After 170 performances as the dancing fiddler in Riverdance, Maria Millar realized two things: She loved music, and she didn’t want to work for others. Being an entrepreneur was music to this Julliard graduate’s ears.
Once Maria Burns Ortiz reached her sports journalism goals, she started a new chapter in her life and began a small business with her mother.
For Joni Holifield, the 2015 death of Freddie Grey, a Black man fatally injured in Baltimore Police custody, inspired her to create a community nonprofit.
To scale up their dreams, Millar, Burns Ortiz, Holifield and thousands of other small business owners were propelled by the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses (10KSB) initiative, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. It provides education, capital, and a network of “growth-oriented entrepreneurs” across the country.
“Their crucial role in economic growth and job creation makes supporting their success vital to overall economic health,” she says. “However, small businesses often lack the resources to grow and scale their companies strategically and efficiently.”
How Entrepreneurs Can Get Involved
“Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, comprising 99.9% of all businesses and employing nearly half of American workers,” says Anne Wellde, national director of 10KSB, citing data from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Based on the success of Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women, 10KSB established cohorts in more than 50 cities – New York, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, and more.
Business owners who have been in operation for at least two years, are generating $75,000 in annual revenue and have at least two employees can apply. Once accepted, they go through a 100-hour, 12-week curriculum with an education partner – such as a community college – with classes that cover financial statements, leadership and negotiations.
It all leads to an actionable growth plan. Many participants liken it to a “mini-MBA.”
“There’s a huge variety of education expertise that comes in with being a small business owner,” says Casey Sacks, Ph.D. president of BridgeValley Community and Technical College (BVCTC), one of 10KSB’s education partners. “You get people who already have an MBA, but you also get people who only graduated from high school.
“It was actually really validating when some of the students who had advanced degrees said, ‘This was really hard, this was really rigorous. I learned a lot from it,'” she says. “You want to hear from your students that the content is meaningful, and being hard isn’t bad. Being hard is OK. So, that has been really reinforcing.”
Sonic Escape Develops Next Steps
Millar graduated from the 10KSB program at BVCTC in December 2024. The violinist and her flutist husband formed Sonic Escape, and perform live music and collaborate with electronic producers and filmmakers.
While they’ve been in business for 15 years, Millar says 10KSB has helped her identify and map out next steps to grow.
“Our growth opportunity was moving into the public speaking market because we’ve done concerts for years, and they are extremely interactive,” she says.
“We love talking with our audience members, getting them even to get up and conduct or dance, do all sorts of things,” she adds. “It naturally lends itself to having more intention in our presentation so that we can teach concepts as we perform and speak. It’s going really well.”
10KSB Helps 7 Generation Games Expand
Burns Ortiz went through 10KSB in Minnesota when her educational gaming studio, 7 Generation Games, which creates culturally relevant games, was looking for what’s next.
She had created the company with her mother, an educational psychology statistician studying data suggesting that indigenous youth, like other communities of color, performed lower than their white peers amid various societal factors. Data also showed that when kids are culturally engaged, they do better. So Burns Ortiz and her mom formed the company to create games aimed at indigenous youth and others that include math, history, social science and language. The company’s best-known titles are in the “Making Camp” series.
Burns Ortiz says 10KSB helped her expand the business.
“The bottleneck became: We were creating the games (but) we could only do so many games, no matter what,” she says. “But the technology we developed is something that anybody could use, as long as we refined that and made it a consumer product, as opposed to an in-house platform.”
Switching the model enabled multiple creators, not just 7 Generation Games, to use the gaming platform it developed to create their own games.
That also meant Burns Ortiz could shift from day-to-day leadership of the company to a broader footprint in the gaming world. She’s now taken on the role of executive director role at Global Game Jam, the world’s largest game creation event.
‘You Could Be Very Blatantly Honest’ With Small Business Cohort
Her favorite part of 10KSB is the networking within her cohort.
“There’s different groups of business owners that … would come together,” she says. “And the really unique and interesting part of that is – and they do this intentionally – they put you with people who are not even remotely in a similar business space. Right? It’s about talking about the challenges of being a business owner, what you’re running up against, how you can learn from that net.
The goal is to not be competitive,” she adds. “We were doing educational software. We had someone else that’s running a restaurant. We had someone else that had a book shop, someone else that had a jewelry business. There isn’t that competitive piece.
“You could be very blatantly honest with the other people in your group, like, ‘I don’t know how to handle this. I am struggling here.’ And so that was really great to build that sense of camaraderie and also really get different perspectives, too.”
HeartSmiles Draws Value from 10KSB Business Advisor
For the founder of HeartSmiles, her 10KSB business advisor is the most valuable part of the program. Every participant is matched with a mentor or advisor who, along with the education and cohort networking, provides support.
Holifield’s nonprofit provides mentorship, leadership skill building, and access to internships and careers in the community affected by the death of Freddie Grey. Holifield credits her organization’s 300% growth in three years to the guidance by her advisor.
“There is no way we would have had such exponential growth without 10KSB,” she says in a text interview. “The most valuable piece by far (and there were a LOT of valuable pieces) was the access to a business advisor who was focused on the health and growth of our organization.
“My advisor, Cristal Sias, was pure gold,” she adds. “She always made the time for me, both in and outside of the classroom. She helped me grasp the importance of data when running a business and how to understand and effectively leverage it as a tool for growth.
“In a way, you can say she helped us to become a data-driven organization, and it has been a game-changer. It made all the difference. And three years after graduating, the lessons learned are still being built on, and the growth plan model is still helping to guide us forward.”
Goal Becomes 20,000 Small Businesses With Expansion to Rural Areas
Goldman Sachs surpassed its 10,000 small businesses goal in 2020. It has helped more than 16,000 businesses representing $27B in revenue and 307,000 employees nationwide, and is now aiming to support 20,000 small businesses.
It also has expanded the focus beyond urban areas to rural communities, with a target of helping business owners in 20 states over the next five years.
“Small businesses are critical to the American economy,” Wellde says. “Success for small businesses means creating revenues and jobs and that directly benefits the community around them.
“10,000 Small Businesses helps to unlock that potential in entrepreneurs around the country – whether that’s the bakery that expands into 3-D printing to create and sell cake molds, or the trucking company that builds their own workforce development program.”
