FLINT, Michigan — Flint is a town full of creative, driven people with powerful ideas. The local nonprofit organization
100K Ideas has made it its mission to provide dreamers and innovators with the resources they need to make their ideas a fruitful reality.
The eleventh and latest episode in 100K's client storytelling series highlights the entrepreneurial journeys of three Flint entrepreneurs — Casey Lester of The Roman, Erika Davis of Teach Me How to Bank, and Eric Thomas of EZ Awareness by Design.
The Roman
Although there are many local specialty shops with gifts and items for women and children, Casey Lester wanted to provide a better quality of men's products in the area. After looking for retail spaces downtown, he learned about Shops on Saginaw. Today,
The Roman sells clothing, accessories, jewelry, wallets, cologne, bath and body products, and more.
“We try to stick with things that are as locally-made as possible,” says Lester. “We sell basically anything to do with what a man gets dressed for. We keep everything as local as possible. We have wallets that come out of a leather shop in Owosso, we have hair stuff that comes out of Durand.”
The entrepreneur admits he feels a lot of imposter syndrome being surrounded by fellow entrepreneurs who are so knowledgeable of their industries. Reaching out to 100K Ideas has enabled the business owner to expedite ideas and have more confidence in his business.
“I’ve been in and around 100K Ideas for the last seven or eight years, something like that, and I’ve been able to utilize it in different ways,” he says.
Being a part of an entrepreneurial startup hub is something that not all cities offer but Lester is glad Flint has that valuable resource for folks like him.
The Roman has also hosted events and workshops like
Building Better Men which taught participants how to tie a tie and provided interview tips. They also collect used suits available to donate to local young men for proms, interviews, and other events.
The entrepreneur encourages others to follow their ideas, even if they’re not ‘million-dollar ideas,’ but rather, ‘100K ideas.’
“We trade hours of our life for money to work,” he says. “If you can keep those hours of your life, and increase the amount of money that you make — why not do that? Why not find a way to do your own thing and be your own boss? It’s not for everybody, not everybody can handle that level of ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow,’ but if you’re comfortable being uncomfortable, absolutely do it.”
Teach Me How to Bank
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Erika Davis of Teach Me How to Bank.Erika Davis jokes that she ‘landed in banking,’ and that it was never her dream career. In her twenties, she started a job as a bank teller. Throughout her nearly 15 years in that industry, she saw a real need when it came to the lacking education surrounding banking. Davis felt disheartened when she witnessed people experiencing struggles when it came to money, managing finances, account fees, fraud, and more.
“You know that if someone could have told them before they had this trouble, think about how much money they would save or how much grief; it started to become like a vision of mine to teach banking. I called it Banking 101,” she says. “Once the pandemic hit, it became more urgent for me to do this thing that had always been on my mind.”
After teaching a life skills class on banking, Davis’ trajectory was totally changed. She felt a call to follow her dreams and her purpose. She stepped out on faith and renamed the course
Teach Me How to Bank.
Today, her business provides realistic, relatable banking education and closes social inequity gaps for people in underserved areas. Davis says the support from 100K Ideas, equipped with the resources and facts, gave her a push to level up her one-woman business.
“At first, I thought it would be more like a competitive thing,” says Davis, “but what I’m finding is it’s more like we’re helping one another, fostering community, and it’s supportive. I think that this has been a really good experience for me just for getting me out in the community and seeing that there is so much support in the city of Flint.”
“I meet people all the time that tell me I’m an inspiration and it’s not at all what I started out to be. I really got up with my own money and my own ideas and just started getting out there. The support has been so tremendous that it has allowed me to have this at least as my part-time job way sooner than I thought.”
Since her material is original, Davis can tweak presentations and personalize them specifically for allotted timeframes, and individual needs of the organization she’s presenting to. She hopes to make this her full-time job, presenting her educational banking course all over the community.
Davis says this transition has been scary but also one of the most exciting things she’s ever done. She encourages other entrepreneurs to follow their gut as well.
“You get the idea, sit with the idea, and pay attention to how the idea makes you feel,” she says. “Because for me, this idea started years ago but every time I talked to anybody about it, the feeling that it gave me inside – every nerve-ending screamed, ‘do it, do it now. Why are you not doing this? Why is this not your thing?’”
“That little voice alone cannot be quieted,” she adds. “So if you have that idea, find your support system, find people like 100K Ideas – they're here for you too, and go with it. Go with it until it's lit and the fire is so tough that you can’t put it out.”
EZ Awareness by Design
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Eric Thomas of EZ Awareness by Design.As a child growing up in the Hip-Hop era, Eric Thomas analyzed and studied clothing brands. He always dreamed of having his own clothing line. In 1997, he was shot in the neck and a bullet grazed the back of his head. He became paralyzed from the neck down, unable to breathe without a machine. His whole course of life changed, but his original childhood dream shined even brighter.
His clothing line,
EZ Awareness by Design, started in 2011 and provides powerful reminders on t-shirts to believe, have hope, and inspire others.
“That was something that people always said anytime I went somewhere so I started to wear that [word inspire] on my shirt when I started talking,” says Thomas. “It wasn't until I went and spoke at Swartz Creek Middle School, the way the kids were reacting to it, I was like, ‘Man, we have to make this public.’ Before you know it, we made it public. We had a Shopify page the next day.”
Today, EZ Awareness sells shirts, hats, hoodies, mugs, and other accessories online, at Shops on Saginaw, Flint Farmers Market, Sloan Museum, and Bishop Airport. Thomas enjoys being a vendor in Shops on Saginaw, learning about other local businesses, and uplifting fellow entrepreneurs.
“I hope other people will see this and really be inspired to want to come down there and get their product in there,” he says. “And then also not just to be there but to support the other vendors; don’t just ‘me, me, me.’ It’s about all of us.”
Thomas says being an entrepreneur and business owner with a disability has been hard. While resources are there for specific groups like minority-owned, there are fewer for disability-owned.
“It’s been challenging because when you file for disability in this country, that basically says you’re not able to work,” he says. “So here you are, on disability, but you want to work, you want to do better, you want to have the best quality of life. They’re like, ‘Well, but you just filed that you’re disabled.’ No, I’m on disability because I need care service.’ Everything a person can do besides speak or think, I have to have assistance for.”
Although challenging, these struggles have led Thomas to use his voice in advocacy.
“I feel like everybody should have the best quality of life,” he says.
He encourages others with ideas to dream and to never say ‘can’t.’ He hopes to continue growing the off-site locations in Genesee County and to open up a micro-retail store. Ultimately, he hopes to help others make their daily lives more accessible for all.
“Beyond [being] inclusive, let’s talk about belonging because inclusive is just including, we want to make a belonging environment,” he says. “We want to know if someone’s not there, that you’re missing them; that they have a voice.”
Check out the full storytelling segment below.
This story is part of a storytelling series supported by 100K Ideas. To learn more, visit: 100kideas.org