It had already been a rough day for Ashley Daramola.
After a two-hour commute, Daramola (B.I.S. ’10, M.S. ’12) — who goes by “Ashley Bella” — had just worked eight hours in a safe house for female victims of sex trafficking. Some of the women were fresh out of prison. Others were detoxing from addictive drugs. Another who suffered from a severe case of mental illness was prone to violence and had threatened Bella and her coworkers. After her shift, Bella was ready to brave another commute home.
That wouldn’t happen, though. Her car had two flat tires, and her small salary as a social work case manager afforded her no money to fix them.
“My work with these women means everything to me,” Bella thought. “But I should be able to give back while still making enough money to take care of myself.”
She’d rarely been able to do that, though. So, she did what she knew she should have done a long time ago. She quit to start her own business.
Seeds of Opportunity
Bella has loved art since her first Sunday school craft projects, and it soon became a therapeutic outlet from a home environment she calls “a little dysfunctional.” As she got older, her teachers frequently advised her to pursue her talent.
Her family wasn’t keen on the idea of Bella seeking a career in the arts, however, and she lost confidence in her dream. She ended up spending more than a decade in and out of school, shifting from design to a seven-year stint in social work.
But in September 2016, as she gazed at her immobilized car outside the Acworth safe house, those two flat tires became symbols of a personal conviction she could no longer ignore.
“That confirmed it for me — that maybe the reason I was having so much trouble getting grounded somewhere was because I wasn’t doing what I was meant to do,” she says. “And if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to figure stuff out. So, I’m going to quit my job and become an artist, and I’m going to figure it out.”
ArtzyBella, Bella’s company, was born when she used her last $50 to buy the supplies she needed to paint a mural in her friend’s apartment. She got paid $150, and when photos of the painting took off on social media, she started getting offers to create more. To minimize expenses, she moved out of her apartment and lived out of the trunk of her car, couch-surfing at friends’ houses. Then she sold her car, too.
Using the cash from her murals, she bought materials to host ArtzyBella “sip and paint” parties, where guests pay to follow an instructor’s lead to create their own paintings. With no home or vehicle, she enlisted her friends to host the events at their houses and borrowed a car each time to transport furniture and supplies, including the easels she made out of cheap plywood.
For a year, she operated out of a studio in a Westview church, hosting events and even living there when finances were especially tight. Her events grew so popular she had trouble accommodating everyone who wanted to come. By last summer, she’d earned enough money to open her own space in downtown East Point.
Around the same time, Bella received an invitation from George Greenidge Jr. (Ph.D. ’21), a research assistant with the Center for the Advancement of Students & Alumni (CASA) at Georgia State. Among its other charges, CASA brings successful alumni and professionals to campus to talk about their careers. Greenidge had discovered Bella on Instagram and wanted her to sit on a panel and share her story with students.
“She has this great energy,” Greenidge says. “I needed to get her in front of young people and let them know that if you dream it and put the right people around you, you can do it.”
After the event, Greenidge introduced Bella to Jackie Davis (B.A. ’09, M.Ed. ’12, MBA ’18), the associate director of Georgia State’s Entrepreneurship & Innovation Institute (ENI).
Established in 2016, ENI is dedicated to building an entrepreneurial culture and mindset across Georgia State, with programming for students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members. The institute started offering a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship through the J. Mack Robinson College of Business in 2017, and its classes are open to students of any major.
“The reality is entrepreneurship happens everywhere. It’s not confined to the traditional business industries,” Davis says.
Davis told Bella about ENI’s biggest opportunity yet — the chance to participate in an exclusive eight-month incubation program for promising seed and startup businesses called the Main Street Entrepreneurs Seed Fund. Supported by a $300,000 grant from The Marcus Foundation, Main Street offers mentorship and funding to help Georgia State students, recent alumni and community members develop new businesses that can create jobs and have a significant impact on Atlanta.
Participants get not only advanced workshop and weekly one-on-one meetings with a notable and experienced Atlanta-based entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) but also some hefty grants —$5,000 for seed companies and $10,000 for startups.
“I knew Georgia State was an innovative university that made students their primary focus, but I had no idea they were taking it to this extent. And now I get to be a part of that,” says Jamine Moton, one of the program’s two EIRs.
A prominent Atlanta businesswoman and investor, Moton is the founder of the fast-growing Skylar Security startup. It’s her job to coach the young business owners alongside Musaddeq “MK” Khan (B.S. ’00), ENI’s lead EIR, a startup mogul who’s helped create and lead companies in industries from energy and hospital administration to artificial intelligence.
ENI enlisted the support of faculty and alumni, as well as local industry leaders, venture capitalists and prominent entrepreneurs to review the 100 applications they received with a balanced, thorough perspective. Fifty semifinalists delivered their best pitches to this diverse group over the course of three days. Twenty-one earned a spot in the program, which began in September.
After wrapping up a custom installation for a teacher’s classroom at a local elementary school, Bella was driving to a friend’s house when she received word that ArtzyBella made the cut.
“I had to pull over to cry,” she says.
