What is it that Casey Richardson is bringing access to information, community as well as capital Black female entrepreneurs
Discover how Casey Richardson used her experience in tech funding to found BLAZE Group and empower a network made up of Black women entrepreneurs.
A couple of year ago, Richardson's life looked a lot different. She was from California's Bay Area and worked for Bank of America, structuring large-scale loans to tech firms. But she found that she was often the only Black female on the team. And throughout her 10 years being within finance, she never saw the funding provided to any Black business.
"It taught me that not just was the knowledge not getting there, the capital wasn't being distributed to my communities," Casey recalls.
In October of 2020, Casey decided to change that.
Based on her experiences in tech funding and business, she left the 9-to-5 grind and started the BLAZE Group"Building leaders and embracing zero Excuses -- to provide knowledge, mentorship as well as a sense of community for the traditionally underserved group of Black women entrepreneurs.
Fast forward to 2023: BLAZE Group offers online courses via the Blaze Knowledge Academy, group coaching courses and an online community the app, retreats in person and a biannual summit, and proprietary research that is led by Casey as well as her international team.
How could she have done it in only two years? A combination of providing resources that meet a specific, underserved need, intentional creation of an audience, and choosing the appropriate tools and team.
From finance expert in corporate to the game-changing entrepreneur
Before becoming an entrepreneur full-time, Casey was a finance professional, structuring multibillion-dollar loans to tech companies. It kept her at the forefront of new tech -- but she also saw disparity within her group and in the businesses they were funding. "I was never the only Black woman among the members of the team. This showed the world that I had a degree, my knowledge and my experience were unavailable in my local communities."
Black women make up the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs within the United States -- but only 3% have "mature" companies, while the majority of entrepreneurs self-fund startup capital. There's a huge gap in the funding and resources accessible to Black female entrepreneurs as compared to those of white men.
As of the summer of 2020 Casey took part in the demonstrations against the brutality of police. She found strength and community that she had not felt in the routine of her job. "I felt more alive protesting more than I did throughout my entire time of doing those sexy deals," she says. "I had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders the brave enough and courageous enough to make decisions that actually have a bearing on the world."
At the end of October, she had come to terms at the end of the road for her job in finance at a corporate company- not in spite of the fact that she had been successful however, but due to the fact that it. What else could she utilize her expertise? How could she use her experience in technology and finance to help other Black women be successful?
"I'm extremely comfortable inside the four walls. However, I'd be willing to bet on myself every day and believe I'd take over more space on earth. So I quit."
She took a break from her job, moved to Africa and began building BLAZE Group, a location-independent firm that empowers Black women across the globe to accomplish the similar thing.
BLAZE Grupo is specifically targeting entrepreneurs during their first three years of business building, which Casey refers to as the "entrepreneurial stage."
"BLAZE helps people understand how to manage their businesses in ways that keep them around. We do this by providing solutions that are tech-powered, and we're one of them." she adds.
In order to serve this audience, Casey had to build real relationships with them.
What are the reasons you should create an email list (and how to start)
Casey was aware that she would like to design a high-end business online course straight from the start -- but it was crucial to create an audience prior to when she launched her first product.
Casey did not want this to be the case with the debut of BLAZE's initial product. Thus, she approached her first activities to build an audience with a clear goal that was to create an email database.
Why email subscribers over those on social media? "I knew I wanted to build personal relationships," explains Casey.
"On Instagram, you don't own the relationship. You don't know the email address of their account, and when their handle changes it's best to have a clue as to what the new handle is," Casey says.
"I would like to build relationships , and be in front of them often to build that brand awareness and confidence."
Contacting her current networks
15-minute discovery calls to her intended group of customers
1. Inquiring about her existing contacts
There's plenty of information available on how to grow your audience, and the majority of creators assume that their first customers will be strangers who found their site via social media. If you create the process from scratch You're missing the most powerful resource of support Friends and family!
Casey approached everyone in her circle, letting people know she'd started the publication of a monthly newsletter on entrepreneurship, and asked if they'd like to sign up.
"I began by looking over my recent text messages, Instagram DMs, Twitter Facebook... I put a timer on and then made sure to send as many messages as I could in five-minute intervals," she describes.
Numerous family members and friends were able to take Casey up on the offer, and she began building a solid email list leading towards her launch.
2. 15-minute discovery calls to her intended audience
And the best way to get to know them is to speak to them.
Casey published a tweet on Facebook, where she announced her plans to create an online course that would aid Black women better understand the business world. "If you would like me to talk with you for 15 minutes , and ask questions, contact me," she added.
She was aware that those who called to set up a meeting to her were her primary group: Black women interested in entrepreneurship.
Instead of chatting about course content or selling herself, Casey asked questions like, "What keeps you up all late at night? What is your biggest worry? If you only had one year, what do you wanna become?" She used the occasion to make women feel heard and valued. In turn, she learned what was most important to address in her course content.
"Just making space and making them feel comfortable it's an important element in the magic."
"By the time they had finished most of the calls, they were asking, "Can I now purchase the course What do I need to buy?" Casey remembers. The course was in the process of being developed. course but had already collected their email addresses , and promised to let them know the day it was launched.
