Business founders roundtable: what they’d tell their younger selves

Left to right: Chelle Dockery, Dr. Quiana M. Shamsid-Deen, and Dianna Rose

Small business ownership isn’t easy. Entrepreneurs face intense pressure to achieve perfection and make the most of every opportunity—especially Black women founders, who experience racial inequities in wealth and access to capital. 

In this roundtable from Yelp’s third annual Black in Business Summit, three successful  business owners share essential advice they wished they knew when starting out—and the advice they’d give aspiring entrepreneurs from the next generation to navigate obstacles and bounce back from failure.

1. Solo Creative | You don’t have to be everywhere, all at once

Chelle Dockery is a Yelp for Business x Luminary fellow and marketing professional who builds community through marketing. She founded her own agency, Solo Creative, to help other small business owners grow through the power of digital marketing and branding. Her goal is to support busy entrepreneurs so they can focus on what matters most: growing their businesses.

Chelle: “While social media platforms are exciting and new, they can also be overwhelming. Don’t feel like you need to be everywhere all at once, because you’re not nurturing your clients doing that. People like really good, quality content that they can resonate with and can relate to. They want to be able to communicate with you. They want to know you. Social media is about building community. So start building the community with the platform that you’re on already.

“One thing that’s important to do is assess the relevance [of these platforms for your business.] Do your research on the platform: Is your target audience there? Can you leverage this platform? What’s the purpose of it? Marketing is all about testing and adapting. You create some content, you start small, and within your capacity, you manage the content you’re creating. Continue doing that and then test to see how your audience is responding to it and whether you’re getting good results. If you’re not, reevaluate and assess things and see if that’s the place that you need to be.”

2. Supreme Burger | You’re only as good as your team

Dr. Quiana M. Shamsid-Deen is a co-owner of Supreme Burger, an Atlanta-based, fast-service franchise founded in 1980. An educator and researcher with over 15 years of experience in the social work industry, Dr. Quiana oversees Supreme Burger’s Family Foundation, which seeks to eradicate food insecurity for senior citizens and youth and close the racial wealth gap for Black-owned business owners. 

Dr. Quiana: “You are only as good as your team. You cannot grow alone. Especially as Black-owned businesses, we need collective collaboration to move from the space of surviving to actually thriving. We need commitment to a greater cause outside of ourselves and for people to see themselves in the bigger picture. We have to be able to see the mission and to see the vision and see ourselves in that so that we all can grow together. [Entrepreneurship] has to be something that we’re doing collaboratively.

“Just be mindful of who you have in your team because your team can either build you and help you grow, or they can bring you down or keep you down. [As a business owner,] there is a level of freedom you can access that you probably never knew existed before entrepreneurship opened the door. To access that freedom, be mindful of who you surround yourself with and make sure that you’re on the same page as it relates to your mission, vision, goals, where you want to go, and what you collectively want to do together.”

As Black-owned businesses, we need collective collaboration to move from the space of surviving to actually thriving.

Dr. Quiana M. Shamsid-Deen

3. Jars of Delight | Ask for help early and often

Yelp for Business x Luminary fellow Dianna Rose aims to increase access to sustainable food in New York City’s Southeast Queens neighborhood. Over the past 15 years, Dianna has launched multiple sustainability initiatives to reconnect people to the planet—from her zero-waste catering company, Jars of Delight, to the first community farmers’ market and commercial kitchen in Southeast Queens.

Dianna: “Just be honest. There is freedom and power in honesty. When you’re starting out, you want to look like you have it together, and the reality is sometimes you don’t. [If you show] authenticity, your true customers, your true core fan base, your true followers will appreciate it. And I think if there were less pressure as entrepreneurs to portray a sense of perfection, a lot of people would, even when they fail, have a little bit more faith in themselves to try again. 

“For me, success is just about being honest about where you are and if you need help. If you need help, say you need help. If you don’t know, say you don’t know, because you can’t learn if you’re not honest in that way. I’ve learned a lot in the latter part of my journey just by being honest, and as somebody who’s been doing this for almost eight years, you would think that I would have it all completely altogether. But the reality is I don’t. There’s still so much that I don’t know, and I appreciate that because it keeps me humble, and it keeps me hungry.”

For more insights from Chelle, Dr. Quiana, and Dianna, watch their small business roundtable below from Yelp’s third annual Black in Business Summit—now available on demand along with all other sessions from the day.