Last year, With Love Market & Cafe was one of the winners of the CAMEO Faces of Entrepreneurship Award. This grocery market, coffee shop, and event space was created by Andrew McDowell in 2016 as a social enterprise. Andrew wanted to contribute and make an impact in his local community of Southwest Los Angeles. He spent many months working on a solid business strategy that drew enough community support to raise more than $100,000 through Crowdfund Better. He was also able to secure a loan from Self-Help Credit Union despite never having owned a business before.
Three years later, With Love has:
- made available over 50,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables to the local community,
- created nearly 80 full and part-time jobs, and
- hosted over 500 free community classes ranging from bilingual yoga to healthy cooking and entrepreneurship
Direct Public Offering
With Love Market & Cafe has become a staple in its neighborhood and a catalyst to small business growth in the area. Andrew knows this and does not plan to stop there. Yesterday, With Love announced the launch of a Direct Public Offering (DPO) that will allow all California residents to become investors in the social enterprise business.
As With Love grows, we have the opportunity to be not only community-focused, but also community-owned. I believe that With Love is at the perfect place for this type of transition in our community. With Love has a strong reputation and we see in this Offering an opportunity to further establish the business for long-term impact and success.
This new crowdfunding campaign consists of a three-phase plan to address sustainability, expansion, and social impact:
- paying off startup loans and debt,
- adding a second location in South Los Angeles, and
- launching a food cart entrepreneurship program that aims to create 20 new business-owners in South Los Angeles over five years
If this Offering is successful, we will have woven our community members into the business as shareholders, with the right to share and have a voice in what we hope to be sustained economic success and community-impact for many years to come.