Clarke Peoples had a “formulaic” road map that was disrupted by content creation. Columbia University Student Peoples was a student at Columbia University in New York, NY. It had been the only school she applied to, and she placed all her energy into perfecting her application, she shared with Business Insider. “I put in a lot of work to earn enough scholarships to get into Columbia. I spent months writing my application essay and did whatever I could to make myself a more competitive applicant. It was the only school I applied to, and soon I was in New York living out my dreams,” she said. Putting all her eggs in one basket ultimately paid off as she would be admitted into the school. She proved herself to be ambitious — pursuing an American studies degree — with an overarching goal of becoming a lawyer and launching a startup company. Peoples also had other backup plans including becoming a finance intern for a wealth management asset firm.   Early Career Opportunities By her...

Dwight Howard says he lost the opportunity to invest in his city’s WNBA team. During a sit-down interview on his “Above The Rim with DH12” podcast, Howard — who last played in the NBA in 2022 — explains he had the opportunity to become an owner of the Atlanta Dream. This was an interest to him because he wanted to support his daughters, in the event they had aspirations to follow in his footsteps in the professional league. “It was a group of people who was all in it together. My plan that I had was, I was looking to buy the Atlanta Dream, the basketball team for women. So I was like, ‘Man I want to really do this ’cause I got two daughters,'” Howard explained on the podcast. “One day they’re going to want to play basketball. I can set it up to where they can play for the Atlanta Dream one day when they get older.” The 6-foot-10-inch hooper, who was an active player in the league at the time, says he put a team together and invested $7 million into the deal. He was also showing his...

“There are two types of personalities when it comes to self-marketing. There are the Master Ps in business, who will market his products to absolute strangers at every single moment of his day. Then there’s the other 75% of people who have glossophobia , fear of public speaking. You may be in the latter group. You were never the artist in the ‘80s and ‘90s who would have a box of CDs or cassette tapes in your car, ready to have a mobile distribution destination in every parking lot nearby. The idea of walking up to someone with a postcard, a brochure or a clipboard is out of the question. You might be OK putting marketing material on people’s windshields, but you’d rather drink a jug of beet juice instead of encouraging people to come to your vendor booth. You know you need to sell a product. Likewise, you know the only way for someone to find out about your product is to actually search for that target demographic and share your pitch. But fear of rejection will make you avoid eye...

DryMerge has raised $2.2 million to make automation easier with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). The company was co-founded by Edward Frazer and Samuel Brashears. The pair, who first met in elementary school, made sacrifices to focus their full attention on the company. University of Wisconsin graduate Brashears walked away from a role at Hive AI while Frazer dropped out of Yale University to pursue the venture, a press release mentions. The founders recently participated in the Y Combinator Winter 2024 Batch startup accelerator program. “…I’m a pretty young founder – I dropped out of Yale to build the company and my cofounder Sam had just graduated from the University of Wisconsin,” Frazer wrote on LinkedIn . “I knew very little about how people worked, what problems they had, or how to solve those problems — and importantly, I didn’t care — I figured it’d be enough to build cool technology and watch the users appear out of thin air.” He continued, “It wasn’t until midway...

Kevin Burnett has transitioned from the football field to help families create wealth. Burnett, an Inglewood, CA native, was drafted in 2005 as a 42th draft pick in the second round to the Dallas Mavericks, according to ESPN. He was signed to a 4-year deal valued at $3.31 million with the team, which included a $1.15 million signing bonus and $1.15 million guaranteed, Spotrac notes. Burnett played for four teams throughout his career, ultimately retiring with the Oakland Raiders in 2014. He earned a total of $20.57 million. In retirement, Burnett took some time to water into his wife and four kids, per Equities.com. He became more immersed in his children’s worlds, which also included sports. This led him to coach his older kids’ football and baseball team, sparking a newfound purpose. “Hey, this is where I see my purpose,” Burnett explained. “It’s where I see my angle.” In 2020, he secured a position at McArthur High School in Hollywood, FL, as a football coach. With poverty and...

