August is Nationwide Black Enterprise Month. The proprietor of 1 native cookie retailer proprietor is following his goals and hoping to function inspiration.
AUSTIN, Texas — Though Nationwide Black Enterprise Month is a crucial time to acknowledge Black-owned companies throughout the nation and in Central Texas, it is also a chance to be taught in regards to the assets accessible that assist preserve various companies up and working.
Austin is dwelling to about 2,600 Black-owned companies. Nevertheless, a whole lot of them are micro-businesses, with 90% not even having staff.
“They are a ‘solopreneur,’ as we name them in our workplace,” Tam Hawkins stated.
Hawkins serves because the CEO of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce. She works on financial and enterprise improvement to assist Black-owned enterprise all through the town enhance their income.
All year long, the Higher Austin Black Chamber of Commerce hosts totally different occasions and galas to assist with supporting the work Black-owned companies do. The chamber additionally work to scale up firms and enhance their income.
Transferring ahead, Hawkins stated the chamber wish to work on closing the hole of income technology for Black women-owned companies.
“They’ve a deficit of beginning at possibly $30,000 yearly in income. So we might actually wish to see some motion there,” Hawkins stated. “We would additionally wish to see some scalability in consumer-packaged items, and people are merchandise that we’re engaged on at present as nicely.”
Hawkins and her workforce are additionally within the means of beginning an artist-in-residence program in Austin. This is able to assist the humanities neighborhood in number of alternative ways.
“Loads of them are first-time entrepreneurs, so they do not actually have that chain of, ‘Properly, how did my father do it? Or how did my mom do it?’ In order that they’re actually ranging from scratch,” Hawkins stated.
Ranging from scratch is an idea that Sean Gooden, proprietor of GoodenSweet Cookies, understands nicely.
“I bought a love of the kitchen from watching my grandmother cooking. She did not ever actually educate me something or give me any recipes, per say. However I watched how she operated within the kitchen and the way a lot love she infused into what she was doing and the way individuals expertise that love by means of the meals,” Gooden stated.
When Gooden began his firm in 2008, he had no written recipe for fulfillment. After his late older brother, Anthony, handed that yr in a sparring accident, Gooden began his enterprise in honor him.
The brothers have been martial artists who baked. Sean Gooden began in shaolin-do kung fu and tai chi and finally grew to become a second-degree black belt.
“He [Anthony] used to make beautiful, connoisseur cheesecakes. They known as him the cheesecake man. However, after all, they name me the cookie man!,” Gooden stated.
A father of 4, Gooden has made big strides within the cookie trade – and it began when he was a younger child wanting as much as certainly one of his position fashions.
“Once I was a child, I used to look at Well-known Amos, who was the primary the unique cookie man in america and the primary Black man to personal a cookie firm within the U.S. Many issues have occurred since he began,” Gooden stated.
His exhausting work and dedication landed him a spot at two shops, Style ATX and Fifth & Congress contained in the Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport.
“Little by little, working exhausting will get you to that aim. Consider me, all of it provides up. However then when you get to that aim, you examine it off and also you set the subsequent aim, and then you definately do the very same factor. Rinse and repeat,” Gooden stated.
GoodenSweets orders will be picked up on the firm’s first manufacturing facility, now situated at 5610 N. Interstate 35, throughout from Capital Plaza. The corporate additionally ships nationwide.
GoodenSweets’ cookies are a singular sq. form and are available in a wide range of flavors from the “world well-known” chocolate chip to the “sledgehammer,” a double chocolate chip cookie with macadamia nuts and cream cheese.
Gooden stated he wish to function inspiration for different Black women and men and he needs to see their careers attain new heights.
“I need to be an instance to youngsters or adults who’re Black and of some other race, to know that they will go from nothing to one thing if they’ve religion and dedication,” Gooden stated, including, “And, by the way in which, we’re not precisely the place we need to be but, however we have moved additional than the place we have been.”
