News — entrepreneur

Chicago-based entrepreneur Jeff Badu, a former gang member, became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a millionaire by 26. Now, he’s giving back to inner-city youth through his summer financial literacy program.

“I didn’t have someone to teach me about money and finances and prepare me to live the best abundant life possible,” Badu told the Chicago Sun-Times. “With all of the violence going on in Chicago with our youth, I guarantee you that if they had more financial education and empowerment, they would be able to stay out of trouble. They just want to sustain themselves and get out of poverty.”

Former Gang Member Becomes Millionaire Accountant

Born in Ghana, Badu came to Chicago’s Uptown community when he was 8 years old. He fell into Chicago’s gang life, seeking protection and guidance from the streets. After visiting family in Ghana, he was determined to get his life back on track.

“Between 8 to 16, those were the toughest times of my life. I was surrounded by so much negativity,” Badu shared with WGN TV during an interview. “I was literally trapped, I couldn’t walk certain places.”

Badu’s comeback was nothing short of impressive. In 2014, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in accountancy from the University of Illinois. In 2015, he went on to earn his Master of Accounting Science degree. Then, he started his career at Big Four accounting firm, PwC.

After a year of work experience, Badu obtained his CPA license and started Badu Enterprises. He reached a million-dollar net worth at age 26. Now, he leads a successful multinational tax practice and is a real estate investor. He owns a portfolio of 118 housing units on Chicago’s south side, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. 

From Gang Member to Millionaire Financial Literacy Advocate

Badu doesn’t want other youth to experience what he did growing up in Chicago. That’s why he’s offering a four-week financial literacy summer program to youth ages 6-18 years old.

“If you don’t have the resources to create abundance, then life is likely going to be tough. I want Chicago’s youth to think more abundantly,” Badu shared on his website.

His Badu Foundation will be a key ingredient to transforming the opportunities available to underserved youth in Chicago. The foundation aims to provide valuable financial literacy education, scholarship training,  and a $500 scholarship to jumpstart their educational goals.

Badu aims to raise $100,000 to fund scholarships. According to Block Club Chicago, he plans to use $20,000 of his own money for this initiative. He is raising additional funds through a GoFundMe Financial Literacy Scholarship Fundraiser. You can check out the Youth Financial Empowerment Program and application on Badu’s website.

Todd Baldwin was raised by his single mom. Now 27 years old, he is a millionaire with multiple streams of income. What’s more, Baldwin saves 80% of his earnings and does not engage in frivolous expenses.

The serial entrepreneur started working when he was only 12 years old. He would save much of what he earned as he considered it as not only a sound financial management practice but fun. “It’s actually really fun being able to buy something and then choosing not to,” he tells CNBC.

The African-American entrepreneur now brings home $615,000 annually ($305,000 after business expenses) from his multiple businesses. His mixed-income comes from rental properties, his day job working in commercial insurance sales, and the extra cash he makes as a secret shopper.

He owns six rental properties with his wife, Angela, which brings in the majority of the revenue he makes. For instance, they earn $460,000 per year in rent and keep about $150,000 of that per year after expenses such as mortgage payments, taxes, insurance, and utilities.

“Although our net worth is seven figures, we don’t do a lot of the typical things that most people envision millionaires doing. We are super frugal,” says Baldwin.

The entrepreneur says he is able to save as much as 80% of his income because he keeps his expenses so low. He does not pay for entertainment like movies or restaurants because he gets paid for that as a mystery shopper. He gets paid for dining out, grocery shopping, seeing movies, and visiting hotels and casinos.

“There are a lot of businesses out there that want to know how their employees are doing and how the market is responding to their products,” he explains. “So those companies will hire mystery shopping firms to find independent contractors like me to go pose at their establishment as a regular customer, buy the product or service and then report on it.”

Baldwin started mystery shopping while he was in college and has so far made $30,000. Since he started mystery shopping, Baldwin and his wife spend around $25 on food. Another thing Baldwin tries to avoid is spending money on needless bank account fees or credit card charges.

Despite being very conscious of what to spend his money on, the serial entrepreneur has no qualms about spending on his wife. Even that, he needs approval. He recalls spending $500 on a designer purse for his wife but she took it back and exchanged it for a $60 purse.

“My wife is more frugal than I am!” he says. “A couple of years ago, I bought her a designer purse for like 500 bucks. But when I surprised her with it, she immediately took it back, exchanged it for a $60 purse at Macy’s, and then we invested the difference.”

Master P has shown his versatility when it comes to music and wealth accumulation. He is carrying his son, Hercy Miller, along with him.

