BIPOC Business Owners Grow Together with BUD. Marine Nimblette Tends the Garden.

As the COVID-19 pandemic and a nationwide racial reckoning gripped people across the United States in June 2020, Marine Nimblette found herself back at home in the Hudson Valley. Like the rest of the country, her small community of Hurley, New York faced its own strained social ties—and Nimblette, then a rising third-year student at Northeastern University, was determined to do something about it. Soon, she and her friend Maggie Noe were spitballing ideas as Nimblette’s father, Avery, listened in.

How could they safely bring people together? What did BIPOC business owners need most? Could they create space for joy and connection amid immense loss and trauma?

Nimblette and Noe thought so. Together, they imagined an outdoor marketplace for local BIPOC entrepreneurs to engage with their customers and, equally as important, each other. In addition to points of sale, the festival would provide opportunities to share “social capital”—lessons learned, resources gathered, and networks established throughout their careers as small business owners.

“This was the first time these businesses were able to connect with each other and identify businesses in the same position,” says Nimblette, who recently earned her bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience at Northeastern. The concept hinged on Nimblette’s intimate knowledge of the mental health stressors that Black entrepreneurs face in her predominantly white town. Not only do they face outright discrimination, but inadequate representation and systemic barriers to financial stability—most of the business owners on her mind took home less than $20,000 each year—also tax their entrepreneurial growth and their overall wellness.

Avery Nimblette, the founder and owner of his own Hudson Valley landscaping business, told his daughter and Noe to run with their idea. He knew from the start that, with a little faith and some financial support, their grassroots effort could transform lives.

“[Marine] was hell-bent on uniting people, especially people who are disadvantaged,” says Avery. “She’s like a magnet. She brings people close.”

That’s when the Google searches and phone calls started. Before long, Nimblette and Noe had locked in their location and raised enough funds to host participating businesses—many of them centered on wellness products, like body and hair care—without charging them tabling fees. Businesses United in Diversity, or BUD, debuted its first festival in August 2020, then ramped up again in 2021.

For her mission to establish a more equitable local business ecosystem, Nimblette has been recognized with honors in Northeastern’s Innovator Awards this year. The annual celebration of talent, zeal, and impact—spearheaded by the Office of University Advancement—provides entrepreneurs across the university’s schools and colleges a space to present their concepts, hear feedback from Women Who Empower judges, and connect with likeminded innovators. In just three years, the Innovator Awards have honored 69 entrepreneurs and dispersed more than $820,000 in funds.

The recognition extends beyond BUD and to Nimblette’s family life. She says that, from a young age, her parents’ commitment to provide for her and her younger siblings with their small business inspired her to be resourceful herself. Her parents, both immigrants (her father is from Grenada, and her mother is from Zimbabwe), arrived in the U.S. “with not a lot of money,” says Nimblette. As they kickstarted the landscaping business, they leaned into community networks to—in Avery’s words—survive.

“Seeing the level of fortitude that my parents had to have in founding this business, in the area where we live, has inspired me a lot to want to be that way and apply that approach to founding a business and to everything I do now,” Nimblette says.

And that fortitude has remained a business requirement. Nimblette remembers when, one month before she founded BUD with Noe, Avery experienced blatant discrimination and harassment while out on a job. He’d been parked on a public road near a client’s property with his landscaping equipment when a neighbor approached the vehicle. Avery had opted to keep to himself, executing business on his phone while the neighbor accused him of trespassing. Soon, the neighbor was banging on Avery’s window and hurling racial slurs.

“You face discrimination on all ends that you can think of,” Nimblette says of life for minority business owners—from negotiating fair contracts and managing employment to encountering hatred as a workplace hazard.

As the altercation escalated, Avery called a police officer, who was also a known acquaintance. Thankfully, says Nimblette, the officer was well aware of Avery and his reputation in their community. But “that’s a piece of why the story went well,” Nimblette says. When the time came to make his formal complaint at the police station, Avery questioned whether to engage his daughter in the process.

“Initially I was frightened. I was worried because, as a young Black entrepreneur, it’s always been a tough road,” he says. “We want to protect our kids from some of our experiences.” He decided, though, that Nimblette’s involvement in the solution—in standing up for what was right and just—would encourage her future advocacy. So, he brought her to the station with him. The two would later share their experiences with racism at a Black Lives Matter protest in town.

Nimblette’s confidence in tackling the “big stuff,” Avery says, continues to energize him. Though his daughter often says he’s her source of inspiration, Avery says it’s the other way around. He believes in her potential to have “a profound impact on humanity,” and considers it an honor to witness her talents as an inventor, convener, and scientist.

“As a parent, I didn’t want her to just survive—I wanted her to thrive. And, boy, she has proven that she understands that concept.” 

Advocacy is the link between business and medicine for Nimblette, who is currently pursuing her master’s degree in biomedical sciences at Boston University. She credits her multidisciplinary perspective, in part, for her success. The data-mining and if-then thinking she practiced while implementing research at Northeastern help her to solve business challenges; and the networking she honed as a business leader helps her make connections with peers and mentors in medicine.

“Conversations with people are how you learn things and go from one path of research to a new path of research,” Nimblette says.

For now, as she and Noe embark on new adventures after college, BUD is on hold. The founders are eager to join with young partners (perhaps a local high school student or two) who might carry their mission for “Black business awareness” forward, says Nimblette. In the meantime, she’ll continue to brainstorm for her next big idea—likely a fusion between business and psychiatry or neurology. 

This bud is blooming.