Helping Black-owned businesses get off the ground and into Seattle stores

Half of small businesses fail in their first year. For Black entrepreneurs, the obstacles are even more daunting. Many don’t have the kind of support that white business owners have when launching a new venture. But there are local efforts trying to change that.

One of the biggest challenges is knowing where to start.

“When I first started I asked for help, and no one would help me,” said MariChris Brown, owner of The Brown Pecan.

Inside a commercial kitchen in Tukwila, Brown scoops freshly made candied pecans into 10-ounce bags.

“They’re made with natural organic sugar, cinnamon, sea salt, cayenne, and a little bit of coffee mixed with egg whites,” she explained.

Making the pecans involves stirring the nuts every 15 minutes to prevent them from burning.

The recipe started a family favorite. Then she shared some with coworkers who said they would pay to have more. Her family encouraged her to quit her job working at a Costco warehouse to start her business. But where to get a license? She asked around, but didn’t get an answer until she reached out to the state Department of Agriculture.

“I found a great guy who was willing to help me,” she said. “You need this, and this, and this, and he really kind of walked me through that.”

Along the way she learned about other things that are essential to a business.

“What hurts a lot of Black-owned businesses is we don’t have the capital,” Brown said. “We don’t have parents to help us, or you know, friends. We’re trying to pay the bills ourselves.”

Brown tapped into her 401k funds, which she says catapulted her efforts. Sometimes in business, it’s not just what you know that can make a difference. It’s also who you know.

One of the places where Brown sold her candied pecans was at the Columbia City Night Market. The monthly event has a farmers market vibe. But instead of produce, there are food trucks, handcrafted jewelry, art, and a beer garden. It’s a place for new entrepreneurs like Brown to test the market.

Doc Wilson of the nonprofit Peace Peloton started the night market two years ago. He saw this as a way to help accelerate Black-owned businesses.

“We’re like the beacon that shows people, hey, here’s a business that you may not know about,” Wilson said.

In Seattle, African Americans make up nearly 8% of the city’s population. But according to a 2019 study, Black-owned businesses earn less than 1% of total business revenues in Washington state.

When Wilson first started the night market, there were 10 vendors who signed up. This past month there were 70. The night market takes place every third Saturday of the month, across from PCC’s Columbia City store. That turned out to be a fortuitous location.

The proximity and connections made with PCC staff led to an ad hoc incubator program that guides and coaches vendors on how to make their products “retail ready.”

“They didn’t just help our vendors get their products on store shelves, they help them with the full life-cycle process,” Wilson explained, “like this is how you scale up to not just get your products on our shelves but beyond.”

The incubation program started with seven vendors from the night market. Of the seven, four made it to PCC shelves. The Brown Pecan was one of them. PCC is now Brown’s largest distributor.

As PCC’s senior director of merchandising, Justine Johnson makes product decisions for the co-op’s 16 stores. She says these efforts help fulfill a goal to highlight entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities and provide support so they succeed.

“PCC is in diverse communities, but our shopper base isn’t always as diverse as we think it should be or we’d like them to be,” Johnson said. “I think part of that is the product selection.”

To that end, the co-op is looking to make the incubation program permanent as part of a larger initiative to highlight producers and suppliers from historically excluded communities.

“We recognized that we needed to… really be more intentional in the way that we’re working with and reaching out to members of underrepresented communities and businesses within those communities,” Johnson said.

For MariChris Brown, the process taught her a lot. She knows how to do almost everything except for couple of tasks: social media, which her daughter handles, and her books.

“I know what I’m good at and that’s not what I’m good at,” she said. “And so I got someone to do my books. And let me tell you, that just took 10 years off my life!”

Allocating those tasks allows Brown to spend time on her next goal, which is to find her own commercial kitchen space.