Did you know that the United States is home to an estimated two and half million black-owned companies? While that may sound impressive, only about a quarter of those are run by women. Many of these are sole proprietorships as well, but a chosen few have reached regional and national proportions. That is due to the massive efforts set forth by their founders.
While each of the following businesses, all founded and run by women of color, are vastly different, they are all considered to be on the rise and are definitely worthy of further investment.
Half-sisters Andera McBride-John and Robin McBride of Oakland, California met in adulthood and found they had one other thing in common. While one was raised in the area and the other was from New Zealand, both grew up in wine regions. In 2005, six years after becoming acquainted, they started their own winery and are now among the United States’ top 3% in sales.
Mahisha Dellinger of Dallas, Texas financed her own way through college at California State University Sacramento and scored a job at Intel. She found she was not satisfied, however, and spent her free time perfecting her natural hair care products. She launched her business, Curls, in 2002, but finances were tight until Target decided to carry her line. Now it can be found online and in numerous stores.
Enterprising Dellinger also wrote a best-selling book detailing her success and has a television program on the Oprah Winfrey network, “Mind your Business with Mahisha,” that aims to help struggling entrepreneurs.
In 2011, Cashmere Nicole Carillo of San Diego was a single mother that had already survived breast cancer when she founded her non-toxic, vegan lipstick company, Beauty Bakerie. She began marketing the products on her Instagram, which now boosts over one million followers, of which even Beyonce has endorsed the cosmetics on her personal website.
Dr. Anastasia Gentiles and her friend, Zawadi Bryant, of Sugarland, Texas teamed up when the former worked at Texas Children’s Hospital and the latter was a consultant on technology training and implementation. In 2007, they started an urgent care center specially designed for children only. The idea was a hit and now NightLight Pediatric has eight locations bringing in over eleven million dollars last year alone.
In conclusion, these entrepreneurial women of color have never let the prejudices and slights of corporate America get in their way. They are driven, intelligent, hard-working, and, as a result, extraordinarily successful. Based on past performance alone, any of these businesses would be a fine use of any investor’s funds.