VANCOUVER, Wash. — After immigrating to Canada from Kenya and dreaming of starting her own business, entrepreneurjacket Kasandy soon came to the conclusion that Canadian banks weren’t interested in opening their vaults to people like her.
Kasandy, founder of the nonprofit Black Entrepreneurs and Businesses of Canada Society, said she has faced many obstacles from Canadian lending institutions in seeking funding.
Now, Kasandy wants other black entrepreneurs to get a head start by running a $25,000 contest for black entrepreneurs with big ideas and small bank balances.
Rather than requiring contestants to come up with complete business plans with their pitches, the Society’s Black Pitch Contest calls on people who self-identify as Black to submit a short video outlining their ideas.
After receiving nearly 150 entries, the Society narrowed the field down to five finalists, two of whom were based in British Columbia.
Before founding the company, Kasandy said that in the eyes of the banks, as an immigrant who did not own a home, she had many strikes against her.
With no collateral to secure a loan, she scraped and saved to eventually open her shop on Vancouver’s Granville Island, selling fair trade, handcrafted products by artists from her native Kenya.
“I used my savings, my credit card, my RRSP, all that stuff to start the business,” she said. “I have no family here. It’s not like I can go to my uncle and aunt, my mother, and borrow some money. I am an immigrant.”
The banking system, she said, doesn’t value people and their ideas unless they’re rich or don’t own homes.
Kasandy hopes to change this system through the Black Pitch Contest and society.
“You might have a really good idea, but if it can’t be funded, it’s not going anywhere,” she said.
Peter Mwariga, a director of the company and competition judge, said finalists must demonstrate that they understand their target markets and particularly their competition.
He said that after arriving in Canada from Kenya in 1989, as an immigrant with no home to back him up, he too struggled to get finance for his business.
Like Kasandy, he lacked independent assets or a long credit history as he tried to navigate the unfamiliar landscape of Canada’s financial system.
Judging the competition’s pitches and selecting the best entries was difficult, Mwariga said, “because they all have great ideas and we want them all to be successful, but unfortunately we can’t award 25,000 to everyone.”
The finalists were trained to refine their pitches before going before the jury, and Mwariga said the winning pitch must outline a “well-defined market strategy”.
“It’s a little longer than an elevator pitch, so they have to be a little more articulate about how they pitch their business, which is important because they’re going to be pitching in front of investors,” he said.
Mwenda Dyck, 22, is among the finalists, introducing his vertical farming business, South Central Greens.
Dyck said the money could help him expand his operation, which grows crops in stacked racks, and buy new equipment to outfit a barn facility.
Tired of Manitoba winters, Dyck moved to Abbotsford in early 2022 to study agriculture and horticulture at the University of the Fraser Valley.
He said he strives to sell nutrient-dense microgreens and other crops to local restaurants and farmers’ markets.
As a young black man entering the business, Dyck said he encountered people who might not validate or value his ideas because of his looks, but he didn’t let that sway him from his goals.
“Some people might not give you as much credit as they should just based on your looks, which is disheartening,” he said. “But at the same time, you mustn’t let that rob you of your motivation, otherwise you won’t make any progress.”
Dyck said he was motivated and inspired by Kasandy’s story and that of the company.
“She went through all of these challenges to find funding, to build her network, and just to run her business, and she didn’t want it to be that difficult for other black entrepreneurs,” he said.
Vancouver resident Deress Asghedom is another Black Pitch finalist.
Asghedom’s Vaster app is an artificial intelligence-based software application that allows cannabis users to scan products with a smartphone for potency and production information.
Asghedom compares it to music identification app Shazam, but instead of using a phone’s microphone to identify songs, it uses a camera to scan and display product information.
He said a “series of unexpected events” led to the development of the app. He said he first wanted to use it in hospitality for things like nutritional information after his father had a health boost.
But the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the hospitality industry forced him to switch.
He got his new idea after looking for a cannabis-based therapy for his dog when he was suffering from arthritis.
Asghedom said the product recommended to him had an adverse effect on his pet, and he later found out from a veterinarian that he had been given the wrong treatment. He also struggled to figure out the right dosage.
“This got me thinking that maybe we can use the technology we’ve already developed to make it easier for people to interact with and learn about the product without deep knowledge or an encyclopedic memory have to have,” he said.
The pitch competition was a “lucky streak,” he said, and winning the money would bring a full version of the app closer to market after initial success with a beta version with cannabis brands and dispensaries.
The social impact of a black-owned business in the cannabis world was not lost on Asghedom, he said, with a history of regulation and criminalization that disproportionately affected blacks.
“If I can provide a different narrative of what it’s like to be a black cannabis entrepreneur, that’s a welcome responsibility that I want to uphold to the best of my ability,” he said. “I see myself first and foremost as an entrepreneur.”
The winner of the pitch competition will be selected at the Society’s Black Business Summit, a free event taking place online on February 24-25. The keynote speaker will be former Governor General Michaelle Jean.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on February 20, 2023.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
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