Commentary

Profits and Purpose Go Together: 4th Ave. Market Leans Into History

Silicon Valley’s Stanford MBAs didn’t invent direct-to-consumer models, and they certainly didn’t invent “social commerce.” One of the hits of our recent D2C Brand Insider Summit was 4th Ave. Market’s founder Salim Holder, who reminded us that both models have deep historical roots. His e-commerce platform aggregates health and beauty products principally aimed at communities of color that have been underserved by major manufacturers. As he outlined when we first talked to Salim a year ago, he is surfacing a long tradition of small, black-owned companies that filled the void with product lines of their own. And at last month’s D2C Summit he dug into the ways in which he is also leaning backwards historically into the traditional community networks of small businesses, schools and organizations that helped market and sell these under-the-radar product lines. He outlined how 4th Ave. Market is not only finding in historically Black colleges and universities powerful social influencers but also empowering these students with digital marketing expertise that will help them lead the next generation of Black entrepreneurs and professionals.dtc

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