Resource ASK, a Black led organization with a mission to spread curated business resources to Black entrepreneurs.

The Problem

A great percentage of Black entrepreneurs do not have access to support or advice to help them run their businesses. Access to funding, financing, capital and sales is a great challenge for Black entrepreneurs with 75% of them saying that if they need $10,000 to support their business it would be difficult for them to do so.

A Deeper Look

Our Solution

The Resource ASK Bot

The current situation of Black entrepreneurs is that they don’t have access to many of the resources avaliable to them. Many business resources can only be found through specific channels such as connections, and spending hours searching the web.

Resource ASK aims to change this through the use of the Resource ASK Bot, a dynamic resource finder that searches the web for resources relevant to Black Entrepreneurs. It not only collects a mass amount of business resources but also categorizes them according to the specific needs of users.

So How Does It Work?

Using a web scraping algorithm the bot retrieves web pages that include occurrences of key words that hold importance to Black entrepreneurs. These web pages are then sent to the Resource ASK Team for verification and categorization. After this process the classifications are submitted to a database which is where the bot retrieves listings upon a request from the user. See this link for more information on the specific categorization process.

The Bot is optimized for use on chatting platforms such as Discord and Slack, this allows for user input to be analyzed and responded to quickly. If you want to see demo videos of the Bot’s prototype click this link.

Our Solution

The Slack Workspace

As many Black entrepreneurs face barriers in access to networking opportunities, connections that may help take their businesses to the next level are non-existent to them. To solve this problem Resource ASK is developing a Slack workspace, which would connect Black entrepreneurs to one another and potential investors.

In the Slack Workspace users will have access to the Resource ASK Bot in addition to a community of people that are in similar circumstances who they can lean on for support. This allows for new users to make connections with people in similar business sectors and for potential mentorship opportunities to be formed.