-Next on "Start Up," we head to Wilmington, North Carolina, to meet up with Tracey and Girard Newkirk, the founders of Genesis Block, a community that offers coworking, education, and technology.

All this and more is next on "Start Up."

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♪♪ ♪♪ -My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country focuses on recovery, small-business owners everywhere are still fighting to keep their dream alive.

So we set out to talk to a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they've learned to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves in this ever-changing world.

♪♪ This is "Start Up."

♪♪ Coworking is an arrangement in which people from various companies at various stages share an office space.

It allows for reduced cost and convenience through the use of shared infrastructure such as equipment, utilities, custodial services, and more.

From 2006 to 2019, the number of coworking spaces have doubled each year, with the pandemic forcing several coworking spaces to close in 2020.

But 2021 is seeing coworking back on the rise.

Today, I'm heading to Wilmington, North Carolina, to meet up with Tracey and Girard Newkirk, the founders of Genesis Block, a community that offers coworking, education, and technology.

I'm excited to meet the founders and learn more about the mission behind Genesis Block.

Mission statement -- What is Genesis Block?

-Well, our mission is pretty simple.

It's to build the entrepreneur class block by block in communities.

We have three kind of components that we use to do that, and the coworking space which we're in now is really our primary way that we offer the environment for inspiration, the environment for meetings and events for entrepreneurs.

But then we have an entrepreneur academy, too, where we train entrepreneurs on knowledge, skills, and strategy.

And we're also building a technology platform that connects minority- and women-owned businesses with prime contractors and anchor institutions.

So for us, that serves as kind of the foundation to build that entrepreneur class in each neighborhood, in each community, block by block.

-Talk about the beginnings of Genesis Block.

-When I was originally in Wilmington as a city recruiter, we had a great set of African-American leaders that you knew who the leaders were.

When I was -- And they groomed me.

And I felt like, when I came back, I started looking for those same leaders, and they weren't here.

I was asked to do a speech on -- with the Power Breakfast as one of Wilmington's most intriguing people on intentional inclusion.

And in that speech, I talked about wanting to build a Wilmington that my two sons would want to live, grow, work, and raise a family.

And one thing that I do know to get that done, you can't wait on anybody else to do it, and, really, who builds the culture of a community is small businesses.

And so I felt like if we could get more support to the small businesses, you know, is great.

They have accelerators, and they have all kind of programs for technology companies.

There's not a lot just for a small business owner who, like some of ours, that are mom-and-pop shops or the people want to have a brick-and-mortar on the corner.

-Retail, food, that stuff.

-Yeah.

Who's helping them?

And so I felt like if we could help those type businesses, then that would be what would build the community and the culture of our community and create a community where, yeah, my sons are 26 and 27, they'd want to come back and live here.

So, met Girard in 2018, and we started sharing our visions, and voilà, we have Genesis Block.

-You're both, it sounds like, were equally on a mission to make Wilmington a better place for new entrepreneurship or just in general.

-Absolutely.

A better place in general, a better place for entrepreneurship, a better place -- kind of a place to promote community, collaboration, and creativity, which is what our -- kind of what our moniker is.

I've always wanted to build out Wilmington to be this dynamic place for businesses to grow.

And I saw it in person when I went out to Silicon Valley.

What really intrigued me about being out there was seeing what the potential was, that entrepreneurship and that success was available to everyone.

-Yeah.

-How can we come up with a system or a framework to lift everyone up or for everyone to get access?

And then I met my wife-to-be, and I had a vision and a desire to bring technology and entrepreneurship.

Some of the things that I learned back there and helped build out -- an entrepreneur ecosystem here to lower the barriers, especially for minority- and women-owned businesses.

And that was kind of the "genesis" part of Genesis Block, is kind of merging those two dreams and those two ideas and coming up with a framework to support both.

♪♪ -We started out, I was leading the entrepreneurial group at my church, and we would meet at my apartment complex.

