Black Women Are Starting Businesses in Droves

Black women are becoming entrepreneurs at a faster clip than any other demographic – and a chillier corporate world has a lot to do with it.

Take Erin Giddens.  She had long dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur—but not while she earned a steady paycheck in the corporate world.

Then came the layoff from her communications-associate role and a months long job search that went nowhere. By the time she decided to focus full time on her own video-production company last fall, she says, the move came down to this:

“Do I want to get back working in corporate, where they’re still going to have my career in their hands, or am I going to bet on myself?” she says. 

Guess what she did?  Read on about how she and many others like her are tired of the anxiety in corporate America and are creating their own destiny.

After all, that is why we started Escape From Corporate America July 7, 2004!  Check out that post. 

Happy 250th America: To Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness!

©2026 Laurel J. Delaney (7/4/26).  All rights reserved.

The history of The Declaration of Independence (transcription). Sign the declaration.

Whatever Your Pride Plans Are, enJOY!

To All Dads

"To all Dads, thank you for everything." – Laurel J. Delaney

America's Self-Made Women Billionaires

Rocket ships. AI chips. Chinese food. Clothing. Construction. Chatbots. America's self-made women billionaires are rewriting the rules of wealth. Forbes counts 43 of them now – women who built 10-figure fortunes from scratch – up from 38 just a year ago.

AI is accelerating everything. Record numbers. Soaring net worths. An all-time high in total wealth held by women who earned every dollar of it.

The signal is clear: more self-made women billionaires exist today, with more influence and more opportunity, than at any point in American history.

Access the list.

Flowers Explode

©2026 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

"In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different." – John Steinbeck

Crowdfunding for Women-Owned Companies

Although the number of women-owned businesses keeps growing, startups led by women continue to fall behind their male counterparts when it comes to raising venture funding.

Women-led startups consistently receive less than 2% of U.S. venture capital, per Crunchbase data. That’s despite delivering 2.5x better returns than male-founded startups, research shows.

What's the deal and what's the solution?  

Former PayPal executive Molly Huyck teamed up with Amie Konwinski, a U.S. Navy veteran and marketing executive, to found Aequitas Invest, an SEC-registered, funding portal.

Aequitas Invest is a space where women founders share their journeys – and investors learn how Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF) works to expand access to capital for women-led startups.