100 Urban Entrepreneurs is the place where excuses die a quick death, and the seeds of your entrepreneurial dreams can begin to sprout to full bloom. If you really aspire to go into business for yourself, co-founders Magnus Greaves and Lucas Riggins can make it happen — and make it happen quicker and with much less mind grind than ever before.
Worried about your business plans being wrapped up in so much red tape that is resembles a spider web? Worry no more.
Tired of complex financial institutional lingo that twists your brains into knots? Rest your mind.
Sick of smug loan officers who slam so many doors in your face that you have a dent in your forehead? Not an issue here. Dealing with friends and family members whose words work like razor blades against your cherished dreams? No hateration with Urban Entrepreneurs.
If you have a fire in your belly and an intense desire to go into business, then you want to check out “TheCASHFLOW” program instituted by 100 Urban Entrepreneurs. That’s all they require.
“We want to help you star the company or enhance the company that you’ve already started,” says Greaves. “And then we feature so many ways to get funding into your company, either through us or through our network of investors and partners. We give a lot of advice and networking opportunities as well.”
Best thing of all, they are looking for ways to say “yes” to your prospective business plans — not grind your lifelong dreams into mere dust that you pour into an earring box and carry dejectedly back to your home. They are not looking for nuclear physicists or Ivy League aristocrats to come before them. They are better than the Marines: they are looking for more than just a few good men and women to help jump-start their businesses.
“When I created it, we wanted to make it very simple,” says fellow 100 Urban Entrepreneurs board member Lucas Riggins. “There’s nothing in particular that we’re looking for. If you’ve got the passion and ambition, that’s what we’re looking for. If you believe, you can achieve. If you believe you have what it takes to do whatever it is that you have, just do it; make it happen.”
But that’s not all. There was an nonstop river of business aspirants flowing into and out of their Video Pitch Booth throughout the Entrepreneurs Conference in Atlanta. They were delivering their 60-second business plan to possibly earn their own start-up capital. Many of the entrants were young and inexperienced. But that doesn’t matter to 100 Urban Entrepreneurs.
“As you can see right now, the biggest companies in today’s society are being created by kids, like with Facebook and Twitter,” Lucus points out. “We just look for people who want to do for themselves.”
Lucas and Greaves stand together like two brand-new fathers as the people they’ve helped go into business or expand their enterprise pay their own way to join them at the Entrepreneurs Conference. Their mere presence offers powerful testimony to the work that 100 Urban Entrepreneurs has done thus far.
“We’ve removed the obstacles. It doesn’t matter where you live. It doesn’t matter what kind of industry. It could be just an idea and you haven’t even started your business plan yet. Just a series of questions and a 60-second pitch. If you have the template, great. If you don’t we create one,” Greaves assures. “We just try to remove all the obstacles. It’s really about the idea, that’s what the Cash Flow wants. It doesn’t matter where your idea came from; we just want to know if you can pull it off.”
Greaves then tells you that nothing like this has ever existed before. “No. Nothing. Never.”
Well, entrepreneurs and aspiring business owners: what are you waiting for?
–terry shropshire
Learn more about 100 Urban Entrepreneurs and “TheCASHFLOW” via www.100urbanentrepreneurs.org.
