How Casey Richardson is bringing access to community, knowledge and capital to Black female entrepreneurs

Find out about how Casey Richardson used her experience with tech-related funding to create BLAZE Group and empower a group composed of Black women who are entrepreneurs.

Two and a half two years ago, Richardson's world was different. She was from the Bay Area and worked for Bank of America, structuring massive loans for tech companies. She discovered that she was always the sole Black female on the team. And in over ten years of being in finance, she didn't see funding given to an Black business.

"It showed me that not only did the information not get there, but the knowledge wasn't getting to my communities," Casey recalls.

In October of 2020, Casey decided to change her mind.

Armed with her experience in the field of tech financing and business, she left her job at 9-5 and created BLAZE Group -- Building leaders and accepting no Excuses which aims to bring guidance, education, and community to the historically underserved community of Black women who are entrepreneurs.

In 2023, BLAZE Group is a company that BLAZE Group offers online courses through the Blaze Knowledge Academy, group coaching and an online community an app, in-person retreats, a semiannual virtual summit, and proprietary research conducted by Casey and her global team.

How did she do it within just two years? It was a result of providing the services that address a particular needs that are not being met, deliberate development of audiences, and selecting the appropriate tools and team.

From finance expert in corporate to game-changing entrepreneur

Prior to becoming a full-time entrepreneur, Casey was a professional in finance who arranged multibillion-dollar loans for tech companies. This kept her on the cutting edge of new tech -- but she was also aware of the disparities in her team and the companies they were financing. "I was the sole Black female on the team. It proved to the world that I had a degree, my knowledge and my experience were not available in my communities."

Black women are the largest category of entrepreneurs within the United States -- but only 3percent of them own "mature" enterprises, and the majority of entrepreneurs self-fund startup capital. There's a major disparity in the funding and resources available to Black women entrepreneurs compared to their white male counterparts.

In the summer of 2020, Casey took part in the demonstrations against police brutality. The community she felt and the strength she found that she had not felt in the routine of her job. "I found myself more inspired and engaged in protests than I had throughout my entire time of doing those sexy deals," she says. "I found myself rubbing shoulders with the people who were bold enough and courageous enough to lead things which actually matter."

By October, she had come to terms with the limits of her job in finance at a corporate companyand not because of how successful she was, but because that it. What else could she use her talent for? What could she do to use her expertise in tech and finance to assist other Black women achieve their goals?

"I'm extremely comfortable inside the four walls. But I would bet on myself every day to believe that I'd take over more of the planet. So I quit."

She took a break from her job, moved to Africa to start creating BLAZE Group, a location-independent business that empowers Black women around the world to achieve the identical thing.

BLAZE Group specifically targets entrepreneurs in their initial 3 years of building their business that Casey describes as"the "entrepreneurial stage."

"BLAZE is here to help clients understand how they can lead their companies in ways that keep the company going. We do this through tech-enabled solutions, being one of them," she says.

In order to serve this audience, Casey had to build genuine relations with them.

What are the reasons you should create your email database (and how to start)

Casey knew that she wanted to develop a highly business-focused online course from the jump -- but it was essential to establish an crowd prior to when she launched her first product.

Casey did not want this to occur with the release of BLAZE's initial product. So, she approached her initial audience-building activities with a specific goal in mind that was to create an email-list.

Why do people choose email subscribers over those on social media? "I was aware that I needed to be able to get and own relationships," explains Casey.

"On Instagram, you don't control the relationship. You don't know which email address they have or when their handle changes, you better hope you have a clue as to what the new handle is," Casey says.

"I would like to build relations and reach them frequently to increase brand awareness and trust."

Inquiring about her existing network

15 minute discovery calls for her group of customers

1. Reaching out to her existing networks

There's a lot of advice available on how to increase your reach, but many creators think that their first customers are strangers who discovered them on social media. However, if you begin the process from scratch, you're missing out on a huge potential source of support: Your friends and family!

Casey reached out to everyone within her circle to let them know she was starting a newsletter about entrepreneurship and asked them to sign up.

"I began by looking through my recent text messages, Instagram DMs, Twitter, Facebook... I put a timer on and then made sure to send as many messages as I could, in five-minute segments," she describes.

A lot of family and friends have taken Casey up on the offer as she started to create a solid email list leading into her product's launch.

2. 15 minute discovery calls with her target audience

The best method to meet them is by talking to them.

Casey shared a post on social media, sharing that she was building an online course that would help Black women better understand the business world. "If you'd like me to speak to you for 15 mins and inquire about anything, do let me know," she added.

The people who made a phone call to her were her primary people: Black women interested in entrepreneurial endeavors.

Instead of chatting about course content or marketing the course, Casey asked questions like, "What keeps you up all late at night? What's your most feared worry? In one year, where you want to be?" She used the time to make the women feel seen and understood. In turn, she discovered what she needed to consider in her course contents.

"Just holding space for that and making them feel comfortable it's an important component in the magic."

"By the conclusion of the majority of these calls, people were like, 'Can I now purchase the course Do you have a discount on the course?" Casey remembers. It was still in the development phase of the course, but she collected their email addresses and promised to let them know the day it was launched.

