What does it take for small independent businesses to remain competitive in a challenging and constantly evolving landscape? Cambridge Local First, a nonprofit network of more than 400 local businesses, has a few ideas it put to work in the classroom with this year’s Digital Era Small Business Bootcamp.
The program, underwritten by the City of Cambridge and the U.S. Small Business Administration, unfolded over the course of 10 weeks and 19 meetings, offering a mix of group, one-on-one, in-person and Zoom sessions. The goal was to create a curriculum and forum through which local business owners could learn skills and tools to strengthen their businesses online.
In addition to boot camp sessions covering fundamentals such as “sales and customer relationships” and “business strategy, growth and scaling,” the course provided instruction on how small businesses can use storytelling techniques and digital tools to build a narrative about their business that will resonate with customers.
CLF board member and boot camp project director Andrea Taylor Dunkley cited at least two factors that helped produce a successful inaugural edition of the program: expanding the focus beyond the food and beverage space and keeping the total number of program participants low.
In early planning, Taylor Dunkley recognized a surfeit of incubator-type programs focused purely on food and beverage. “Let’s open this up,” she said. What resulted was a three-pronged approach, adding student cohorts and leaders with industry-specific expertise. In addition to Kyisha Davenport for food and beverage, the program brought on Maria Sanchez to address health, wellness and creative and Jeanette Velasquez for business-to-business and professional services, along with a host of guest speakers.
Keeping the number of enrolled participants low – a total of 22 sorted into the three cohorts – allowed for one-on-one coaching, which was a major component of the curriculum.
The diversity of participants include business owners such as esthetician and makeup artist Johany Montes of Montes Esthetics; artist, educator and community facilitator Alexandra Adamo-Cioffredi of Alex Makes Art and The Shiny Shop; Jeremy Spindler of Spindler Confections; multilingual education programmer Tamene Tedla of S-Cube Diplomacy; and Steven Adelson of Teddy Shoes. Each participant used the lessons learned to bring their business more effectively into digital spaces.
The boot camp wrapped up in May, but CLF is already deep in planning for 2027’s edition, with a point of emphasis on how small businesses can use artificial intelligence to overcome disadvantages in access to capital, marketing reach and technology relative to larger businesses in a global marketplace.
Adelson of Teddy Shoes said in July, “I had an excellent experience. The one-on-one coaching with Manoucheca Lord, Syndey Tullai, Stacey Simon and others was outstanding. [I learned] how to do Instagram videos: @teddy_shoes has enabled me to connect to the community. I also have been posting regularly on TikTok and have over 400 followers.”
Make that 989 followers on Instagram, 588 followers on TikTok and counting at the time of this writing. His latest TikTok, “Moving Edition,” finds him helping his son move out of Allston. He doesn’t miss the opportunity to sneak in a plug for his shoe store.