“Most of the things I’ve done in my life were very scary. But once you get on the other side of that fear, everything you probably wanted is there.”
— ASHLEY BELLA
“Most of the things I’ve done in my life were very scary. But once you get on the other side of that fear, everything you probably wanted is there.”
— ASHLEY BELLA
Liftoff
After attending a networking event, Sheehan Khan (B.S. ’14) wended his way through the parking deck and got in his car. His business, a logistics startup called Airlift, had taken a few hits recently, and his bank account was running low, so he checked his phone to see if any payments had arrived.
Nothing had posted. Worse, his account was so drained he couldn’t pay for his parking to leave the garage. So, he slept in the backseat until just before daybreak when a deposit cleared. Now, he could go back to work and keep plugging away to get his company off the ground.
For Khan, this kind of danger is part of the game you play as an entrepreneur.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” says Khan, a first-generation American, the son of Bangladeshi immigrants. “I didn’t know it was called entrepreneurship, but I felt whatever I did needed to have value.”
In third grade, he designed and sold trading cards to his classmates for a playground game called “War.” They were a hit. Later, he turned to creating his own comic books, selling each photocopy for 50 cents of his classmates’ lunch money. When he couldn’t acquire an airbrush for his next idea — customizing white T-shirts with graffiti-inspired art — he made his own by swapping out the washable marker in a Blow Pen with a Sharpie. One of his fellow middle schoolers couldn’t pay $15 for a shirt, so he traded his Casio watch, which Khan then sold on eBay for $30.
“That’s when I realized I can sell this stuff online. I can sell everything online,” Khan says.
And he did. While still in high school, he built an e-commerce business, selling items from around the house and nearby thrift stores. By the time he was studying at Georgia State, he had run out of space at his parents’ house and had set up shop in a storage unit packed with goods imported from overseas. He often spent more time at the storage unit than in class, all while pursuing other ventures, including a media agency and an online ticketing platform.
“It was a hell of a ride,” he says. “I missed tests. I didn’t graduate with the best GPA.”
In the storage facility, he met a community of other plucky e-commerce business owners running shops out of their units. Like Khan, they were all encountering a similar problem: managing their inventory across multiple locations and online sales platforms. Maintaining some master spreadsheet just wasn’t working.
For small businesses like these, traditional fulfillment companies — places that store and ship orders for retailers — aren’t a viable option. These big centers need clients with a high volume of sales across a narrow range of standard products and who can afford high monthly fees just to open an account — barriers to entry that turn away most startups.
So, Khan created a solution. He used a computer science class project at Georgia State to start tinkering with ideas for a program. While he scrapped all the original code, he transformed those initial concepts into the software that became the foundation for Airlift.
Using Khan’s proprietary technology, Airlift tracks and updates a business’ inventory, pricing, orders, fulfillments and more from every sales platform — such as Amazon, Shopify or Etsy — all in one place. To avoid fleecing small companies with exorbitant monthly fees, Airlift makes most of its money on transactions, charging for each order it packs and ships, as well as local pickups and storage in the company’s warehouse in Atlanta’s Boulevard Heights neighborhood.
“E-commerce is growing rapidly,” Khan says. “Right now, it’s a $13.4 trillion market worldwide, and companies are spending more than 10 percent of that on shipping alone. We’re trying to take advantage of that market by building a completely modern system that has the potential to change the fulfillment industry.”
Last summer, when Khan pitched his company to ENI’s panel for a shot at the Main Street Entrepreneurs Seed Fund, the response was enthusiastic.
“He has a great model and a great concept,” says Moton. “He’s a brilliant, brilliant entrepreneur who’s converting that brilliance into a business.”
Last year, though, some unexpected cash flow problems forced Khan to consider dropping clients, shutting down temporarily or even starting over from scratch.
“I was determined to make this work,” he says. “The financials made sense. We were making money. But then everything went wrong, and I didn’t know if we were going to make it.”
Just in time, he received his first check from Main Street. He was able to hire some help and modify his accounting to create a more reliable stream of cash, giving him space to further develop the software.
“I admire his grit and tenacity,” Moton says. “It’s going to be an incredible story when he gets to the end of it.”
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I didn’t know it was called entrepreneurship, but I felt whatever I did needed to have value.”
— SHEEHAN KHAN
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I didn’t know it was called entrepreneurship, but I felt whatever I did needed to have value.”
— SHEEHAN KHAN
The Big Ideas
For Bella, Khan and the rest of the Main Street Entrepreneurs, one date loomed large. On Feb. 27, or “Demo Day,” all 21 finalists gathered at Georgia State Stadium to give three-minute pitches to a new group of judges comprising a who’s-who of the Atlanta business community for the chance to win additional funding.
Khan pitched how he would expand and decentralize Airlift through micro-fulfillment in urban centers. That means partnering with theoretically anyone in any city who has storage space and a vehicle to fulfill orders using equipment Airlift would provide, such as barcode scanners and label printers. Airlift would then distribute its clients’ inventory closest to the people who are buying it. It’s like Uber or Airbnb for fulfillment, where Airlift’s system, credibility and reliable supply of customers can give any person willing to do the work the chance to run his or her own fulfillment center.
