Today we’d like to introduce you to Anjanette Miller.
Hi Anjanette, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I moved to Durham in 2019 after selling a business that I’d founded in 1999 back in Dallas, Texas. I’d fallen in love with Durham about a decade earlier as my kids were looking at universities in this part of the U.S. I knew that I’d love to make Durham my home. Little did I (or any of us) know that a pandemic would hit, and my job search would come to a halt. Luckily, I met a Duke student who’d started a nonprofit focused on democratizing entrepreneurship for teens, and we began to work together. And soon, I was asked to become Executive Director of Audacity Labs. Within 18 months, Audacity Labs received a $1 million grant from the City of Durham to build a teen center in Durham focused on entrepreneurial and economic opportunities. Knowing we’d need to scale quickly, Audacity Labs merged with another nonprofit, and we became Echo. Today, I am CEO of an entrepreneurial community center located in the heart of downtown Durham that supports ANY age, ANY stage entrepreneur with a focus on individuals from under-resourced communities.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Haha! For sure, it’s not been a smooth road, but that’s part of being an entrepreneur. Failing and pivoting are just part of the process – and while you’re in it, it’s not fun, but at the end, you’re in a stronger position and have learned so much. For example, I’d never written grants before. Most of my previous experience had been in the for-profit space. And many of my grant proposals were rejected prior to the $1 million awarded by the City of Durham. We’ve also had to negotiate federal contracts, commercial leases, and MOUs from potential community partners and vendors – all part of the scaling process, which is ultimately exciting for us and the community we serve, albeit the struggles along the way.
As you know, we’re big fans of echo. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
echo is a community center in downtown Durham and is transforming lives through entrepreneurship by building a collective of individuals, businesses, and resources to pool together for a common goal: social mobility through entrepreneurship.
We provide in-house programs, services, resources, and support to ANY stage entrepreneur. As a community-led center, we take our cues from the builders and dreamers in our community. And for early-stage and young entrepreneurs from under-resourced communities, there is little support available. That inspired us to envision a space built for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. At echo, we want to build the “we” – a collective of individuals that fosters a sense of belonging; to join people who have a shared living experience to challenge the outdated educational and workforce models that prevent economic equity; and to pool this collective identity so we can learn together, and create a circular system for broader change through entrepreneurship to build, succeed, and repeat.
echo has three unique programs: echoSystem – training, workshops, and mentoring for our adult founders; echoChamber – our entrepreneurs-in-residence and community advisory board that helps inform echo of the needs of the community; and echoReverb – our teen center focused on fostering the next generation of innovators.
We are most proud of our operating model – the user-centered model of bottom-up where our members advise and, in some cases, lead our programmatic offerings. This allows echo to stay nimble and adapt quickly to the concerns and needs of the entrepreneurs as they prepare to grow and scale.
We are also proud of our Board of Directors – all of whom are innovators and entrepreneurs and perfectly aware of the needs of the community we serve.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Patience. By nature, I am a dreamer and an optimist. I have an idea and can easily see a path to actualization of that idea. Often, I get impatient putting the steps in between Point A (idea) and Point Z (completion). The initial excitement about the idea of what could be wanes in the space needed to socialize the idea with stakeholders, form partnerships, and plan the project. Invariably, every time, I can look back after reaching Point Z (or sometimes Point X because we couldn’t complete the dream) and wonder at what I learned, what I can do better next time, or how fulfilling it feels to have gone through the process.
That’s one of the main reasons I love working with teens. For most of their lives, their experience with failure is punitive: you fail a quiz and have to stay after school; you fail a class and have to take summer school, etc. Those failures often bring shame. But that’s not really how life works as an adult. I fail all the time as an adult, and often, it is not as punitive but more of an opportunity to learn and to grow. And it’s much easier when we don’t go it alone. Whether we realize it or not, often our success and wins are the result of someone else – or a group of people- who help us navigate the path.
As the CEO of echo, patience, and community are my own personal values that I try to show up with every day to my staff, board, and community members. Sometimes, we need to slow down to speed back up, and it’s always better when we do it together, cheering us all on as we grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.echo-nc.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/echo.entrepreneurs/ https://www.instagram.com/echostartup/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/echonc
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/anjanette-miller
Image Credits
Grow with Aspen
Austin Lopesilvero
