HARLEM — One of the most important things Adrissha Wimberly learned while starting a small business is that your partners become your family — and the project becomes your baby.
“It was much like a marriage. You were going to find moments where you were just vehemently going to disagree on how to raise this child,” Wimberly, a senior advisor at the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation, told a group of entrepeneurs in Harlem’s TEEM CoWorking space last week.
Wimberly, who grew up outside Detroit with a father who worked for Ford and a mother who worked for GM, was the first person in her family to go to college. She co-founded a financial management company after finishing graduate school and is now part of the mayor's team led by the city's first ever Chief Technology Officer which is tasked with leading the city's technology strategy.
She was the latest speaker at the coworking space's bi-monthly series, #WarStories, which invites established entrepreneurs to connect with up-and-comers, according to John Henry, one of the founders of Cofound Harlem, the business accelerator hosting the series.
Wimberly shared helpful tips on how to succeed as an independent business owner such as keeping talent in-house and being patient when choosing the right investors.
She also talked about diversity in tech.
“You can potentially work hard and face barriers that may not necessarily be the same, and they may not be intentional," she said. "Your network to raise money most times will not look like you. So if you don’t happen to know tons of wealthy people who don’t look like you, how do you raise money?"
The ongoing event is free for guests that RSVP and the evenings include free beer from Harlem Brewing Company.
“It’s fun and engaging and it’s inspiring,” Henry said. “We have entrepreneurs that come from similar backgrounds and share not only the good stuff but the nitty-gritty of what they went through to get there.”
CoFound, which is currently looking for its second class of start-ups, gives promising companies nine months of office space and access to mentors at no cost. The only catch is that the companies have to stay in Harlem for five years.
“Our goal is to bring 100 start-ups to Harlem by 2020,” he said.
While most of the speakers come from the private sector — including Errol King, an Experience Manager at Google, Anthony Frasier Cofounder of That Phat Startup, and Dan Berger Marketing Director of Mibblio. — Wimberly works for the city.
Part of Wimberly's job at the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation involves finding ways to make more than 60 city agencies more efficient. That involves anything from upgrading infrastructure to speeding up snow removal to streamlining housing applications.
“It was the first time in the city that the mayor decided to have a CTO for the city that would coordinate a tech strategy across all of the agencies,” she said. “Some of them have CTOs some of them don’t. None of them have a strategy. It behooves us to have a coordinated strategy as early as possible.”
What that means for startups is that the city is a potential investor in their business. The city has already begun to engage startups through Digital NYC, a public-private partnership aimed at bringing together companies, investors, and job seekers.
Wimberly and other members of the office are starting to host office hours throughout the city. Companies can pitch their product or find out how the city can be a possible investor, she said.
“If you want to know how the city can be your potential client, starting with us is your main resource,” she said.
