Black Entrepreneurs in South Florida reflect on their journey through COVID and BLM
By July 2020, Nzingah Oniwosan knew that the Black community was in need of some serious self-care.
Between COVID-19 and the global uprising for Black lives following George Floyd’s murder, the mental toll had been taxing. People of color, specifically Black women, needed an outlet to find wellness. So with nearly two decades worth of expertise gained from battling her own ailments, Oniwosan decided to create 365Zing, an app that helps users become healthier through meal plans, yoga classes and therapy.
“If the Black woman isn’t well, it doesn’t just impact the Black community, it impacts the world at-large because of the significant role we play within the context of community,” said Oniwosan, a Delray Beach native who lives in Broward County.
Oniwosan was one of thousands of Black Americans who started new businesses in 2020, a year that saw more Black entrepreneurial growth than at any time in the last 25 years, according to the Kauffman Foundation’s annual report. As a small business owner, she is among a small but growing community of Black South Florida entrepreneurs who’ve weathered everything from self-doubt and negative stigmas to COVID-related shutdowns.
Now, having taken the time to reflect during Black Business Month, many Black executives couldn’t help but be grateful for their journey and optimistic about the influx of fellow entrepreneurs.
“The wealth that we need to acquire to get us out of poverty isn’t necessarily accessible through traditional forms of employment,” Oniwosan told the Miami Herald. “Through entrepreneurship, we are able to not just free ourselves as individuals but we can really impact our family by employing them and breaking cycles of poverty.”
An average of 380 per every 100,000 Black adults became new entrepreneurs every month of 2020, the second-highest mark among all groups, according to the Kauffman study. The increase is especially notable considering the disparity between the percent of U.S. population that is Black (13%) and the percent of Black-owned U.S. businesses (2%), according to 2018 Census data. Meanwhile, Black-owned businesses were responsible for just 0.3% of sales in the U.S.
The data underscores one main point: entrepreneurship for Black business owners has never been easy — even before the pandemic.
Leaning on past experiences
When Everton Allen left his creative consulting job in 2016, he knew his next move would be difficult, but “something for my community.” That pride in being a first-generation Jamaican immigrant, or more broadly Black in Miami, spawned The 3o5 Brand, a clothing company that reps Dade County to the fullest. But there was a major issue: he had little idea how to run his own business.
“It’s one thing to want to give your gift to the community but it’s another thing to actually live off that [and] really find the clientele to replace a $60,000 salary,” said Allen, a native of North Miami-Dade.
To succeed, Allen had to not only overcome the odds, but also his own fears.
“My own personal growth has involved [overcoming] self-doubt, imposter syndrome and just not feeling like yourself enough to create,” Allen said. In time, he soon realized that “I’ve earned the right to be confident in myself and my work. The work speaks for itself at this point, so why am I sitting here doubting myself when I literally got a resume that I don’t think really think anybody” can match.
Yvette and Yvonne Rodriguez, the co-owners of Tres Lindas Cubanas Cigars, encountered something similar when they began shopping their cigars in the mid-2010s. The Afro-Cuban sisters started selling at barbecues before eventually breaking into cigar shops and conferences where their womanhood was sometimes met with looks of skepticism.
“They wouldn’t believe we had a cigar brand or knew anything about cigars,” said Yvette. “Being in Miami, they would always assume that we spoke zero Spanish.”
The Rodriguez sisters never looked at being a woman in the tobacco industry as a detriment. Their grandma introduced them to cigars and, they say, set an amazing example since day one.
“We don’t come from a family that owned a cigar brand in Cuba or anything like [that],” said Yvette. “No, we are cigar smokers who grew up with a cigar-smoking grandmother who always empowered us as Black women.”
Michelle Davis, the owner of Spoilt, a nail salon in Miami Gardens, also saw her Blackness as an advantage. Davis immigrated from England in 2006 with plans to become a manicurist, a passion she had enjoyed since the age of 18. With many nail salons focused on mass production, she wanted to bring a specific service that the industry lacked.
“I wanted to give a different experience,” said Davis, who prides herself on her “one-on-one service,” punctuality and “great conversation.” Working directly with all of her clients also allows her to push back on the stigma that Black people “don’t give good customer service,” she said.
When Davis opened Spoilt in 2011, business came slow at first. Adaptability soon became her best asset, though choosing to work around her clients’ schedules often meant long days and no weekends. Word soon began to spread — there aren’t too manynail salons in Miami-Dade County owned by Black women, let alone one with a British accent — and the results have her thinking of expanding her current location to include a spa.
