'I started the black business network I wish I had'

A woman has launched a network for black business founders after feeling "lonely" and "isolated" when she started out.

Jemima Antwi, 27, from Ghana, first founded her own business as a university student in Chester, selling reusable water bottles. But after the business folded, she spoke to other black business founders, and discovered the issues they had been facing, were not that different to her own.

Antwi set up Black Founders Studio (BFS), a not-for-profit community interest business, in September that supports early-stage black founders, most of them black women, to take their businesses from idea to launch. And less than one year on, she said she has helped create 30 businesses, set to launch later at Chester Racecourse.

"For black women in particular, entrepreneurship is so lonely," Antwi said. " You don't really know anyone that you can look up to. Starting my business was the most difficult thing I had ever done. So I started Black Founders Studio to create the support I wished had existed."

Antwi started her own business, Mimes Reusables, in 2022, selling reusable bottles through the Venture Programme at the University of Chester.

"That was gaining some traction," she said. "It was doing well in Chester.

"People started calling me the bottle lady because I was doing a of local markets."

Antwi said the business "crashed" after two years - but about a year after her business folded she began to analyse what had gone wrong.

"Two years in and it crashed," she said. "Sometimes when your business fails, you don't think about it straight away, you are still mourning.

"But when that period has passed, you start reflecting, and that was when I realised what caused my business to fail is not unique to me."

Antwi said some of the issues she had faced had been a lack of a network, a lack of funding and contacts, and limited representation as a black woman in business.

"When I started the business, I didn't really know anybody,"Antwi explained.

"Chester is not exactly the most black place and I did not have any network.

Antwi said during this time she had felt lonely and isolated.

"I was working like three jobs to try and finance the business, because I didn't have any generational wealth or somebody, like a relative in the UK who could help me," she explained.

"It wasn't very easy to access funding, which was what caused the business to close down.

"And what was more lonely was the fact that there was no network.

"I did not really have a community.

"It felt so lonely because I was having to quite literally do everything alone."

Antwi said speaking to other black business owners made her realise she was not the only founder who felt this way.

"I was speaking to a lot of other black-owned businesses and it looked like it was the same pattern," she said. "We were all sort of facing the same barriers, the same challenges and the same issues.

"So I created Black Founders Studio, as a Community Interest Company (CIC) to help deal with this."

Antwi said she quit her job in finance and has been working at a local shop, so she was able put her efforts into founding the not-for-profit business.

Antwi said she spoke to people who wanted to be business owners but did not have the confidence to take the first step.

"I spoke to so many people, black women, who wanted to do business, but they didn't," she said.

"Because it is so uncertain that they stick to employed work.

"They didn't have people to talk to, they were here alone and didn't have family to fall back on."

Antwi said she realised she could help business founders by providing education.

"Some people didn't know how to set up businesses here in the UK," she said. "Or what structure the business needed to follow, or what legalities were required to set up the business properly."

"And before we talk about loans and marketing, we needed to get that structure."

Antwi said she started providing lessons on trademarking and company registration, before moving on to help founders form businesses that solve "real life issues".

In under a year, and without any external funding, Antwi said BFS has taken on 50 founders through an incubator programme, providing practical training and support, and a community network of entrepreneurs.

And of the 50 founders, 30 are now at the launch stage with their business.

"With entrepreneurship it is so easy to give up," Antwi said. "And having that network, having that community that actually pushing you through, it makes a hell of a difference."

Antwi said her focus was on helping to found businesses that are "problem solving ideas" and create "something of use to society".

One example she gave of this was beauty brand founder, Anita Asante, who has founded, ADWO Makeup.

Antwi said ADWO Makeup is an Afro-luxury, inclusive, vegan and cruelty-free makeup "celebrating under-represented skin tones the beauty industry has long overlooked".

Asante, founded her business after struggling to find her foundation shade last year in a high street beauty shop.

"In the whole of Europe, a very small percentage of the market's makeup brands are owned by black people and are for black people," Antwi said.

Other BFS businesses being launched on Saturday include a wellness brand helping girls meet their first period with confidence, an African cuisine brand, a menopause support network business and a black skincare brand focusing on products for melanin-rich skin, including sunscreen for black skin.

"It makes me so happy, because every single one of the businesses isn't just about a product, they're actually changing the world in a way," Antwi said.

Ahead of the launch event later, Antwi said it felt "incredible" to see the founders' final products arriving.

"Seeing the products arrive, it's just so incredible, I actually cry because I'm like, 'oh my goodness this is actually real'," she said.

Antwi said that in the future she wants to expand the business to help secure funding for founders.

She added: "Not just representation, but I want to see deep change in the UK, to give black people, women, men, children hope."

Read more stories from Cheshire on the BBC, watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer and follow BBC North West on X. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.