Fearless Fund is claiming victory following a settlement that dissolved one of its grant programs. What Happened As AFROTECH™ previously reported, Fearless Fund had been in a legal battle with legal activist Edward Blum and his American Alliance for Equal Rights group over the firm’s Strivers Grant program — a Blum-led group had earlier challenged race-based affirmative action policies and won in the Supreme Court. The grant program, backed by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Mastercard, supported Black-owned women businesses with $20,000 in funding, per information shared by “CBS Mornings.” The lawsuit, filed August 2023 in the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, GA, argued it was in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to launch a grant program “open only to Black females,” labeling the move as “explicit racial exclusion.” As a result, several rulings and appeals have been issued. First, the grant program was permitted to continue operating under U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash on...

College student Layla Wallace has secured a grant for her bakery business. Wallace started her Michigan-based business, Layla’s Cool Pops, when she was just 10 years old after being inspired by her fourth grade economics project in 2015, MLive reports. At the time, she did not have any proper knowledge of what it would take to run a business and be successful, but she is only becoming wiser in light of her steps in higher learning as a business student at Western Michigan University. “When I started the business, I didn’t know anything,” Wallace told the outlet. “I’m taking courses that are helping me develop my business, teaching me the fundamentals of how to function, develop, and grow.” In the meantime, Wallace continues to run Layla’s Cool Pops in Kalamazoo, MI. She sells cupcakes in flavors such as confetti, pink lemonade, red velvet, and lemon, among others, as well as cookie pops, cake pops, brownies, and pies. Orders are currently being fulfilled from her home, and the...

The 2024 NFL is in full swing, but players are still finalizing deals and securing contracts. One of the most lucrative deals recently announced was that of Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Prescott entered the league in 2016 as the round four, 135th pick. In the 2023-2024 season, he completed 410 passes for 4,516 yards and 36 touchdowns. This level of play has made him a mainstay for the Cowboys organization, prompting high-level negotiations for his most recent contract. According to Spotrac data, Prescott inked a four-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys worth $240 million. The contract includes a $80 million signing bonus and guarantees totaling $231 million, with an average annual income of $60 million. For the 2024 season, Prescott is set to receive a base salary of $1.25 million, along with the $80 million signing bonus. The contract extension was completed after the season-opener vs. the Cleveland Browns. However, the 31-year-old athlete didn’t let the lingering deal...

Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman now holds a stake in the league where he once played. Bridgeman was drafted to the NBA in 1975 and selected by the Los Angeles Lakers as an eighth pick in the first round, Basketball Reference reports. Bridgeman continued his career in the league with nine seasons for the Milwaukee Bucks, followed by a two-year stint with the Los Angeles Clippers, before returning to the Bucks for his final season and retiring in 1987, Sports Illustrated mentions. At his highest, he earned $350,000 in a single season, as AFROTECH™ previously reported. However, his fortune greatly increased beyond the NBA, amassing a reported $600 million. His business portfolio has included Wendy’s and Chili’s restaurant franchises, although he later sold his stakes in 2016 and soon after became a Coca-Cola distributor. The basketball veteran is also the owner of Ebony and Jet Magazine as of 2020. He purchased the publications for $14 million after they filed for bankruptcy. In a...

Kevin Hart’s vegan restaurant chain has quickly closed. As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the comedian launched Hart House in 2022 — with the promise of opening more — alongside what he called a premiere lineup of associates and industry pioneers. Its first location opened in Westchester, CA, near the Los Angeles International Airport, Eater reports. “I am THRILLED to announce that I have collaborated with an All-Star team of partners and industry leaders to create an industry-changing restaurant called ‘Hart House,’” Hart wrote on Instagram at the time. “This thing is going to be HUGE! We’re going to serve delicious, sustainable food, that delivers ‘Can’t-Believe-It’ Flavor in every bite!!! We’ll be opening our first few locations in the LA area, but we will be expanding quickly.” Hart House did deliver on its word to grow the business. By 2024, Hart House had extended its portfolio with three additional California locations: Monrovia, University Park, and Hollywood. The draw has...

