After his father was murdered on Chicago’s South Side and his mother was sent to prison, Derrius Quarles spent more than 12 years in foster care. Thankfully, a teacher who noticed his intellectual spark urged him to take his education seriously. He listened, worked hard and hustled to get more than $1 million in scholarships before enrolling at Morehouse College in 2012.
One year later, at just 19, Derrius wanted to help others like him do the same. So he got a grant and launched a venture called Million Dollar Scholar, which has since connected 46,000 students to $8 million in scholarships.
I helped Derrius launch his venture through The Resolution Project, the non-profit I co-founded, and was proud to do so. He is, after all, everything the American dream stands for.
So late one night in 2014, I was surprised to get a call from him.
“Oliver,” he asked, sounding worried. “Am I an entrepreneur?”
The question shocked me. Clearly, Derrius embodies what we should mean by the word “entrepreneur.” Derived from the French, the word literally translates as “to undertake something.” Anyone who builds anything can consider themselves one.
But in today’s world, Silicon Valley founders like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk seem to represent the only startup goal worth striving for. Unless you’re a hoodie-wearing billionaire who’s creating apps and disrupting industries, you’ll be dismissed (especially by young people) as unimportant.
Smaller passions that are lower-tech, lower-profit or slower-growth can still be high-reward but aren’t nearly valued enough in our society. To preserve the American dream, we must focus more on the entrepreneurs who escape our notice. We need to celebrate and invest in people like Derrius.
Today, some 28 million small businesses account for over half of American jobs and 66 percent of net new jobs since the 1970s.
According to the Small Business Administration, the US has added 8 million small business jobs in recent decades, while larger companies have slashed 4 million jobs. Our small and medium businesses — usually defined as having 500 or fewer employees, or an average revenue of $7.5 million — are the coral reefs on which our communities grow. Even so, the number of new business startups has been falling for the past 30 years.
Meanwhile, schools all across America steer their most entrepreneurially minded students toward the tech industry, aiming for moonshot companies rather than businesses that are more likely to grow slowly but ultimately survive and help boost an entire community.
A vibrant tech ecosystem is vital, but we need far more startups that create quality jobs with benefits. Uber, Airbnb and freelancing platforms have generated an entire new “gig economy” which allows — and perhaps even encourages — us all to become our own bosses. However, those jobs lack the benefits, pensions and “career” track that folks miss about more predictable businesses.
We must take a new approach.
We need to encourage future entrepreneurs to think small — instead of always big — and connect them with the resources they need to get there.
Across the US, local banks boast a wealth of small-business loans but can’t find enough applicants to snap them up. That’s partly because loan applications are hard to understand and fill out. Communities should be on a mission to partner up with banks, attract local entrepreneurs and train them how to apply.
we need to change the way America thinks about entrepreneurs
For many entrepreneurs, wooing their first investor is the biggest hurdle. The Resolution Project, which I co-founded in 2007, aims to tackle this problem, offering between 60-70 fellowships a year of up to $5,000 — not a ton of money — but as a rule, it is always the first source of capital for a student starting a social venture.
Meanwhile, other nonprofits like Rising Tide and Bunker Labs offer free services including legal and strategic advice for new entrepreneurs. Communities should seek out groups like these and either partner with them or seek to replicate them to give their local economies a boost.
Both the government and the private sector need to invest heavily in small business loan programs, two-to-four-year business degrees and entrepreneurship from veterans, immigrants, farmers, bodega owners — anyone with a good idea — in every community across America.
But, most importantly, we need to change the way America thinks about entrepreneurs.
In 1959, my grandfather, a World War II veteran, plunked down family savings of about $10,000 to found Libby Labs. Half a century later, the company remains a small pharmaceutical packing concern that still employs around 20 people and makes more than a million a year. My grandfather may never have been featured in Tech Crunch, but his contributions mattered — and still do.
In today’s world, entrepreneurship is more important than ever. We need to lift up small-time innovators as the entrepreneurial heroes they really are. Let’s help them build a future as hopeful as the one my grandfather embraced in the wake of the Second World War, and as bright as the one Derrius Quarles is striving for in 2018.