Got with Girard, and we started doing it together, and it just went to a whole nother gear.

Now we were really looking at we laid out a foundation from, if a business comes in, how can we take wherever they are and build building blocks to take them to the next level?

And that's really what we were focused on.

And we started out at our apartment complex, and we had 30 companies show up in that little conference room at our apartment complex.

And we were going to do it once a month.

And after probably the first meeting, we went to biweekly, and then we went to weekly.

People wanted to come back.

And then COVID hit.

And we had about nine businesses that stayed with us throughout COVID, when we were just doing Zoom.

And so we started out looking for a place.

Like, you know, "If we're going to do this, we can really do this at a higher level and a higher skill."

And that was kind of our test.

We tell our people all the time, "You got to create something that you can test and then make evidence-based decisions."

And we definitely knew, based on that test, that we had tapped into something that was much needed.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Talk about Wilmington.

-Well, Wilmington is a beautiful city.

We're southeastern North Carolina.

Culturally, Wilmington at about midway the 19th century was probably one of the most important cities in all of the union because of the tar industry, because of our access to the river, and because we have access to the Atlantic Ocean.

Because of some of the events that happened in the late 19th century with 1898, we have a storied past as far as race relations, which has created kind of a very dynamic environment in Wilmington.

Overall, as a city, there's so much beauty, there's so much opportunity.

And now we're trying to unpack some of the things and kind of rectify or refine some of the things from the past to get on to that potential and that future that we have.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Ever since I've gotten into town here in Wilmington, I keep hearing about 1898.

Tell me a little bit more about what 1898 is.

-1898 was the first and only successful coup d'etat in American history.

Essentially, a democratically-elected government was overthrown in Wilmington.

In Wilmington, there was what's called a fusion party.

So you had essentially components of the Black population, the Republican Party, and then the small, peasant, working-class whites, who literally fused together to form their own party.

And this party won the 1898 election.

A lot of prominent intellectual, entrepreneurial Blacks were elected to leadership positions.

-Okay.

Democratically, fairly through voting process.

-Yeah, through the voting process.

After the election results come in a few days later, you had a very well-organized -- It wasn't really a mob because a lot of the people that were a part of it were in government.

And it commenced, and dozens of Blacks were killed, hundreds of blacks.

Who knows what the numbers are?

I think the official numbers originally were in the 60s or 70s.

But they were killed.

And if you were Black and you were a part of -- and this why we feel it's so important to build the entrepreneur class -- if you were a Black intellectual, a business owner, you literally, with a gun to your head, had to leave right on this river.

-Oh, my gosh.

-So a lot of the community, the remnants or the residual impacts of that, the Blacks that were left were kind of scared straight.

-Well, yeah, and completely disenfranchised with no backing.

-They were marginalized.

-Yeah.

-There wasn't that creative class to help mold culture, which is why a lot of what we do with Genesis Block is engage that mind-set that we feel are residual effects of 1898, the feeling that you are inferior or that you can't be bold, because if you're bold, there's going to be some type of repercussion for it.

-Repercussion.

-We talk a lot about the spirit of 1897, which is how we're trying to pivot that conversation.

Wilmington was going to be the model for how Blacks and whites collaborated.

I mean, the majority, you know, we just left Front Street.

The majority of the businesses on Front Street were Black owned.

This was the most prominent community for African-Americans in the country in 1897.

What we're trying to focus on here is, how do we rebuild the spirit of 1897, which was collaborative, which was community, which was the creators working together to create one of the most vibrant downtown areas in the country, which is what Wilmington was?

And so a lot of what our team building and why we have so many events and workshops bringing the entire community together is we want to be a hub for that spirit.

And then we think entrepreneurship is the best conduit for that.

♪♪ -Where are we right now?

What is this place?

-So we're literally with the 1898 Memorial Park.

This is -- A block over, at Harnett and 4th Street, was where the first shots occurred on that day back in November of 1898.

And this park is here to kind of memorialize.

