Twenty-one years ago, Dr. Tiffany Bussey walked into Morehouse College with a body of contract work and a simple proposition. The institution would provide an office. Everything above operating costs would come back to the school. Then-dean Dr. John Williams said “yes,” and that conversation became the foundation of the Morehouse Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center. Since formally launching, MIEC has generated over $355 million in revenue, created more than 1,100 jobs and reached over 2,500 students across disciplines.
Twenty-one years ago, this whole discussion of entrepreneurship was in its very early stages. As far as academic institutions are concerned, we were still debating whether or not you can teach entrepreneurship, or whether it was something innate, that you had to be born with it.
We had a body of contract work and approached Morehouse and said, we can actually execute on these at no cost for the institution. The dean of the business school at the time, Dr. John Williams, said, “are you saying that we provide you an office and everything above cost of doing this type of work comes back to the institution, to help our students understand what it means to be entrepreneurial?” And I shook my head and said, “yes, sir, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.” The vision of that dean and the trust he placed in me to lead this work really came at an opportune time.
I want to push back on that. Yes, access to capital is perhaps the main paradigm, but it’s not the only thing. If you have capital and you don’t have customers, you still will not succeed. The understanding of where your customers are, and that you are selling something people actually want, is the most important question. Many times entrepreneurs do not take the time to validate the idea. They jump immediately. “I had a dream, and with this idea, I’ll build it and [customers] will come.” And they don’t come.
That said, we have the Atlanta Flex Fund, a debt fund for seed capital at 0% interest. We do not consider a credit score as one of the primary criteria. Traditional loans look at credit score, which is a historical picture of what happened to you in the past.
For people in our community, many times we have had experiences that don’t allow for that credit score to be at the place where it needs to be. So we are in this cyclical circle of not ever catching up. In order to truly disrupt and have capital be readily available for our entrepreneurs, we have to think differently about how we process capital and how we underwrite it.
Entrepreneurship for us is one of the pathways to reduce that income inequality gap we have in this country, where for Black and Brown folks, really at less than 10 times the amount of net worth of our white counterparts. We have about 3,000 students at Morehouse, and we’re training them to not only go and get jobs but hopefully to create companies to create jobs.
Our students will probably not start companies in their four years here at Morehouse, but our hope is that by introducing them to the method of how you test and validate ideas, they may go off after graduation and see opportunities to solve problems in society. And hopefully we will see a decrease in the rate at which businesses fail.
The Dream Makers Summit had over 150 students presenting their ideas from all disciplines, with over 500 participants. We had a biology major trying to solve lead in the water, a student with a sneaker design, students doing poetry, musicians from the band. Creativity and innovation occurs in all disciplines. Whether you’re a scientist or a musician, you too can be an entrepreneur.
When we think traditionally of an author, you probably don’t see them as an entrepreneur, but when you break down exactly what they had to do, they had to come up with an idea for a book, find funding for it, and once they did that, find a publisher. There is a business behind everything that we do.
We’re collaborating with the 44th and 3rd Foundation, which owns a bookstore about 2 blocks from campus. We’re excited about bringing exposure to Black authors. We know we’re in a time that our history is being erased and books are being taken away from the shelves. So we have to focus on creating that business model to encourage our community to be writers and to keep writing our stories, because if not, history will repeat itself.
We are in some very troubling times, and we are seeing more applications than we have ever seen in the history of this institution. What we’re hearing is that students want to be in a place that is welcoming, that sees them for who they are, and where they don’t have to prove themselves or always have a mask on.
I just finished reading Percival Everett’s James, and he talks about needing to wear a mask and having languages for when you are in mixed communities. That still occurs today. We still have to code switch when we’re in mixed company.
The student that comes to Morehouse or any HBCU is having a time of focusing on their education without that pressure. This is like Wakanda once you’re on campus. But I tell my own students here that we have an onus as faculty members to truly prepare you for what happens out there. For the four years you’re with us, you have that safe space to explore and grow and really figure out who you want to be, so that when you get out there, you understand who you are and don’t have to doubt yourself.
From our website, mcecenter.com, or morehouse.edu. Follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn. Most of our work is cohort-based. We are opening applications very shortly for an upcoming cohort that deals with what I call middle market firms, well over a million dollars, focusing on B2G, business to government.
If you have a business in the federal space or trying to do business with any government, that program will probably be for you. We also do construction, so for those in the trades, electricians, plumbers, we connect you with general contractors for large work. Our work is focused on revenue generation. Capital and contracts bring you revenue.
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