Four small businesses founded by Rattlers recently received $10,000 grants to aid their development. The start-up capital was awarded by 100 Urban Entrepreneurs, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to supporting entrepreneurship in America’s cities during its earliest stages.The four companies that received $10,000 each were: Sunny Days Bakery, Senorium Solutions, Mult-Enterprises, and Elevated Expressions. The awards were made at the end of a competition was held in FAMU’s Grand Ballroom. Judges included 100 Urban Entrepreneur's CEO and Founder Magnus Greaves, FAMU Professor LaTanya White and BET Director of Music Programming Kelly Griffin.
The founder of Elevated Expressions is especially happy for her grant. The company is a writing consultancy run as a one-woman operation by 29-year-old Esther Spencer (pictured), who works as the coordinator of academic support services for FAMU’s Writing Resource Center.
"My experience at my job made me realize that many people struggle with English skills and writing, and need help crafting a strong paper," Spencer said. "I would always help my siblings and friends, but never charged them. But when a student needed help editing her master's thesis and told me she would pay, I obliged her and realized I could make money with my skills."
Elevated Expressions was thus born. The business specializes in editing and proofreading dissertations, Web sites, blogs, student essays and more; it also offers grammar and writing workshops, as well as tutoring services, to individuals and businesses.
It is still a tiny consultancy and the lack of funds to market her services has kept her client roster small. The startup financing provided by 100 Urban Entreprenuers will help Elevated Expressions become both fully operational and profitable. The money will go toward creating a company Web site, as well as buying the technology (and the marketing) to enable Spencer to reach her target clientele.
"The business is still in its early stages of development," Spencer noted — but her plans are vast. Given that she offers a service and not a product per se, her potential market is as broad as the entire English-speaking world. She wants her company to grow into an international consultancy.