It really means a lot to be here, to be -- just to watch the city come together after years to kind of get this park -- the balls rolling to get this park here.

But to live here and to have Genesis Block four blocks from this, sometimes it's kind of really cool, man.

It's overwhelming as far as -- -Surreal.

-It really is.

All of the component parts coming together to kind of bring this vision to life.

-You were saying, ultimately, right behind us in this lot right here, this will be eventually, yeah, the -- -That's the goal.

This is the vision -- The vision for us -- -That's Genesis Block.

-That's going to be Genesis Block headquarters.

And as opposed to Wilmington being remembered for the awful coup of 1898, it will be remembered now for having a Genesis Block that came in and rebuilt that entrepreneur class.

And now we're moving from a place of harmony and reconciliation.

-That's beautiful.

-So that really is the goal.

-Yeah.

I have absolutely no doubt that that's going to happen.

-Wilmington's a wonderful community.

Everyone -- There's love there.

It's just a matter of us sometimes focusing less on what divides us and more on what we all have in common, the commonality, the humanity in us all.

And so, we're trying to vibrationally use entrepreneurship as a conduit to focus on that.

♪♪ -Let's talk about the early stages.

You had to have a physical space, you know, getting funded.

Walk us through that process with you.

-For us, you know, we've been at it since late 2019, so we were -- You know, and COVID kind of hit around March 2020, literally in the middle of our site selection.

We went through about five to seven different sites before we landed into this perfect location here at 20 Wrights Aly in Wilmington.

So that was a process, and we learned a lot about nuances in the community throughout that process.

A lot of the work we did was bootstrap just because of the COVID environment.

Joseph Finley, who's been, really, a staunch supporter from the very beginning, he was the first financial partner, and, fortunately, we've been in a position now that we've been able to almost grow simultaneously with our membership model and other partnerships that we've made.

We really found this location that we're at now about September, late September.

-Of '20.

-Late September of 2020.

Still a lot of uncertainty as far as COVID restrictions, as far as being together.

-Sure.

Who designed this, and was this, like, you know, you guys invest your own capital to get it to this place?

-Yeah, we did.

So we wanted to create a feeling versus a space, and so we wanted to create an environment versus just a space.

And so we feel like the design team did a really good job.

And everything needed to be able to be transitioned to something else, because this room turns into multiple different things.

And so we needed furniture that was easy to move and easy to store and move around.

And so that's kind of how we came up with the concept and how they laid it all out.

And I think they did a really good job.

-2020 couldn't have been a worse time for coworking spaces.

-Yeah.

-Was there a point where you maybe started to panic a little bit?

-There was never really a doubt that it would work out.

It was a matter of, how could we pivot in order to maximize, to keep the lights on as we were maneuvering through the process.

-Right.

Waiting for something.

-Right.

So a lot of our pivot began with the different types of -- our Jumpstart Academy, which we started in order to give access to people at the very beginning of their entrepreneurial journey.

For us, that small pivot, it allowed us now to have a much broader audience that we were seeking, and it opened up a lot of different opportunities.

So the silver lining for COVID, for us, was it allowed us to really build and enhance other business models that were outside of our initial revenue stream.

-Which was great because it gave you that time to -- Multiple streams of revenue into one company is brilliant.

You may not have had the time if you were hustling with coworking.

-Would have just got bogged down in the minutia of day-to-day.

So really, for us, it allowed us to expand out on what Genesis Block has become.

So for us, COVID, it made us much better entrepreneurs.

It made us much more agile, much more flexible.

We didn't -- You couldn't get regimented in the process because there was so much uncertainty.

So it made us actually perform at our best as entrepreneurs because of the uncertainty.

-Has it been a challenge at all to get entrepreneurs into the space to visit?

I mean, like, how do you market and get the word out, or has it kind of taken care of itself, word of mouth?

-Girard is like a beast at social media, so everything ended up on social media.

And so people would start in-messaging us and saying, "Can you help me with my business?

Can you help me with this?"