Business “just went crazy,” said Davis. “I am slammed. I can’t take any new customers at the moment.”
What changed in 2020
Whatever plans entrepreneurs had for 2020 quickly became afterthoughts when COVID-19 struck South Florida.
COVID-19 regulations forced Davis to shutdown Spoilt for 90 days. Allen, whose 3o5 Brand had begun to thrive in the four years since its inception, could no longer do the pop-up shops that became huge revenue generators. The Rodriguez sisters’ income from cigar shops slowly dissipated.
Many others didn’t survive. About 40% of Black-owned firms closed in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak versus 20% of all active U.S. businesses, according to research by Robert Fairlie, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Eric Knowles, president of the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce, said there’s no definitive number on how many Black businesses exist in South Florida. That said, he believes Black-owned companies are in a state of “flux,” with many having gone under and others flourishing over the last two years. The difference between succeeding and failing, according to Knowles, often comes down to a combination of relationships and pivoting.
“Building relationships within the community” is pivotal to success, he said, because it allows entrepreneurs to interact with “like-minded people.” He said many of “the businesses that won’t come back” didn’t have good relationships with bank managers or with a chamber to help shepherd them through turbulent times.
Knowles added that many of the businesses that grew did so by “providing services” related to the pandemic like supplying PPE and marketing safe social distancing practices.
Turbulence and triumph
When the novel coronavirus emerged, Oniwosan’s 365Zing was still nothing more than a dream, one that had encountered its fair share of deterrence in the form of pricey coding classes and feigned interest.
“It’s hard to be a woman in tech,” Oniwosan said. “Sometimes when you go into these spaces, instead of getting the help that you thought you were [going to get], people are approaching you from a point of attraction and they really honestly don’t want to help you.”
What wasn’t expected, however, was what came next. As the scorching days of summer gave way to a more tolerable fall, fortunes began to change. Some business owners say the influence of George Floyd, whose murder spawned a worldwide reexamination of Blackness, cannot be overlooked as a catalyst.
“After George Floyd, everybody wanted to support Black businesses and they wanted an environment that I provide,” Davis said.
That it may have taken the untimely death of a Black man in Minneapolis to spur such an interest in Black business is a strange concept. Allen, forever the optimist, chose to focus on the positive of the situation.
“I saw it as, this could maybe be a turning point for us as a people,” Allen said. The protests “inspired me more to do something.”
The results, however, could not be more clear: the Rodriguez’s cigars began to fly off the virtual shelves; Allen had his best day of sales following a collaboration with Betr, and Davis’ salon reopened to a deluge of customers.
Although 365Zing was still a work in progress, Oniwosan’s Instagram inbox became flooded with companies in need of a Black wellness expert, a trend she says made the app more successful upon its release in December 2020.
“It was kind of surreal,” said Oniwosan, whose Instagram account generates much of her contract work. In just 12 months, her follower count jumped from 16,000 to 35,000. “It was as if people got bullied into following me. “
More the merrier
What the future holds for each business is unknown. The threat of another shutdown looms like a dark cloud as COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Florida. With the number of Black entrepreneurs having increased in 2020, they each could harbor some level of concern about a crowding market. That could not be further from the case.
“It’s beautiful to see because before, there was no Black at all [in the cigar business],” said Yvette, who claims her business as the first Black-women-owned cigar company in America.
Oniwosan sees the influx of new Black entrepreneurs as a blessing, especially when it comes to 365Zing. She of all people knows how quickly burnout can begin to affect an entrepreneur’s psyche. Her app, Oniwosan believes, could be one of the many tools that keep new business owners from giving up too soon.
“Too often entrepreneurs will experience burnout,” she said, “because they didn’t have someone who can help them.”
If you go:
365Zing
▪ Nzingah Oniwosan
▪ 2020
▪ self-care app for Black women
▪ https://www.365zing.com/, @365zing on Instagram
The 3o5 Brand
▪ Everton Allen
▪ 2017
▪ Miami-Dade-themed apparel company
▪ https://the-3o5.myshopify.com/, @the3o5_ on Instagram
Tres Lindas Cubanas Cigars
▪ Yvette and Yvonne Rodriguez
▪ 2014
▪ Cuban cigars
▪ https://treslindascubanascigars.com/, @treslindascubanascigars on Instagram
Spoilt
▪ Michelle Davis
▪ 2011
▪ Nail salon
▪ 20352 NW 2nd Ave, Miami Gardens, FL 33169
