LAKEWOOD, Wash. — The 5th Annual Black-Owned Business Excellence (BOBE) Symposium is in full swing in Lakewood.
The three-day event will include panel discussions and networking opportunities. The goal is to inform, encourage and uplift Black business owners, and Marquita Evans, owner of Intentions Juice and Smoothie Bar, is happy to support this effort.
“It lights a fire inside you!” she says. “You're one of the like-minded people and that's very exciting to me.”
Evans started Intentions in Tacoma in 2020.
She has since expanded to Seattle and is considering opening another location in Tacoma.
While Evans is proud of her progress, many entrepreneurs like her miss out on important information that can help their businesses thrive, or are discouraged from seeking it by systemic discrimination. I admit that there are.
According to McKinney and Company, only 4% of Black-owned businesses survive after three years, compared to a 45% survival rate for non-Black-owned businesses.
“It was an experience in the sense that you don't know what you don't know,” Evans explains. “We've been put in this space where we're afraid of taking out loans or dealing with credit or anything of that nature, even though that's the actual path of growth for us. is.”
Genefenes Franke says that need inspired her to help found the symposium.
Franke helped found the Black-Owned Business Excellence organization in 2019.
She said the need became even clearer during the pandemic, when many Black businesses were left behind as the government provided financial support to businesses.
“Our business couldn’t get funding,” Franke said. “We were being denied because not only were we inaccessible, but we didn’t have certain structures that we didn’t even know we needed.”
DeiMarlon Scisney runs multiple platforms focused on technology strategy and collecting data on the state of Black businesses in Washington state. Czisny says he noticed an interesting phenomenon in Seattle. That means important resources exist but are often not easily accessible.
“Yes, there are resources out there, there are nonprofits out there, there are organizations out there that are really pioneering in terms of providing opportunities for Black businesses,” he said. “But in Seattle, you really see things being very siled.”
Czisny said the BOBE symposium provides a valuable opportunity to break through that and foster collaboration among black entrepreneurs.
“When we come together and really address core issues, that's where we see the impact,” he said.
Franke hopes the collaborative spirit continues to grow over time.
“We are the gate openers!” she declared. “We provide education, we provide resources, and there are no excuses for our community!”
Meanwhile, Evans says she's excited to have found a place where she can pass on what she's learned and gather knowledge herself to take her business to the next level.
“I've been an entrepreneur for 16 years, but this is my first time working on something like this,” she said. “This is a space created for us and for us to grow. You have nothing to lose by coming to these spaces to grow not only as individuals but as entrepreneurs. It’s helpful.”
