00:00So thank you for the question and certainly the work that the city of New York is doing, the work that Essence is doing.
00:07Let me add to it what the National Urban League is doing.
00:12Our work is centered around 12 entrepreneurship centers in cities across the nation.
00:18And while we don't have a presence with a center in New York, we do have one in Philadelphia and Washington and Cleveland and Cincinnati and New Orleans and Atlanta and Houston and Kansas City and Los Angeles and a number of other cities.
00:33And those centers are places where black small businesses can go and get free assistance, coaching, counseling, connections.
00:43We've spent a lot of time helping black small businesses apply for the PPP program.
00:50And I was just outraged at PPP round one.
00:56And that's why we pushed for a carve out for community development financial institutions and black and brown banks in the second round of PPP to try to level the playing field a bit more.
01:09But we have assisted small business owners in applying for PPP funds and we've helped small business owners navigate through the difficulties that they're having in this time of COVID where the economy has been slowed because of the necessity of responding to COVID.
01:30It's tough for African-American businesses, some may not make it, but I also think some are going to have the resilience and the drive and the fortitude to get through these great times of difficulty.
01:44So there are not enough resources devoted to the work, but at the National Urban League, the city of New York and many cities across the nation, city governments provide resources and assistance, what Essence is doing.
02:00And so we ought to really, really help business owners focus on where are the places you can go for help, assistance, information, access to capital, technical assistance.
02:13We promise no business owners, we promise no business owner any magic.
02:17We simply promise that we will do everything in our power to assist them and help them.
02:23And I'll sort of end with this point.
02:28So if you think of the largest black businesses in America, maybe, maybe a handful might make the Fortune 1000.
02:36But if you look at Black Enterprises' list of its top 100 businesses, very few of them are in the Fortune 1000.
02:47Now, one may say that's a glass half empty.
02:51I say it's a glass half full.
02:54We have to do that.
02:54We have to do that.
02:55We want to do that.
02:55But I believe that the upside for many of these businesses, if they get access to capital, patient capital, risk capital, venture capital, and can operationalize their ideas and their products and their services on a greater scale.
03:10That's what we have to think about in this area.
03:12We have to work on the small businesses, the one and two and three person businesses, family owned businesses.
03:19We've also got to work on building those that are ready to go to scale.
03:23I mean, Richelieu has been a role model for taking a concept, taking an idea, taking a family business and building it to great scale with venture capital and beyond.
03:37We need more. And I'm confident there are many out there who are poised to do that.
03:43But that's got to be part of our strategy and approach today.
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