It’s never easy to create a successful business, but it’s a lot harder if you’re Black.

Research shows that Black startup founders face significant, racially specific hurdles, including limited access to entrepreneurship training programs and challenges accessing predominantly white networking and mentorship opportunities.

It’s harder for Black founders to raise money, too. Recent TechCrunch data shows Black business founders received less than half of 1% of total startup capital in 2023. And, to date in 2024, there’s only continued stagnation.

Tope Awotona, founder of Calendly, a free online appointment-scheduling platform, experienced this struggle.

“Everyone said no,” he told NPR in 2020. “Meanwhile, I watched other people who fit a different profile get money thrown at them. Those VCs were ignorant and short-sighted … the only thing I could attribute it to was that I was Black.”

Yet there are high-profile Black entrepreneurship success stories. They include Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson, Daymond John, an investor on the reality TV series Shark Tank, and the thousands of Black startup founders running innovative businesses........

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