The New Builders. Seth Levine
mid‐twentieth‐century innovation and expand democracy's reach around the world, so too must we come together to build a network of support for our next generation of entrepreneurs. New Builders will play a critical role in helping rebuild communities, and in so doing will help bring forth a new vision for the United States. New Builders are not add‐ons to our mental map of business in the United States. They are the map.
In our time meeting and interviewing New Builders, we found compelling examples of new networks and support structures springing up across the country. But those efforts need to be expanded, and too many focus on changing New Builders to adapt to the existing system, rather than on adapting the system itself.
New Builders are the bedrock of the economy and the strongest part of the fabric that holds our communities together. Individually, they are strong; together, they are mighty. Their resolve – and ours – was tested in 2020 and 2021 as the pandemic raged across the country. This resolve will continue to be challenged. In this book, you will meet many New Builders and in doing so, gain a glimpse into the future of American business.
Our focus is on the amazing individuals we call the New Builders. Their stories offer hope and promise. Their passion, dedication, and grit inspire. We hope The New Builders makes you think differently about entrepreneurship, about the businesses you support, and about the policies that help drive our economy. Perhaps this book will invite you to consider the role you might play in supporting New Builders in your community.
Fundamentally, this book describes the urgent need for those with power in our society to change their thinking and their actions. We all benefit by creating a more robust society where a greater number of people have access to the capital and know‐how necessary to create and grow businesses.
Most of all, we hope this book inspires you with the potential for our shared future.
–Seth Levine
–Elizabeth MacBride
PART I Who are the New Builders?
“This is not just a grab‐bag candy game.”
Toni Morrison
CHAPTER ONE A New Generation
Danaris Mazara opened the door at Sweet Grace Heavenly Cakes the day after the governor lifted the Covid pandemic lockdown on “nonessential” businesses in late May 2020.
“Thank God,” she said. Her 12‐year‐old bakery, which had been conceived of when she was lying on her couch staring at the ceiling with $37 to her name, was back in business.i
Eight women were already back at work on Essex Street in Lawrence, Massachusetts, making cakes in the back of the shop. The Sweet Grace bakers turned out cakes, from five silver‐festooned tiers for a wedding to two‐layered dreamy dark and milk chocolate affairs. On any given day, a cake as grand as a two‐foot‐tall Noah's Ark birthday cake, complete with a giraffe peeking over the top, might hold pride of place in the window.
It was a parade of life events, decked out in butter and sugar, for the Dominican community that Sweet Grace served.
Twelve orders came in the day before. But a week usually brought more than 100 orders. Danaris worried whether sales would be strong enough to make the payroll, the mortgage, or payments on the loan she had taken to expand late last year. She recalled what the space looked like before she remodeled it. Its transformation mirrored her own, from bankrupt and nearly out of money to business owner and community leader. The space had been dim and cluttered, with abandoned fixtures and trash left by the hair salon that was its previous occupant. Now it looked like it smelled – soft, sweet, and full of energy. But not as busy as it was before the pandemic and economic crisis hit.
“I think it's normal to be afraid,” she said. “You don't know what's going to happen in the future. I'm trying very hard to…” she trailed off. “Just wait and keep working,” she finished.
Around the corner, the family‐owned Italian bakery also opened its doors that morning. But unlike Sweet Grace Heavenly Cakes, it had been able to stay in business through the Covid‐19 shutdown because of a historical relic: it baked bread. Somewhere, somebody in the state's bureaucracy had decided that bread was essential. But not cake.
That's not how Danaris saw it. For people who love to dance and sing, and who live for their families and communities, cake is essential. Now, she wondered if everything she had built – for her family, her community, for her workers, and their families – would survive.
Danaris and her husband had arrived in Lawrence in 2002 from Puerto Rico. Born in the Dominican Republic, her mother had moved the family to Puerto Rico when Danaris was a young girl. There she had grown up and met her husband, Andres. Moving to the mainland after they were married, Danaris and Andres started their life in Lawrence, in her brother's attic. The room had no air‐conditioning, which meant it was sweltering in the summer, and had little insulation, leaving them to huddle together in the winter. But there were jobs in the factories in and around Lawrence, and the opportunity for a better life.
At the factory where she first found work, Danaris tried, tentatively, to speak a few words of English. “I didn't know that when people eat American chicken, they start speaking English,” mocked the assistant manager on the production line.
She was so humiliated she couldn't bring herself to go back the next day. Instead, she found a language school. The lessons paid off and when she eventually found another job, they were impressed enough to quickly promote her to assistant manager. Right before her daughter, Grace, was born, the Great Recession of 2008–2009 hit. Her husband was laid off from his job at Haverhill Paperboard, a local manufacturer that had been operating for over 100 years. The layoff cost 174 people their jobs and livelihood.
“I was very depressed because I had a newborn baby, something I was waiting to have for many, many years. But I couldn't stay at home to take care of her. I didn't know what I was supposed to do,” she told us.
Sweet Grace Heavenly Cakes was born in that moment of desperation, from the mind of a woman who, typical of today's entrepreneurs, had little in the way of resources, or even a well‐resourced network, to help. The bakery succeeded in the early days because of the help of an unlikely trio of benefactors: an Indian‐born billionaire, a Harvard‐educated tech executive, and a banker from Brazil. They were all engaged in programs to help Lawrence, a city of old and new immigrants, come back to life. In 2018, they had pulled together to help the city recover from a gas line explosion that destroyed 40 homes and caused the immediate evacuation of 30,000 people (from a city of 80,000). Now, as the Covid‐19 pandemic dragged on, Danaris wondered: if things were really bad, could she turn to them for help?
In better times, before the pandemic hit, Sweet Grace's reputation was so good, people lined up to pay $2 just for a cup of the crumbs. Even the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, whose office was menacingly outside the back door, sometimes stopped in for a cup.
“We have many customers coming from far, far away to get our cakes,” she said. “Dominican people, you have to know us. We are always celebrating.”
Danaris made it through seven weeks of pandemic closure by using her personal savings to pay both the mortgage on her house and the payments on her building renovation loan. She paid her employees – four of whom were women with children still back in the Dominican Republic – for a week. But she was stretched thin, both financially and emotionally.
She had been right before to trust in her ability to build a business. Her prayers had worked in the past. Now, she trusted they would again.
The New Builders
Danaris is