I have spent my entire life devoted to helping Black and Brown founders — mostly women — create wealth for themselves and their communities’. With modest success, I am proud of the collective work that I have supported, and the lives that I have touched and changed over the past 20+ years. But it is not enough. For the past few years I have been frustrated by the lack of scale and velocity that I have been able to maintain as the face of entrepreneurship changes.

• Did you know the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs is comprised of African American women in the US?
• Did you know that the fastest growing businesses in the US belong to Latino entrepreneurs?
• Did you know the largest segment of individuals starting businesses is women?

As the demographics in this country change, the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurs are Black and Brown. Unfortunately, due to structural barriers and bias, the levels of support, advocacy and investment are not keeping pace with their growth.

How do you convince investors, ecosystem builders, universities and policy makers to invest more in the fastest growing segments of entrepreneurs? You show them their value!

For the past 20 years I have done this, in increments of hundreds. To shift the persistent negative narrative about women and entrepreneurs of color I realize I need to impact hundreds of thousands. I need velocity and scale.

This caused me to think about how to scale my work in a meaningful and authentic way. I was not quite sure how it was going to happen, but I put it out in the universe.

The universe answered.

One year ago, almost to the day, I found myself judging a $5M pitch competition in Buffalo, New York. I met lots of cool entrepreneurs, judges and advisors, but one fellow just stuck out. His name was Dave, and, on the surface, we had NOTHING in common. He lived in the Bay, worked for a large tech company, and was a successful serial entrepreneur several times over. Though we presented very differently on the surface, we were both there for the same reason — to help entrepreneurs get access to capital and community. While Buffalo may have less access to capital and community than one might find in Silicon Valley, these Buffalo bound entrepreneurs were just as talented, just as smart, just as dedicated, and just as driven as ones that you would find in the Valley or New York. When you don’t come from vast wealth, are connected to the tech elite, or live in the few square miles radius that is considered the Tech Capital of the World, the challenges of entrepreneurship are greatly multiplied. This we could all agree upon.

Dave and I spent time talking on how supporting underserved and overlooked entrepreneurs — marginalized by geography, race, gender, etc. — was critical to the health of this community and the country. We realized that Buffalo was merely a proxy for the thousands, if not millions, of entrepreneurs around the country who suffer from simply not having the access to critical resources — from coaching and mentoring to capital to, most importantly, a vibrant community of like-minded entrepreneurs. As we talked for over a year, we kept trying to find ways to change the trajectory of these talented entrepreneurs and provide the resources they need. We knew that our individual and collective paths of angel investing, and board work were not having a significant enough impact on those that needed it most.

That’s when we had our Eureka — no, our Ureeka moment.

What if we built a platform where every entrepreneur — irrespective of race and gender — could have access to the best materials, resources, coaches, mentors, capital, and more that before has been reserved to certain types of entrepreneurs? What if every entrepreneur could have a community to rely on whether you are in your small rural town or at the top of a crowded apartment building in a bustling city? Hence, Ureeka was born.

The mission of Ureeka is to democratize economic opportunity by enabling community and by reducing the cost and risk associated with growing a small to medium business. Ureeka enables access for underrepresented SMBs — those outside of Silicon Valley, women, people of color, and others — access to a collaborative community, resources and tools, mentoring and coaching, shared best practices, and a specialist marketplace.

On November 1, we launch the Ureeka platform that we believe will shift the very fabric of what it means to have access to necessary resources as an entrepreneur. We hope to make the exhaustion, the stress, and the battles that come with entrepreneurship — all worth it. On November 6th, we launch Ureeka. We hope that you will join us in this journey in building a new community for all entrepreneurs.

I invite you to join us on this journey. Please don’t hesitate to check us out at www.ureeka.biz, follow us on Instagram or Facebook or simply shoot me an email.