Business
African American focused PurchaseBlack.com winner of 2014 National Black MBA Innovation Challenge
African American focused online shopping mall PurchaseBlack.com is the 2014 Innovation Whiteboard Challenge champion.
PurchaseBlack.com competed against 9 other national semi-finalists in a preliminary round, where three finalists presented before an audience of executives, directors, and America’s preeminent African American business professionals.
“It is hard to express my gratitude and joy at the support I received at the National Black MBA conference” says Brian Williams, founder and CEO of PurchaseBlack.com. “It is easy to get nervous before an audience like that, yet, I tried to channel it into enthusiasm for my business”.
Williams studied African American business success while studying for his Master of Business Administration at the University of Texas, which inspired him to start his business. He has sat on multiple panels as a voice on African Americans in technology, business and entrepreneurship for organizations including: the Urban League Young Professionals; the Thursday Network; the Black Harvard Alumni Organization of Washington DC, and the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Williams plans to use the momentum from the competition to attract more small and medium Black owned or Black servicing businesses to sell their products in PurchaseBlack.com’s 5 categories.
“We have already gone from a few webstores to over 50 businesses and about 1,000 Black owned or Black focused products on PurchaseBlack.com today!
With the connections from the conference, we may be able to get thousands more products soon. We are going in the right direction, and we want to accelerate our growth.”
PurchaseBlack has started a GoFundMe campaign to help grow the business, which can be found at www.GoFundMe.com/PurchaseBlack. “A lot of people believe in what we are trying to do, which is to become the home for African American online shopping, and create a simple way to support Black owned or Black servicing businesses. We hope that people will support our campaign to strengthen our cause and community. We are in this together.”
Businesses are encouraged to visit www.purchaseblack.com/become-a-seller for more information about selling their products (not services) in their own webstore.
Source: Purchase Black LLC