CURLS Launches 'Girls Rule the World' Campaign to Empower Female Entrepreneurship

The organic hair care company Curls, well known as a natural hair-care brand, is commemorating Black History Month with a program to empower women entrepreneurs. We love female entrepreneurship and we're inspired by programs like CURLS Girls Rule the World, which use the power of social media and women's stories to show other women that overcoming challenges and biases—even the intersection of racial and gender-based bias—is possible, and that resources are available to help women entrepreneurs triumph.

The featured event of the movement—the CURLS Girls Rule the World: Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon—will be held April 1; with celebrity expert mentors from business, media, entertainment, nonprofit and more.

We hope you'll visit Madame Noire to check out the whole story, including a list of luncheon guests.

Madame Noire - In celebration of Black History Month, CURLS has launched CURLS Girls Rule the World, a signature program dedicated to empowering female entrepreneurship, and MadameNoire has jumped on board as the official media sponsor.

To kick-off the national campaign, CURLS will host over 100 girls of color from New York City and Westchester County between the ages of 12 and 24 at its CURLS Girls Rule the World: Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon on April 1, 2016 at Mist-Harlem in New York City. The event will expose girls to accomplished mentors in various industries so they can begin to learn how they can make their dreams come true.

“We are so proud of our CURLS Girls Rule the World program and our upcoming ‘Empowering Entrepreneurs Luncheon’ in New York City,” CURLS CEO and Founder Mahisha Dellinger stated. “Having a mentor and being exposed to business resources to help me accomplish my dreams was something I did not have when I was a young girl. Being able to provide girls with the opportunity to meet successful women, who will stay in touch with them, is truly giving the girls a leg up in realizing that whatever they dream is possible.”

Natural Curly Hair Care Startup Yelani Builds Investor Business Case

Establishing the validity of a business model can be challenging—and it's even more difficult when very few investors understand or identify with the problems or needs your business addresses. Between the case study of pitching a business model, and the intersection of issues like race and gender, we were fascinated by this article on Yelani, which offers hair-care products specifically for natural hair—that is, curly or kinky hair common to many women of color. Read below or click through to learn more about how Yelani's business model looks to understand what women with natural hair need—providing products to an underserved demographic, and making investors take notice.

forbes.com - One of the biggest challenges to startups these days is properly building a business case that will compel investors. Once you’ve developed a great product and placed yourself in the company of good business advisors, funders want to know why they should invest in you. Proving your case with data and confidence is a place that outsiders and seasoned veterans can be a huge asset. So what are investors looking for? And, does Yelani all-natural hair care products have what it takes to make the investor case?

Yetunde Jude is the founder of Yelani, an all-natural hair care line for people with kinky or naturally curly hair. If you don’t have kinky curly hair, you may not be aware of the challenges of maintaining healthy hair and as a business person you may not be aware of what an opportunity that is.

As I participated in the Kennesaw State University The Edge Connection competition with a host of business people, many of them men, it was interesting to watch Jude present her research. Most of the men didn’t appreciate the lengths women—particularly African American, Hispanic and other women with kinky curly hair—go to in order to maintain their hair. They were also unaware of how much these women spend to maintain their hair.

Read more here.