The rapper and entrepreneur has reportedly landed a $2.5 million endorsement deal for Miller, who will be attending Tennessee State University, a Historically Black University College. The deal will make him the highest-paid college basketball in U.S. history.

However, before the deal could materialize, they have to wait until the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) overhaul its rules to make student players to be paid for their name, image, or likeness, according to REVOLT TV.

“In August, the league is changing, the NCAA. You’ll be able to make money off your likeness [and] you’ll be able to do marketing deals,” Master P tells TMZ Sports. “I told Hercy he’ll probably be the highest-paid college player in college basketball history if he do this deal. Guys that are going to the G League, they’re not even getting that type of money.”

Master P continues: “So, right now I have a deal on the table for Hercy for $2.5 million. He never even played a lick of [college] basketball.”

NCAA in November 2020 announced a series of reforms to allow student-athletes to make money beginning in August, according to REVOLT TV. Master P is convinced the new NCAA rule will not only be a “game-changer,” but “it’s going to make kids want to stay in college too.”

Master P’s son is said to have chosen Tennessee State University over Division I college programs like LSU, Vanderbilt, UCLA, and the University of Southern California. “I feel like if I go to an HBCU, I can put a spotlight on for all the HBCUs around so that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a change. I want to make a difference,” Hercy previously told TMZ Sports. 

The 6-foot-3, 180-pound three-star helped his Minnehaha Academy RedHawks win the 2021 Minnesota Boys Basketball Class AAA State Championship in April. He also led his team with 24 points in the championship game. His brother Mercy scored 15 points.

“Like my dad’s saying for me, I work hard. I want to be able to make money off my own name,” Hercy said.

By age 19, Moses Shepherd was working at Sunoco gas station in Detroit and eventually became a manager. While at Sunoco, he ran eight stores and made all of them profitable. Although his work was draining, for Shepherd, it was an opportunity to learn as much as possible.

“I worked 12 hours a day, six days a week for a salary of $375. But it really wasn’t the money at all, it was about what they taught me, so eventually, I could write my own paycheck,” he told Chains Detriot Business.

After nearly four years at Sunoco, Moses left to start a music distribution company where he supplied music to gas stations across Detroit and later, countrywide.

His business became profitable and he decided to expand it. “I had three record stores — one in Pontiac, one in Detroit, and one in Inkster. So, as the market turned, I decided to shutter the stores, and I had an idea to start selling music and electronics to prison inmates,” he said.

He started selling music to one prison in 1996 and by the year 2000, he was supplying 3,500 prisons across the country. “This was the product that I had manufactured in China and shipped over here. And they were transparent, so the inmate couldn’t hide any contraband,” he said.

Everything was going on well for Moses until he became vindictive. Wanting to put an ‘enemy’ out of business, he withheld investment in his profitable prison business and got back into the rack distribution business. “So it goes to show where my mindset was, right,” he said. “And when I did that, I went out of business. It was a flop. So, I lost that business, and I lost the prison distribution business.”

Shepherd lost almost everything he had labored for and he barely could afford anything. He started reading real estate books but couldn’t buy the books, so he had to sit in the bookstore and read them.

His credit was however marginal enough to be able to buy a house and fix it up. “…My books told me that I can buy this house for $50,000. My book said (list) the house for $65,000, and I can pull $15,000 back at the closing.”

With time, he started buying more houses and ended up with a couple of hundred houses over in between the University District, Bagley, and Grandmont-Rosedale Park. He had so many houses that he actually controlled what the rents were, he said. By 2008, he had started buying the entire neighborhood.

After making it big in the real estate sector, Shepherd decided to invest in the fuel business. He launched Ace Petroleum in 2017, starting one of the nation’s largest minority-owned fuel suppliers. In 2020, ACE Petroleum obtained a $27 million contract with Detroit to supply fuel services for the city’s police cars, emergency medical vehicles, fire trucks, buses, and other transportation units. It is a contract for five years.

A Black businesswoman has accused a Connecticut bank of racism after officials there allegedly refused to allow her to withdraw her money. Gwen Samuel said she felt humiliated by the alleged incident that took place at the Southington-based branch of TD Bank.

According to her, officials of the bank did not offer any explanation why they refused to give her the money. She later used the ATM of the bank’s other branch to withdraw her money.

Samuel is a social activist and founder of the Connecticut Parents Union, a group advocating for equal educational opportunities for children in Connecticut. She said she has been a customer of the bank for 16 years and had gone to withdraw an amount of $1,000 from the bank to pay a vendor.

“I go inside, I had my TD Bank card and my license. They were cordial. I’m not even gonna say they were rude,” she told Fox61. According to her, the teller at the branch spent a lot of time going through her account before refusing the withdrawal.

