Level Up
RISE ABOVE THE HIDDEN FORCES HOLDING YOUR BUSINESS BACK
Level Up
RISE ABOVE THE HIDDEN FORCES HOLDING YOUR BUSINESS BACKLevel Up is a must-read guide for small business owners navigating a critical turning point: when you either level up or give up.
Our story is your story
A journey of optimism and overcoming the systemic hurdles of entrepreneurship.
We need small businesses to be able to achieve their potential. Our mission is to help small-business owners like us change the game and LEVEL UP. Let’s find out how far we can go together. Join the Level Up Movement below.
About the Authors
Stacey Abrams
Stacey Abrams is the four-time New York Times bestselling author of Stacey’s Extraordinary Words, While Justice Sleeps, Our Time is Now, and Lead from the Outside, an entrepreneur; and a political leader. A tax attorney by training, she served eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives and seven as Minority Leader. Abrams has launched multiple organizations devoted to voting rights, training and hiring young people of color, and tackling social issues at the state, national, and international levels. She is the founder of Fair Fight, Fair Count, and the Southern Economic Advancement Project. A small business owner, Abrams co-founded the financial services firm NOW Corp. and Sage Works Productions, Inc., a media company. She has received degrees from Spelman College, the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and Yale Law School.
Lara Hodgson
Lara Hodgson is President and CEO of NOW Corp, and has served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Harvard Business School. Prior to Now, Lara co-founded Nourish (a children’s products company), and Insomnia, LLC, a firm specializing in investment, development, and management of complex and innovative “worldchanging” projects. Her background also includes 5 years with Dewberry Capital Corporation, an Atlanta-based commercial real estate development and investment firm, where she served as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Lara received an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering with highest honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Today, she serves as a Trustee of the Georgia Tech Foundation in addition to other Boards. E&Y recognized Lara as a 2018 Finalist for the Southeast Entrepreneur of the Year. and named her to the Entrepreneurial Winning Women Class of 2019.
Heather Cabot
Heather Cabot is an award-winning journalist, author, and former ABC News correspondent/anchor. She is the author of the critically-acclaimed business narrative, The New Chardonnay: The Unlikely Story of How Marijuana Went Mainstream (Currency, 2020), co-author of Geek Girl Rising: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), and a freelance writer published in Forbes, Elle, Parents, The Huffington Post, People, USA Today, and more. Following her time reporting for ABC’s Good Morning America and anchoring World News Now/World News This Morning, Cabot served as Yahoo! Web Life Editor from 2007-12 and appeared regularly on NBC’s TODAY, cable news outlets, and daytime TV talk shows to report on consumer tech and digital trends. She is a member of the Alumni Board of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and was an adjunct professor at the school from 2012-17.
Booklist
“A fresh take on entrepreneurial endeavors and a love letter to small businesses everywhere… packed with insight and inspiration from two successful entrepreneurs.”
Kirkus
Publishers Weekly
An Excerpt from the book
“Perhaps the most important thing we discovered in our 15 years together is that some of the hurdles we came up against were far larger and more powerful than the two of us. We alone could not overcome the structures that dictate access to capital and commerce.
The revelation was both humbling and empowering all at once. We realized the only way to rise above these obstacles is to start talking about them. We want to shake up a system that for the past four decades has increasingly put small-business owners at the mercy of big banks, corporate America, and Silicon Valley startup worship. We want to help everyone better understand the often invisible and unexpected forces that hold back many small firms from unleashing their power to fulfill their potential.”
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