A growing number of Black women are transitioning away from corporate careers to start their own businesses.
Creative Culture Tribe wants to make that journey easier.
The Miami organization is a community dedicated to teaching the business of creativity to Black and brown women creators and entrepreneurs. Led by founder Makisha Noël, Creative Culture Tribe shows women how to create a story for their brand and promote it on social media, a necessity in a day and age when so many sales are driven by online influencers. The goal is to help women turn their passions into thriving ventures and connect them with a community of like-minded people.
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"A lot of women in our community are experts on the product they create," Noël said. "What they may not have is expertise is building a whole businesses around the product and telling its story."
On Oct. 28, Creative Culture Club is bringing together a panel of experts to discuss the challenges that come with working in the creative economy. Hosted at West Elm South Beach, the event aims to create connections and collaborations between South Florida's community of Black creators and entrepreneurs. Speakers will include visual artist and author Reyna Noriega, influencer marketing expert Emmy Petit and wealth advisor Dr. Nicole Garner Scott.
"Whether you work full time in corporate America and want to grow your side hustle, or you're trying to grow your startup's brand on socials, the event is for you," Noël said.
Harnessing the power of brand storytelling and social media marketing is essential as more women of color strike out on their own. According to the Brookings Institution, the number of Black women-owned businesses increased18% between 2017 and 2020, outpacing both women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses. Investing in the growth of Black-owned ventures is one way to promote equity in U.S. business ownership, the report said.
Noël began thinking about creating a space specifically for Black women entrepreneurs when she was a student at Miami Dade College. When she was on campus one day, she saw an ad asking: "Do you want to be America's next top role model?" – a callback to the popular television series "America's Next Top Model." The ad was for a group that matched mentors with elementary school girls.
"That's where my passion for equipping and building up women began," she said.
Years later, she directed that passion to the creator economy. She held the first meeting for the group that would become Creative Culture Tribe in 2017. The first meeting was attended by eight women — and not everyone fully understood why social media was such a key tool for growing their businesses.
"I know it wasn't that long ago, but this was before we were calling people 'influencers,'" Noël said. "It was a slow-moving process. A lot of people didn't understand why they had to use socials to tell their brand's story or what that even meant."
After an activation event during Art Basel in 2019, the group was put on pause during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Creative Culture Tribe's upcoming event marks its return to Miami's entrepreneurial community.
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Now, the group has a wider potential audience than before. The pandemic was marked by a surge of new startups and sparked a change in consumer behavior. Influencer marketing also thrived, as more brands turned to social media to grow their audience when brick-and-mortar shops shuttered.
It also made more aspiring entrepreneurs recognize they could also become creators, Noël said.
"There's a mass exodus of Black and brown women from large corporations," she added. "More people are coming up with exit strategies so they can turn their side hustles into a startup. All of that energy is part of our community."
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