When the course was finally completed, she marketed it on the list of email subscribers she created with these two strategies. "There was already an anticipation among all those who had signed up. They were ready to enroll."
What did they find? The majority of the women she spoke to during those first calls turned into customers.
More than two years later, Casey still offers free discovery calls as part of her sales and marketing process. Should potential customers have any questions regarding this Blaze Business Intensive, they can arrange a free Perfect Fit Call to talk with Casey.
"On average, it takes five follow-ups before closing a deal. There aren't enough entrepreneurs who know that," says Casey. "I use those calls to make the sale."
How working with the right tools and people helps Casey grow her business
In the present, BLAZE offers online courses and masterclasses as well as group coaching, an online community, webinars, the TablexTribe mobile application as well as a semi-annual digital gathering (a 2022 Webby Award honoree for Best in Business and Finance), and proprietary research.
How does she manage all of those things without a lot of effort and love?
Casey is putting together an international team that helps her expand different areas of her enterprise, which includes:
A blogger and content marketer based in Nigeria
A junior consultant based in London
A production and brand manager (her fiance!) who grew the BLAZE Group Instagram from 1,300 followers in May 2022 to 70,000+ at the start of 2023
An executive assistant in Kenya
An analyst in research who writes research papers across industries. He also assists BLAZE to find new clients for consulting
An assistant to the production team to assist with the semi-annual Blaze Virtual Summit
She does not just recruit people to join her team and hires the tools also.
"I use tools that I hire with rapidity," Casey laughs. "And I love that because there's an amount of scale."
A rise in revenues doesn't necessarily indicate that your business is growing, particularly if you're working harder or investing more funds in order to reach that growth.
"The rise in revenue must not be the main goal," explains Casey. "If your costs are rising at the same rate as your revenues increase, your bottom line doesn't change."
"Scale occurs when you boost revenue but the cost and amount of time you spend do not change much."
Experience in the tech industry has taught Casey the power of no-code tools Integrations, automations, and integrations can be. As she built BLAZE Group, she leveraged the low-cost and no-code options such as Zapier to ensure that everything ran smoothly.
What Casey makes use of her course her community and downloads
" was the very first program I had to use for offering things in a large scale" Casey shares.
Tools like give Casey "more space to do important things" for example, the one-on one meetings she makes with potential clients.
Casey built her first digital product, called the Blaze Business Intensive online course. It includes . It's a self-paced, six-week course on "Business Building, Business Management and Business Excellence for Today's Black Woman."
"It was completely no-code. It was actually designed by me back during the 14-day free trial," Casey remembers. "I constructed the entire course within this timeframe and then started selling it before that expired to be successful."
(Want to be like Casey's? Register for an initial free trial for all the time it takes to have your course material installed, and then upgrade when you're ready to start selling.)
The course is part the Blaze Knowledge Academy , a collection of educational resources for businesses Casey developed on her site. The Academy also includes:
Numerous entrepreneurship masterclasses. Many of which are offered for free
Her online community, the Blaze Women's Network , with nearly 7,000 members
"People have the option of joining to the Blaze Women's Network absolutely free," Casey explains. Virtual coworking is what we do, I host webinars, and then that funnels users to the paid courses."
Alongside introducing clients to products that are helpful as well, Casey's community provides users with the opportunity to be surrounded by a welcoming and encouraging environment to network with fellow founders.
"It used to be that 'content was king,' however, now the trend is shifting towards a culture where community is the king. Many are looking for community-centric programs... and communities that don't feel like spam come across as genuine."
Her experience using has given Casey the guidelines for what you should look for when choosing a no-code creator tool. "You are a highly flexible platform that has allowed me to develop end-to end solutions on your system," Casey explains. "And I've been using the similar scorecard when assessing tools because I want to grow to it."
"It truly is beautiful to use strategies that transform the world in ways that are cost-effective and very accessible to people that are disadvantaged today."
Don't try to do everything at the same time
Given all of Casey's accomplishments in the span of just two years running BLAZE and BLAZE, her tips for young creators may come as a surprise: Do less in the beginning, at the very least, when getting established.
"Keep the main thing primary, which is what you should be doing," she advises. Hustle culture tells new entrepreneurs that it's impossible to finish all the work or the content that's produced. But Casey encourages other creators to remember "There's only the amount you have to do regardless of how great you might be."
"You shouldn't be doing all of the things outta the gate but it will be extremely, very difficult to master a variety of things in one go when you're just starting."
She suggests starting by choosing a signature course before building up upon that. "I began by taking the Blaze Intensive, my first course. It is my main course. Entrepreneurs should spend time figuring out what their signature product should be and the things they would like to be famous for, before they start adding on many other things."
There's lots to think about initially: your message targeting audience, your marketing, technology, customers' satisfaction. What happens once you've done it? You open up the potential for so much more.
"I believe we've got the capability to achieve millions of things. Perhaps in the next 200 years. Because Blaze is still around. But that doesn't need to be happening today."
We're thrilled to be an integral part of Casey's story We can't get enough to see what's coming next for her and BLAZE Group -- this year, in 200 years down the road and every day in between.