Small business loan crowdfunding platform Honeycomb Credit and business assessment platform Sustainible IO announced the formation of a new partnership that is aiming to better equip emerging startups in southwestern Pennsylvania with complementary business assessment tools.
It's the latest partnership for the two Pittsburgh-based startups and it will result in them tapping into their respective strengths as part of a plan that's vying to provide up to 100 small businesses with personalized and tailored feedback that could then help take them to the next stage in their development.
"We're always hearing that capital readiness can be really daunting, there's no clear path to; how do you get a business ready for capital … It can be really scary and frustrating for a lot of business owners to figure out: 'How can I get ready to take on a loan to take my business to the next level, to turn a hobby into a full-time business that can support me and my family and get the business to the place I want it to be?'" George Cook, Honeycomb's co-founder and CEO, said. "We're working with Sustainible to help businesses have these really tangible, bite-sized actions they can take to demystify the process and just get on that path to 'bankability' as some call it, but really kind of readiness to take on a loan and invest in the business and take that next step."
Following the completion of Sustainible's 10-minute assessment tool, business owners are given insights into their business' strengths and weaknesses, as well as consulting services on how certain sectors can be improved. Cook said the businesses Honeycomb and Sustainible are looking to reach out to about this endeavor will ideally be those that haven't taken on capital before but that are looking to do so in the future. There's no requirement that these businesses take on a loan through Honeycomb's platform, either, though that option will of course exist should a business be inclined to do so following its participation in the endeavor.
"Our overall mission at Sustainible is to get businesses not only capital ready but to help them be sustainable long-term, and capital is a core piece of that long-term viability, whether it's their own revenue generated or them receiving capital from an institution," Talpha Harris, CEO and co-founder of Sustainible, said. "The fact that we're able to help them create that action plan or that roadmap to capital readiness, especially for minority-owned businesses where capital can sometimes be an obstacle, it's like living the dream. I'm definitely excited to do that."
Cook said one of the concepts he's most excited about as a result of the partnership is seeing the potential commonalities of issues affecting small businesses, which could emerge once a significant number of these small businesses complete the assessment.
"Is it, 'oh it's really hard to get my social media set up and it's really hard to engage with my customers,' or is it getting my books in order or finding a bookkeeper I can really trust and count on is a challenge for me," Cook said. "We hear all these things all the time but to kind of put people through one funnel and actually have real data to see what are the common hiccups and challenges on that roadmap that business owners are facing allows us to start to work with Sustainible and other partners to be really proactive to create tools so business owners can navigate that process on their own and we can connect them with the right resources to get them ready."
But on top of that, Harris said the partnership implications and the results from it could go even further.
"These trends that are identified, other organizations can be built out of that," Harris said. "Say everyone in Pittsburgh is struggling with marketing. Marketing firms can be created out of that and say, 'hey there's a need to help people with marketing.' It is like a ripple effect that can definitely be generated out of the program and also we can see what we're really doing well here in Pittsburgh as well, and continue to form programs and provide support in those areas, too."
