AUSTIN, Texas — Although National Black Business Month is an important time to recognize Black-owned businesses across the country and in Central Texas, it's also an opportunity to learn about the resources available that help keep diverse businesses up and running.
Austin is home to about 2,600 Black-owned businesses. However, a lot of them are micro-businesses, with 90% not even having employees.
"They're a 'solopreneur,' as we call them in our office," Tam Hawkins said.
Hawkins serves as the CEO of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce. She works on economic and business development to help Black-owned business throughout the city increase their revenue.
Throughout the year, the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce hosts different events and galas to help with supporting the work Black-owned businesses do. The chamber also work to scale up companies and increase their revenue.
Moving forward, Hawkins said the chamber would like to work on closing the gap of revenue generation for Black women-owned businesses.
"They have a deficit of starting at maybe $30,000 annually in revenue. So we'd really like to see some movement there," Hawkins said. "We'd also like to see some scalability in consumer-packaged goods, and those are products that we're working on currently as well."
Hawkins and her team are also in the process of starting an artist-in-residence program in Austin. This would support the arts community in variety of different ways.
"A lot of them are first-time entrepreneurs, so they don't really have that chain of, 'Well, how did my father do it? Or how did my mother do it?' So they're really starting from scratch," Hawkins said.
Starting from scratch is a concept that Sean Gooden, owner of GoodenSweet Cookies, understands well.
"I got a love of the kitchen from watching my grandmother cooking. She didn't ever really teach me anything or give me any recipes, per se. But I watched how she operated in the kitchen and how much love she infused into what she was doing and how people experience that love through the food," Gooden said.
When Gooden started his company in 2008, he had no written recipe for success. After his late older brother, Anthony, passed that year in a sparring accident, Gooden started his business in honor him.
The brothers were martial artists who baked. Sean Gooden started in shaolin-do kung fu and tai chi and eventually became a second-degree black belt.
"He [Anthony] used to make exquisite, gourmet cheesecakes. They called him the cheesecake man. But, of course, they call me the cookie man!," Gooden said.
A father of four, Gooden has made huge strides in the cookie industry – and it all started when he was a young kid looking up to one of his role models.
"When I was a kid, I used to watch Famous Amos, who was the first the original cookie man in the United States and the first Black man to own a cookie company in the U.S. Many things have happened since he started," Gooden said.
His hard work and determination landed him a spot at two stores, Taste ATX and Fifth & Congress inside the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
"Little by little, working hard will get you to that goal. Believe me, it all adds up. But then once you get to that goal, you check it off and you set the next goal, and then you do the exact same thing. Rinse and repeat," Gooden said.
GoodenSweets orders can be picked up at the company's first production facility, now located at 5610 N. Interstate 35, across from Capital Plaza. The company also ships nationwide.
GoodenSweets' cookies are a unique square shape and come in a variety of flavors from the "world famous" chocolate chip to the "sledgehammer," a double chocolate chip cookie with macadamia nuts and cream cheese.
Gooden said he would like to serve as inspiration for other Black men and women and he wants to see their careers reach new heights.
"I want to be an example to teenagers or adults who are Black and of any other race, to know that they can go from nothing to something if they have faith and determination," Gooden said, adding, "And, by the way, we're not exactly where we want to be yet, but we've moved further than where we were."
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