Entrepreneurial references from Buffalo:
https://stooty.app/
Buffalo childhood friends building platform to connect artists, studios:
https://buffalonews.com/business/loc...9b8de31ca.html
"Startup spotlight: Stooty Technologies
Let's say you're a musician.
You want to record a song you wrote, but you don't have recording equipment or access to a traditional studio space.
What are you supposed to do?
That's where Stooty Technologies comes in.
Childhood friends Dante Richardson and Deleon Alford are building an e-commerce marketplace for creative production and studio operators. Through Stooty's platform, a musician could book studio space to produce their song.
Businesses also can also hire creators through Stooty to produce content for them.
"The hardest part of any content creation is turning ideas into production, especially for high quality content creation," Richardson said.
"The production phase is the hardest part," he said. "Most companies now only focus on distribution once the content is created. There's no platform that actually helps you with producing your ideas when you have limited resources and you're cash strapped."
Building the tech economy in Buffalo
Richardson and Alford met when they were 12 years old playing basketball in East Buffalo. Richardson's professional background is in tech, and Alford and his wife own a pet grooming business, Alford’s Angels, and Nickel City Pet Pantry.
They started Stooty together in 2021 to return to their passion for music and entertainment. But the men also hope to have a positive economic impact on Buffalo.
The creative economy is worth billions of dollars. Kids have dreams of growing up to be YouTube creators or TikTok stars. Thanks to social media and the internet, people can financially support themselves through content creation from virtually anywhere in the world.
That includes Buffalo.
"Buffalo's economy has been on the rise because of tech," Richardson said. "We see Stooty as being the production hub for the creative economy."
Richardson and Alford built a beta version of the Stooty app that they are testing with creators and studio owners to figure out what features their users want.
They have, so far, raised $20,000 from angel investors and plan to launch a $3 million seed round in the future.
The men hope to launch the Stooty platform in late February or March.
To get to that point, Richardson and Alford have tapped into resources specifically for minority founders.
Locally, Stooty is part of Launch NY's Founders Go Big program, an initiative to support underrepresented, disadvantaged founders in creating high-growth businesses.
Richardson is also participating in a virtual residency program for Black and Afro-Latinx entrepreneurs called Bubble Immerse. The program teaches founders to build apps and develop market-ready, quality web products.
Richardson and Alford want to be part of building up the tech economy in Buffalo. They also want to be positive examples to kids growing up in the same communities where they grew up.
Alford recalled having ideas as a kid, but never saw a path to making them a reality. He volunteers as a mentor to kids at Baker Victory Services, and he thinks a lot of those young people could benefit from an app like Stooty because they're very creative, but have minimal resources.
"I love our city," Richardson said. " The whole city just does so much for us, and we see so much opportunity in the city. Kids are leaving our city and they're trying to go into overcrowded markets when our city wants to be built up. There's so much opportunity. We see a lot economic activity going on downtown, on the West Side of Buffalo, the north side. We're from the East Side of Buffalo. There's not too much stuff going on over there."
Also:
https://www.queenzkingdom.com/
Boutique owner goes from foster care to fashion:
https://buffalonews.com/business/loc...78c8d8e2f.html
"Noelle Wellington overcomes obstacles to open boutique clothing store, Queenz
Noelle Wellington entered the foster care system when she was 2 years old and didn't leave until she aged out nearly two decades later.
It was not an easy life.
"People would tell me I wouldn't be nothing, or that I would be on drugs like my mom, and stuff like that," she said. "So my ambition and determination was always through the roof."
Aging out of the foster care system means making the difficult transition to adulthood without a support system – often after a lifetime of trauma – and all the statistics were against her, according to advisory group National Conference of State Legislatures. Half of foster kids who age out of the system become addicted to drugs. A quarter won't have a high school diploma or GED. And more than one in five will end up homeless.
Wellington made the conscious decision not to go to college, because she wanted to avoid debt. She also had an entrepreneurial spirit and loved to work. She often worked 80 to 90 hours per week between jobs in retail and home health care.
Then, when she was 25, she got into a car accident. Two years later, she received money in a settlement and put every cent into opening her own clothing store called Queenz, at 2577 Bailey Ave.
"I never really had any clothes growing up. I used to go into my closet and pray over my clothes and say, 'God, please multiply it,' " she said. "And then, years later, I get a clothing store."
Unfortunately, that year was 2019, which meant Covid-19 was right around the corner. Wellington had to close the store, but was still on the hook for rent and other bills. She buckled down on her e-commerce operations and built a following.
Earlier this month, she reopened the brick-and-mortar Queenz boutique. It sells men's and women's clothing, women's lingerie and accessories such as handbags.
She acknowledges the road to get to where she is has been hard, and that there may be more bumps ahead. But she also believes owning a clothing store is nothing short of a miracle.
"It was a dream come true, and I have to give all my credit to God," she said."
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