BUSINESS FUNDING AND DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION She acknowledges that while entrepreneurship is challenging for everyone, founders who are women and/or people of color face unique obstacles. Not long ago, racist laws straight up prevented many people of color from fully participating in the economy, and the resulting legacies of biases, stereotypes, and lower amounts of generational wealth present continuing issues for business founders from marginalized communities. “It can help to find potential investors who are passionate about rectifying wrongs done to people in the past,” Kassan explains. “Also, studies show that you get higher returns from investing in women and people of color.” She says it will be a long fight to make the venture capital world equitable and that, in the meantime, it’s more effective to seek investors outside of the traditional model. “83 percent of entrepreneurs in the U.S. don’t receive venture capital or institutional loans and aren’t likely to be able to access them. So I’m specializing in helping people find their way around, rather than through, the system.” COMMUNITY BUILDING AND FINANCE: KASSAN’S BACKGROUND When Kassan first got out of law school, she worked for a nonprofit focused on a low-income community in Oakland. They helped organize festivals, farmers’ markets, street cleanup, and beautification projects. “I saw all these amazing mom-and-pop shops run by people from around the world. But I also saw how under-resourced
these businesses were, how they had trouble doing basic things such as complying with regulations,” she says. “If they could only have access to funding, the world would be such a better place.” Kassan became passionate about what she could do as a lawyer to see more funding moved toward small businesses, social enterprises, and emerging entrepreneurs. She studied the laws governing how businesses can raise money and how to facilitate the transactions that let people invest in the companies they love. Currently, she heads Kassan Law Group, composed of two lawyers and two full-time operations employees, which provides legal and coaching services. She’s also founded a place-based investment initiative in Baltimore and Angels of Main Street, an avenue to give ordinary people the chance to get behind the businesses they love in their communities. “We need to lower the barriers to becoming an investor, make this more accessible to regular people,” Kassan says. “People would like to support and build their communities.”
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