By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
For many business owners, the start of an entrepreneurial journey is a solo endeavor— one where founders wear multiple hats as they hustle to build a revenue base.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 4.4 million Black-owned businesses were nonemployer firms in 2022. The absence of employees is not always by choice and can, at times, reflect structural barriers—like limited access to capital—that make it harder for Black entrepreneurs to grow and scale their operations.
For owners, like Adrienne Walker, founder of BlueHenry, and Tiffany Richardson, founder of Aristan-Preneur Consulting, the transition took time. In Walker’s case, there were a couple of questions that led her to consider bringing on staff to her all-natural beverage garnish company.
“The first question is: ‘are you tired?’ I was doing too much, and I needed help. I needed to be able to also spend time outside of the facility— shaking hands, meeting people— but the product still needed to be made,” said Walker. “The other question is: ‘are there people who are better skilled to do what you’re trying to do and that you’re not doing very well?’ That was my rationale.”
Walker started BlueHenry in Capitol Heights, Md. in 2017, following a career with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Her first “employee” wasn’t a traditional one, it was a business coach who helped her to get acclimated with the consumer packaged goods industry in the Greater Washington area.
The coach also introduced Walker to a bartender who she could partner with on events as BlueHenry started to gain traction. Walker described the relationship as a barter-style arrangement, in which the bartender contributed services at events in exchange for exposure and the chance to secure paid work—allowing BlueHenry to build capacity without formally hiring staff.
Walker’s first official employees came during the COVID-19 pandemic, which she said proved to be an ideal time for hiring as many hospitality workers were furloughed or laid off due to shutdowns. She said she used LinkedIn to publish job descriptions, a tool she’s employed ever since.
As BlueHenry’s expanded, Walker said she’s become more selective when adding new team members.
“As we started to scale, I started to ask: ‘Are my processes ready to add someone into the mix?’ or ‘Is this person skilled enough to help me define these new processes?’” said Walker. “If you’re hiring someone who’s highly skilled, then your questions when you’re interviewing them have to be: ‘Can you solve these problems for me?’”
Like Walker, Richardson also began building a team by bartering. Her first teammate was a bookkeeper she met on Clubhouse, who helped Richardson to manage day-to-day business finances in exchange for consulting services. She later hired a social media manager and administrative assistant.
“I didn’t have the capacity to make the money I wanted by myself because, unfortunately, at that time, I was still operating in quantity, not quality,” said Richardson. “But, I had always told myself I wasn’t going to hire employees because there’s a lot of things that come with that.”
Richardson ran Artisan-Preneur Consulting, a firm that specializes in elevating business strategy with artificial intelligence and digital design, on her own since 2016. Several years later, she, like many small businesses, started to build capacity by leveraging the help of subcontractors. Working with subcontractors allows businesses more flexibility and can reduce the overhead costs that come with hiring permanent employees.
Today, she has subcontractors all over the globe, helping her to facilitate consultations and business development workshops. Still, Richardson emphasized that entrepreneurs do not need to pursue conventional routes to start their team.
They can be innovative— bartering with people for services, seeking capacity boosts from local business organizations and hiring interns.
“A lot of people think that a ‘real’ business is a business that has employees, and that’s completely false,” said Richardson. “A real business is a business that’s creative and scrappy.”