And wherever there was a need when someone came in -- And that we didn't see that we had a space to help them, we would sit down and just create something and then test it.

And that's how we got our Jumpstart program.

Someone came in and needed assistance.

Just we call them the 10 basic things to get you out, get your business up off the ground.

And a lot of people have got, like, maybe two of them, and they think they have a business, but they don't have everything that they need to have.

And so we started the Jumpstart program just out of seeing that need.

And then that led to now having the Jumpstart Academy, which is an eight-week curriculum that we take them through.

♪♪ ♪♪ -What are the main sources of revenue for a coworking space?

What does it cost, like, if I wanted to be part of it?

How do you guys make money?

-We have a multi-tiered models as far as membership, so we lean a lot of our model toward community memberships because we have so many events, we have so many workshops.

We have -- Because we're building the technology platform with our sponsorship models, it allows us to offer services to anchor institutions and then our Entrepreneurship Academy, which is, really, we feel, is going to be a driver for us in the next three to four years.

-Does that come with the renting of the space?

-It doesn't.

No, that's separate.

That's a separate service model.

Now, our Jumpstart members, for example, if you had joined our Jumpstart Academy, free membership is a part of that.

-Got you.

Okay.

But if I wanted to just have a place that I want to come in and set up my laptop and be around, can I do that?

-Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

You could do it daily.

You could do it -- get a monthly coworking space.

-So I can just pop in and throw in 10 bucks or something like that and spend the day?

-Yeah.

And the community -- the community membership offers you more limited access.

A coworking membership gives you 24/7 access any time of day.

A community membership is once a week.

-Tell us your name and the name of your company.

-I'm William J. Stokes.

-And I'm Shemeka Stokes.

-And the name of our company Jay Ski's Rub A Dub LLC.

-What do you do?

What is the company?

A product, service?

What do you guys do?

-We make a dry rub, and it consists of an original blend that we came up with one Saturday when I was preparing some ribs.

And I needed something that's going to be flavorful, and I just couldn't find what I wanted in the grocery store, so I came up with our own.

-How were you introduced to Genesis Block?

-Well, in 2019 is when we formed our LLC.

And we kind of, you know, worked with it as much as we could for several months and took it as far as we knew how to do.

And we were kind of at a loss.

Like, "What do we do?

How do we really grow our business?"

-Yeah.

-And so through our church, we found out about an entrepreneur group that Tracey was leading.

And so we called.

We didn't really know what we were getting in to.

And we went to the meeting.

And then from there, we developed a relationship.

We learned valuable tools to really scale our business.

And it grew into Genesis Block.

-What do you say to business owners that are sort of hitting a roadblock, they've hit their cap on their knowledge level in starting a business?

Do you recommend a coworking space or something like this?

-I definitely would for the simple fact starting up a business and not knowing which avenues to take can make things extremely hard.

-Oh, yeah, and almost give up maybe.

-Yes.

-Exactly.

And for us, we were almost to that point to where we were ready to give up.

And then we were introduced to the Entrepreneur Connect group that Tracey was over.

-Yeah.

-And here we are.

The rest is history.

-The universe heard you and rolled out the red carpet and said, "Hey, let me show you Genesis Block."

-Absolutely.

-But I would definitely encourage people to find out as much information as they can.

When things get hard, don't just stop right there.

Always continue to persevere, because if you're passionate enough about what it is that you're doing, you're always going to succeed.

-And there are resources available out there.

People just don't use them.

-Yes, a lot.

That's true.

-Right.

Yeah, that's what we're learning.

So, it's always been there.

It's just a matter of knowing where to go.

And so if you get involved with a coworking space like Genesis Block, I mean, it's a creative space, and it's a networking space, so it helps.

♪♪ -What capacity are you at currently?

And, I guess, where do you want to be?

And is there a ceiling, is there a limit where you got to say, "Another genesis block is going down the street"?

-We're getting there now.

We're at about 65% capacity.

