Beyond Reparations: One millennial’s vision for business becomes a reality

by Chante Gamby, Contributing Writer

Over the past two years, the discussion of reparations has reverberated within the black community. The COVID pandemic highlighted the mass disparities that the black community experiences both from an economic and health perspective with much attention to the generational wealth gap between races. According to a report from the Federal Reserves, “ the typical White family has eight times the wealth of the typical Black family and five times the wealth of the typical Hispanic family” In 2019, the average wealth in white families was $983,400, while black families averaged less than fifteen percent of that-$142,500.

As a response to this staggering wealth gap, many black entrepreneurs have taken the charge to create more opportunities for the black community in an effort to put more money into the black community through creating networks, such as Black-Business.com creator, Michael Sadler.

Michael Sadler, 30, a Los Angeles-based digital entrepreneur and marketing specialist, has been passionate about leveling the playing field for Black Americans in business since he could crawl. During the 2020 quarantine, after witnessing the murder of George Floyd, he decided the only way for Black wealth to catch up with non-Black wealth was to create an equitable social networking platform for Black business owners and Black entrepreneurs. Sadler believes that more awareness of black businesses could be a solution. He states, “A large part of our problem as Black business owners and entrepreneurs has not been so much that we are discriminated against, but that we have largely been ignored,” says Sadler. “That has always meant less access to capital, less online reviews, less networking opportunities, and, of course, less market share.” He is CEO of his own digital marketing boutique, Search for Businesses, and the creator of The Black Business Company (BBCO), a platform where Black business owners and entrepreneurs can discover and hire each other, gain more democratized access to capital, benefit from the platform’s strong SEO tactics, gain more referrals and reviews, and gain access to what he is calling ‘Black-allied’ businesses. “Black-allied businesses,” says Sadler, “are businesses who can prove through uploading documentation, that they currently work with a Black-owned business or freelancer in some capacity. This means they are putting money into our community.”

The platform, Black-Business. co plans to benefit greatly from Sadler’s nearly decade-long SEO resumé and expertise, as well as his brother’s, Bryan, MERN developer, and coder expertise. Bryan and Michael’s goal is to build the most SEO-friend search engine for Black and Black-allied businesses to general more customer reviews for businesses, maximize their organizational visibility online, and boost the business bottom line. Sadler states, “Since we know there’s a positive correlation between the number of reviews any business gets and their bottom-line revenue growth, our end goal is to generate more reviews for Black and Black-allied businesses to raise capital within the community by leaning into the strengths of search engine algorithms”. The platform also plans to host educational and platform resources for the entrepreneur or business owner covering topics such as SEO, Social Media Ads, Content Planning, Website Performance Metrics, as well as business formation tips and creative best practices.

Anyone can join the platform by signing up at https://join.black-business.co/, which gives people an opportunity to learn about the mission of the company and also sign up for early access to their waitlist, which also subscribes them to the BBCO newsletter which discusses the development in the Black business community, BBCO business features, and updates about the platform’s launch. After signing up, subscribers will also have a chance to nominate another business owner or entrepreneur they think would make a great addition to the community.

More information on BBCO can be found at: instagram.com/theblackbusinesscompanyfacebook.com/theblackbusinesscompany, and twitter.com/theblackbizco.

 

Chante’ Gamby is a writer passionate about social justice and empowering others to live their healthiest lives. You can follow her on Facebook at Fringefam, Instagram@fringegram, or on her website, www.fringefam.com.

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