95 Percent of Maryland's Black-Owned Businesses Have No Employees

Ninety-five percent of Black-owned businesses in Maryland have no employees. Angel St. John, CEO and founder of The Equity Brain Trust, cited that figure at the State of Black Business Symposium on Oct. 14, and it framed the entire discussion.

Word In Black and the AFRO co-hosted the virtual event. Frances Toni Draper, publisher of AFRO News, and Shernay Williams, events manager for Word In Black, led a panel with three Black business owners. The speakers drew on their own experience to describe what helps and what stalls Black entrepreneurs right now.

Why does firm size matter so much?

St. John runs a Baltimore-based strategy and technology startup that helps public and private sector leaders use data to drive equitable economic growth. Solo operation, she argued, caps what an owner can build.

"Scale matters. Businesses that scale last longer," said St. John.

She put a number on the gap. Families who own businesses with five employees or more hold a median net worth $800,000 higher than families whose companies employ fewer than five people. Scaling into employer firms also grows the state's wider economy, she noted, by creating jobs and expanding economic activity.

What holds owners back on the numbers?

Kimberly Castle Royster, chairwoman of the Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce and CFO of Kimberly Services LLC, opened with credit for the entrepreneurs themselves.

"That's one of the things that pushes us to keep going a lot of times—it's the resilience, ambition and full potential of navigating the structural challenges in business," said Royster. "One of the biggest things I see overall is how people are still pushing and still going, no matter where they are."

Then she flagged a habit she keeps seeing: owners bring in accounting too late. Her company specializes in accounting solutions, and she said people too often make hasty or unwise decisions because they do not understand their own finances.

"Accounting is the last thing we're looking at and not the first thing," said Royster. "I find more successful businesses start with having the accounting first and understanding the numbers."

Royster also described a pricing problem. Black business owners hesitate to raise prices, she said, and the hesitation often traces back to self-doubt.

"We are not confident enough to know that we deserve more and can have more," said Royster.

How can small firms scale?

The panel pointed to two routes beyond hiring one employee at a time.

• Cooperatives. Panelists highlighted co-ops as a path to scale. These are businesses owned and operated by their members, who share resources, costs and decision-making.
• Coalitions and networks. Lonna Dawson, owner of Nefer Bookcafe, urged owners to build support networks of people who understand business challenges and can offer resources, financial support or connections to new opportunities.

Dawson started as a solo entrepreneur herself. Her message to owners still working alone was direct.

"When it was an idea, perhaps you encountered people who didn't quite understand what you were doing or couldn't offer the type of business financial support that you needed," said Dawson. "Now that you're here, don't think that you still have to be alone in this."

The symposium's arithmetic sets the agenda: moving even a fraction of Maryland's non-employer Black-owned firms past the five-employee line would shift both household wealth and the state's job base, which is exactly the outcome the panelists said networks, co-ops and cleaner books are built to deliver.