Appetite for Change
Report date
August 2018
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Customer Inquiry | We took time to interview 35 existing business owners to gauge actual “needs” for their businesses. Through the interview process we realized our community has a deep distrust of banks, lawyers and government agencies. This provided us crucial information on how to design our program: start slow and build trust with our participants. One-on-one relationship building and small group entry-level sessions were extremely crucial to building our work. Rather than operating under a “we teach you” structure, we focus more on roundtables, where we all participate in the conversation and share our experiences. For example, some of our entrepreneurs believed they were structured and ready to test their business in a food truck. By partnering with Loaves & Fishes, we were able to use a low-risk marketplace opportunity to increase business owners capacity and understanding of their own capability. The Loaves & Fishes truck was converted to use by various entrepreneurs at different events including Eat on The Avenue, community events and the farmers market. This innovation allowed businesses to test product, operations and accounting in a controlled environment.
Relationships | One-on-one relationship building and small group workshops were extremely crucial to that process. This culture built at an early stage has helped forms the foundation of our program, and set the tone for trusting relationships we are still continuing to build. Trusting relationships between the AFC and NEON staff has been integral, and the work was staffed by two separate staff at AFC during the grant period, so the importance of trust across the staff at our organizations was critical. Similarly, the businesses within our ecosystem have also needed to build trust and develop relationships. Not only to deal with the inherent competition baked into our process, but also the learning environment, symbiotic relationships between the entrepreneurs has also been key. Lastly, there’s been a level of trust that’s required between the business owners and consumers in North Minneapolis. Customers must be willing to try a new product, or attend a pop-up where the business is not well known, while entrepreneurs need to be open to consumer feedback and changing their preferred way of doing business to meet the needs or expectations of the community.
Diverse Tools | Rather than operating under a “we teach you” structure, as most programs do, we focus more on roundtables; all participate in the conversation and share their experiences.
As participants build expertise, new tools become available like: network-based industry curriculum, specific to local sourcing, small business law, low cost marketing channels, pop-up business strategy, and more. Both one-to-one, small group and advanced sessions set a culture that enables participants to enter into the conversation from a variety of experience levels. A huge asset to this work in 2018 was the West Broadway Farmers Market (WBFM) which has provided additional marketplace opportunities for our entrepreneurs. New pop-up sites, retails options, and our customized tools and services helped this work grow and laid a solid foundation for the next phase. It's the diversity of the approaches and marketplace opportunities in this work that has brought us this far so quickly. Given the seriousness of the issues we are trying to solve, it's pretty impressive that we've made the progress we have so far in just two years.
As participants build expertise, new tools become available like: network-based industry curriculum, specific to local sourcing, small business law, low cost marketing channels, pop-up business strategy, and more. Both one-to-one, small group and advanced sessions set a culture that enables participants to enter into the conversation from a variety of experience levels. A huge asset to this work in 2018 was the West Broadway Farmers Market (WBFM) which has provided additional marketplace opportunities for our entrepreneurs. New pop-up sites, retails options, and our customized tools and services helped this work grow and laid a solid foundation for the next phase. It's the diversity of the approaches and marketplace opportunities in this work that has brought us this far so quickly. Given the seriousness of the issues we are trying to solve, it's pretty impressive that we've made the progress we have so far in just two years.
Key lessons learned
Customization | Many early stage businesses can’t be put through a process of “do this first, then this”, because each idea is unique as are the entrepreneurs. We need to provide structure while still allowing for owners to chart their own path. We are advisors, we don’t have all the answers -- building this lateral relationship between our coaches and entrepreneurs is key. An early lesson in this work was that there is no one size fits all for our business owners, and many of our approaches will have to balance affordability and access with entrepreneur profitability. Our customization for the businesses in this work extends to even the marketplace opportunities. Depending on the stage of the business and the entrepreneurs’ own goals, different marketplace opportunities may not be a perfect fit for each owner. The food truck or restaurant pop-up isn’t a fit for our sauce maker. Similarly, the learning style, business topic or mentoring tactic will be determined by the needs and stage of the entrepreneur as well as cultural nuance and personal preferences.
