In February 2014, we launched Uptima Entrepreneur Cooperative to provide holistic and culturally relevant education, advising, and community to support diverse entrepreneurs in creating thriving businesses in service to their communities. Since then we’ve supported more than 700 individuals to start, plan, grow, fund, lead, and keep their businesses in their communities. And along the way, we’ve hit some pretty amazing milestones.
Uptima was born from our founder’s experiences – growing up in an immigrant family that leveraged entrepreneurial activities and cooperative economics as a means for financial stability, as an investment banker advising businesses at all stages, working on the founding team of a higher education startup, and collaborating with others who had experience in agricultural cooperatives. But mainly, we’re passionate about making the knowledge, language, and processes of starting, planning, growing, funding, leading, and keeping a business accessible and relevant to our local communities.
Our holistic and culturally relevant education and business advising give diverse entrepreneurs the tools and support to build financial sustainability and personal success, while creating positive social, environmental, and economic impact. Our programs support entrepreneurs throughout the journey of starting, planning, growing, funding, leading, and keeping their businesses in their communities.
Entrepreneurs and workers in Uptima have the opportunity to become owners of the cooperative. This structure provides a means for entrepreneurs to compound the wealth building activities of their businesses. Not only do our cooperative members own their businesses, but they own a piece of their business support provider. And through that, they are literally investing in past, present and future businesses in their community.
Entrepreneurship is seen as a pathway to creating individual, family, and community wealth. Because starting and growing a business requires an entrepreneur to bet on an idea, build out the capacities of an employer, and potentially take on funding that needs to be returned to investors, it is riskier than holding a job.
Despite the risk, most diverse entrepreneurs are either not accessing business support or are only offered short-term options to get a business off the ground or write a business plan.
We see an opportunity to redefine how business support is offered. Entrepreneurship training and advising is economic infrastructure that should truly support diverse entrepreneurs in building resilient, thriving businesses where we can make a sustainable living and be in service to our communities.