About Us

Our Story

In 2019 our Gabe Munoz was named the local Director of the Kansas City ESHIP (Entrepreneurship) Communities initiative. This was an initiative funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation that aimed to bring the Kansas City entrepreneur support ecosystem together through a shared vision of a more sustainable, inclusive, and collaborative ecosystem.

Through this initiative, a council was formed of small business owners, ESO (Entrepreneur Support Organization) staff and community leaders. This council was charged with identifying the barriers to entrepreneurship, existing gaps in services and coming up with possible solutions.

After going door to door and surveying small business owners in the community, Gabe and the council identified four key barriers that entrepreneurs face in our community. These were:

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• Trust issues amongst entrepreneurs toward service providers being able to meet their specific needs.

• Cultural competency challenges on the side of entrepreneurial support organizations.

• Lack of multilingual programs.

• Entrepreneurs’ lack of awareness of existing resources.

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After hearing about the challenges that KC minority entrepreneurs face, the council organized public events and created multi-lingual material that served to give these underserved entrepreneurs the knowledge and resources they needed to help them with their business.

This pilot program was so successful that they continued to host events and 1 on 1 meetings until the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US in March 2020. When the pandemic hit, all the programming and meetings were moved virtually. Although still useful, the programming wasn’t as successful due to the lack of access to computers and the learning curve that the pandemic presented for online meetings. The council had seen that there was a definite need for this type of support on a regular basis, and thus the Toolbox was born.

We officially launched in May 2021 in The Stables co-working space (1303 Central Ave) in Kansas City, KS. We currently offer monthly classes on various topics, as well as longer cohort classes and one on one meetings.