“She hands me my license and she says, ‘I don’t feel comfortable giving you the money.’ So, I got confused, so I said, ‘You don’t feel comfortable giving me the money,'” she said. “Well, you just deposited the check yesterday.”

Even though Samuel told the teller that the check has been cleared and verified, the teller responded: “And she said ‘oh yeah it cleared. The money is available. I just don’t feel comfortable giving it to you,'” a speechless Samuel said. 

In a statement, TD Bank said it is proudly serving a diverse community and does not discriminate against its customers. The statement also described the incident as regrettable and noted that it was contacting the victim to address her concerns.

“At TD Bank, we proudly serve diverse communities and customers and do not discriminate in the services we provide or the products we offer,” the statement said. “The security of our customers’ accounts is a top priority and we regret that the specific reasons why the transaction could not be completed may not have been explained to Ms. Samuel at our Queen Street store in Southington.”

Hart Wilson is a young, bustling entrepreneur at the tender age of 11. According to Because of Them We Can, the prepubescent tween launched his scented candle line, Candles From The Hart, to pay for his education at the school of his dreams- Howard University. 

Hart created the aromatic wax lights after going to the prestigious historically-black university at the age of six. The youngster fell in love with the school and earned money to pay for his tuition. 

The Texas tween implemented a plan and fundraised through selling his candles last year.

“I got on the internet and saw that people were making different things to sell and earn money, and I settled on candles,” Wilson told the publication. 

“My parents and I watched YouTube videos and started experimenting with making candles, and we figured it all out, and that’s when it all started,” he confessed.

Wilson created a store on Etsy and started selling his candles. 

Candles From The Hart offers a plethora of fragrances like Guava Fresca, Tranquil Sea and Cashmere Plum (a scent he created to honor Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.) He also has a line of wax melts and car fragrances.

Customers can find Wilson’s luminary delights in local stores in his hometown of Pearland, Texas, Chicago and Houston. 

Candles From The Hart even caught the eyes of some big-name celebrities including, the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team, Inda Craig-Galvan, a television writer for ABC’s “How To Get Away With Murder,” actress Keena Ferguson from Tyler Perry’s “Sistas” and “Queen Sugar” actress Tracey Bonner.

Although Wilson’s candle company is flourishing, his main objective is to pay for his education at Howard University.

The stories of refugees pursuing economic ventures to contribute to the growth of their host country are replete in the literature. However, because of their status as refugees, their success stories are often not given attention in the media. In cases where stories of refugees are reported, they are often about their involvement in crimes and other social vices.

Despite the seeming lack of growing interest in the economic persuasion of refugees which leads to job creation, some of their success stories have attracted the world’s attention. One of such is Kanyi Maqubela, who migrated to the US with his family as refugees from South Africa.

The US remains one of the favorite destinations of refugees worldwide partly due to their refugee policies and their respect for human rights, although those were nearly wiped out during the Trump administration.

Kanyi arrived in the US at the height of the apartheid regime in South Africa. After living in debilitating conditions in his own country, he and his family felt migrating to the US will pay off for them. And as faith would have it, Kanyi has become a successful entrepreneur in the US and his parents got employed.

Kanyi co-founded Kindred Ventures with Steve Jang after successfully raising $56 million. Kindred Ventures is a seed-stage venture capital fund based in San Francisco, California. According to Shoppe Black, Kindred Ventures has invested in over 40 companies located in North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa. Previous Kindred Ventures investments count companies like Uber, Coinbase, and Virgin Hyperloop One.

Also, Kanyi recently raised $100 million in capital commitments from a mix of major university endowments, foundations, fund-of-funds, and strategic investors, according to Techcrunch.

Kanyi and Jang have served as founders, early employees, and advisors in several pioneering technology startups. Kanyi also served as a Partner at Collaborative Fund, where he was an early advisor to Tala and Walker & Co., and a board member at Buffer, Camino Financial, Spruce, and True Link, a post on Kindred Ventures’ website said.

In addition to co-founding Kindred Ventures, the Soweto born is also a co-founder of Heartbeat Health, a telehealth platform for cardiology that incorporates telemedicine, remote diagnostics, and digital heart health programs.

Indeed, Kanyi prides himself on founding the only virtual heart health app with video visits and at-home diagnostics. The app now has over 20,000 patients or subscribers as per its figures in 2019.

Despite making it in the US, Kanyi and his family’s story ‘in the land of freedom’ was not all rosy. They lived in a homeless shelter and were on food stamps until his mother got a job as an ESL teacher at Fashion Institute of Technology, and his father got a job as a cashier and coat checker at the Museum of Natural History, according to Shoppe Black.

