Reflecting on the milestones achieved and challenges overcome, this end-of-year review encapsulates our journey through 2023. It serves as a testament to our dedication, resilience, and accomplishments as we navigated the ever-evolving landscape of mission-driven marketing consulting. Through this report, we celebrate our successes, learnings, and the collective progress made, paving the way for an even more promising future in 2024.
Overview
At Surthrive, our mission is to accelerate economic development by helping early-stage businesses build the capacity to scale so they can create new jobs and bring more resources to their communities. Each year Surthrive establishes annual objectives for each of the following categories: Capital, Customers, and Capacity. Below were our 2023 annual objectives:
- Capital: Raise $1 Million in non-dilutive capital by December 31, 2023
- Customers: Secure new partnerships to compete for grants and RFPs by December 31, 2023
- Capacity: Support 50 business owners to increase their capacity to scale by December 31, 2023
Raising $1 Million
Successes
As mentioned in our 2023 Halftime Report, Surthrive won a grant from Invest Atlanta’s Creative Industries Grant Fund to relaunch our Back 2 The Basics podcast (View exclusive trailer here). In the second half of the year, Surthrive won another grant from Fiserv + Clover that allowed us to hire a new Administrative Assistant. Also, Invest Atlanta decided to extend our contract to further support socially-disadvantaged business owners located in the City of Atlanta via The Digital Transformation Project. These three activities brought our total non-dilutive capital raise in 2023 to $65K.
Learnings
We know what you’re thinking, “$65K is nowhere near $1 million.” and you’re right but here’s what we learned. In 2023, Surthrive applied for 8 grants (3 Federal, 5 Corporate) valued at $3.1 Million. Even though we weren’t awarded any of these major grants, we discovered a pattern and opportunity by observing other organizations who were winners of these grants.
Most grant award recipients were: 1) Non-Profits, 2) Focused on specific geographies, and 3) A part of a coalition. Unfortunately, Surthrive’s grant proposals did not check the boxes for these 3 areas. However, we noticed that grant award recipients needed support to implement the programming and services outlined in their approved proposals.
Establishing New Partnerships
Successes
In 2023, Surthrive inked 2 new strategic partnerships with two of the largest Business Serving Organizations (BSO) for Black-owned businesses based in the Southeast, Our Village United (OVU) and the Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurship (RICE).
Surthrive provided technical assistance in the form of business coaching and marketing consulting to Black-owned small businesses across the US in OVU’s HER PRO BONO and ELEVATED programs. Also, Surthrive was contracted by RICE as a Business Advisor providing business consulting and marketing strategy services to entrepreneurs in their BIG IDEAS program.
Learnings
Our team realized that we don’t need to be the primary organization writing grants in order to raise capital. Instead, we can lean into our strengths as a service provider and partner with Business Serving Organizations by being a subcontractor that provides technical assistance to their community of entrepreneurs.
We believe being a part of a BSOs coalition as a technical assistance provider will allow us to raise non-dilutive capital through multi-year subcontracts and will also be a win-win scenario for all stakeholders involved including Surthrive, BSOs, entrepreneurs, and communities across the US.
Supporting Over 100 Businesses
Successes
As a direct result of our consulting services, entrepreneurial programming and technical assistance services, we conducted over 311 consultation sessions with 132 socially-disadvantaged business owners that have created over 200 new jobs and raised $2M in capital. A total of 16 early-stage startup founders graduated from Surthrive’s 10-week pre-accelerator program, Square One Startup School. Below is a video highlighting some of the founders experiences:
Learnings
This year was the most businesses Surthrive has ever served in a calendar year and with that growth we learned how important it is to have the right people and processes in place to scale. We brought on a new Business Consultant and Administrative Assistant to help manage new clients, partners, and stakeholders.
Also, we had to evaluate and make adjustments to our process of delivering services to business owners so that we can ensure each business we work with is being provided with an excellent experience from beginning to end.
Plans for 2024
Going into 2024 our number one goal is to secure strategic partnerships with local and regional business serving organizations and economic development agencies around the US to become technical assistance providers to their network of entrepreneurs.
Through these partnerships, we believe we can support 200 businesses by the end of 2024 by providing them with complimentary business coaching, strategic planning, and marketing services.
If you are looking to partner with Surthrive in 2024 you can learn more here or reach out to our CEO, and 2023 Startup Atlanta Community Builder award recipient, Justin McLeod, at justin@surthrive.co.