Testing Concepts | Through pop-ups and market opportunities, early stage mistakes are paramount to a business’s long term success. This is true in our work too. We launched our “pilot” program in 2017 and learned an incredible amount in the first year. In January 2018 we overhauled the entire program and integrated the spirit of testing within the program. Participation in pop-ups, food truck events, tastings, etc. has given our organizations and the entrepreneurs crucial information to build their businesses as well as shape our work to support them. Another component of this lesson is the fact that our entrepreneurs are not operating in a vacuum. AFC operates its own food business on the corridor, and many learnings about market forces and consumer preferences have come from Breaking Bread customer inquiry and business experiments. In early 2018 we did a customer inquiry (surveys & focus groups) in the cafe which told us a lot about the Northside consumers. The changes we made as a result of this research are informing our food business ecosystem work as well. This also demonstrates that the community innovation theory of change can be applied cross programmatically.
Balancing Goals | The difficulty of balancing our multiple goals with the reality of our finite resources. For example, the Eat on the Avenue series: we identified the lack of good food access on Broadway, so we thought our food businesses could meet that need. However, providing affordable, healthy/culturally appropriate food options must be balanced against the businesses making money. Expecting a new small food business to take on the responsibility of adjusting “affordable pricing” to our own community is a lot to ask. We decided to adjust Eat on the Ave to promote the already existing restaurants within the community and to promote the restaurants who are selling healthy/culturally appropriate food. Similarly, the goal of a successful farmers market and increasing the prepared food offerings aligns with the goal of providing more marketplace opportunities for our businesses. However to have a smooth first season, we chose not to flood the market with vendors. We are balancing the needs of the market against those of the entrepreneurs and consumers. We need the market long term, so rather than overwhelm staff with NFBI businesses, we are slowly inviting entrepreneurs to market.
Reflections on the community innovation process
Testing and implementing has been the most important component of our work during the las two years. We spent a lot of time defining the work and its various components, when in practice, many of our theories were less relevant to early stage businesses. The ways we were addressing needs of community members were better on paper. So, as the test failed, we tried again. Learning from and with the entrepreneurs has been invaluable.
Testing and implementing, proving a concept before building a program, and evaluating feedback at every stage, has not only been a practice ourselves, but also built into every participants’ business strategy. We encourage the practice of trying and failing early, with less risk of financial losses. At these early stages, a misstep in a marketplace opportunity and lost income can be really devastating for small businesses. We’ve worked to create spaces where they can safely test out ideas without burdensome financial risk or investment. For example, Eat on The Avenue provided entrepreneurs with the opportunity to test products, food truck operations (using the Loaves & Fishes truck) without major financial investment or potential losses.
Testing and implementing, proving a concept before building a program, and evaluating feedback at every stage, has not only been a practice ourselves, but also built into every participants’ business strategy. We encourage the practice of trying and failing early, with less risk of financial losses. At these early stages, a misstep in a marketplace opportunity and lost income can be really devastating for small businesses. We’ve worked to create spaces where they can safely test out ideas without burdensome financial risk or investment. For example, Eat on The Avenue provided entrepreneurs with the opportunity to test products, food truck operations (using the Loaves & Fishes truck) without major financial investment or potential losses.
Progress toward an innovation
We have made progress towards innovation because we laid the foundation and built trust among our organizations as well as within the community. AFC and NEON have positioned our kitchen and incubator as spaces with a culture of trust amongst entrepreneurs, where constructive criticism is seen as positive, and trust exists between staff and businesses. Identifying our strengths and abilities as organizations, and creating a stronger outward brand identity for businesses looking at our program has allowed for more realistic expectations, trust-driven relationships and more entrepreneurs seeking us out. Through this funding, the community has also had greater access to culturally relevant foods without leaving North Minneapolis.
We are closer now because we have had time and begun building momentum. By having the time to work one on one with entrepreneurs and let them define their strategy while acting as the nurturer, we are empowering the community to define this food system, rather than pushing them down traditional loan-ridden business paths. We work with businesses to support a mindset of organically building their business by having low expenses and saving their profits.
We are closer now because we have had time and begun building momentum. By having the time to work one on one with entrepreneurs and let them define their strategy while acting as the nurturer, we are empowering the community to define this food system, rather than pushing them down traditional loan-ridden business paths. We work with businesses to support a mindset of organically building their business by having low expenses and saving their profits.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
We are getting closer, but we need more time to work with and learn from businesses, plus more resources for early stages. We have the infrastructure of a licensed facility and staff who offer technical assistance to our entrepreneurs. We have learned the best way to “support” our entrepreneurs is with a team approach and an individualized assessment for each business. Offering this early support helps the business owner to learn the crucial basics of running a business. Taking time to truly understand their personal/business financials and how to run and build their businesses daily. This level of support takes a bit more time and resources in the beginning but we believe builds a stronger opportunity for future success.
