Business
Eric Hamilton: An entrepreneur partners to create iPhone App that supports black-owned businesses
Eric Hamilton, Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Around The Way
Around The Way, a New York-based company, and Clearly Innovative, a Washington, D.C.-based mobile-app development firm, have launched a mobile app that backers claim will empower and support black-owned businesses.
“Other ethnic groups have been supporting their own businesses literally for thousands of years,” said Eric Hamilton, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Around The Way. “Around The Way is our attempt at doing what other ethnic and racial groups have been doing for a long time.”
The app, currently available only for the Apple iPhone, helps users find the nearest black-owned business. iPhone owners can download the app from the Apple app store.
“The app can locate 17,000 black-owned businesses in all 50 states. Many of the businesses are located in New York City, and other major metropolitan areas,” Hamilton wrote in an e-mail to The NorthStar News & Analysis.
The U.S. Census Bureau Survey of Black-Owned Business: 2007, which was released on February 8, 2011, reported that there were more than 1.9 million black-owned firms in 2007, which was a 60 percent increase from 2002. The companies reported US$137 billion in revenues in 2007.
Washington, D.C., Georgia, Maryland, Mississippi and Louisiana reported the largest percentage of black-owned firms in 2007, according to the survey. A black-owned firm is defined as any firm with 51 percent African-American owners.
Around The Way is partnering with the New York African American Chamber of Commerce and other black chambers with a goal of empowering black-owned businesses by encouraging owners to download the Around The Way app; encouraging users to patronize businesses with their company information on the Around the Way app; and maintaining the integrity of the information on black-owned businesses with the Around the Way app.
