KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Small business owners in Knoxville are almost finished with their entrepreneurship training with the Knoxville Area Urban League. The program is meant to help business owners at all stages.
The Spring 2024 cohort of Knoxville Area Urban League CO.STARTERS is almost finished. Participants say they've learned a lot about starting and growing their businesses.
"A lot of information for me is information that I've heard that I'm getting lots of reminders on, of things I need to make sure that I'm still implementing in the business as well," said Whitney Johnson, the CEO of Paisley's Cupcakes. "Things that I've forgotten or things that I really just needed that reminder to remember that we're still growing, we still need to do these small things until we get to that point where someone else can do it for me."
Johnson said she started Paisley's Cupcakes in 2021.
"We sell custom fresh cupcakes," said Johnson. "So they're very handcrafted, very fresh. That's the motto. We want fresh. We don't want you to think Sam's. We don't want you to think Walmart or Costco or anything like that, or Publix, We want you to think fresh. Your grandma's cake on the counter."
She said she joined the program to grow her business.
"I decided to start because I wanted to seek more information on my business and into the field to grow it to see how scalable is cupcakes, " said Johnson. "I started this business at home. So I was only making a few at a time. And now I want to go from making a few to possibly making hundreds or thousands of cupcakes on a weekly basis. And I wanted to make sure I had the right tools and the skill set to pursue it and achieve that as well."
Terrance Carter, the Vice President of Economic and Business Development for KAUL, also leads the CO.STARTERS program. He says a big focus of KAUL's program is having the business owners make business plans.
"Most CO.STARTER programs don't emphasize having a business plan like we do," said Carter. "We know that for people that we serve, it is the best path forward for them to have a plan that's in writing, that they can continue to tweak when things change as they continue to learn more about their customers, about their industry, more about the competition. So we do want them to have a plan. We want it to be viable. So that is one of the major deliverables that we expect to see at the end of the program. But we also have those plans vetted by real business owners. So we will have them present the plan what's in the plan, and respond to questions from people who achieve success in business. And that will hopefully give them some sense of I really can do it."
He said the sessions are a combination of homework, in-class discussions and guest speakers.
"The people that are still in the class are still working on their business plans," said Carter. "We have guest speakers that come in that are professionals or business owners that have achieved success in our community. And for every topic that we've gone over all of these weeks, each one of our speakers is here to present information on that topic as it relates to their business. And we do that so people can see real live business owners that have been successful, so they can see success in front of them. And then they can be more assured that it's attainable because they're listening to the people who've already achieved it."
And Johnson agrees. She said having the speakers in the class is helpful.
"The most beneficial by far, my favorite part about the class, is the entrepreneurs coming in and sharing their experiences with us. Giving us encouragement and faith to let us know it's attainable, it's achievable. But you just have to keep persistent, you have to keep on jumping over hurdles to get to where you want to go."
Johnson said she implements what she's learned in class, in her business right now.
"Well, I'm currently in school as well studying for an associate's degree in Applied Business Sciences," said Johnson. "And I'll also be a certified pastry chef when I'm done. So this class and that as well has helped me with more information and implementing it into my business on a day to day basis, especially safe serve and serving food safely and things of that nature."
Carter said success in the program is measured in different ways.
"In this class, success is measured in a lot of different ways that probably people don't consider when it comes to business," said Carter. "So if somebody comes in this class, and they put the work in, they create their plan, they do their research, they know their market, and they go out and invest money and are successful. That's absolutely success and a win as we counted. In contrast, if somebody comes into class, does the research, puts in the work and finds out that there's not a market, there is not a big enough market or their model didn't work. And they have not invested a whole lot of money and time. That's also a success because we've just saved them from a whole lot of heartache and disappointment that they could have avoided."
Carter says those who want to be a part of this fall's cohort of CO.STARTERS can apply now.
"People can start signing up now, we generally offer a course in the spring from March to May," said Carter. "And in the fall from September to November. For every application that we see in those timeframes, we will call, email, set up one on one meetings and learn more about the individual, more about the business concept. And we call those selection meetings. So we're basically trying to determine in those meetings if the program is a good fit for the individual, and if the individual's a good fit for the program."