The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The chairman of a newly-formed Entrepreneurs Society yesterday said it aims to “build wealth” via a self-patronising strategy where all 171 small business owners support each other.

Deveka Wilson told Tribune Business that the Society will select one member per week for all the others to patronise and visit. They pledge to spend money, up to $100 per person or more, with the chosen small business in a bid to keep all afloat amid the challenging COVID-19 climate.

“The Entrepreneurs Society was started by myself,” Ms Wilson said. “I am an entrepreneur and I came up with an idea to gather 100 business owners.

“What we will do is we will now channel our funds and our monies to one business every week to help all of the businesses during this time with COVID-19. We are trying to inspire people, and trying to gather people, and also trying to create wealth with each other.”

With the Society’s membership having expanded rapidly to 171, Ms Wilson said she now plans to patronise more than one business per week. “Because the idea has grown a bit beyond 100 businesses, we have decided that the businesses that don’t have storefronts, what I will do is I will create like a festival system,” she explained.

“All of the smaller businesses that don’t have storefronts, they can set up tents. We can set up tents, make it look really nice and everybody can patronise who they want at that time.”

Ms Wilson said she had been planning to create such a “festival system” for the past two years, but COVID-19 caused her to rethink her original plans and adapt to health and safety protocols imposed to mitigate the pandemic.

“I was just sitting down thinking that everybody has a system,” she added. “For example, one of my friends is Chinese and he’s a business owner, and they actually have an organisation where they pump monies into different businesses. Every quarter a business gets a certain amount, but they have to pay it back.

“So, after talking to my friend, I asked him how can the Bahamian people generate that type of wealth and that type of support? So this festival system was my idea to start off a bigger vision.”