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Interise: Enabling Small Businesses to Grow

September 20, 2016
Jean Horstman, Chief Executive, Interise

Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of all U.S. employers. That's why when small businesses thrive, our economy and communities thrive.

Yet 96 percent of small businesses fail in the first 10 years of operation.

We need to resolve this shortfall to create more jobs, strengthen cities' local economies, and create more diversity among successful business owners.

That's why Interise developed the StreetWise 'MBA'™, an intensive, hands-on, 13-week mini MBA program to help small business owners with demonstrated potential survive that hazardous and critical start-up phase. CEOs who have themselves achieved early business growth and are motivated to build their own business skills and their network of peer entrepreneurs act as advisors to the program and its participants.

StreetWise 'MBA'™ entrepreneurs graduate with a three-year strategic growth action plan and the tools, peer and professional networks needed to implement it. In addition, after completing the program small business owners find themselves far better equipped to successfully bid on contracts with government and anchor institutions.

On average, businesses that participate in the program create jobs at eight times the annual rate of the private sector. These are often jobs in communities where both the employment opportunities and vital services small businesses provide are sorely needed. And, as Interise small businesses grow, they contribute to local economic development. In 2015, 71% of employees at alumni companies were hired from local communities, with an average salary of $62,000.

Moreover, Interise business owners – 42% women, 61% minorities and 10% veterans – become stronger advocates for local residents and fellow business owners.

Citi Community Development has been an important supporter in advancing our approach, both in our hometown of Boston and in other key urban U.S. markets. In addition to generous funding, Citi has shared its expansive network to help us find new partners and advocates to scale our program nationally. For example, through the NYC Anchor Connections initiative, and in partnership with the City of New York's Department of Small Business Services, Citi has enabled us to offer the StreetWise 'MBA'™ to minority and women-owned local businesses at two world-class New York City universities, the Stern School of Business at New York University and Columbia University. Through these programs, along with a third class launched earlier this year with the NYC Economic Development Corporation for Bronx-based minority and women-owned businesses, we estimate that over three years, more than 625 jobs will be created or saved at participating companies. Participants also have the benefit of Citi business bankers volunteering their financial advice and expertise in each class.

In addition, Citi's support has been critical to enhancing our curriculum and expanding its focus on securing contracts with government and anchor institutions, including hospitals and universities, so that graduates have a fair opportunity to compete for contracts and scale their businesses even faster and larger. This has helped Interise businesses secure $1.4 billion in government, corporate, and institutional contracts since 2014.

For example, Tom Hernandez, owner of DBC Technologies, an IT service firm, had no formal business training before he entered this program. For over ten years, his self-described management style was to "shoot from the hip." But in the year since graduating, Tom states, "we achieved our target of 30 percent growth. Getting there was a challenge and I owe it all to the StreetWise MBA program and Professor Cynthia Franklin at NYU. In a nutshell, we eliminated our low-performing clients, then focused on spending more time with active clients, finding opportunities to provide additional services, increasing our rates, and asking for help with referrals. This led to new client inquiries and, ultimately, to new paying clients."

Together, we're not just creating jobs. We're creating robust economic ecosystems for the resilience of minority and women-owned businesses, the people they employ and the communities they serve – one small business at a time.

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