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Platform for migrants to start legal & profitable microbusinesses.

$4,000raised
$20,000funding goal
$5,000valuation
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Longer description of your proposed project

Millions of migrants come to the US every year – fleeing danger and persecution and going through horrific journeys to get here. They endure violence, rape, robbery, and terror in the hope that when they arrive they will be able to work hard, thrive, and contribute. But once they get here – too many of these energetic, high-potential people find the obstacles to advancing are impossible to overcome. They languish in low-paying, dead-end jobs and don’t find ways to thrive and contribute in the way they dreamed. It’s a tragic denouement to heroic journeys – and a true waste of human potential.

It doesn’t have to be that way though. With the right support, these folks can skip the years of “gray economy” subsistence and almost immediately start paying taxes, hiring, and contributing to their communities. Microbusiness – because it is accessible to any immigration status, requires little capital, and has unlimited growth potential – can be one of the most powerful tools for immigrants’ thriving. At Briico, we teach a method that allows anyone, of any immigration status, to legally start a profitable microbusiness in less than 30 days with less than $500.

For example, Omar and Muhammed fled Mauritania fearing for their lives, risking an overland journey through Latin America, and turning themselves in at the US border. Just three months after their arrival, they started their car detailing business with Briico’s help - profitably - in less than 10 days. They saw a 5x in their hourly income and finally were moving forward in real ways. The data supports the positive potential of immigrants in the US, too: immigrants commit crimes at rates of a quarter to half of those of native born people; they pay more in taxes than they receive in public benefits; and they’re more entrepreneurial than US born folks.

Over the last year, I’ve been working closely with new immigrants, iterating through models to find the most impactful ways of supporting them in starting businesses. Currently, our model includes free video training and case studies (showing what’s possible even with tiny investments and tenuous immigration statuses); a weekly contest to get a $500 microbusiness grant and training; and one-off services and bundles to help with the technical parts of getting set up and getting clients. Some of the things I think are most exciting about what we're doing:

-- Serving new immigrants in the way they need - for instance communicating entirely on WhatsApp, accepting payment in cash if needed, videos in their language, responding quickly and providing quick turnaround, etc.

-- Providing high-touch services (as you might with a busy executive) - just do the thing for them if helpful - rather than providing "advice" in many cases.

-- Developing bite-sized and "just in time" education and training videos that are just the tidbit folks need at the moment they need it, rather than a 12-week business course they sign up for 3 months in advance.

-- Rejecting this idea that "entrepreneurship is about having a great idea" and more focusing on the person and how to equip them to pursue a vibrant livelihood and show concrete paths forward.

-- Focusing on businesses that can be started with less than $500 in less than 30 days.

-- Tackling bureaucratic leverage points for people who are undocumented (for instance, an ITIN Number is a key to earning money and starting a business if you don't have a social security number -- so that’s often a key first step.)

We’ve been operating entirely from my own unpaid time and personal financial contributions. But we could impact many more people, more effectively, with this grant. The grant money would support two projects. First, it will go to hiring new immigrants on a freelance basis to help us produce our free training videos in more languages, with professional editors, featuring more concrete case studies from microbusinesses around the country. It will also cover “popup microbusiness incubators” – two day events at immigrants hubs and shelters around the country that can get folks started with their microbusinesses, for free, in just 48 hours.

Immigrants’ profound capacity and resilience are, I’m convinced, the foundation of the future of the United States. Just as has always been the case here, immigrants bring the strength, energy, and vision that citizens don’t always have. I believe we owe it to ourselves, if not to them, to lend partnership to new Americans getting established here – with microbusiness support being one of the most powerful ways to do just that. In my experience, the migrants don’t want freebies or donations. And they’re not hiding danger, ill will, or desperate dependence. What they bring to the US is in plain sight – themselves and their incredible potential to build and contribute to our country, to each other, and to themselves. They’ll take help in moving past some obstacles, certainly – but only so that they can turn around and pay that back tenfold.

Describe why you think you're qualified to work on this

I’m a mission-driven social entrepreneur that has focused extensively on immigrant and Latin American communities and entrepreneurship. I’m the founder at Wholesale In a Box and Briico. I was also Founder & CEO of Liga Masiva, a "global farmers' market" connecting organic farmers in Latin America directly to consumers in the US (and doubling farmer incomes in the process.) So I have a demonstrated ability to start and grow impactful social entreprises.