With Main Street’s help, Bella had already been able to hire instructors to take over some of the sip and paint classes, a public relations specialist to promote her company’s story, and a business developer to create strategies and proposals for soliciting new work and partnerships. The business developer alone led to some high-profile commissions — and committee appointments — for the cities of College Park and South Fulton and the Aerotropolis development at Hapeville’s shuttered Ford factory.
For her Demo Day pitch, Bella introduced a new product called the BellaBox. A monthly subscription art-making kit, the BellaBox fuses Bella’s talent for art instruction with her commitment to mental health. Each box will come with everything needed to create a particular project. Along with materials and instructions, she’ll include a guide that explains how the process of making that piece of art addresses mental or emotional well-being. To achieve rich, bright hues with watercolor, for example, the artist must show a lot of patience, building layer upon layer of color atop a delicate pencil outline. There’s no way to rush it, she says, and that methodical focus can release deeply buried memories or feelings.
THE VENTURE CAPITAL
Collaborative by design, ENI partners with the university’s Creative Media Industries Institute, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and the Institute for Biomedical Sciences for different kinds of ventures. Student programming includes competitions, workshops and guest speakers, as well as the E-House Living-Learning Community, where aspiring entrepreneurs can live together, share coworking spaces, and take advantage of unique mentorship and networking opportunities. Soon, ENI will connect students with a network of alumni-owned startups and businesses for invaluable internships.
ENI also assists faculty with commercializing their research. For example, if a scientist discovers a novel way to reduce waste, a viable business might be the best way to extend the research, and the environmental benefits it offers, all over the world.
Off campus, it connects emerging entrepreneurs in the university community with Atlanta’s robust startup community and the innumerable events and opportunities it offers through hubs such as Atlanta Tech Village, Constellations, Flatiron City, General Assembly, Switchyards and more.
Her therapeutic guides will draw from scholarly research and clinical studies as well as the experience of six licensed therapists — all former colleagues — who’ve agreed to provide their contact information in each box. Bella will donate $1 from each box to Haven Atlanta, the Salvation Army’s anti-trafficking program in the city’s Pittsburgh neighborhood.
With the BellaBox, the young entrepreneur has a product that might not only sustain ArtzyBella and support her other career as an exhibiting artist but also dramatically improve lives. That’s why she made it the focus of her Demo Day pitch. It got her the first-place prize for startups.
“It’s just starting to sink in,” she says the morning after winning $10,000. “I feel so validated about where I’m going.”
While Khan didn’t win a prize, he’s hardly deterred and remains thankful for the chance to participate.
“Being part of this program — having the credibility of Georgia State and people at ENI behind you — that’s very powerful,” he says. “It shows we’re serious about this. We’re building a business, and we’re growing, and we’re going to make this work.”
With Demo Day behind them, Bella, Khan and the other 19 entrepreneurs in their cohort can return to daily task of making good on their pitches and bringing their ideas to life. But even with the lessons and funding they’ve received, that can still be a scary proposition.
These are misgivings Bella knows well.
“I might think sometimes, ‘Man, I don’t know if I can take that on. That’s a big deal,’” she says. “But then I remember: Quitting my job and becoming an entrepreneur was scary. Most of the things I’ve done in my life were very scary. But once you get on the other side of that fear, everything you probably wanted is there.”
THE VENTURE CAPITAL
Collaborative by design, ENI partners with the university’s Creative Media Industries Institute, the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies and the Institute for Biomedical Sciences for different kinds of ventures. Student programming includes competitions, workshops and guest speakers, as well as the E-House Living-Learning Community, where aspiring entrepreneurs can live together, share coworking spaces, and take advantage of unique mentorship and networking opportunities. Soon, ENI will connect students with a network of alumni-owned startups and businesses for invaluable internships.
ENI also assists faculty with commercializing their research. For example, if a scientist discovers a novel way to reduce waste, a viable business might be the best way to extend the research, and the environmental benefits it offers, all over the world.
Off campus, it connects emerging entrepreneurs in the university community with Atlanta’s robust startup community and the innumerable events and opportunities it offers through hubs such as Atlanta Tech Village, Constellations, Flatiron City, General Assembly, Switchyards and more.
AND THE DEMO DAY WINNERS ARE
Seeds
London Balbosa (B.I.S. ’19), Rhythm Varshney (M.S. ’19)
— art discovery platform for emerging artists
Usama Muta-Ali (A.S. ’15, B.I.S. ’21)
— academic and lifestyle services for STEM students and professionals
Nicole Toole (B.B.A. ’22), Ishir Vasavada (B.B.A. ’19)
— solutions to promote and incentivize recycling
Startups
Ashley “Bella” Daramola (B.I.S. ’10, M.S. ’12)
— art services, classes and products emphasizing mental health
Ashley Richardson (B.S. ’17), Katherine Shaub
— automated system for managing visual branding
Umama Kibria (B.B.A. ’14)
— collaborative accountability platform for meeting personalized fitness goals