Providing mentorship to a small business owner doubles the chances they’ll survive more than ten years, driving economic growth and creating jobs.

Pacific Community Ventures will focus on serving women and minority-owned small business owners – the two fastest-growing demographics of entrepreneur in America.   In 2012, there were 8 million minority-owned firms nationally, up 38% percent from 2007, with no signs of slowing down.  Yet nearly half of women and one-third of minority-owned small business owners lack available mentors, and PCV’s BusinessAdvising.org is poised to solve this problem.

Pacific Community Ventures is a nonprofit social enterprise that engages small businesses, impact investors and policymakers to create good jobs for working people and build an economy that works for everyone. Their small business advising program – BusinessAdvising.org -- leverages an online platform and volunteerism to provide small business owners with high-quality mentoring at no cost.  The platform matches people based on skills, experience, and interest and removes geography as a barrier to enabling small business success.

MARCA helped solidify the Pacific Community Ventures value proposition and market demand for BusinessAdvising.org, which launched the year prior and was rapidly scaling to small business owners in 45 states. Our collaboration uncovered a range of strategic pathways with distinct target customers and pricing schema. Following that work, Pacific Community Ventures has enacted a go-to-market plan and our founder now sits on their Advisory Council as the organization positions itself for next-level growth.