The National Black MBA Association held it’s West Coast Scale-Up Pitch Challenge Regional Competition in the historic business district in Downton Los Angeles, an opportunity for entrepreneurs in various industries a chance to grow their business.
Read More

Javier Evelyn is allergic to pistachios, cashews, fish and casein — the main protein in milk.
He’s not alone. Researchers estimate roughly 15 million Americans, including 6 million children, or one in 13, suffer from potentially deadly food allergies, according to the nonprofit Food Allergy Research & Education.
Read More

Kwame Boler is still cleaning up when it comes to pitching his startup.
Boler, the founder and CEO of NEU, has taken home a grand prize of $50,000 from the National Black MBA Association Scale-Up Pitch Competition. The win follows Boler’s success in GeekWire’s new Elevator Pitch series in which he went up against other entrepreneurs, touting his business during […]

Got ideas?
You can gain access to funding that will help you start or scale your big idea. All you have to do is win over a panel of judges or venture capitalists with your pitch.
Read More

Ibraheem Basir, founder and CEO of the new natural foods company A Dozen Cousins, was working for General Mills, leading new product innovation for its natural foods brand Annie’s, when entrepreneurial inspiration struck.
Read More

Before I met Ibraheem Basir, I didn’t think much about beans. As a kid, I ate canned baked beans and kidney beans, and frankly, I hated them: They were underseasoned and some had a chalky aftertaste. But Basir has built a natural food company called A Dozen Cousins, whose main product is ready-to-eat beans made […]

For A Dozen Cousins’ founder Ibraheem Basir, food is inextricably linked with family. “Food was always a really big deal in my household,” he said. “Food was what brought us together at the end of the days. It’s also the way we celebrated; it’s the way we marked different milestones.”
Read More

Entrepreneur Ibraheem Basir has elevated the humble legume to build a burgeoning beans business. Basir is the CEO and founder of A Dozen Cousins, which offers slow-simmered beans influenced by black and Latino cuisines.
Read More

According to data released by Small Business Trends, only 40% of small businesses are profitable and the start-up failure rate increases each year — what’s the problem? Money. Statistics show that every four out of five businesses fail because of cash-flow problems.
Read More

At NUDEST, our mission is to change the standard of beauty worldwide to match the full range of diversity in everyone’s skin. Since founding the company during my final semester at Harvard Business School, we have worked to achieve this mission by launching NUDEMETER: the first-ever skin tone matching computer vision technology for the fashion […]