— PurchaseBlack.com, an African American focused Ecommerce Website, wins first place in the 2014 National Black MBA Innovation Whiteboard Challenge for $10,000. —
Brian Williams (2nd from the left), founder of PurchaseBlack.com, receives $10,000 check from the National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA)
Nationwide — African American focused online shopping mall PurchaseBlack.com is the 2014 Innovation Whiteboard Challenge champion. PurchaseBlack.com competed against 9 other national semi-finalists in a preliminary round, where three finalists presented before an audience of executives, directors, and America’s preeminent African American business professionals.
Williams studied African American business success while getting his Master of Business Administration at the University of Texas, which inspired him to start his business. He has sat on multiple panels as a voice on Blacks in technology, business and entrepreneurship for organizations such as Urban League Young Professionals – Thursday Network, Black Harvard Alumni Organization of Washington DC, and the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, among others.
Brian plans to use the momentum from the competition to attract more small and medium Black owned or Black servicing businesses to sell their products in PurchaseBlack.com’s five categories.
“We have already gone from a few webstores to over 50 businesses and about 1,000 Black owned or Black focused products on PurchaseBlack.com today! With the connections from the conference, we may be able to get thousands more products soon. We are going in the right direction, and we want to accelerate our growth.”
PurchaseBlack has started a GoFundMe campaign to help grow the business, which can be found at www.GoFundMe.com/PurchaseBlack. “A lot of people believe in what we are trying to do, which is to become the home for African American online shopping, and create a simple way to support Black owned or Black servicing businesses. We hope that people will support our campaign to strengthen our cause and community. We are in this together.”
Businesses are encouraged to visit www.purchaseblack.com/become-a-seller for more information about selling their products (not services) in their own webstore.
You can connect with purchaseblack on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Google Plus with username @PurchaseBlack.
PRESS CONTACT:
Brian Williams
Purchase Black LLC
ContactUs@PurchaseBlack.com
www.Purchaseblack.com/press