News Small Business Spotlight: Larvetta Loftin Built L3 Agency To Deliver Culturally-Aware Content, Showcase Black Female Talent Larvetta Loftin, founder and CEO of full-service influencer marketing and communications firm The L3 Agency, has coined a motto that guides how she approaches her career: “Doing what you love...
News Small Business Spotlight: With Solo Noir and Zen Soul Apothecary, One Woman Nurtures Outer and Inner Wellness Andrea Polk always considered herself a spiritual person. But it took time for her to see the deeper meaning when her body suddenly went into revolt. At 38, the normally...
News Small Business Spotlight: Amazing Edibles Catering Has Been Serving Great Food and Good Times For 30 Years Andrea Herrera started Amazing Edibles Catering three decades ago, growing it from a small storefront with just a chef and herself to a thriving business with a 5,000-square-foot kitchen...
News Small Business Spotlight: Larry’s Barber College Stays a Cut Above With New Walmart Shop Angela Harvey had never cut hair before she enrolled in Larry’s Barber College. Her first time wielding clippers, after months of classroom instruction, “I was shaking like a leaf,” she...
News Small Business Spotlight: In the Age of Amazon, Kido’s Key to Retail Success is Knowing Your Community When Keewa Nurullah, a performing artist, had her first child, she encountered a whole new world of things her son needed – and was disappointed by what she found. Baby...
News Small Business Spotlight: Dinobi Detergent’s Plant-Based Laundry Soap a True Labor of Love The story of Dinobi Detergent is as much a love story as it is a tale of entrepreneurship and laundry soap. Founded by Augie and Sylvia Emuwa, a Bronzeville couple...
News Small Business Spotlight: ReformedSchool’s Handmade Wearable Art Has Something to Say Peter Gaona didn’t have much money growing up, but he did have a nose for style. So he learned to distress and take apart his clothes, fashioning new items out...
News Small Business Spotlight: Getting Lost Leads Owner of Forty Acres Fresh Market to Find Her Entrepreneurial Spirit When Liz Abunaw, MBA’14, stepped off the No. 66 bus in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood six years ago, she wasn’t looking to change her life. She was looking for a bank....
News Small Business Spotlight: OjaExpress, Designed By and For Immigrants, Brings Same-Day Delivery to Ethnic Grocery Stores When Boyede Sobitan worked as a healthcare consultant, traveling four or five days out of every week, his return home to Chicago was often met with a request from his...
News Small Business Spotlight: Brown Sugar Bakery Hits the Sweet Spot Between Homey and Gourmet “Some people talk about passion,” said Stephanie Hart, owner of Brown Sugar Bakery on East 75th Street in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood, “I’m about discipline.” That nose-to-the-grindstone practicality has helped Hart...
News Small Business Spotlight: Qui Solutions Unlocks the Potential Behind BIPOC and Woman-owned Businesses Qui Solutions – a global member-based remote staffing and consulting agency – wasn’t TeQuila Cooper-Shabazz’s first attempt at building a business. In fact, she had spent seven years building two...
News Small Business Spotlight: Ms. Jetsetter Takes Flight Starting a travel accessory company at the beginning of a global pandemic isn’t easy. Just ask Tracey McGhee, founder of Ms. Jetsetter. “There were times when I thought that my...
