Colorado Springs Black Business Network working to fix an ‘unacceptable’ problem
Rodney Gullatte Jr. says starting the Colorado Springs Black Business Network is the scariest endeavor of his life, but he’s out to fix a problem he doesn’t think would get solved otherwise.
“I’ve met black business owners that have said, ‘I feel confident when I’m sending emails for business or when I’m talking on the phone, but I feel when I meet these people in person, they don’t take me seriously,’” Gullatte said. “That’s unacceptable. And there’s no organization here to help black businesses not feel that way.”
The network held its inaugural meeting Monday night, expanding resources that include the 26-year-old Colorado Springs Black Chamber of Commerce.
The new organization piqued the interest of professionals from the roofing industry to business coaching and even of the Democratic nominee for the 5th Congressional District, Stephany Rose Spaulding, who added to the theme of black representation in Colorado Springs.
“We have never had a woman or a person of color of any party represent this district,” Spalding said. “So now is the time we can think about this legacy that we want to leave our children’s children.”
Emerald Taylor said she understands the process of building self-assurance at the outset of business endeavors. As a consultant at Leading Ladies, she helps women-owned businesses with social media marketing.
“I went through a lot of changes within myself that spilled over to my business,” Taylor said. “And because of the changes I had to make in myself, I had to see where I wanted to help that niche market of women who needed help to reinvent themselves, relaunch them with the confidence they might not have had back then.”
While Taylor’s work focuses on women entrepreneurs, she said the Black Business Network will provide exposure for African-American businesses, which are only a fraction of the businesses in Colorado Springs.
In 2012, the city had 6,380 minority-owned firms compared with 31,109 non-minority firms, U.S. Census Bureau data show.
Charles Walk, a software development coach at Coding Soldiers, said he appreciates Gullatte’s launch of the Black Business Network. He said he noticed on his return to Colorado Springs a difference in the black business community. “I can make comparisons, and it wasn’t like this before,” Walk said.
Gullatte said he isn’t sure why local black business leaders aren’t better connected. In Atlanta, he said, black people often served in leadership roles.
“Here, it’s not like that,”he said. “I don’t know if they’re scared to come out and be in an all-white room. It’s uncomfortable, I’m not going to lie.
Still, he said, he wants the greater Colorado Springs business community to see that he’s “not a unicorn.”
“There are other black, articulate people in suits,” he said.
The 501-C6 nonprofit group he’s starting might help the community see that, too. It next meets at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at Spice Island Grill, 10 N. Sierra Madre St.
Charles Walk, a software development coach, and Erik Huffman, a cyber education consultant, talk at the Black Business Network’s first event at the DoubleTree on Monday.