Jazz Keyes on Economic Ownership, Closing the Information Gap, and Why Economic Development Has to Help Small Businesses Grow

By Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant

Q: How do you do this work while also protecting your organization, your business, and yourself?

A: It’s basically impossible. I tell our team we are doing basically impossible work that will take lifetimes to change. We won’t get the joy of a quarterly return or a seven-year exit. That’s not on the table if you want to do the real work.

To your point, I spend most of my day with small business owners, not the fancy people. When you’re in community with small business owners, who I think, quite frankly, are victims of a horrifically flawed system of economic development and economic justice, that’s where my zest comes from. I say the things. I always get in trouble, and everyone’s always mad at me. But you can’t not, if you’ve ever spoken to a small business owner who is over-programmed and has been trained to think grants are the answer to growing a profitable business. Every person who has trained them on anything is a civil servant or a nonprofit leader, both of whom are delightful but maybe aren’t the best people to teach business skills.

And you have a system so committed to measuring technical assistance hours and other metrics that it isn’t looking at whether we’re actually helping small businesses grow. The reality is the industry is not helping small businesses grow. What industry would let itself off the hook the way this one does?

Q: What’s your vision for VSEDC?

A: For me, it’s not what I want. It’s what the community deserves. Looking out five and ten years, we should be able to see real ownership in South LA. Our business owners should be able to travel with us from ideation into ownership, whether that’s because they’re in one of our incubator spaces or because they’re able to buy a commercial property for their business. We should be able to own from within the community.

Our job is to get business owners everything they need along the way. That means creating a complete, wraparound ecosystem where the barriers we’ve identified are either resourced around or supplied from within. A program might say, you’re here with an idea, and we’re going to legally structure your business. It’s not a class on how to do it. You’re in the lab doing the work and leaving with your business formation and licensing done. The one-on-ones are strategic. We’re building advisors who give the guidance you’d get if you paid an actual advisor who had been in business.

Our ultimate goal is getting people from ideation to ownership, whether that’s owning intellectual property, a business, or a physical space. In five years, you should be able to see that VSEDC’s work has put a measurable number of commercial buildings and a measurable amount of intellectual property into the community’s hands. People own their e-commerce space. It’s economic liberation, economic freedom. The question is, are we helping?

Q: What are you most worried about for small businesses?

A: I’ll speak specifically to the small businesses we serve, not those that are already funded. I have a few concerns.

The first is the synthesis and dissemination of information. There’s a gap between what people know and what they need to know. Our vision at VSEDC is teaching people not what to think, but how to think. People are looking everywhere for answers: help me, help me, help me. But without the skill to process that information, synthesize it, and use it strategically, they’re vulnerable to being guided anywhere.

The second is funding. In the communities we serve, whatever is happening at a high level, the people most devastated are the ones we serve. When I look at the funding landscape, I know what happens when organizations don’t have the means to do the work they’re supposed to do: our ability to serve shrinks. Our team is already saying we can’t depend on traditional funding anymore.

The third is technology, AI, and digital literacy. It’s the same thing that happened with the internet. When it arrived, Black and brown communities were way behind the curve, and I’m seeing the same thing with advancing technology. By the time these tools get to us, wealthier people have already used them to get ahead. I’m concerned we don’t have enough in place to educate our community in this digital space for their livelihoods, their businesses, and their day-to-day lives. I’m already seeing an aggressive gap in how we use AI and technology. That’s incredibly concerning, and we could go on and on.

Q: What do you see as an opportunity for small business owners?

A: This is an opportunity for small businesses to get aggressive in their understanding. When you’re a business owner, you live in the day-to-day and sometimes forget. I often see people who own businesses but don’t know what it means to be a business owner and to oversee a business. This is a good time to advance that understanding, though not to the point of paralysis. Some people take in so much information that it paralyzes them.

This is a time to fail fast: get out there, make decisions quickly, and fail faster. It is not the time to be still. I tell business owners: it’s not the time to be afraid, so do it scared. It’s not the time to be uninformed, so learn. It’s not the time to have a huge distance between what you need to know and getting the information. This is a very action-oriented time. Make decisions quickly and close that gap as fast as you can. We’re leaning on teaching people how to be executors.

Q: If you had a Magic Silver Wand and could make one thing true for small businesses right now, what would you use it for?

A: Aside from overturning the system? Access to capital.

Q: How can our community support you?

A: Number one, having these types of conversations. I mean that fully. These raw conversations, where two CEOs say the system is broken, are not what we often hear in our space. The ability to have them, and to align yourself with people bold enough to have them, is the starting point.

If something came up that moved you and your intentions are good, I’m open to people reaching out to converse, brainstorm, and synergize. This work cannot be done by one person. It takes a community. I’m realizing you have to build that community within what you thought was a community, because doing this work in a bolder way takes a different mindset and positioning.

Anyone who feels connected to you and me in this space, I invite them to reach out. I’m open to all of it, even if it’s just good vibes. Sometimes you just need to talk.

---

Do you want to shop small? Check out our new buy.small Marketplace!