After the course was completed, she marketed it to her email list she built with the two methods above. "There was already this anticipation among all those who had signed up. They were ready to enroll."

What did they find? The majority of the women she talked to in the initial call converted to customers.

More than two years later, Casey still offers free discovery calls as part of her sales procedure. Should potential customers have any questions about this Blaze Business Intensive, they are able to make an Free Fit Call. Fit Call with Casey.

"On average, you need five follow-ups in order to conclude a deal. I don't think enough entrepreneurs realize that," says Casey. "I use those calls to close the deal."

How working with the right resources and individuals can help Casey grow her business

Presently, BLAZE offers online courses and masterclasses, group coaching programs, an online community, webinars as well as the TablexTribe mobile application , a semiannual digital gathering (a 2022 Webby Awards honoree to be recognized for its excellence in business and Finance), and proprietary research.

How can she handle all of those things without a lot of effort and love?

Casey has set up an international team that helps her scale different parts of her business, including:

Blogger and content marketer with a base in Nigeria

A junior consultant located in London

A production and brand manager (her husband!) who grew the BLAZE Group Instagram from 1,300 followers in May 2022 to 70,000+ at the start of 2023

An executive assistant in Kenya

An analyst in research who writes research documents across various industries. She also helps BLAZE find new consulting clients

A production assistant to assist with the semi-annual Blaze Virtual Summit

Her approach isn't simply hiring new employees and hires the tools as well.

"I use tools that I hire with speed," Casey laughs. "And I love that because it's the size."

A rise in revenues doesn't always mean your business is scaling, especially if you're putting in more effort or spending more money to achieve that growth.

"The rise in revenue must not be the main goal," explains Casey. "If your costs are rising in the same way the revenue is growing then your bottom line does not alter."

"Scale happens when you can increase revenue, and your expenses and the time that you invest barely change."

The experience she had in technology provided Casey how powerful no-code tools as well as integrations and automations are. When she created BLAZE Group, she leveraged tools that were low-code and without code such as and Zapier to make sure everything was running efficiently.

How Casey makes use of her course her community and downloads

" was the first app I used to offer things in a large scale" Casey shares.

Techniques such as these allow Casey "more the time she needs to do intentional things," for example, the one-on one meetings she makes with potential clients.

Casey created her first digital product called the Blaze Business Intensive online course. It includes . It's a self-paced, six-week course covering "Business Building, Business Management and Business Excellence for Today's Black Woman."

"It was completely non-code. I actually built it back during the 14-day free trials," Casey remembers. "I built all of the course in that window and started selling it prior to the expiration date so I could be immediately successful."

(Want to be like Casey's? Sign up for an initial free trial  for as long as you need to finish getting your course's content setup, then you can upgrade once you're ready to start selling.)

The course is part the Blaze Knowledge Academy  an assortment of business education resources Casey created on her website. The Academy also includes:

Numerous entrepreneurship masterclasses. Many of which she gives at no cost

Her online community, known as the Blaze Women's Network , with nearly 7,000 members

"People have the option of joining to the Blaze Women's Network absolutely free," Casey explains. We do virtual coworking sessions, I host webinars, which then lead users to the paid courses."

Alongside introducing clients to products that are helpful as well, Casey's community provides users with a friendly and supportive place to network with fellow founders.

"It was once that "content was the most important thing,' however, now the trend is shifting to the notion that 'community is King.' People are looking for community-centric programs... and the communities that aren't a source of spam appear to be genuine."

Her experience using has given Casey a rubric for what to look for in a no-code creator tool. "You have an extremely flexible platform that has allowed me to develop end-to end solutions on your system," Casey explains. "And I've taken that same scorecard when I assess the tools I use because I want them to expand to it."

"It truly is gorgeous to utilize strategies that impact the entire world through ways that are efficient and accessible to those who have been marginalized in the past."

Try not to tackle everything simultaneously

In light of all that Casey has accomplished in the span of just two years as the CEO of BLAZE Her advice for young creators may come as a surprise: Do less than you do now, at the very the very least, when getting into the game.

"Keep the main thing, the main thing," she suggests. Hustle culture teaches new entrepreneurs that there's never enough work to be done or the content that's made. But Casey encourages other creators to remember "There's only one limit to what you can accomplish regardless of how talented you may be."

"You don't have to do everything right out of the box but it will be really, really hard to perfect several things at once when you're just beginning."

It is recommended to start with an initial signature offer and then build on that. "I began with the Blaze Intensive, my first course. It is my main course. Entrepreneurs should spend time figuring out what their distinctive product should be and what they want to be recognized for prior to adding many other things."

There's lots to think about at first: your messaging and target audience, technology, marketing, and customers' satisfaction. What happens once you've done it? You open up the potential to do so much more.

"I am convinced that we have the capacity to accomplish many things. Maybe in 200 years. Since Blaze will still be around. But that doesn't need to take place today."

We're thrilled to be an integral part of Casey's story We can't get enough to find out what's to come for Casey as well as the BLAZE Group -- in this year, 200 years from now as well as all the time between.