Startup Digest (@StartupDigest)

Based on your location, Startup Digest— a free resource powered by the Kauffman Foundation and aligned with brother company Next Digest—curates events and meet up opportunities for newbie and seasoned entrepreneurs. Peruse the timeline for a bevy of startup funding opportunities as well as worthwhile how to’s.

Entrepreneur (@EntMagazine)

The monthly small-business centered magazine streamlines its Twitter account with a wide-selection of written and visual content from its website, as well as helpful tools, such as a small biz expense calculator, or entries to fun contests that may get your startup noticed.

Harvard Biz Review (@HarvardBiz)

The Harvard Business Review and HBR.org have a reputation for providing business news in an intelligent and strategic manner. The same can be said for the company’s Twitter feed. Check out pointers on how to serve up great customer service, management style, how to build up your network, and more.

Melinda Emerson (@SmallBizLady)

Author of Become Your Own Boss in 12 Months and speaker at this year’s Black Enterprise’s Entrepreneurs Conference, Melinda Emerson, donned the “SmallBizLady,” is dedicated to making sure entrepreneurs are aware of everything there is to know about launching successfully and managing a profitable small business. The seasoned entrepreneur is a strong resource on the social media platform, engaging in daily dialogue with her 28,284 followers—either by responding directly to her mentions or through her weekly Twitter talk show, #Smallbizchat (Wed., 8-9 p.m. ET).

The Sprouter Team (@Sprouter)

The startup resource offers entrepreneurs expert advice on a range of topics. It starts by compiling answers to one’s most pressing business questions and then dispersing that information by tweeting at inquisitive startup founders, sharing the links to Sprouter.com and other relevant sites, as well as Sprouter Weekly, for the latest startup news. The team even tweets when their clan of experts is available to chat.

Andrew Morrison (@2andrewmorrison)

The founder and president of Small Business Camp, an all-day intensive prep program, takes entrepreneurs’ ideas from concept to implementation, outlying what needs to be done to get from point A to B. Morrison does that both during his camp and virtually on his small business centered timeline, sharing sample business plan templates, helpful tactics, events, and, even, inspirational quotes.

SCORE Biz Mentor (@SCOREMentors)

The nonprofit organization matches small business owners and emerging entrepreneurs up with one of their 13,000 mentors, as well as provides a collection of useful resources from free local business workshops to the latest business statistics and trends. The SBA partner consistently touts its blog entries.

Business Insider (@businessinsider)

Ever wonder how your startup can wow your clients with unforgettable gift bags? Business Insider has, along with other out-of-the-box yet practical topics . The financial business site has covered different facets of the industry, from the latest from Silicon Valley all the way to winning strategies, tweet by tweet.

Pete Cashmere (@mashable)

The major social and digital media source provides a perfect balance of technology and business news geared towards those already on the cutting edge of these constantly changing fields. Named an Ad Age 2011 influencer and one of Time magazine’s 100 in 2010, Cashmere—CEO of Mashable—powers the account constantly tweeting the site’s latest stories. Entrepreneurs can expect to see a great deal tweeted from Mashable’s startup channel.

Entrepreneurs, meet us in Atlanta at Black Enterprise’s Entrepreneurs Conference May 22-25, 2011. Visit blackenterprise.com/ec for more details and enter code BEDG295 for a $200 discount on registration!

Co-founders, Jason Panda, Esq. and Ashanti Johnson, at the b condoms launch event at Trump Soho in NYC

Conversations surrounding sexually transmitted illnesses and the rise in new cases of HIV often morph into great concern; but, typically, they stop there. Such wasn’t the case for one group of young men. After engaging in deep dialogue about sky-rocketing HIV/AIDS rates, Morehouse College grads Jason Panda, Esq and Ashanti Johnson knew they had to do something.

That “something” was b condoms, a plush prophylactic brand that focuses on bettering sexual health practices in four main target audiences: African-Americans, Latinos, 50 and over, and gay and bisexual males. The letter b was chosen by the company’s founders to give the small business some flexibility when connecting with various partners. “You can say ‘b Latina, b African American, b gay or bisexual, b the Bronx, b Harlem, b what you are,’” says Panda, 31. Adding to the brand’s allure, sleek packaging and a cool company motto: “b cool, b safe, b yourself.”