Today, both parents are not only gainfully employed, but they are both accomplished educators while Kanyi did undergraduate and graduate studies at Stanford University, where he majored in Philosophy, and studied among others computer science, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.

He taught elementary and middle school math and science and claimed to have worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign team. “I really enjoyed being on the teaching team for Design Your Life, a class for undergraduates out of the Stanford Design Program,” he says on his website.

“We’re over-mentored and under-capitalized,” the venture capitalist told Bloomberg on why Black businesses need investment than activism. “I believe there’s an opportunity to use the acute national attention to catalyze structural change but it doesn’t happen on its own.”

Apple announced Wednesday that it will invest $10 million with Harlem Capital as part of their racial equity and justice pledge.

“The unfinished work of racial justice and equality call us all to account,” Apple CEO Tom Cook shared on Twitter. “Things must change, and Apple’s committed to being a force for that change.”

The investment is part of Apple’s $100 million racial equality and justice initiative announced last June. The program will be led by Apple VP Lisa Jackson.

“The initiative will challenge the systemic barriers to opportunity and dignity that exists for communities of color and particularly for the black community,” Apple CEO Tim Cook shared in a video.

Supporting Harlem Capital’s Vision

Apple’s $10 million investment in Harlem Capital will support investments in 1,000 companies with diverse entrepreneurs over the next two decades.

“Ever since I got my first iPod in middle school, I have been an avid Apple fan,” Managing Partner Henri Pierre-Jacques posted on LinkedIn. “To have Harlem Capital and Apple partner is truly a dream come true.”

Harlem Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, will provide capital to entrepreneurs of color. The firm will also play an instrumental role in helping Apple achieve its broader economic advancement goals in under-resourced communities. Harlem Capital will serve as mentors in Apple’s first Detroit Developer Academy — a program designed to empower young Black entrepreneurs will the skills needed to be proficient in the iOS app economy.

In addition, Harlem Capital will provide support to participants in Apple’s Entrepreneur Camp. This week-long program offers lab sessions, one-on-one expert guidance, and insights from top Apple leaders. At the conclusion of the program, participants join a global network of other leaders.

Furthermore, Apple plans to support Harlem Capital’s internship program. This competitive internship opportunity has attracted thousands of applicants and provided experiences to over 50 interns.

It All Started With A Passion

Founded in 2015, Harlem Capital is a venture capital firm on a mission to change the face of entrepreneurship. The company started with Managing Partners Henri Pierre-Jacques and Jarrid Tingle. The two met as participants in the Management Leadership for Tomorrow career program founded by John Rice.

Once they discovered a shared passion for investing, the two men connected with other friends and formed Harlem Capital in Tingle’s living room. Brandon Bryant and John Henry are also part of the dream team. Now, the venture capital firm is on track to help a new generation of entrepreneurs create change.

“Never underestimate the power of words and visualizing,” Pierre-Jacques shared on LinkedIn.

South African-born entrepreneur Elon Musk has seen his fortune rise to $195 billion, making him the richest man on earth, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Until Thursday, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was the richest man in the world with a net worth of $185 billion.

The Space X and Tesla founder was pushed to the top spot after shares in Tesla rose by more than 6 percent on Thursday. Since the start of 2020, Tesla’s capitalization has grown from $80 billion in January 2020 to just over $760 billion as of Thursday, according to NBC News, while his personal fortune rose by more than $150 billion last year.

The new evaluation is more than eight times the combined values of the traditional “Big Three” U.S. automakers — GM, Ford and Fiat Chrysler, NBC added.

“How strange,” Musk tweeted Thursday. “Well, back to work …”

“Musk’s wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the top of the rich list in history — and is a dramatic financial turnaround for the famed entrepreneur, who just 18 months ago was in the headlines for Tesla’s rapid cash burn and his personal leverage against the company’s stock,” CNBC wrote. “Tesla’s rocketing share price — which has increased more than ninefold over the past year — along with his generous pay package have added more than $150 billion to his net worth.”

Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion and was not among the top 50 richest list. However, he passed Warren Buffett to become the seventh-richest person in July. He gained more wealth than Bill Gates to become the second-richest person in November and has since gained more wealth over the past 12 months than Gates’ entire net worth of $132 billion, according to CNBC.

While Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index ranks Musk as the richest man in the world, Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires lists Bezos ahead of him. Bezos tops Forbes’ list with $184 billion while Musk comes in second with $177.2 billion.

However, according to CNBC, Forbes evaluation did not include the value of Musk’s options, which he received as part of his pay package, to buy more than 33 million shares of Tesla.

