Drawing on their Argentinian heritage and family legacy as purveyors of fine sausages, Federico Etchechoury and his brother Martín brought their craft to the U.S. where they opened WeARGourment in suburban Atlanta. They soon found that starting a business in a new country is full of challenges. Thankfully, the Etchechoury brothers discovered Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, a free learning platform offering courses and one-on-one consulting in English and Spanish. Watch their story!

Thousands of enterprises have used Verizon Small Business Digital Ready – a free resource Verizon developed in partnership with LISC – to gain the skills they need to grow and thrive in today’s digital economy. We’d like to introduce to you three of them.

Jonathan Pérez’s parents opened Café Ollin, a Mexican restaurant in East Harlem, in 1997. Twenty-six years later, Pérez carries on their vision. “I want my family to have a better future, and for my father to see that what he originally started so many years ago is paying off.” Keeping a small family business alive and thriving after all these years means continuing to evolve and grow. And that is precisely what Pérez is doing with help from Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, a free resource that helps entrepreneurs gain new skills and build community.

Cissy and Michael White took a major leap forward in scaling their car detailing business, Mr. Refurbisher, when they won a five-year contract with the City of Charlotte to maintain its mobile fleet. Their journey to government contractor started with an online course they took on how to get certified to work for the government. They found the course on Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, which offers an array of free trainings and resources for growth-minded entrepreneurs. Check out their story!

How does an emerging entrepreneur learn the ropes of small business-building if they don't have someone to advise them? Angel Fant, owner of Coqovel Cosmetics and Skin Care in Indianapolis, is one of dozens of diverse entrepreneurs around the country who, with help from LISC, are accessing online business courses, one-on-one coaching, grants and other free resources that are part of Verizon's Small Business Digital Ready initative. Watch her inspiring story!

An article in AfroTech describes how Verizon Small Business Digital Ready, a partnership between Verizon, LISC and NextStreet, offers a free curriculum to give small businesses the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy. As LISC CEO Lisa Glover points out, for the entrepreneurs hit hardest by the ongoing financial repercussions of the pandemic, “it’s more important than ever to have a solid digital presence.”

The menu of free digital resources to help entrepreneurs plan, manage and grow their businesses is the latest collaboration between LISC and Verizon to support community-rooted enterprises reeling from the pandemic’s economic fallout. Since April 2020, LISC has distributed $17.5 million in grants from Verizon to nearly 1,700 small businesses, most of them women- and BIPOC-owned.

By Bill Taft, SVP of Economic Development

As LISC celebrates the extraordinary contributions of small businesses this week, we are taking stock of how our grantmaking and other support touched 16,000 small businesses across the country, and what they have told us they need to survive and flourish going forward. Affordable capital and technical assistance top the list. We’ve heard them, loud and clear, and are responding with increased investment, like a new partnership with the Verizon Small Business Digital Ready initiative.