RICHMOND, Va. -- After her father passed away a few years ago, Kecia Allen began making beet tea for herself.
Soon enough, the people in her circle she gave it to began asking to buy some from her.
“I don’t know what happened, it just got downloaded into me. I just started making it, and I went and bought beets. I don’t buy beets. I don’t even eat beets," Allen said. "The tea just came about as something that I liked and I realized it was healthy.”
Allen planned to start a small business with her tea as a featured product, but after taking part in a few sessions of an entrepreneurial program run locally by the Metropolitan Business League (MBL), those plans changed.
“I promise you it was a day, like the first day, there was a total mind bend. All I wanted to do was get my tea on the market, that was it. Now, I want a whole business," Allen said.
The program called the Kauffman FastTrac, takes place across the country, and MBL enrolls 30 local entrepreneurs who are either about to start a business or are in the early stages.
The cohort works together over ten weeks honing their business plan, learning the basics of launching a company, and hearing the "do's and don'ts" from successful small business owners already up and running.
"We’re going to start at your lifestyle: what is your entrepreneurial lifestyle like? What are you expecting to get from this big change? All the way up to when you’ve started a cash flow and looking at those financials and deciding your cost and your selling price. Really making sure you understand what that entails before you hit the market," said Lauren Boswell, Director of Entrepreneurship at MBL.
"This is most of their first time thinking of a business plan, and so it’s really impactful that they’re together and working through as a group.”
Boswell said beyond working through the coursework in a group setting, the networking opportunities the cohort receives set them off on the right foot.
"The benefit of the cohort experience is allowing business owners from Richmond to not only support each other and help each other through the program but to support each other and make those connections across their careers," she said.
"The information in there just captured me and made me want to start a full-fledged health and wellness business rather than just a tea for sales," said Allen, who is three weeks into the program.
Allen said the lessons and work expanded her view of what her business could and should do to remain viable. She plans to launch a wellness business focused on active aging, hopefully early next year.
“My whole love is in fitness, photography, and then health and nutrition," Allen said. “If you think of Africa where your elders are the ones who pass down all the information, we need to do that. We need to be able to be here to pass down the information.”
While Allen and her cohort continue learning about market position and business fundamentals, she hopes others with big ideas realize there is help out there.
“Keep your ideas in front of your emotions," Allen said. "You cannot take an idea that you think is brilliant and think that everyone else won’t think the same thing. Just get it out there because somebody is under the same umbrella you’re under and needs what you’re about to give but doesn’t have the idea. So just get it out there!”
MBL runs the 10-week program twice a year, and you can find more information and resources on their website or email Boswell directly at lboswell@thembl.org.
If you're interested in Allen's HiBerry Beet Tea, you can text 804-677-2377.
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