Additional work is required to achieve breakthrough. Sessions where entrepreneurs come not knowing what to expect, or even ask, and learn from each other in a trusted environment will be crucial to building the food business ecosystem that the market could support. Additionally, advanced services will follow the same cultural tone as our small group entry level sessions, enabling owners to enter the conversation from a variety of experience levels.
Additional work is required to achieve breakthrough. Sessions where entrepreneurs come not knowing what to expect, or even ask, and learn from each other in a trusted environment will be crucial to building the food business ecosystem that the market could support. Additionally, advanced services will follow the same cultural tone as our small group entry level sessions, enabling owners to enter the conversation from a variety of experience levels.
What's next?
AFC and NEON are continuing our relationships and building momentum behind them. We are working with entrepreneurs to build the support system around them, making sure we have the assets that they need, and if we don’t, making a plan to find them. We are intentional about any services or opportunities that we provide our businesses and collect data to substantiate the impact.
After 2 years we have a better understanding of our own organizations as well as a strong vision of our business owners’ needs. We are building a stronger mentorship program and services tailored to individual businesses that make connections and recommendations less intimidating, and more personal. This also requires a more thoughtful approach to marketplace opportunities on behalf of our participants, as well as greater staffing resources.
In our next phase, we look to focus on deepening the work, replicating the solutions we know work, while continuing to test new ones. Our work will focus on: customized entrepreneurial capacity building, West Broadway Farmers Market development, local food sourcing and expanding new marketplace opportunities.
After 2 years we have a better understanding of our own organizations as well as a strong vision of our business owners’ needs. We are building a stronger mentorship program and services tailored to individual businesses that make connections and recommendations less intimidating, and more personal. This also requires a more thoughtful approach to marketplace opportunities on behalf of our participants, as well as greater staffing resources.
In our next phase, we look to focus on deepening the work, replicating the solutions we know work, while continuing to test new ones. Our work will focus on: customized entrepreneurial capacity building, West Broadway Farmers Market development, local food sourcing and expanding new marketplace opportunities.
If you could do it all over again...
We would say: patient and trust yourselves and the business owners you work with. We started this work with great expectations of our respective organizations and the entrepreneurs we work with. Building a food business takes a lot of time and resources, especially within a historically underserved community that lacks a local food system infrastructure. We went into this work wanting “success” out of the gate: improving healthy food choices, building food entrepreneurs’ capacity, increasing revenue for food business owners; which alone are all lofty goals. We have had “wins” in each of these areas but long term change that is overarching in these three areas will take time and great intentionality from both NEON and AFC.
At the beginning of this work, it would also have been important to know so that we can’t push business owners to fit our identified “problem solving” goals, but rather structure our resources around what they need, and let them dictate the goals. Invariably the community’s goals and entrepreneurs goals may need balancing, but can be achieved when we’re in dialogue, have trusting relationships, and are willing to “fail” and try new strategies.
At the beginning of this work, it would also have been important to know so that we can’t push business owners to fit our identified “problem solving” goals, but rather structure our resources around what they need, and let them dictate the goals. Invariably the community’s goals and entrepreneurs goals may need balancing, but can be achieved when we’re in dialogue, have trusting relationships, and are willing to “fail” and try new strategies.
One last thought
Our small “wins” have spawned a food renaissance on the Northside and a visible manifestation of the food-based economic development here. The status quo has provided momentum for this work, but the West Broadway Farmers Market (WBFM) and Food Business Incubator have been working tangentially, while they should be working collaboratively. This is now possible with AFC managing the WBFM and working closely with NEON and our other partners to connect consumers and businesses.
North Minneapolis has great interest in creating a new food system, yet many marginalized entrepreneurs are unfamiliar with, and at times wary of, dealing with city licenses, banks, and other necessities of running a business. Farmers markets have proliferated throughout the Twin Cities and surrounding metro area, but North Minneapolis is home to only two markets, whereas the rest of the city of Minneapolis hosts 29 markets. This is unacceptable. The time is now.
North Minneapolis has great interest in creating a new food system, yet many marginalized entrepreneurs are unfamiliar with, and at times wary of, dealing with city licenses, banks, and other necessities of running a business. Farmers markets have proliferated throughout the Twin Cities and surrounding metro area, but North Minneapolis is home to only two markets, whereas the rest of the city of Minneapolis hosts 29 markets. This is unacceptable. The time is now.