Build in Huffington Post
"There is no lack of people within Detroit's neighborhoods who want to collaborate. April Boyle, Executive Director of Build Institute, a network of grass-roots programs that train people to bring their business ideas to life, says more attention and investment needs go to into community entrepreneurship. To date, Build has graduated 600 aspiring and experienced community entrepreneurs. Build fosters growth for what they call Main Street entrepreneurs-- brick and mortars or mom and pop lifestyle passion businesses--that are looking to open businesses in their community. "We need both the investment paid to tech and high-growth companies but we also need...
Welcome Eric: Recruitment and Registration Coordinator
We're so excited to welcome Eric Dean to our Build team as our new Registration and Recruitment Coordinator. Eric will manage all the registration process for our Build classes as well as outreach to more aspiring and established entrepreneurs. Get to know Eric a little bit more in this Q&A. Where were you born and raised? I am born and raised in Detroit, MI. I love to traveling and sightseeing but nothing beats Detroit. What made you want the position of Registration and Recruitment Coordinator at Build Institute? Each one of the Build staff, graduates, and volunteers I met were very welcoming and...
Build Facilitator: Top 5 Pieces of Advice from a Startup Lawyer
Our Build facilitator Tifani Sadek of Sadek Bonahoom is known as the small business lawyer in Detroit. She's worked with tons of companies including many of our own Build grads. Here she shares her top pieces of legal advice for entrepreneurs. Do not get your legal advice from the internet. It is a good idea to get a good general background so that you can have a knowledgeable conversation with your lawyer, but do not get your legal advice from the internet. I have seen startups bring me some of the worst contracts I could ever imagine that they found on...
Woodbridge Bikes and Coffee: The story of partnership through Build
For many of our graduates, Build Institute is a place to toss around a business idea, find support in an entrepreneurial environment, and get connected to a network of doers that welcome collaboration. For some, Build becomes the place where they found exactly what they needed to launch their idea – a business partner. Jonathon Colo and Benjamin Kehoe applied for the same Build Basics class in Spring 2015 with similar business concepts, but with no knowledge of one another. Neither of them went into the Build class with the sole intention of finding a partner, but knew it was...
Kiva Zip’s Impact: Three borrowers share their experience, growth, and success
Kiva Zip, a 0% interest, crowdfunded micro-loan program, has been in Detroit for 3 years and has had tremendous positive impact on small business owners. This program, now powered by Build Institute, fills a gap in Detroit for entrepreneurs trying to access capital to take their business to the next level, and creates community where individuals from Southeast Michigan and all over the world can have an active role in creating opportunity and rebuilding Detroit for as little as a $25 loan. In only a few years there has been more $106,200 over 27 loans funded in Detroit and that number is growing every month....
Embracing Human Nature: Entrepreneurship
It’s a funny thing about humans, our propensity to be natural-born problem solvers. We constantly want to fix things, to improve and make them better. This past year I’ve learned that’s why so many of the people moving to or staying in Detroit have intentionally done so. Detroit is a place full of problems that need solutions and, for the determined problem-solvers, it has become their home. Over the course of the last year, I’ve also embraced a new word for these innate problem-solvers-- entrepreneurs. Think about it. At their core, entrepreneurs...
Forward Cities Featured Post from Build’s Executive Director April Boyle
"When I first heard of Forward Cities and their goals of advancing minority ownership and commercial corridor redevelopment I was over the moon with excitement, as these are the key tenants of our work at Build Institute. I was able to attend the very first convening in New Orleans in December 2014 and was taken with the parallels in the stories of the natural disaster, which many argue was manmade due to faulty levies, and the unquestionably manmade disaster in Detroit after 50 years of disinvestment, structural and institutional racism, the housing...
Sidewalk Ventures: Are you ready to start raising community-based investment for your business?
"Seeking community-based investment is exciting. With the right team in place, it can be relatively user-friendly and easy to understand, but it still involves asking people to take real financial risk with you. There will be some serious issues to address and information to provide. You're an entrepreneur, so you're probably a doer and you like to get things moving, but it's important to make sure you're prepared before you start looking to the community for investment. Want to know if you're ready? Start by answering these questions.." Read more at Sidewalk Ventures here.
Lapel Bar: From running a family business to opening my own
Think about it, it’s pretty safe to say that we as people have encountered someone that has said the words “I hate my job.” But typically, these same individuals that create these harsh statements rarely find themselves leaving this particular job of theirs until something pushes them over the boiling point. No, this is not an article about how I reached my boiling point. We can save that great story for another date and time. Today is about how I knew I’d become a business owner. Growing up with parents that were successful business owners themselves, it was difficult to...
It Takes a Village: A case study of collaborative entrepreneurship in Detroit
On the eastside of Detroit, minutes past the buzz of the city’s freshly developing urban sprawl, sits the quaint neighborhood of West Village. The streets are quieter – the loudest sounds those of saws grinding from renovation sites screeching, “The revitalization is here. It has taken root.” In the last few years, new storefronts have popped up in the neighborhood with increasing frequency among the community gardens and turn-of-the-century homes. With a handful of established shops in the neighborhood, doors all ready open, and several more set to open this year and next, it...