Beyond Bootstrapping: Navigating The Entrepreneurial Journey with Danielle Barbee
“This is bigger than me now, I can’t quit. SOUL Collective gave me confidence to see that what I’m doing is actually serving a need,” Danielle Barbee, owner of The Math Success Coach said.
Danielle has been in the tutoring business since 2017 and started out her journey as a black entrepreneur with two brand names before The Math Success Coach. She has a background in teaching math and would even tutor her own peers at Cumberland University when they had a teacher who was not teaching math in a way that was easy to understand.
“It’s more than just helping kids with homework and solving problems,” Danielle explained as she spoke about her love for The Math Success Coach. “We do more like coaching and motivating and showing them ‘You can actually do this.’”
She met Trunetta Atwater, founder and program director of SOUL Collective, through tutoring her son and receiving branding photos done by Trunetta. Soon after meeting Trunetta, she joined SOUL and got her tutoring business up and running again after the pandemic. Between lessons at CO.STARTERS and the branding and marketing through SOUL, Danielle was able to figure out how to connect her own story into her business. She learned how to communicate with customers and meet their needs through the education and motivation SOUL provided.
“I’ve gone from having one sale a week, to now, every weekend someone is inquiring and a sale is happening and there is no slow time of the year. Usually my students fall off around testing, but I’ve only had two who said they didn’t want to continue into the summer. I’m very thankful to see the growth,” Danielle explained.
It was easy to think no one was interested in what she was doing and that no one needed tutoring, but to be consistent in talking to her clients and marketing to them, and to put herself out there for others to see. She continued to repeat “when you get tired, you can take a break, but don’t quit.
Danielle’s journey involved bootstrapping from the start. She started with what she had and built on top of that. She had a gift and education for tutoring, so she started using that to serve others and ultimately make a profit. Any money she made in the beginning she put right back into her business, rarely paying herself. If there was extra money, she invested it into something else for her business.
When you're a small business owner or entrepreneur, it is easy to get discouraged quickly if you are functioning in isolation. But SOUL has rescued her from that feeling. Participating in a community of black entrepreneurs gave her accountability within her business. She had to show up to the classes involved in SOUL or Make It Happen Mondays because people counted on her. Most people around you, like family members, don't get it because they don't own small businesses. But if you surround yourself with like-minded people going through the same struggles, it boosts motivation for bootstrappers like Danielle.
Danielle’s advice for other black entrepreneurs is simple, yet profound. Stay the course. Things get hard but stay the course. Set your goals and work backward from there. Community among black entrepreneurs and small business owners is vital for success. It gives any business owner, but specifically Danielle, confidence to see others succeeding and to see them encouraging her.
“I look back now at where I started and see the growth and the lessons I've learned. I wouldn't trade anything, the good or the bad things that have happened, because we wouldn't be where we are now,” Danielle concluded. “I’ve gone from doing hourly sessions with one student at a time to working with groups and school systems. Now it’s my business working with another business, which is a totally new level. I had to be open to learning more things and marketing coaching with SOUL. I’m always learning, there’s always room for growth. There is always another level to what you can do.