Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday (and its counterpart Green Monday–the second Monday in December) were all dreamed up by retailers to raise the revenue quotient as they slash prices and shout about the dwindling amount of days left to shop.
But conscious consumers are looking for a better reason than discounts to support brands. Recent consumer research by Walmart found that 90% of female customers are willing to go out of their way to buy a product from a woman-owned business. The good news is that they aren’t that hard to find. Over the last decade, there was an increase of women-owned firms totaling 3.5 million, according to the most recent State of Women-Owned Businesses Report. A large majority (78%) of these new businesses are owned by women of color. As of 2016, there were an estimated 1.9 million African-American women-owned firms employing 376,500 workers and generating $51.4 billion in revenues.
Here’s a rundown of some of the founder/owners we’ve come across this year and the inspiration behind their business ideas.
COFFEE
Victoria Lynden is the founder and CEO of Kohana Coffee who was not only the first roaster to bring shelf-stable cold brew to the U.S. market, but also exclusively buys organic, fair traded beans from female growers.
