Vince Martin, Founder and CEO of Atlanta-based Upsides Network LLC, has announced the launch of his new platform, BlackShares. The platform aims to bring the Black community together for social and professional networking, as stated in a press release.
The company is calling for a boycott of X, Threads, Bluesky, and LinkedIn and suggests switching to BlackShares to support a Black-owned platform instead. The platform will allow experts to be paid for their knowledge, encouraging wealth within the Black community.
Putting money back into the community
Black consumers’ collective economic power is set to expand dramatically, from about $910 Billion in consumption in 2019 to $1.7 trillion in 2030, according to McKinsey & Company.
With this in mind, Martin plans to allocate a significant amount of platform revenue, including membership fees, back to members as dividends and to an investment fund for Black startup founders. You can invest in the platform for $10 a month.
He also intends to use this platform to promote collaborations, connecting founders with the necessary tools and people to thrive in their businesses. Founders are encouraged to reward their collaborators through sharing and equity, which increases wealth spread across the community.
“We are intelligent, charismatic, and capable. All we need is to come together and collaborate. And, with each new successful company built on the platform, we’re creating more opportunities to buy Black,” Martin adds.
Bringing the community together during a complex political landscape
Martin shared that he had the idea for this platform for years, but the recent rollback of DEI programs pushed him to launch the platform now. “When I looked around at the effort to push our community back with this assault on DEI, combined with the recent hostile sociopolitical shift, it emphasized that we’re on our own as a community,” he says.
“Now, it’s time for us to use all of our community’s considerable resources to create a new economy that works for us,” he adds.
Image: Adedoyin
