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- By Chez Oxendine
- Indigenous Entrepreneurs
In the United States, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to encounter a Native woman-owned business backed by venture capital.
That’s because Native women receive a mere 0.0013% of venture funding—a stat that highlights the steep climb to startup and growth funding for female entrepreneurs in Indian Country.
In Oklahoma, a new business accelerator program is aiming to change those odds. Ten Cherokee women, chosen from nearly 250 applicants, are about to take their seats at the table in the TU Cherokee Women’s AcceleratHER Fellowship, a 12-week fellowship program designed to help them rapidly scale their businesses.
A collaboration between Cherokee Nation, the University of Tulsa and nonprofit ayana Foundation, AcceleratHER is now in its second year with a cohort that’s twice the size of year one. Over 12 weeks, the program’s female fellows engage in online meetings, take classes around topics such as finances and scaling up, and network with other business owners and potential investors. Each fellow receives mentoring from experienced entrepreneurs and a $10,000 seed grant from Cherokee Nation for business expenses or startup capital.
The accelerator program culminates in December with an in-person event at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Lesley Robinson, director of education at the ayana Foundation, emphasized AcceleratHER’s role in connecting Native women with resources that could help them jump start their business ideas and find funding for growth.
That was what brought the Cherokee Nation to the table, according to Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr.
“Native American women represent the lowest rates of business entrepreneurship across all groups,” Hoskin said in a statement. “This fellowship is an excellent means of beginning to address such an unacceptable statistic, while also pursuing the longtime mission of the tribe and its businesses of investing in the success of every Cherokee citizen.”
The statistics reflect a wider gap in resources facing marginalized communities, where funding falls well short, so too do networking, mentorship, and educational resources, Robinson said. That’s where AcceleratHER comes in.
“You have this cohort of women that are starting to build that confidence … who are starting to be future focused and to understand how to take more risks,” Robinson. “You’re building that network for them, and that is a huge part of being able to start a business.”
It’s an idea that has resonated with Cherokee women: the accelerator received 244 applicants for the cohort’s 10 slots - which in turn were doubled from last year’s 5-member cohort. That accelerator was paid for with funding from the Cherokee Nation, received through the Native American Business Incubators Act of 2020.
This year, the accelerator is partially funded through the Cherokee Nation, who issued the seed grants, and partially through an endowment at the University of Tulsa. The interest in the accelerator proves there’s a need for this kind of initiative in Indian Country, Robinson said.
“There is definitely demand for programs like this,” Robinson said. “We also got quite a few emails from women from other tribes, seeing if they would be eligible for this specific opportunity. So for any woman founder, we’re definitely seeing the demand.”
Planting seeds, building houses, growing hair
For Michigan resident and Cherokee tribal member Lisa Copass, the accelerator represents a chance to take her business to the next step. Copass is the founder of Charlevoix, Mich.-based CloudHaus Dwellings LLC, a business aimed at building prefabricated panels for use in quickly constructing houses (an idea that has popped up elsewhere amid Indian Country’s ongoing housing crisis, per prior Tribal Business News reports.)
CloudHaus Dwellings, founded in 2019, has spent the last four years prototyping the technology and getting it ready for production through manufacturing partners.
“It’s a lot like modular housing, but we’re breaking it down even further into panels, windows, doors, and siding. You could have a 1,200-square-foot home basically ready to put siding and paint on within a couple of days,” Copass said. “We’re building homes that actually will provide legacy and provide, you know, future generations with the home that they can live in, pass down to generations and help to preserve their cultures.”
With a background that includes 10 years in real estate and construction, as well as 25 years in public relations, Copass is ready for the next stage for her business: marketing the product. That’s where she plans to spend her $10,00 seed grant, in developing a website and building a media and marketing plan for CloudHaus Dwellings.
Copass also looks forward to making the most of introductions to potential investors in her business through the AcceleratHER networking opportunities. The program will make use of existing partnerships between its organizers and private investors to create meaningful connections with people already interested in Native women’s ideas, she said.
“That’s a huge game changer - they’re connecting us with these investors and that’s a huge help, because they’re already sort of pre-qualified or vetted,” Copass said. “We are reaching for this low-hanging fruit instead of wasting a lot of time going after things that just would never pan out.”
Talia Wolfe (Cherokee) is designing synthetic hair products through her business, Tempe, Ariz.-based Three Defined Hair. The idea is to design and sell a 3D printer for synthetic and organic hair products, such as wigs, hair pieces, and extensions. By selling the 3D printers for travel, home, and industrial or commercial applications, Three Defined Hair could, for example, allow hair salons to create customized pieces for their customers.
Her seed grant will help pay for the process of patenting her ideas through a partnership with Atlanta-based engineering company Kickr Designs. Wolfe recalled dropping an 81-page patent design document on her attorney’s desk in September.
“It was 81 pages of my blood, sweat, and tears, and my attorney is just like ‘You did all this?’” Wolfe said. “These resources from the grant and accelerator have really helped me see this [come to fruition] and it’s meant so much to me.”
For Wolfe, the real value in the cohort is networking with and supporting other Native businesswomen. The online meetings so far have produced rapid exchanges of ideas and information between each of the participants, Wolfe said.
She also pointed to personality tests and personal examinations during the initial workshops that helped her and other cohort members hone in on their strengths and weaknesses.
“My top skill is ideation - I’m all about bringing new ideas and creativity to the table,” Wolfe said. “These are things I knew about myself, but to have it laid bare in this exam made me reflect on myself in a different way: why do I focus on my weaknesses when I have these incredible strengths that could really be of help to myself and other businesses?”
For Wolfe, AccelerateHER, that last meeting in December is an opportunity to meet the other women already supporting her ideas for her business and investors who might be interested in helping her grow and scale the operation.
For Copass, it’s an opportunity for all that and coming home, too.
“I'm really excited to go to the Cherokee Nation, to Tahlequah,” Copass said. “I haven’t been there since I was a little kid, so I’m really excited to get connected to my roots in that way, both professionally and personally.”
Editor's note: This story has been updated to clarify the business model of Three Design Hair.