Buying a home can be an overwhelming and expensive purchase. On Friday, August 30, 2024, the current national average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 6.38%. The interest rates have gotten so high that John Hope Bryant , the founder of Operation HOPE , is trying to convince people that a 40-year mortgage plan is more fair. But when first-time homeowners and first-time investors are listening to Realtors, real estate attorneys and mortgage lenders discuss percentage rates, it may not seem as clear. That is, until new homeowners see property and interest (P&Is) really affect their monthly budget. (Varying property taxes can make budgeting even more complicated.) Photo credit: ArtTower Using Chicago as an example, if you bought a home in the Windy City right now (with very good credit between 700-739) for the city’s average home value of $305K , you’d pay about $1,729 per month for P&I. If that sounds high, the average rent in Chicago is $1,836 per month for a...

Edy Lawson-Jackson has made history in the NFL alongside her daughter, Samira, according to The Baltimore Sun. Growing up in Baltimore, MD, Lawson-Jackson had many dreams, including wanting to pursue ballet, gymnastics, and acrobatics. These early aspirations fueled her activities in the band, track and field, as well as becoming homecoming queen. With discipline and creativity as part of her makeup, she developed a passion for writing, language, and history, which ultimately sparked her goal to become a sports and entertainment lawyer. After graduating from Baltimore City College in 1986, she attended Howard University, where she earned a juris doctor degree in 1993, per the outlet. The “Charm City” native also gained experience as an intern under a sports entertainment attorney at a law firm. That same year, despite being in the final stages of pregnancy and experiencing Braxton-Hicks contractions with Samira, she took and passed the Pennsylvania bar exam on the first try. “Listen...

Award-winning chef Kwame Onwuachi’s new restaurant is honoring a Black mathematician. The Nigerian-American restaurateur, raised in New York City, NY, opened Dōgon on Sept. 9, 2024, inside luxury hotel Salamander Washington DC. The fine-dining establishment’s design honors Benjamin Banneker, a mathematician and astronomer who primarily taught himself by watching the stars and studying math textbooks while on his family’s 100-acre farm in Baltimore, MD, according to the Library of Congress. In 1752, Banneker gained recognition for reportedly creating the first all-wood clock in American history . Nearly four decades later, he was among the individuals responsible for designing and surveying Washington, DC, including choosing the sites of the U.S. Capitol building and the White House, among others. Not only was the new restaurant’s grand opening date chosen to commemorate when DC was officially named in 1791, Onwuachi also pays homage to Banneker’s West African Dogon tribe lineage...

As a business owner, bracing yourself for potential setbacks is a matter of survival. It’s necessary and a great business practice that allows you to plan for the future. In the meantime, you’re able to work towards that goal and stay abreast of everything else. Add in politics and you have some new possibilities to consider. You might be wondering what politics has to do with being a business owner. However, the ways in which certain taxes and tariffs waiver directly impacts business profit. No matter your party preference, politics have the power to impact how your business functions. And with steady success and growth being the ideal goal, there are steps that you can take now to ensure they come to fruition. Will the upcoming election shake up your business? Here’s how to get prepared now. Will The Upcoming Election Shake Up Your Business? The short answer is mostly likely, but educating yourself on policies is what will empower you to make the right decisions for your business....

Kevin Johnson’s food venture is rapidly growing. As AFROTECH™ previously told you, the former NBA player who made headlines for becoming the first Black mayor of Sacramento, CA, is the founder of a restaurant venture named Fixins Soul Kitchen. He opened the first location in that very city, which is also his hometown, in 2019, notes Eater Detroit. “I grew up in Oak Park, so that was the poor part of the city of Sacramento, and like every city around the country, it was the underserved community,” Johnson told Eater. “I wanted to do our first Fixins in that neighborhood to prove that we could be successful in the neighborhood I grew up in.” Fixins Soul Kitchen has expanded and now has four locations in the following areas: Sacramento, CA (Oak Park) Los Angeles, CA (LA Live) Tulsa, OK (Black Wall Street) Detroit, MI (Paradise Valley) View this post on Instagram A post shared by Fixins Soul Kitchen (@fixinssoulkitchen) The restaurant’s menu items were inspired by various soul food...