The Conference That Sparked a Question
I was at a family office conference, a gathering where families with over $50 to $100 million in assets meet to talk business and long-term wealth. One guy, an Indian man, started naming industries tied to different ethnic groups. He said, “Indian families—motels, corner stores. Vietnamese—nail shops. Cambodians in California—donut shops. Native tribes—casinos.” Then he turned to me and asked, “What do Black people own?” That question hit hard. I paused. I posted the question to Instagram and Twitter, and got answers like barbecue joints, beauty salons, and soul food spots. Sure, we have businesses. But the real difference isn’t whether we have them—it’s how we treat them. Other groups build webs. They fund, teach, and mobilize each other. We don’t. And that’s the problem.
The Donut King Blueprint
If you haven’t seen the documentary The Donut King, watch it. It tells the story of a Cambodian refugee who started working in a donut shop. The owner taught him the business, helped him save up, and then helped him open his own shop. That man did the same for the next refugee—and they kept paying it forward. Eventually, Cambodian families owned over 400 donut shops across California. They didn’t just hustle. They shared blueprints. They funded each other. They passed on the keys. That’s the kind of unity that turns one win into a legacy. Imagine if we did that with our barbershops, food trucks, or construction companies.
The Problem With Keeping It to Ourselves
In our case, it seems like many Black business owners keep their success to themselves. They don’t often share their secret sauce—literally or financially. That’s part of why so many of our businesses struggle to grow. One reason this happens is because a lot of us had to build from nothing, with no help. We had to fight to get loans, face discrimination, and figure things out the hard way. So some owners think, “If I had to do it alone, you should too.” That’s not always selfish—it’s a mindset shaped by survival. But when people feel like success is scarce, they guard it instead of spreading it. And when knowledge stays locked up, the next generation has to start from scratch every time.
The Cost of Not Sharing
The result? We end up in bad lease agreements because no one warned us. We don’t know how to market to scale because no one taught us. We get burned by vendors, tax rules, and landlords because no one passed down the game. While other groups are forming coalitions and family-run empires, we’re left trying to piece it together with whatever we can scrape up. It’s not that we aren’t talented or hardworking. It’s that we don’t always have the system of support to match our grind. If a Black business owner gave just one other person a hand up each year, imagine the domino effect. But that requires shifting the mindset from “I got mine” to “Let me help you get yours too.”
Summary
The truth is, we do have businesses—but we don’t always have networks. We lack the shared infrastructure that helps other groups turn small wins into lasting wealth. That’s not because we don’t care. It’s because history taught us to protect what little we have. But if we want to grow stronger together, we have to change that. Sharing knowledge, money, and opportunity can’t feel like a threat—it has to feel like a duty. Because until we start building together, we’ll keep falling behind one by one. Wealth isn’t just what you earn. It’s what you pass on.