Last year, Musk’s Space X launched two crewed missions to the International Space Station, the first of it in the U.S. since NASA retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011, according to space.com. In all, Space X launched 26 missions in 2020.

In 2015, Jamila Souffrant commuted about three hours where she lived in Brooklyn, NY to work in New Jersey every day. At the same time, she was about to become a mother of two. However, her job schedule gave her little room for respite and she began making moves for a flexible job.

“It wasn’t necessarily about just the commute, but I felt like that was the catalyst to make me feel like there’s something else out there for me,” Souffrant told BusinessInsider. “Because I don’t want to, like, have a family and spend most of my day just not completely fulfilled. There must be another way.” 

The commercial real estate executive became fascinated with stories of people who retired early from traditional work on the back of their savings, investment and debt pay off. Inspired by such stories, she started a side hustle: blogging. She began writing about how she intends to accomplish her financial independence goals and create a community with others with similar goals. She would soon realize that she could generate some income from her blog. Blogging then became a side hustle for her. 

“My first big money objective was to invest as much of our income as possible. We took a hard look at our expenses: Anything that did not allow us to reach our saving and the investing goal was reduced or cut entirely,” Souffrant wrote on CNBC. Within two years (2016 and 2017), Souffrant and her husband saved and invested $169,000 after creating a budget that focused on contributing the maximum amounts to her 401(k) and her husband’s 403(b) and 457 plans.

Accomplishing that goal helped her turn her blogging side hustle into a career she was so passionate about. Her blog, Journey to Launch, is now her full career. She runs the blog on a full-time basis and also has a podcast educating people on their finances and how to achieve financial freedom. 

In addition, she earns money through coaching, working with brands, writing articles, and selling products and services. “Through trial and error, I’ve learned so much that has helped me during this moment,” she said. 

In 2018 when she gave birth to her third child, she quit her job to focus solely on building her blog. She monetized her blog, including her podcast as well as building out her event and speaking income. 

Souffrant hopes her readers will pick one or two financial tips on her blog to help them get out of debt or improve their credit score. One of her maxims is that to save more, it’s equally important to grow your income and that includes further education. 37-year-old Souffrant worked in corporate America since she was 22 before going back to school to get her master’s in real estate while working. The move, she said, put her at a different level where she could then apply for a job that paid more money.

In many countries, the gig economy remains largely informal and workers take a salary outside the formal banking system. Reading a 2016 report prepared by McKinsey on the Global Independent Workforce also known as the Gig Economy, Craig J. Lewis noticed that no one was servicing the firms that pay these workers.

He, therefore, set out to design a payroll system for the gig economy. He established Gig Wage not only to provide a platform that can be used to service the salaries of workers in the gig economy but to get everyone involved.

According to Bloomberg, the problem of under banking is urgent for Black people, who make up 35 percent of the statistic, against only 11 percent of White people.

Founded in 2015, Wage Gig provides the technology and the tools businesses need to pay gig workers, freelancers or contractors in a fast, flexible, and modern way, Lewis tells Shoppe Black. “Also by having 1099 specific software helps with classification concerns,” he adds.

On its website, the Dallas-based company says “our technology enables the world’s innovators to instantly pay 1099 workers with more control, flexibility & scale.”

The company recently made headlines when it raised a $7.5 million Series A round to boost its platform. The funding raising was led by Green Dot Corp., a California-based financial technology and bank holding company.

The deal also goes beyond just investment as Green Dot will also serve as an infrastructure bank partner to Gig Wage to deliver modern banking solutions and better financial tools to the Gig Economy.

“The 1099 economy is exploding, and Gig Wage is thrilled to bring a truly comprehensive solution to market,” Lewis says in a statement on Medium. “As we laid the foundation to offer financial infrastructure for the ‘Future of Work,’ it was abundantly clear Green Dot was the best partner for us to help the most people.”

Despite the effect of COVID-19 on Black-led businesses, the positive news for Lewis is that the pandemic has seen his firm grow due to rising demand for its services.

“The Gig Economy was rapidly expanding and Gig Wage was growing really fast pre COVID but COVID19 has definitely been an accelerant. The increased need for delivery has been the main area of growth we’ve seen,” he says.

Lewis is an expert in the payroll space. He started as a salesman for ADP small business payroll products in 2008 before realizing his passion for payroll tech. After selling over $10 million in payroll-related software, he landed in Silicon Valley, where he got to know the fundamentals of starting a company.

“I was just awed how they thought about technology and products and company building,” Lewis was quoted by deBanked. “And I vowed to bring that to the payroll industry.”