The Detroit News
Myesha Johnson
Feb. 23, 2025
Six years ago, Racheal Allen invested $200,000 of her savings to start a nonprofit with a mission to teach Black and brown entrepreneurs how to sustain their own businesses.
Now the Detroit resident’s Operations School helps more than 1,000 minority business owners each year brand, promote, monetize and scale their fledgling enterprises, supported by a three-year grant for nearly $3 million from the Michigan Economic Development Corp.
“I realized there were all these places that small businesses could go to start a business. There was nowhere to go where they could learn how to operate a business,” said Allen, whose career has included stints in leadership at the Marygrove Conservancy and Block by Block. “I really thought that there was a need for that, but I sat on it for two years, mostly because I was afraid.
“This work is is so deeply personal for me because what it’s given us an opportunity to do is help so many Black and brown entrepreneurs be able to change their station in life, find meaning in their work, but also we’re teaching them the stuff that most people just aren’t learning, which is all the non-sexy stuff that they learn in business,” said Allen, 41.
O-School is housed inside Centric Place, a 10,000-square-foot facility on Freedom Road in Farmington Hills, and is one of 27 small business hubs in Michigan that focus on serving Black and brown entrepreneurs.
While the number of Black-owned U.S. businesses is growing, they remain a small percentage of the total. According to a Pew Research report issued Wednesday, 3.4% of U.S. businesses were Black-owned in 2022, while about 14% of the population was Black.
Graduates of the Operations School include Lynette Rogers, who attended in 2023 and received a $5,000 grant for participating as well as classes on state business registration, getting an EIN, branding, marketing and other technical subjects.
Now Rogers, 49, and her fiancé Omar Raines co-own and operate Nacho Grill, serving nachos that feature corned beef, brisket, jerk chicken and more at the Fresh Foods parking lot, 600 W. Nine Mile in Ferndale, three days a week.
“Joining Operations School taught us how much we didn’t know,” she said. “Operations School showed us how to set up systems and automate things where if we didn’t show up tomorrow, somebody else could come in and the business will run.”
Rogers started making nacho combos as a side hustle during the COVID-19 pandemic and opened the food truck in 2022 after being laid off from her job as a paralegal. Last year, the business generated more than $300,000 in revenue and opened a second truck in October, she said.
“I wasn’t afraid to cross Eight Mile,” Rogers said. “I’m happy that I’m a Black-owned-woman business that I can hire other people and teach and train how to be professional.”
Rogers added: “One thing about small businesses is grand opening, grand closing. People move too fast and you’ll shut down because you think the beginning of success is really success and you really gotta have everything in play, know your numbers, understand timing and see if you’re really ready to take this next leap.
“A lot of people jump out there and try to get on a fast trajectory, but you need to grow when the demand is there,” she said.
‘A Holistic Resource’
Those sorts of lessons are among what Operation School aims to teach participants during its nine-week curriculum which also gives business owners office space, a mailing address, a flagship curriculum from Allen’s book “Get Your Business Legit,” personalized coaching and access to three hours of therapy to address mental health challenges. Allen estimates it has contributed over $3 million to the local economy.
“We see ourselves as a holistic resource for entrepreneurs,” Allen said. “If you come here, we’re gonna connect you with the coaching, the technical assistance, basically all of the support that they need, and most importantly, the community.”
Besides Operations School, Centric Place houses 10 companies — a majority of which are former Operations School attendees — who have private offices in the building. In its offices, lounge area and classroom cultural art can be seen as well as a wall filled with original Ebony magazine covers from the 1960s.
“It’s very intentional that that is here, because what we’re able to communicate to people whether they know who the owner is … they come in, they see Black excellence,” Allen said. “Black people have their habit to overcome a lot of obstacles for a really long time and so coming into this space and feeling the energy and just how great people feel when they’re here.
“It always just reminds me of how important space is for Black people. It doesn’t feel sterile, it doesn’t feel corporate. By design it’s meant to make people feel incredibly at home when they’re here,” Allen said.
Building in Beauty
Locs of Love, a natural hair salon in Ferndale, hit the $1 million gross sales mark in 2024. The Ferndale salon is owned by Bianca Williams, 35, of Detroit, a self-taught hair stylist who started doing dreadlocks in 2016 as a side hustle.
Back then, Allen was one of her clients and she suggested that Williams be a part of her first class cohort in 2019. That experience inspired Williams to start her own eight-week program, Locs of Love Experience Course, where she teaches people how to twist and create dreadlocks in various forms and then offers them working space at her salon.
“I wanted to create a space that’s more professional to have a top-of-the line natural hair experience,” she said. When she’s not at her salon, Williams works part-time at Operations School as a technical assistant, coaching beauty students.
Now, Williams’ salon, in a 3,050-square-foot building at West Nine Mile and Livernois, employs more than 15 hair stylists, two receptionists and three assistants. Williams said she plans to add more staff.
“We’re trying to constantly keep up with our growth and expand and do more. I really want to open more locations in different states, maybe franchise the brand, but since we’re growing so fast we’re trying to keep up (and) have enough bodies to do it all.
“It’s a joy to be able to provide a working space for Black men and women to make money … have control over their own businesses while working under me, an umbrella of Locs of Love,” Williams said. “Most of the people that interview to work here, they’re moms looking for more flexibility, more time with their kids … so it’s very fulfilling to offer that space to them.”
The Locs of Love team goal for 2025 is for every stylist to take home over $100,000, Williams said.
“We’re trying to constantly keep up with our growth and expand and do more,” she said. “I really want to open more locations in different states, maybe franchise the brand, but since we’re growing so fast we’re trying to keep up (and) have enough bodies to do it all.”