{"id":11551,"date":"2022-09-22T13:03:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T17:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/?p=11551"},"modified":"2022-10-06T18:18:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T22:18:48","slug":"advice-for-new-lgbt-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/2022\/09\/22\/advice-for-new-lgbt-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Advice for New LGBT+ Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In the early days of my life as a queer entrepreneur, I agonized about how out I should be in my business. I worried that if I came out to my audience, I would lose customers and revenue.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally deciding to be open about my sexuality, I sent a newsletter to my email list mentioning my wife. In the next few days, I had a record number of unsubscribes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This experience showed me that the discrimination of queer business owners, and the denial of this discrimination, are still very real.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, despite these numbers, LGBTQIA+ businesses, especially those who don\u2019t identify as male, still face discrimination when obtaining funding and securing customers. A 2016 study by StartOut found that LGBTQIA+ entrepreneurs that don\u2019t identify as male\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/prosperitynow.org\/blog\/despite-progress-barriers-still-face-lgbtq-entrepreneurs\">raise less capital than their male counterparts and generate less revenue<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important to be open about our identities in professional settings. Our identities are assets to our clients, investors, and professional partnerships. We bring a unique perspective of historical and personal marginalization that can shape how we market our products and services and can reach certain target audiences through our queer networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to reach out to your community. Even if it doesn\u2019t have to do with your industry, it never hurts to introduce yourself. I\u2019ve built a network of referrals just by introducing myself to others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Analysis<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This article discusses how queer owned businesses can pursue their business plans even though they face discrimination. Businesses can lose customers after it&#8217;s owner comes out. This article highlights the importance of the LGBTQ+ community to support each other in life and to uplift one another. The hardships that queer business owners face isn&#8217;t widely accepted and non-queer businesses blame it on the business model, not homophobic customers. So as queer people are struggling in business pursuits, the existence of the struggle isn&#8217;t even accepted by non-queer businesses that hold the power in the business world. It is hard to break into a world of finances when it is competitive and other business feel that they shrink their selves by helping others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the early days of my life as a queer entrepreneur, I agonized about how out I should be in my business. I worried that if I came out to my audience, I would lose customers and revenue.&nbsp; Finally deciding to be open about my sexuality, I sent a newsletter to my email list mentioning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11559,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11551\/revisions\/11559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}