"I found out that I was accepted the day - the literal day after George Floyd was murdered - and this thing that I was so excited about, I instantly stopped caring about it. In the back of my mind, I was just like, 'We need Black-owned grocery stores.'"
For years, small businesses have been pushed aside while corporate giants enjoyed unfettered access to City Hall. No longer. With Delia Awusi's appointment, the smallest businesses will be represented at the highest levels of city government.
Successful founders are comfortable being uncomfortable. Forging a new path as an entrepreneur isn't easy work. There may be times when you're the only person who believes in your idea, or where you're the only person who looks like you do in a meeting room.
Turning skills into a fulfilling and profitable venture is a natural next step for active seniors. The transition offers a way to monetize years of dedication and hard work. Creating a business plan for a hobby allows for a low-stress entry into the market. You already understand the product or service better than most competitors.
According to the Registered Agents Inc. December Business Formation Report, more than 5.9 million new businesses were formed in 2025, an 8% increase over 2024 nationwide. And sure, it's easy to point to the usual heavy hitters, states like Florida and Texas, which posted another standout year and outperformed 2024 month after month.
While entrepreneurship can be challenging, Black founders often face additional barriers in accessing funding, mentorship, and networks, barriers that can also create psychological hurdles. In fact, a 2025 BDC study found that 72% of Black entrepreneurs shared that the fear of racial stereotypes almost stopped them from starting a business. To support founders on every stage of their journey, we've updated our guide to highlight programs, funding, mentorship, and community resources specifically for Black entrepreneurs across Canada!
Ministers are seeking "concrete commitments" over the next five years to expand funding for the community development financial institution (CDFI) sector, not-for-profit lenders that support businesses unable to secure loans from mainstream banks. The initiative follows a review which found that many small firms are being pushed towards high-cost borrowing because of rising rejection rates, regulatory complexity and broker practices.
She remembers walking with her big brothers down a sidewalk fractured by the roots of old oak trees while children played hopscotch on the playground. She remembers going outside and clapping erasers together so that plumes of chalk dust rose above her head. And she remembers being told that she was attending a school that many white parents had taken their children out of just a few years earlier because they didn't want them sitting in class with Negroes.
To Ian Gonzalez, though, it was a testament to three years of hard work. A community built from the ground up. The crowd had come on a cool Sunday morningto celebrate Gonzalez's business - Last Lap Cornerstore - before its temporary closure in April 2023. "It was the saddest joy I've ever felt," Gonzalez said. "For the community to come out and say they see me and show the love, that was beautiful."
Mayor Zohran Mamdani used his Martin Luther King Jr. Day speech at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on Monday to push back against warnings that his plan for higher taxes on wealthy New Yorkers would drive them out of the city, arguing that city leaders have ignored what he described as a more concrete and damaging population loss. When I speak about how the wealthiest in this city should pay a little bit more in taxes, I am often told about a potential exodus, Mamdani said.
As U.S. job growth in 2025 reached its lowest point since the pandemic in 2020, Blacks have been hit extra hard. Their discharges stem from rollbacks in the federal government, DEI pullbacks, and large layoffs in areas such as education, health services and social assistance. Now, nearly two-thirds of Blacks in the U.S. are looking for a new job in 2026. Yet, 75% feel unprepared for the job search ahead.
What should be stories about innovation, resilience, market disruption, and leadership have increasingly been flattened into a single, repetitive narrative: DEI. Not the company's business model. Not the founder's vision or entrepreneur journey. Not the problem being solved or the customers being served. Just DEI. And it's often framed through the lens of rollbacks, political backlash, or cultural controversy.
Working with my family full time was not something I had pictured for myself growing up. Even when I was given a chance to sit down and learn the family business full time, I told myself it would only be temporary. I had plenty of peers who planned from the get-go to take over their parents' companies, but not me. Still, my mother was determined to have me learn the ins and outs, no matter what I may end up doing in the future.
The Marines are a 24-hour responsibility. Once you commit, your personal ambitions take a backseat. Eventually, I reached a point where I wanted to explore those ambitions - specifically, entrepreneurship - while I was still young enough to act on them. I made the decision to leave the service during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic - even though the civilian job market felt uncertain, and many encouraged me to stay. But retired service members who had built businesses offered a different message. They helped me realize that the military equips people with more transferable skills than they often think. The transition resources on base reinforced that point, so I felt ready to move on.
Rows of businesses stood shuttered inside a sprawling complex of Somali businesses on a recent afternoon. Karmel Mall in south Minneapolis contains more than a hundred small businesses in suites offering everything from clothing and food to insurance and accounting services. On Thursday, the noisy hallways inside lay quiet, save for occasional chatter between neighboring vendors. The smell of fried food still wafted from the bakeries, the central heating hummed and the sound of Quran recitation flowed quietly from some shops.
In places where inclusion is part of the infrastructure of their economy-supply chains, procurement processes, capital access, or business ownership-people thrive. Inclusive economies create more resilience by expanding the base of potential business owners who can build, own, innovate, and hire. They allow more opportunities for homeownership and investing in the longevity of communities. As our economy becomes increasingly stratified and volatile, we need as much resiliency as we can get.
From increased adoption of AI tools and the continued expansion of e-commerce to heightened cybersecurity risks and rising standards for personalized customer experiences, small businesses are tasked with quickly shifting their strategies to stand out from competitors. If you're looking to launch or scale an SMB in 2026, understanding key trends - and how to align your strategy with these shifts - can help you make more confident decisions, prioritize investments, and structure a business built for long-term resilience.
In the summer of 2020, I started a directory of Black-owned businesses in Maine. I was looking for a way to support the Black community for people who couldn't attend protests. I also wanted to make a longer-term economic impact. It immediately took off. These were my neighbors and local businesses that I just hadn't heard about. That's the thing: People joke about Maine being the whitest state, but there are actually plenty of Black-owned businesses here.
During the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicago Freedom Movement took place from 1965 to 1967. Dr. King co-led this campaign with local activists to confront racial discrimination, segregation, and housing inequities in one of America's largest cities. Unlike the Jim Crow laws of the South, segregation in Chicago was often enforced through policy, lending practices and real estate discrimination rather than explicit laws.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Luke Breen, co-owner of specialty bike shop Perennial Cycle in uptown Minneapolis. The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. Perennial is a specialty bike shop. We do cargo bikes, city utility bikes, and commuting bikes, and have been a niche business for 33 years. Perennial focuses on community events. Last year, we did 35 organized community rides.