We're getting to the point now, and we have several things that are happening kind of in the background to give us that extra space and capacity that we need.

This area, this is about 5,000 square feet here.

It's about 4,800 square feet.

And so we feel that a campus environment is probably what we want to have, 'cause our mission is block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood.

So as opposed to us having a large one -- you know, one central location where everybody comes to -- -Getting in their neighborhoods.

-Exactly.

We want to have hubs that makes it accessible wherever you are.

So, you know, more Genesis Blocks are in the works over the next 12 to 18 months.

-A lot of folks cannot work with a spouse.

You'd be surprised at how many, you know, partner relationships, business partner, you know, husband and wife fail, you know?

What is your secret?

What is it like, you know, working with a spouse?

-Is she in the room?

No, we have a great relationship together.

I mean, we call ourselves -- That's what this represents, this twin flame.

And so we align on so many things outside of just the work that work is almost an extension of those things.

-There's nobody else I'd rather spend all day with than him.

And we talk through so -- so many different things.

And he's the one person in the world that can be exactly who I am all the time and it's okay.

And -- And I think we're so aligned.

I think it's because we absolutely know that we're doing something bigger than just -- -Than yourselves.

-Than ourselves.

And it just keeps you motivated.

You wake up out of bed, and you know there's an energy that's always there that is bigger than you, and it kind of pushes you.

♪♪ -What's the big-picture goal for this?

-You know, somebody asked me that like, "What would success look like?"

And I said, "When Wilmington doesn't have to keep having the conversation about all that was wrong, because all that's right looks so great, it just doesn't even match anymore, when, block by block, we can go through the community and see the reflection of" -- It's almost like where 1897 left off, we just jumped into 2022, 2023 and just kept that going, where you see block by block, businesses, Blacks, whites, everybody doing business together, Small businesses on every corner, in every community, communities getting to own their experience, designing the businesses that they want to be the supportive anchor for their communities.

When we're having that, then I just think we're not having that conversation anymore and that's success.

And then picking that up and taking it to communities all over.

♪♪ -Some people may look at Genesis Block and see a coworking space.

Others may see a place for entrepreneurs to learn, network, and be part of the growing start-up ecosystem in Wilmington.

But what I saw today was all of that and so much more.

Girard and Tracey have written themselves a beautiful success story, one that involves letting go of the past and embracing a positive and productive future rooted in their mission to promote change.

In 1898, when the people of Wilmington experienced America's first successful coup d'etat, the murderous criminals left deep scars that remain to this day.

And Tracey and Girard have vowed to create a new present for Wilmington, one that will ultimately create a positive history for future generations to look back on, one that's rooted in success, resilience, and harmony for people of all races and backgrounds.

And this is not an attempt to rewrite history.

It's a recognition and acknowledgment that will help close the door on a painful past while kicking the door open to an incredible present and future based solely on purpose over profit.

I'm so inspired by Girard and Tracey.

Maybe one day we'll have the opportunity to have a Genesis Block in every major city.

For more information, visit our website and search episodes for Genesis Block.

♪♪ Next time on "Start Up," we head to Savannah, Georgia, to meet up with Lou Thomann and Lori Judge, the founders of the Yaupon Tea Company, a business that's on a mission to share the health benefits of yaupon with the world.

Be sure to join us next time on "Start Up."

♪♪ Would you like to learn more about this show or maybe nominate a business?

Visit our website at startup-usa.com, and connect with us on social media.

♪♪ -♪ We got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Got a long road ahead of us ♪ Before we pay our dues ♪ We got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Before we pay our dues -This, as well.

-Is anything in it?

-Nope.

-[ Laughs ] You!

Was he trying to do that?

And I fell for it!

♪♪ ♪♪ -Spectrum Business partners with small business across the country to help them achieve their goals.

With high-speed Internet, phone, TV, and mobile services, Spectrum Business provides the tools to keep you connected with your customers.

Spectrum Business.

No nonsense, just business.

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