Jatee Kearsley refers to herself as a “generational starter.” The Queens, NY, raised pastry chef is the owner of Je T’aime Patisserie, a business located in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. The naming of the restaurant was intentional as her love for cooking was born in her teenage years while hosting weekly bake sales in front of a building she used to reside in. “You’re a kid and you want money. So what do you do when you want money? You do what you’re good at. And I was always good at baking cakes and cupcakes for my family,” she tells AFROTECH™ during the Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit. “I would invite my friends over and they’ll come and eat cupcakes. I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m going to make money.’ So I took a table outside and just started selling these cupcakes that I was making. Then it just elevated into a passion.” Kearsley would continue to opt for self-teaching even as she pursued culinary education, honing her skills in baking intricate pastries such as macarons and...

There are a plethora of ways to help empower others, and Black entrepreneur Tera Carissa Hodges has created a way that’s both sentimental and personal. The empowerment coach teamed up with Culture Greetings, a female and Black-owned greeting card brand, to empower women, according to Black News. Hodges’ collaboration is an example of how holidays and celebrations shouldn’t be the only time to show love to those around you. The 10 greeting cards within the brand’s breakthrough and empowerment line revolve around trials and tribulations such as breakups and job loss — tough times where one needs support most. “I help people heal from their past by embracing their past and pain and seeing it as purposeful. Everyone has made mistakes, been lied to, endured unfair treatment, etc. But, when you own your story, your story can never own you,” the Black entrepreneur shared. Culture Greetings’ customers can pick a card online and customize it with a personalized message. The cards will then...

TRiBL is a social networking platform on a mission to unite the diaspora. Beginning at the end of this month, TRiBL will rebrand its mobile application to include Pan-African commerce providing greater opportunities to circulate wealth within the Black community. With partnerships from Visa and cryptocurrency firms Circle Internet Financial & Paxos Brokerage, the company will soft launch digital wallets for users to access within the application to monetize approved group chats. Cryptocurrencies will provide Black creators and influencers an opportunity to gain income from fiat rates and greater visibility for fundraising opportunities.

*Editorial Note : The content of this article is based on the author’s opinions and recommendations alone. It has not been previewed, commissioned or otherwise endorsed by any credit card issuer. This site may be compensated through a credit card issuer partnership . This article was last updated Aug 29, 2019. Terms and conditions may have changed. For the most accurate information, please consult the issuer website . If you operate a small business and are thinking about getting a small business credit card , you may have wondered if a business credit card will affect your personal credit history. The short answer is it can, but only if you don’t handle the account responsibly. For a more detailed explanation, read on. In this article: Business card actions that impact personal credit Reporting to the consumer bureaus Being smart with a business card Who’s responsible Business credit cards vs. personal credit cards The bottom line Read: How to Choose a Business Credit Card Business...

Culture Greetings is making greeting cards more inclusive with diverse images and themes that speak to communities of color. The online greeting card startup was founded by tech entrepreneur and business psychologist, Dr. Dionne Mahaffey, who saw a need to create culturally relevant greeting cards that can’t be found in stores. “It’s important for us to be able to see ourselves in products,” Mahaffey said. “Something bearing an image of us with sayings that are specific to us as a people.” Culture Greetings is innovating the slow and antiquated process of searching for the perfect card in the store and making it easier for people to create and send a greeting card to anyone in the U.S. According to the American Greeting Card Association, the average American sends 25 to 30 cards each year, with the most popular being birthday cards. The act of sending someone a greeting card is still meaningful, but now Culture Greetings is giving users the ability to customize cards catered to...

If you or someone you love is an immigrant to the United States, you may be experiencing a great deal of trepidation right now. Not only has Donald Trump’s new cabinet been voracious about rounding up and deporting people from all over the world, they have also expressed interest in closing down the border and locking out any immigrants who they nebulously deem undesirable. This process has already begun, leading to an untold number of families being torn apart. While this is quite tragic, there are several American businesses that have maintained their commitment to the inclusion of migrants, meaning there’s still hope for those who plan to enter the country and stay long-term. Many of these companies are even offering highly competitive roles to newly-minted Americans, particularly in the world of finance and tech. Despite the many challenges that immigrants face, these companies may provide a veritable boom of new workers. This is especially true of massive corporations that have...

Tyler Perry has provided great financial relief for 85-year-old Anniece Tisdale. According to WSMV-4, Tisdale hired an unlicensed contractor to renovate her East Nashville, TN, home to accommodate her disability and growing family. However, the project took a turn for the worse when the contractor abandoned it altogether after not meeting completion expectations. Tisdale was then left with a home unsafe to live in and thousands of dollars lost. After an interview with the local news station, Tisdale was asked by Sherri Shepherd to appear on her “Sherri” talk show, and was joined by her daughter, Yolanda, who revealed that at least $180,000 had been invested into the home renovation project. Yolanda and her husband both took out personal loans and pooled from savings and credit cards to gather the funds. Yolanda also helped to refinance her mom’s mortgage to pay for the $200,000 in renovations. “We signed the contract in January. We were supposed to be f inished March 31. It was a...

Editorial Note: Opinions and thoughts are the author’s own and not those of AFROTECH™. Last week, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would sell “gold card” visas for over $5 million to wealthy foreigners to alleviate the country’s trillion dollars in debt. As he continues to align himself with billionaire oligarchs, sycophants like Vladimir Putin—it’s clear that Trump has never cared for ordinary people. In his statement, he claimed that this new initiative had never been done before. But as always, he is mistaken. Investing large sums of money in citizenship has been in place in various countries across Europe and the Caribbean. The incentive of citizenship for pay—with advantages like limited restrictions and more flexibility—can open the door for wealthy yet dubious individuals to perform illicit activities. While no one can assume that every person who pays upwards of millions of dollars for foreign citizenship is a criminal, the lack of regulations opens up the EU,...