Moneda Moves (113): A Hopeful 2022 Forecast With Latino Entrepreneurship Rising
Welcome, mi gente, to what some might call the first full week of work of the new year. As we set our sights on our intentions, news goals and realign for our third year of a global pandemic, there’s also a lot to be hopeful for this year.
Things we’re hopeful for? An end to said global event, new perspective to plan better for the rest of our lives and growth of new businesses we’ve seen emerge from communities of color. More on that later in this notita.
This year here at Moneda Moves, I look forward to covering more stories about Latinos, business and our relationship with money. Our podcast will be back on air next week and newsletters back on regularly scheduled programming — no te lo quieres perder.
In the meantime, we are tracking the Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative’s 2021 State of Latino Entrepreneurship Report, covering 7,500 Latino-owned businesses from a survey of 15,000 total. A few of their early findings shared with Businesswire:
Latinos are more likely to have to provide collateral to get funding even if their firms have similar credit as White-owned firms.
PPP funding was an important resource for Latino-owned businesses during the pandemic.
During the pandemic, Latinos more often tapped into their personal savings and max out credit cards out of necessity.
And despite the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic, this part resonated with me:
Both Latino and White business owners are generally optimistic about their ability to rebound from the pandemic.
Here’s to maintaining this optimism, but also obtaining real resources to help our communities effectively recover and thrive in the years to come.
Con poder,
Lyanne
Headlines to put on your radar.
People of color are founding companies amid pandemic: You could say we’ve entered a new era of entrepreneurship. It appears that Americans, especially young people and people of color are putting showing faith in the career trajectory.
WIRED this week reported that an average of 380 out of every 100,000 adults started new businesses in a given month in 2020, per the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. And the highest rate of business creation was among Latinos, where that number rose to 520 per 100,000 people. Meanwhile the highest change over time was among Black people, who doubled their rate since 1996 last year. And while the foundation does attribute some of the push to new businesses to mass layoffs or job displacement, both Black and Latino people are also actively seeking entrepreneurship education as they launch businesses more aligned with their passion.
The tl;dr? Now more than ever people of color are creating businesses that speak authentically to them.
Rising voices in business, fintech, entrepreneurship and beyond.
This Week, Featured in NextGen Collective: A shameless plug here, and by way of introduction for anyone new to this notita, this week the creator of Moneda Moves, Lyanne Alfaro, was featured in NextGen Collective, a platform for Latinx professionals on the rise. See an excerpt from my profile below:
What do you do today?
I am the founder and host of Moneda Moves, a platform that encompasses a newsletter, podcast, and social channels and that centers on a journalist-first approach to Latinx and money topics.
What are you working on that you’re really excited about?
Recently, I did a Moneda Moves podcast episode with a fintech founder helping immigrants build credit, especially those who came to the United States as students and have professional direction but limited options to build and advance financially. Our interview with the founder of TomoCredit, Kristy Kim, was one I especially liked. I am also tracking events in-person in the coming year, in addition to partnerships, which I’m looking forward to.
What are your career goals and how are you working towards them?
I see my day job and running my own media and communications platform, Moneda Moves, as very complementary. At my job, my goal is to make an impact as a Latinx in the financial services and tech space and represent my community in a holistic light. For instance, this last year I organized and led Nasdaq’s conference on Access To Capital In the Latinx Community. By night, I want to drive impact by using my communications skills to tell stories about Latinx leaders and other people of color who have found success in the money world.
Update: As of this week, I am now a Development Relations Program Manager at Google! More to come via my personal channels on the announcement, and in the meantime, you can learn more about my latest pivot here.
Thank you for joining us! Until next week, catch us here on Moneda Moves.