My approach to business has been featured by Fast Company, O: The Oprah Magazine, Forbes, Bloomberg, and Entrepreneur Magazine. I’m an Unreasonable Institute Fellow and was chosen as the Young Presidents' Organization's Top Four Young Social Innovators.

I also have both corporate and government experience to complement the entrepreneurial perspective. I ran Latin America Special projects for a financial services consulting firm and helped optimize operations at the largest low-income mortgage servicer in the world, based in Mexico. Finally, I’ve served as a Business Advisor to immigrant businesses at the US Small Business Development Center in New York City.

Probably most importantly, I’ve spent the decades working closely with new immigrants to understand their problems, vision, and experimenting toward a model that works.

Other ways I can learn about you

https://www.emilykerrfinell.com/

How much money do you need?

Here’s my ask, which certainly has flexibility in it:

$8,000. Immigrant-led video production (hiring new immigrants on a freelance basis to help us produce our free training videos in more languages, with professional editors, featuring more concrete case studies from microbusinesses around the country):

$12,000. “Popup microbusiness incubators” (two day events at immigrants hubs and shelters around the country that can get folks started with their microbusinesses, for free, in just 48 hours.)

Links to any supporting documents or information

The Briico website.

A recent news piece that was done on one aspect of our in-person work with local asylum-seekers.

Estimate your probability of succeeding if you get the amount of money you asked for

80%. I feel really committed to seeing this through and continuing to iterate until the model is both very effective and supporting millions of people. I honestly think biggest risk is that I'll run out of personal financial runway to keep investing in these iterations. So the money will help a lot in extending that runway and allowing us to move faster -- decreasing the likelihood of needing to drop the project before it becomes successful.

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

2 months ago

As we close out the year, just a couple of quick updates here:

  • We've continued to provide some ongoing support to the businesses started in the 21-day program. Most don't need ongoing help, but some do have questions that arise or conundrums they need help thinking through.

  • We obtained a contract with the county we operate in to provide our program to people who live in this county as part of their Economic Development work. This has proven to be a positive way to fund the program and could be a promising structure to replicate.

Thanks as always for all your support.

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

7 months ago

Happy Summer! Here are some updates from Briico's work over the last couple of months:

  1. Everyone in the program got their businesses started in the 21 days of the program and almost everyone got to profitability during that time. We're working hard on program iteration now... but the early success is inspiring. If you want to see more: 

  2. We're still developing our video case studies and trainings. This is a much more iterative process than I was expecting. We are still learning so much about the best ways of handling language, literacy, and training -- and I'm glad we didn't invest all of our Manifund funds in our first iteration.

  3. I feel like we're seeing some good results, and gaining momentum with the actual program but that funding is starting to become a limitation. If you have any advice in terms of foundations or people that might be interested in supporting our work financially, I'd love to hear it.

Thank you for your support! More updates to come : )

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

A couple of updates:

  1. I’m excited to share that we’re opening a second project/proposal (partially based on feedback from funders and advisors here on Manifund). The new proposal incorporates a lot of the learnings/clarity we’ve gained over the past few months and is a compelling pitch because we expect each dollar of funding to be self-sustaining and multiplied in terms of impact by 50-100x. (I know, sounds crazy, but give it a read and see if you agree.) You can find that here: https://manifund.org/projects/self-perpetuating-funding-for-migrant-livelihoods

  2. On this project, because we raised $4K out of a total goal of $20K, we’re going to use that funding solely on the video production (and sideline the in-person incubator days for now.) This works well because in the months since we originally wrote this proposal, we’ve focused less on in-person incubation and more on a model that’s online, one-on-one and delivered via WhatsApp. Because of that, the video production actually becomes even more important because those short videos serve as bite-sized training pieces alongside other deliverables. This has been working well and the video production funds should help amplify that success further.

I’ll be posting updates as we go! Thank you again to everyone who commented, advised, and offered funds.

