Q: What prompted you to create ?
A: I had been here for four years, and I wasn’t feeling like I was connected to the community. I think it was because there is no ‘black community’ here. Everyone is so spread out and dispersed. I thought the Internet would be the best way to start bringing the African-American community together. It grew into a business directory.
Q: It sounds like changed from your original mission.
A: The original intent was not to be this business directory that it has become. The original intent was just to provide some information about community events or entertainment. Then I thought, well, why not add black business information? It kind of evolved.
Q: What was the impetus for your launching Strictly Bizness networking events in 2002?
A: I wanted to let people know who was behind the website and to see who I was interfacing with via e-mail. You can’t really form strong relationships via e-mail. Deals are made through relationships, and you really can’t have relationships via the Internet.
Q: What happens during Strictly Bizness events?
A: We give people an opportunity to do a 90-second pitch before the crowd. We have some very provocative topics, such as, “Trust among us.” That was one of my favorite ones. It was about trust within the (black) community. Why don’t we trust each other enough to do business with each other? Some white, black or otherwise businesses have not been very ethical in their business conduct, but it’s a “black thing” when we (African-Americans) do it. We take the attitude that “I’m not doing business with any black business owner.” If it’s a white business that cheats us, we don’t say, “I’m not doing business anymore with white businesses,” whereas the whole (black) community pays when we get burned by a black business.
Q: What did you learn from that discussion?
A: Our Strictly Biz audience is very diverse with regard to age. What struck me most was some of the (perceptions) the older people have about younger people in business, that younger people in business don’t care about dress as much as older people do.
Q: How do you decide what will go on your site and what won’t?
A: One, by gut. Two, by users. The job segment is pretty much something that the users want. We do business spotlights. We don’t do feature articles because we have newspapers that do that.
Q: What does it cost to advertise?
A: It’s just $199 for businesses, and that’s a 12-month listing. To use the website, it costs nothing. People can list their own events. To use the calendar is free as long as they’re not listing sale events because that’s advertising they should be paying for.
Q: You created the Black Economic Summit. What is that?
A: We started it in 2005. There are four different tracks that we’ve tried to incorporate into it – a community, a business, a personal and a youth track. It’s all focused on community economic development. We have workshops. We have opportunity sessions for business owners. We usually bring in great keynote speakers. We incorporated the Women in Leadership luncheon, where we honor four women in the community. They’re women of color who really support the community corporately or in business or in the religious sector. We have people speaking on homeownership, credit, different things that are more personal or family-oriented. Then we have the business workshops on marketing, business credit and business opportunities within the city, like the Democratic National Convention.
Q: What plans do you have for ?
A: I want to grow the website to other cities in the region. Arizona has some of the same demographics. I also want to add another segment, maybe do a Latino section or an Asian section, based on the DBP model. That’s still conceptual.
