People turn into entrepreneurs at different points in their life and for different reasons.
Some get the drive early.
The second annual Buffalo Inno 5 Under 25 feature finds a new crop of young adults working vigorously on their startup companies.
They will join a broader community of Western New York entrepreneurs that has gained an increasing sense of purpose over the past decades, as a way to express professional ambitions and turn dreams into life-changing wealth.
Flock to corporate safety? These five could certainly do that.
They’d rather build something with their own hands.
Malkijah Griffiths, 24
Team Real Talk • https://www.teamrealtalk.com/
Malkijah Griffiths and co-founder Sonya Tareke have quickly made waves in Buffalo over the past year with their DEI-focused startup, Team Real Talk.
Real Talk wraps a high-growth business model around a hot corporate topic, using its proprietary software to start and track workplace conversations about diversity, equity and inclusion.
The company won the region’s premiere collegiate entrepreneurship challenge – the University at Buffalo’s Panasci competition – earlier this year and also went through UB’s Cultivator accelerator program.
Griffiths is a Queens native who entered UB in 2015 and graduated in May with master’s degrees in public health and business. He became Real Talk’s first full-time employee this summer.
The plan is to expand Real Talk’s network of customers in Western New York, then to spread its wings beyond the region.
“I have a strong passion for health care and entrepreneurship, and I’ve always dreamed of having a business that is mine, that can appreciate,” Griffiths said earlier this year. “I can tell it’s going to be a hard road, but the beauty is the journey and the learning along the way.”
