Full Scale Media
Wednesday, February 2, 2022
Michael Sadler, 30, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur, is founder of Black Business Company (BBCO) a new social networking platform with the ambitious goal of creating a democratized way for Black-owned businesses, and Black entrepreneurs and freelancers, to gain more access to valuable networking opportunities, hiring opportunities, online reviews, SEO, and access to capital and greater market share.
According to Sadler, the platform will accomplish this by not only providing a specialized “LinkedIn of sorts for Black businesses,” but, he says, “by also extending an olive branch to Black-allied businesses who contribute to our community with their dollars.” Currently in its pre-launch phase, BBCO is picking up steam with more than 1,000 members who have signed up since November 2021.
Founded as an answer to the disturbing racial economic and health discrepancies that were magnified during the pandemic, Sadler’s BBCO platform will launch in beta in March 2022. Since initiating its recent pre-launch efforts, the platform’s current members have also nominated and invited additional prospective members to join the platform. This allows the community to build organically, through a six degrees of separation chain of networking.
Adds founder Michael Sadler, “A large part of our problem as Black business owners and entrepreneurs has not been so much that we are discriminated against, but that we have largely been ignored due to unconscious bias. We need a centralized platform where we are able to find each other and fund each other, so that we can hire each other.”
Did you know?
Highly rated businesses in Black majority neighborhoods experience lower than average annual revenue growth than poorly rated businesses in neighborhoods that are less than 1% Black.
Additionally, multiple studies have shown that employers hire people who look like and remind them of themselves, due to what experts call a “subconscious bias.” More successful Black-owned businesses means more Black jobs, stronger and safer communities, greater socio-political influence, greater financial stability, and the tools to build generational wealth.
According to a January 26, 2021 Crunchbase article titled, Black-Owned Businesses Are Still Struggling to Find Investors, “In 2020 alone, 41 percent of Black-owned businesses were forced to permanently close their doors, compared to less than 20 percent of white-owned businesses.”
“As we celebrate Black History Month this February, it’s important to remember that Black history is being made today and every day.” – Michael Sadler, founder of the Black Business Company
