Featured image: Jamie Whirl, owner of Chicago-based Classy Cleanup Services
As part of our Black History Month celebration, we decided to ask the nearly 80,000 Black small business owners on Hello Alice a few questions.
Based on anonymous profile data and thousands of survey responses, here’s what you told us:
- Most Black small business owners on Hello Alice (67%) are women.
- The top three industries for Black entrepreneurs on Hello Alice are Professional Business Services (13%), Consumer Goods, Retail, and E-Commerce (13%), and Beauty and Self-Care (13%).
- 38% of Black-owned businesses told us that social media was their top acquisition channel.
- 89% of Black entrepreneurs expect their business to perform better in 2021 than in 2020.
We aren’t just gathering these data points for trivia — they’re vital information that can be used to inform policy decisions, which is why we partnered with the NAACP and DivInc to publish them as part of a Black History Month impact report. Titled “The Black-Owned Economy,” we are putting this information in front of decision-makers to help solve your biggest problems.
For example, we learned that the biggest challenge facing Black entrepreneurs is raising capital. More than one-third of Black small business owners (36%) said they have an annual company revenue of less than $25,000, and the majority (58%) told us that their path to ownership was through personal savings. Without the same access to outside funding as other groups, Black small business owners are less likely to grow their business or respond to unforeseen challenges like a pandemic.
We’re working on long-term solutions to that problem, but in the meantime, we encourage you to apply for the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which is now offering underserved borrowers priority access to forgivable loans. We’re also expanding the Black-Owned Business Resource Center hosted in partnership with the NAACP to provide the best resources and funding opportunities to help you succeed. You’ll also find more than 50,000 fellow Black small business owners in the NAACP Community on Hello Alice ready to offer advice and lift you up.