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

If you want more of a peek behind the scenes of this project, and our curious about the concrete things that have worked and not worked on along the way... here is and article I wrote up with all the experiments we've run (17 of them!), and learnings we've generated, over the past 14 months: https://open.substack.com/pub/emilykerrfinell/p/17-migrant-microbusiness-projects

🥨

Dony Christie

10 months ago

I don't have enough time to evaluate this one last minute, but what's preventing this from bootstrapping by getting a cut of the businesses?

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

@Wormhole That's a good question. Something I've been experimenting with for sure -- the idea of a "micro-VC" or "pay it forward" model in which we provide the program for free -- and then once the entrepreneur is profitable, they contribute a small percentage of profits to pay for others to go through the program.

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

@AntonMakiievskyi Thank you for your support of this project. I noticed you've invested fairly widely throughout the platform so I have a question for you. In the months since I put together this proposal, I have evolved how I'd like to use the funds raised -- but I wasn't sure if it's OK to update that, at this point (since a handful of people have already made offers.)

In the project above, I say I will use the funds for video production and for in-person microbusiness incubators. Those were needs we had a few months ago, but we're iterating quickly and I see a better opportunity to use these funds in a way that will multiply them, rather than just use them up.

I'm seeing a lot of success with a remote (not in-person) 3-week program that helps new migrants start a profitable microbusiness in 3 weeks. And I'm seeing some promising things around a "pay it forward" model in which we provide the program for free -- and then once the entrepreneur is profitable, they contribute a small percentage of profits to pay for others to go through the program. So I'd like to use the Manifund funding to "seed" that pay-it-forward model (paying for the program, delivered one-on-one via WhatsApp) for about 50 people... and then have those 50 people fund the next cohort of ~75 people.

Does it feel consistent with the ethos of this platform... and OK to you as an investor... if I were to go ahead and update that "uses of funds" section with that updated intention?

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AntonMakiievskyi avatar

Anton Makiievskyi

10 months ago

@briico It's ok with me, I think it is a great idea, and you are in the best position to assess where the funds would be used the best. My request to you is to post updates on your progress ~once a month. It would be very rewarding and useful for me and others (even if the project fails to achieve it's goals)

Best of luck!

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

@AntonMakiievskyi Ok great. Thanks for your thoughtful response -- and I'll be sure to post updates as we go.

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Jason avatar

Jason

10 months ago

I really like that you've put your own "sweat equity" into this before asking for funding. I am a little concerned about sustainability to the extent the current model depends heavily on your unpaid labor. If you can obtain funding for costs (such that you don't have to also contribute money on top of your time), do you expect to be in a position to continue volunteering so much time? Or is continued success and expansion contingent on finding a grant to cover your time and/or someone else's time?

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

10 months ago

@Jason Hey Jason! This is a great comment. The short answer is that continued success and expansion is contingent on covering the time and costs related to delivering the model. We run very lean and can support folks in starting profitable microbusinesses really efficiently, so that's good. But we certainly can't reach the scale we want to (tens of thousands of microbusinesses formed per year) with just my unpaid time. (And on a personal level, I'm not able to continue indefinitely in that way.) It's worked well to just jump in with, as you said, my sweat equity -- but my intention is to iterate to where we have a consistently successful program and funding model. There are two revenue sources that seem promising. First, our local county is sponsoring "seats" to our program -- and I think that county/state government sponsorship is something that could work as a funding mechanism more broadly. Also, and most excitingly, I'm seeing some promising things around a "pay it forward" model in which we provide the program for free -- and then once the entrepreneur is profitable, they contribute a small percentage of profits to pay for others to go through the program. Curious to hear any other thoughts you have. And thank you also for offering funds! It's great to be connected.

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nontyn avatar

Nicholas Reville

11 months ago

Sounds great! I'm about to do something like this for a guy who is getting out of prison and I think it'll work with him but your approach sounds much more thorough and comprehensive and scalable!

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briico avatar

Emily Kerr-Finell

11 months ago

@nontyn Thank you so much. It's nice to hear from someone thinking along similar lines. And interesting to think about applying the model (eventually) to people getting out of prison. A lot of times, I think about the migrant folks we serve as "people with high potential and high obstacles" -- where there are a lot of problems to move past but the potential reward (for them and for their country/community) is very high. That description may apply to some/many people getting out of prison as well. Thanks again for your kind support and for touching base.