Makiah Green, the co-founder of Black Book LA, joins us in today’s episode to discuss how a blog post idea transformed into a thriving community for Black millennials in Los Angeles. Makiah is a double graduate from the University of Southern California with a Master’s degree in Professional Writing. She runs her fast-growing ‘side-hustles’ while also working at a multicultural production company assisting in the creative development of projects.

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Makiah comes from a family of women that are extremely hard workers. Growing up, she saw the women in her family giving everything to everyone else and being undervalued in the process. Makiah has learned throughout her journey that starting before you’re ready can push you into success and knowing who you are is incredibly valuable to building a business. Taking care of yourself should always be a priority – especially when you’re ultra-busy. You can help more people when you are able to give from the right place.

Key Topics

Building From an Idea

• Black Book LA started as an idea to create a list of weekly events featuring black businesses.
• Around the time the Black Friday boycotts were happening, Makiah felt it was important to support black owned businesses and wrote blogs about the 50 black business to support on Black Friday.
• They now reach over 20,000 people and Makiah is working to create more Black Book LA events.
• She credits her success to consistency – they would not have been able to build the family and network that they’ve created without being consistent.

Just Start!

• Makiah has never had to pay for ads on social platforms and grew the network primarily through word of mouth.
• Because of consistency, Black Book LA has become a reliable and trustworthy platform.
• They only promote events, businesses, or places that they truly believe in.
• Makiah went to a panel Ava DuVernay was on and she spoke about not getting wrapped up in the details and to just start whatever it is you’re working on.
• That advice helped push Makiah and Tyree, her co-founder, to move forward.
• Black Book LA started as an email list and it has evolved so much over time.