WS Chronicle

BUSTA’S PERSON OF THE WEEK

By Busta Brown

The Chronicle

If you don’t have time to promote your small business, let Fay Horwitt help.

“We went out into communities and did surveys, talk to entrepreneurs about our various challenges and what they needed most to be able to grow and succeed,” she said.

Horwitt is the CEO of HUSTLE Winston-Salem. “It’s a new nonprofit in Winston-Salem with a focus on growing the local economy by accelerating underrepresented entrepreneurs. Our initial focus is on women, people of color and marginalized business districts.”

HUSTLE Winston-Salem originally launched as a prototype of the Inclusive Entrepreneurship cluster, a part of the Emc Arts Community Innovation Lab convened by the Kenan Institute for the Arts, the Winston-Salem Foundation, and the Arts Council of WS/FC. Horwitt said everyone was impressed with the results.

“At the end of the lab, it was determined by cluster participants that, due to the tremendous response from the community and a continuing need, the work of HUSTLE Winston-Salem should and would continue.”

Fay Horwitt is a true motivator. Her passion and faith in women entrepreneurs is uncompromising.

“We believe that anyone with a great idea can succeed in a community with equitable access to resources, education and support. We envision a thriving city where all citizens have equitable opportunity to achieve economic prosperity through entrepreneurship,” she said.

Adressing the question, what is the biggest challenge to growing an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem here in the city, Horwitt said: “Our city has long struggled with racial and economic divides. Like many cities across the county, we also have a history of power being centralized in systemic ways that prevent or make it challenging to achieve equity and upward mobility. There is a lack of funding going to efforts that will create entrepreneurial equity. There are very few people of color in leadership roles with the ecosystem who have the power to designate the use of funds that could help level the playing field for black and brown entrepreneurs in our city. We struggle with knowing how to change that dynamic.”

Horwitt talked about how women entrepreneurs work differently, so HUSTLE Winston-Salem created a space specifically for women to bond and to grow their business.

“Women entrepreneurs need different things and the space is for all women no matter their background. We want all women entrepreneurs to come together and collaborate and support each other in launching growing businesses,” she said.

HUSTLE Winston-Salem partners with The Ramkat music and performance space Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. “You can come work on your business, get referrals, get business coaching, attend workshops, and be able to figure out and address those barriers every woman entrepreneur faces,” Horwitt said.

The Ramkat is located on 170 West Ninth Street in Winston-Salem. For more information, email Fay Horwitt at hustlewsinfo@gmail.com.

Check out the rest of my interview with Fay Horwitt on The Chronicle’s YouTube.com channel @Winstonsalem Chronicle.