Meet the 5 mentees participating in Insider's first mentorship program for entrepreneurs
Courtesy of Zhe Scott
- Small-business owners are still competing to attract and retain talent amid a looming recession.
- Insider created a mentorship program as part of the Talent Insider series, in partnership with Indeed, to help five entrepreneurs.
- Here are the mentees, the businesses they've created, and the talent issues they're hoping to solve.
For entrepreneurs, the war over talent continues.
Small-business owners are still competing to attract and retain talent, but they're facing stiff competition from larger companies that can afford to offer hefty signing bonuses and lucrative perks. Meanwhile, experts predict a recession is looming, intensifying the scramble to hire and keep staff.
Insider created a mentorship program, in partnership with Indeed, to help five entrepreneurs navigate the challenging labor market. We paired them with five experts to help them solve specific talent problems, like increasing DEI efforts, hiring to scale up, and crafting robust benefits packages.
Here are the five mentees, the businesses they've created, and the talent issues they're hoping to solve through their mentorship.
Courtesy of Aisha Tayler Issah
Name: Aisha Taylor Issah
Title: CEO and founder
Business: Sistahs in Business Expo
Business description: A small-business expo and community designed for entrepreneurial women of color. Participants receive an affordable and accessible platform where women of color can showcase their products and services while gaining valuable resources and information.
Founded: 2017
Size: 15 employees
Headquarters: Remote
Age: 40
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Talent issue to solve: Issah is proactively thinking about how she can create a benefits package that is both good for her employees and her business. She wants to grow in the coming years and knows that offering benefits is an important part of attracting and retaining talent. Issah had to pay for fertility treatments out-of-pocket because she did not have coverage, so she understands firsthand the importance of such offerings.
Mentor: Leslie Neitzel, Carrot Fertility
Courtesy of Deidre Mathis
Name: Deidre Mathis
Title: Founder
Business: Wanderstay Hospitality Group
Business description: A hostel located in Houston. To date, more than 11,000 guests from nearly 29 countries have stayed at Wanderstay. The company's second location, a boutique hotel, is expected to open in a few weeks.
Founded: 2018
Size: 5 employees
Headquarters: Houston, Texas
Age: 36
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Talent issue to solve: Mathis is looking for advice on hiring as she scales her business. With a second location opening, Mathis is preparing to hire additional workers. The more pressing issue she hopes to solve is successfully hiring for more leadership roles.
Mentor: Donna Harris, Builders and Backers
Courtesy of Hans Shrei.
Name: Hans Schrei
Title: Cofounder
Business: Wunderkeks
Business description: Direct-to-consumer startup that makes and sells cookies.
Founded: 2019
Size: 8 employees
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
Age: 36
Pronouns: he/him/his
Talent issue to solve: Wunderkeks needs to hire a CFO, content manager, sales manager, and head of e-commerce as it focuses on scaling up. Schrei has learned that in e-commerce, it's all about execution, so his main hiring goal is to strike the right balance between technical experience and cultural fit. He said Wunderkeks is more than a brand selling cookies — he hopes to create safe spaces for people to tell their stories. Through this mentorship, he hopes to pinpoint how Wunderkeks can stay true to its mission while in a pivotal growth period.
Mentor: Judy Nam, Indeed
Courtesy of Rachel Schneider
Name: Rachel Schneider
Title: Founder
Business: Canary
Business description: Canary works with employers and organizations of all sizes to ensure that in times of financial need, employees can access emergency cash.
Founded: 2021
Size: 8 full-time employees, one part-time worker, and several contractors.
Headquarters: Remote
Age: 51
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Talent issue to solve: Schneider is focused on what happens after hiring employees. She has a team that does have some diversity on it, but wants to establish working norms and ways of communicating so everybody feels included and able to do their best work.
Mentor: Rhonda Moret, Elevated Diversity
Courtesy of Zhe Scott
Name: Zhe Scott
Title: Founder
Business: The SEO Queen
Business description: The SEO Queen aims to help businesses get more clients and revenue without paying for advertising.
Founded: 2017
Size: 6 full-time employees and one part-time worker
Headquarters: Long Beach, California
Age: 44
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Talent issue to solve: Scott is looking to hire more people so she can delegate tasks and reduce her workload. Currently, she's the main person working on sales, customer service, and fulfillment. She's aiming to scale her business and reach certain milestones but understands that she must remove some of the many hats she's wearing in order to accomplish those goals.
Mentor: Bernard Coleman III, Gusto
Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/gMWBotH
Reviewed by mimisabreena
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Saturday, October 01, 2022
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