High caliber companies: our Small Business Awards winners are growing their businesses by serving their niche

Black Enterprise, Sept, 2005 by Alan Hughes

Some six years later. Powell, 29, and Bonnet, 32, launched Brides Noir from their Chicago home office Powell and Bonner started the magazine with $80.000 in personal assets and loans from family and friends and $20,000 in award money from the Miller Urban Entrepreneurs Series.

Brides Noir currently has a circulation of 50,000, is audited by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, and grossed $350,000 in revenues last year. The partners received the Rising Star Award, which recognizes individuals, aged 21-35, whose outstanding skills, professionalism, and perseverance have established them as future business leaders.

TEENPRENEUR AWARD NAJEE MCGREEN, TECHMASTER COMPUTER WORKS

When Najee McGreen heads to college this fall, he's going to pack his business plan along with his books.

The 17-year-old graduate of Benjamin Banneker Academy in Brooklyn, New York, is also president and CEO of Techmaster Computer Works, a computer design and repair services business. As such, he oversees his company's repair jobs, the education provided through his company's youth development program, and the free technical support offered through its community outreach program. He's also looking to expand the business to Maryland, where he'll be attending Johns Hopkins University.

McGreen, whose business generated some $7,000 last year, was given the Teenpreneur Award, which recognizes entrepreneurs under the age of 18 who serve as role models and are committed to advancing the tradition of black business achievement. "I was just overwhelmed at first," says McGreen, who plans to major in chemical and biomolecular engineering and minor in computer sciences. "The way the prizes were presented, it was almost like an Academy Award. I felt like I was at the Oscars. When I heard my name called, so many things rushed through my mind."

Modeled in many ways like a franchise. Techmaster splits the money made on a service call between the company and one of its 5 repair technicians. Repair jobs cost $35 for the first hour and $15 for each additional hour. "After I graduate [college], I want to go full time with this," McGreen says. "As I keep moving along, I hope to bring people along who can actually manage the business while I'm away."