By Chauncey Pettis | Arkansas Women's Business Center Director
Midway through our ninth year, the Arkansas Women’s Business Center (AWBC) is pleased to continue our work in assisting women to actualize their dreams of small business ownership. Quarter Two of the year has been full of activities, including workshops, trainings, panels and expos.
The Arkansas Women’s Business Center is proud to offer Momentum, Arkansas’s first minority women-owned accelerator and one of the first concentrated accelerators of its kind. Ten female minority entrepreneurs were selected to participate in the five-week program, held on Monday evenings at the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub. Each participant received $500 in technical assistance, which they used to get legal counseling, branding assistance, web development, logo design and much more. Over the course of five weeks the participants created their Lean Canvas, a one-page business plan. They also conducted ten customer discovery interviews, learned basics of small business marketing and financial consulting, and best practices for pitch training. The women then participated in a pitch competition for a chance at $1,000 in startup capital.
After gaining more insight from Momentum on the needs of minority women business owners, the Arkansas Women’s Business Center entered exciting new partnerships to offer an event, “Economic Mobility: Banking on Black Women Business Owners.” Philander Smith College, Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, the Urban League of the State of Arkansas and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis joined us to host a working meeting with 50 nonprofit leaders, city officials and bankers on the status of black women entrepreneurs and how community stakeholders can better support and foster economic mobility in disadvantaged communities.
AWBC also continued its thriving partnership with the AARP Foundation to offer Work For Yourself @50+, a comprehensive program to help those 50 years of age and older learn about entrepreneurship. In this workshop we offered step-by-step information on how to start a business and generate additional income, as well as how to access additional resources and mentors to help on their self-employment journey. In an attempt to give back, the AWBC staff also continues to offer entrepreneurial training at Boots to Business.This two-day training assists individuals who are leaving active-duty military status and considering small-business ownership in lieu of traditional employment.
Finally, on March 23 AWBC hosted our third annual Spring Market, which featured an overwhelming 41 vendors and 476 participants. This proof-of-concept expo gives our clients an opportunity to prove their business concepts and test their product offerings. Expos also give small business owners a great forum to analyze what sells, what doesn’t, and how they can change their processes to be more customer-friendly. In addition, we hosted two no-cost small business trainings, sponsored by Southern Bancorp: “How to Make a Product your Customers Want,” and “Funding your Business and Using Credit Wisely.”
The Arkansas Women’s Business Center looks forward to an equally active third quarter assisting women in the state of Arkansas become the entrepreneurs they dream to be.
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