🔒Two Black Lives Matter-inspired startups aim to educate

Dominique Price has pivoted careers four times.

Born and raised in Worcester, he graduated in 2011 from UMass Amherst, where he studied business economics and played football. After hurting his hip and leaving the prospect of professional sports behind, he then moved to Los Angeles, where he spent nine years working mostly in entertainment and fitness.

Now the pandemic has brought him back to his hometown, and he’s on to his fourth act: launching BlackedOut Game, a Black history adult card game similar to Cards Against Humanity, but one which can be used in both educational and recreational settings.

“I've always had an entrepreneurial spirit, because [in Los Angeles] – no one really works-works out there,” Price, 31, said. “No one really has a 9-to-5, so you just create this habit of just trying to come up with the next big thing or book your next big job.”

But, it turned out, after nearly a decade on the West Coast, heading back east was more generative.

“I feel like being home with family brings me ideas,” Price said.

In summer of 2020, Price was spending time with those closest to him, watching the Black Lives Matter movement expand in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police and trying to figure out what he should do next. Playing cards with his family, he said, the idea came to him: He wanted to make a Black history and culture game. 

And so, BlackedOut Game was born.

“The objective of this game is to learn Black culture,” Price said. “It’s pretty much [centered around] the music we listen to, the movies we’ve watched, the way we talk, and our history,” Price said. “It’s just to get people to come together to actually communicate and just have fun.”

Price ordered 500 copies from a manufacturer in China and began building his brand. He’s already sold more than 150 sets, and is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise additional funds. In the future, he hopes to see the card game concept expand to include other cultures as well.

Entrepreneurship for All

Price conceived of and launched BlackedOut Game last summer, but as of January, he’s receiving mentorship and guidance through Entrepreneurship for All, a Lowell nonprofit running business accelerator programs across Massachusetts. Known primarily as EforAll, the organization began preparing for its first Worcester accelerator last year, with sessions officially starting in January.

EforAll partners with the communities it operates in to help groups under-represented in the business community start new companies and get them off the ground. Participants in EforAll programming have launched more than 500 businesses and, of those new businesses, 74% are owned by women, 58% are owned by people of color, 46% are owned by immigrants, and 39% are owned by people who were previously unemployed, according to EforAll.

“It’s about community,” said Liz Hamilton, executive director Boys & Girls Club of Worcester, one of three mentors guiding Price through the accelerator, which culminates with a pitch contest.

Price’s other two mentors are Lisa Mancini, head of Notre Dame Academy in Worcester, and Bruce Gold, president and founder of Aurum Advantage, a marketing agency in Lincoln, R.I.

Throughout the program, all three mentors meet with Price each Friday, to discuss what he’s been learning in biweekly EforAll classes and help him set his agenda for the week to come. They cover topics like business registration, fundraising, marketing and legal questions associated with starting new companies.

“So it’s really about listening and learning and finding out what Dominique’s goals are and helping him achieve them,” Hamilton said. 

In progress

Price’s project is one of at least two Black Lives Matter-inspired startups currently getting off the ground in Worcester. Another, Radical In Progress, was founded by 22-year-old Clark University senior Gari De Ramos.

De Ramos felt compelled to take action in the wake of Floyd’s death last May, and similarly put her attention on crafting accessible educational tools to help others learn about, among other things, key concepts related to racial and social justice. De Ramos’ lightbulb moment came in the form of online-accessible social justice syllabi.

At first, these were tools she put together for herself while trying to make sense of a world which, in 2020, felt like it was unravelling.

“On top of the pandemic, it was a kind of overwhelmed and stressed I hadn’t felt before and I was like, ‘God, to be a human being in this century you need to be engaging in this movement, you need to be educating yourself,’” De Ramos said.

De Ramos, originally from the Philippines, grew up in Hong Kong before immigrating to the U.S. with her parents in 2016. On top of keeping up with the unfolding Black Lives Matter movement, she said, she was trying to learn about the history of racial justice in a new country.

She was concerned, however, in a decade or so, she’d have trouble remembering the specifics of the various anti-racist writings she was now making her way through. Examples of the kinds of reading she has been working on include “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and “Abolition Democracy” by Angela Davis.

“So, I started making study guides for future me,” De Ramos said. “And then I was like, ‘Wait a minute, you could put this on a website and share with the world.’”

After an independent study course crafted to help keep herself accountable, De Ramos launched her website on Jan. 11 and is now participating in a local accelerator program – the Ureka Challenge at Clark University, which is aimed at promoting and developing student ventures. Like EforAll, the program culminates in a pitch competition and a cash prize.

Since the website’s launch, Radical in Progress has had more than 78,000 unique visitors, and the project has received a $5,000 grant from the national partnership between the magazine Teen Vogue and the philanthropic investment firm Omidyar Network, started by eBay’s founder.

De Ramos has recruited a team of five volunteers who are helping her read, translate and manage social media.

Within the next year, De Ramos would like to see Radical in Progress partner with local organizations who are doing social justice work in and around Worcester. By 2022, she said, she’d like to transition into a political action committee. In that way, she views Radical in Progress as an organization with the capacity not only to teach, but to affect tangible change.

“To me, being a radical [on the left] ... is to be someone who is pushing for power and policy change that will dramatically alter how people get to live their lives in a more just, equitable way,” De Ramos said.

Editor’s note: WBJ Publisher Peter Stanton serves on the Worcester board of Entrepreneurship for All.