Dr. Lakeisha Hallmon, CEO of The Village Retail, says her store and the night market have helped circulate more than $8 million to Black-owned businesses.
IIn 2021, Dr. Lakeisha Hallmon was nearly drowning, but little did she know it.
Hallmon, 42, a former teacher with little business experience, was too generous in giving her dealers sales cuts for her startup, The Village Retail. Its sales exceeded $900,000 in its first year. But Hallmon’s operation was not financially stable. Her mentor, David K., founder of Sundial Group of Companies, essence The Times magazine suggested Hallmon change course to save the business.
“You have to be willing to erase the paper and create something else,” Hallmon says. Forbes. “You can have the same mission, but it has to look different.”
Hallmon is CEO of The Village Retail in Atlanta’s Ponce City Market. Forbes“Journey to the Forbes BLK Summit” is an editorial series leading up to the second annual summit. Forbes BLK Business conference to be held in Atlanta from June 23rd to 25th. Forbes BLK It empowers entrepreneurs like Hallmon who have a unique approach to business, thought leadership and economic problem solving.
Founded in October 2020, Village Retail sells only consumer goods made by Black entrepreneurs. Products include apparel, men’s and women’s accessories, books, fragrances, hair care products, nutritional supplements, and more.
Sarah Goss, senior vice president of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, the corporate philanthropy arm of Mastercard, visited Village Retail in 2021 at the recommendation of a colleague. Goss was immediately impressed with the store’s look.
“If she had never said a word, I would never have known that some of the merchants in her store were small businesses or anything about their demographics. I just see beautiful, quality products,” Goss said.
Village Retail operates on a percentage-of-sales model, with Hallmon charging a fee for in-store placement and taking a percentage of the final transaction. He opened the store to serve small business owners hurt by the pandemic and who needed to see their products in person. More importantly, Hallmon says, he fulfilled his mission to start a trend of getting money circulating within the Black community.
Hallmon estimates that the shop, attached to Village Market, a quarterly marketplace she launched in 2016, has generated about $8.3 million in benefits for Black entrepreneurs, up from $4.5 million in its first year. Additionally, she says Village Retail has averaged just over $1 million in sales over the past two years, which includes e-commerce sales and revenue from Village Retail’s lifestyle brands.
Hallmon said Village Retail is profitable. The store employs seven people and aims to grow to 20 by the end of next year. Hallmon wants to solve two problems: economic equality with non-Black businesses and expanding the reach of solopreneurs.
“You can start a social enterprise and put real numbers on it,” Hallmon said. “Black retail businesses can survive.”
According to global research firm McKinsey & Company, the combined economic power of Black consumers in the U.S. is estimated to reach $1.7 trillion by 2030, up from $910 billion in 2019. “When you hear that number, all you hear is opportunity,” Hallmon says. But to maximize the impact of this number, it’s essential to scale up individual entrepreneurs.
McKinsey notes that approximately 96% of black-owned businesses are self-employed, compared to 80% of non-black-owned businesses. Additionally, while blacks make up 14% of the U.S. population, only 2% of private employers in the U.S. (approximately 124,000) are black-owned. Moreover, black employers have an average annual revenue of $850,000 compared to $2.4 million for white employers.
Community Business: “We knew we could build a great model to elevate what it means to be a Black entrepreneur in the city of Atlanta,” Dr. Lakeisha Hallmon said about launching The Village Retail in 2020.
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Build a village
IPonce City Market opened in 2015 following a $250 million redevelopment project that transformed the former Sears building into a mixed-use community. Located adjacent to the Atlanta BeltLine, it features 22 miles of bike-friendly trails, public parks and transportation connections, generating high volumes of foot traffic to small businesses.
Hallmon envisions applying the Ponce City concept across the country to “revitalize” black communities.
“She’s incredibly motivated to build community on this scale. I’ve never seen it done that way,” Goss said. She recalled having dinner with Hallmon in 2021 to discuss how they could help with Mastercard’s $500 million pledge to fight racial wealth and opportunity disparities. “We started sketching on napkins,” Goss recalled. “Out of that napkin came our partnership with Hallmon’s nonprofit, Our Villages United.” Mastercard donated $2.3 million to Hallmon’s nonprofit to fund business development programs, Goss said.
Born in Batesville, Mississippi, Hallmon’s parents were factory workers and Hallmon credits them with instilling in him a strong work ethic. “My attention to detail and attention to detail is something I got from my dad,” Hallmon says. After graduating from Tougaloo College, an HBCU about 140 miles from Batesville, and earning a master’s degree in education from the University of Mississippi, Hallmon pursued a career in teaching.
In 2015, she moved to Atlanta to work as an education research and evaluation specialist for the Georgia Department of Education. A year later, she pivoted after discovering how prominent retail companies and Black consumers seeking products catered to their community and culture. Using $20,000 of her savings and $3,500 from family and friends, Hallmon started a quarterly nightly marketplace where small businesses and Black consumers could come together and put funds in circulation. The popularity of the marketplace led to the launch of Village Retail in 2020.
Reflecting on the store’s early success, Hallmon believes the decision to change the startup’s financial model was essential to staying in business. “You have to be willing to pivot,” Hallmon says, “and have people around you that will force you to pivot.”
Capital gain: Watch the video to explore Hallmon’s entrepreneurial journey and learn how she expanded The Village Retail.
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