The idea for the b condoms, which is distributed by PBJ Group LLC, began as a discussion Panda and Johnson had with other Morehouse graduates and friends during summer 2010. That idea blossomed into a business plan, and prompted the pair to invest $50,000 of their own money, with contributions from family and friends, into b condoms, which officially launched on December 1, 2010. Since then, the FDA-approved condom brand has taken off, and, in order to sustain the budding business, Johnson resigned from his sales and marketing position at Johnson & Johnson, with Panda soon following suit, resigning from his job as a corporate attorney. On World AIDS Day (December 1), the business partners kicked-off an elegant event for their boutique condom company in partnership with VillageCare at the Trump Soho in New York City—an event appropriately themed, “b inspired.” The duo tapped into their extensive network, inviting power players within the entertainment, finance and philanthropic communities.

b condoms plans to reinvest a portion of its sales into organizations geared towards preventing the spread of STIs in our target communities

Today, b condoms has a five-member staff, comprised of urban professionals in nightlife, social media, entertainment, health care and business, and covering New York City, where Panda is located, Miami—Johnson’s locale—and Atlanta. Panda has even traveled to Malaysia, where b condoms is manufactured, to ensure they were producing a stellar product. “We felt it was extra important to go outside of ourselves [and] do that extra due diligence to make sure that what we [put] into our own communities is something that we cannot only hold our head high about, but also take pride in,” says the attorney-turned-businessman.

Panda and Johnson are aware of the challenges they face—discussing a taboo topic within urban neighborhoods, competing against well-established, big-name condom companies such as Trojan, Lifestyle and Durex and getting on the shelves of major retailers. But they’re determined to show it can be done. The urban chic brand’s classic condom is currently available in small stores in NYC ($3 for a 3-pack), but the company is looking forward to securing distribution deals for b condoms to be stocked in large retail chains such as Walgreens, Duane Reade and CVS. Until then, they’re working on offering the 3-pack on their web site later this month, as well as the 12-pack and wider selections in the near future.

In spite of the challenges, the business partners remain motivated by their goal of creating a startup that combats national HIV/AIDS rates in urban communities. “There are condom companies, definitely, but we just didn’t see enough condom companies that wanted to make a change in the trajectory of HIV and AIDS in our community,” says Johnson. Hence, why b condoms plans to reinvest a portion of its sales into organizations geared towards preventing the spread of STIs in our target communities.

In an effort to expand their message and product awareness, Panda and Johnson are always looking for strategic partners, including city, state and federal governments, as well as additional non-profit organizations and colleges and universities. Thus far, they’ve partnered with Bronx AIDS Services, Florida A&M University, the University of Southern California and Morehouse, which they worked with during this year’s National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Associate Director of the CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, Donna McCree, Ph.D., MPH, R.Ph. thinks it’s great that young males have partnered up to work towards lowering the rate of the infectious diseases. “Despite the numbers, we know that prevention is working,” she says. “There’s still much more to do, but we know that it’s working.”

For more  advice on how to launch your own business, read:

• So You’ve Been Fired…Now What?: The Accidental Entrepreneur
• Getting Started: How to Turn Your Blog into a Business
• The Small Business Check-up
• The Entrepreneur in You

High-profile positioning in monthly trunk shows at New York City’s legendary Fifth Avenue retail boutique Henri Bendel, and product availability at various salons and boutiques (while at least 25 salons and spas offer manicure/pedicure only, 10 more offer the product for retail purchase) in major cities such as New York, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, and Los Angeles, helped thrust the company to revenues of $175,000 in its first year. They’re especially proud of being the only non-Carol’s Daughter product sold in the Carol’s Daughter flagship store in Harlem. By working out of a home office, utilizing two student interns, manufacturing the product line in the U.S., and not drawing a salary (Pickett models and acts, while Johnson works a full-time job), they managed to slip into the black this past summer, becoming profitable sooner than they expected.

Their most priceless asset so far has been that celebrities such as Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige, and Queen Latifah, among others, wear Ginger +Liz nail lacquer. (Both leveraged industry relationships to help get the line noticed). The visibility works best to drive customers to their website, www.gingerandliz.com, from where about 65% of their sales are derived. Johnson says, “That’s pretty significant considering that nail polish is a product people want to see and experience in person.”

The manicure mavens want to expand the product’s national reach, especially on the West Coast. But being self-funded has its benefits and challenges. Johnson, 31, says advertising on a minimal budget in comparison to notable competitors leaves them at a disadvantage. But 27-year-old Pickett says they deal with it by “being wise with our ad dollars and always using a multiplatform approach that includes social media networks.” Such strategic efforts to put out a quality product and gain respect within the industry led to inquiries and now interest from buyers at Whole Foods Market. Johnson and Pickett expect their product to be distributed within Whole Foods’ body care department starting next month.

To go full force in 2011, the women say it will take $115,000 to $125,000 to execute G+L’s next phase. “We’ve been approached by a number of potential investors, but most want to invest much more money,” says Johnson. The businesswomen want to avoid taking on unnecessary debt. “So far, we’ve been using a very financially efficient business model,” says Pickett. And while they want to keep it that way, they do see G+L’s opportunities and possibilities as limitless. “We know we need to grow, but in order to get there, we need money,” says Johnson. “And we’re open to having as many conversations as we need to in order to make it happen.”

—Jennifer Ogunsola