Morehouse Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center is rewriting the rules on Black business funding
It started with a single office and a handshake agreement. Dr. Tiffany Bussey walked into Morehouse College 21 years ago with contract work in hand and a proposition that cost the institution almost nothing. What followed became one of the most consequential Black business ecosystems in the country. The Morehouse Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center has since generated over $355 million in revenue, created more than 1,100 jobs and reached over 2,500 students.
Rethinking what founders actually need
Dr. Bussey is quick to challenge the most repeated narrative in Black entrepreneurship circles. Capital, she says, is not the whole story.
“I want to push back on that,” she said. “If you have capital and you don’t have customers, you still will not succeed. That is the piece that we try to focus on.”
At MIEC, the first order of business is teaching entrepreneurs to validate their ideas before spending a dollar. Dr. Bussey describes a pattern she sees constantly, founders who skip the research and move straight to building. “They wake up, they had a dream, and with this idea that I build it and they will come, and they don’t come,” she said.
The center walks businesses through ideation and validation, testing whether the problem they think they are solving is actually a problem for, as Dr. Bussey puts it, millions of customers.
A fund built differently
MIEC does address capital, just not the way traditional lenders do. The Atlanta Flex Fund is a seed capital debt fund that charges 0% interest and does not use credit score as a primary lending criterion.
“Traditional loans look at credit score, which is a historical picture of what happened to you in the past,” Dr. Bussey said. “For people in our community, many times we have had experiences that don’t allow for that credit score to be at the place where it needs to be. So we are in this cyclical circle of not ever catching up.”
The fund is one part of a broader philosophy. MIEC also focuses on contracts alongside capital, connecting businesses with government procurement opportunities and general contractors in the trades.
What makes MIEC different from other business organizations
Many business-serving organizations provide training and technical assistance, but Dr. Bussey believes the academic foundation at Morehouse gives MIEC a competitive edge. The center does not just teach theory. It conducts research, finds data and then applies it directly to the businesses in its programs.
“We’re not just doing it for butts in seats,” she said. “This is really about how do we disrupt the way we’re doing this work for these businesses to build intentional scaling.”
In 2024, MIEC published the Building Black Business Report, a strategic roadmap built from 18 months of community research involving Black entrepreneurs, business-serving organizations and community stakeholders.
Starting the conversation early
The center’s student programs are just as central to its mission. The Startup Studio and the annual Dream Makers Summit bring entrepreneurship into the classroom across every discipline, from biology majors solving lead contamination in water systems to musicians and poets finding the business model in their craft.
“Whether you’re a scientist or a musician, you’re creative, and you too can be an entrepreneur,” Dr. Bussey said.
The goal is not for Morehouse students to launch companies before graduation. It is for them to leave with a framework they can use when the timing is right.
“Our hope is that by introducing them to the method of how you test and validate ideas, they may go off after graduation and see opportunities to solve problems in society,” she said.
For businesses ready to engage with MIEC now, Dr. Bussey points to mcecenter.com and the center’s Instagram and LinkedIn pages. Applications for an upcoming cohort focused on business to government contracting are opening soon, along with programs for retail and construction businesses.