Business at Susan Labandibar

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Inner City 100 Awards

Last night I accepted an award from the Institute for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC). The Inner City 100 award recognizes the fastest growing businesses in urban America. This is the second year we have won this award–moving up to 27th on the list, compared to last year when we ranked 83rd.

I am deeply grateful to Harvard Business School professor Dr. Michael E. Porter for creating the ICIC as a vehicle for inner city business development. In May 1995, Professor Porter published the ‘The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City’ in Harvard Business Review. This was the first time that anyone had suggested that inner city businesses could have a competitive advantage over businesses located in more affluent areas.

Although I had never read the article (or practically any other business publication except for Jay Conrad Levinson’s Earning Money Without a Job), I was destined to be one of many entrepreneurs who proved that Professor Porter’s ideas on inner city competitiveness were real world. A few months after the article appeared, I visited every subway stop on the MBTA Red Line, looking for a spot to locate my new used computer store. I went from Harvard Square, where I had seen a retail space with no parking for $2,500/month, to Andrew Square, where a larger space could be had for $800 for the first year, building up to $1,600 in year three. It was directly across from the subway station. And it had tons of parking! Read the rest of this entry »