New Initiatives To Build Black Wealth

As we mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre this week, building Black wealth became a key part of commemorations. Events were held in Tulsa to support Black businesses and President Biden vowed to invest more money in Black entrepreneurs. That same sentiment led to a new collaboration between Sean "Diddy" Combs and Salesforce to launch Shop Circulate, an online platform that will allow consumers to buy products exclusively created and sold by Black entrepreneurs.Combs acquired The Nile List, an e-commerce site that connects consumers with Black-owned brands to create Shop Circulate. Founder, Khadija Robinson, said, "Shop Circulate is an e-commerce marketplace that is focused on connecting consumers with really high-quality Black-owned brands. So you will have a very curated experience and we really want to make it very interactive, very social. So people will be able to, for example, follow some of their favorite influencers and celebrities and see what they buy and buy what they buy. So, you know, I'm really excited about those features." Robinson started the business in 2019, and calls it an interesting experience moving from that launch to being acquired by Combs."Bootstrapping my business, being a Black woman ... and working on it myself the whole time while still being a full-time lawyer — that was really stressful, but very exciting and very doable for work that you're passionate about," she said. "We were out there doing pitch competitions and we were really heavy on social media and just making sure that we were engaging the community about what we're doing, because I view this as a community work. And we started talking to [Combs' team] last year just in general about what we were doing with Nile and found so much commonality."Robinson says her hopes for Shop Circulate can be inferred from the name of the business."It's all about circulating our dollars and making sure that we are able to really build within our community," she said. "Not just, you know, wealth obviously, but also exchange of resources, exchange of ideas that support being able to grow together."Robinson will work as the head of product overseeing development of the site.