STEP UP! Success Story: Athletic Arts Academy, a Mission-Driven and Minority-Owned Small Business in Need of Support in Orange, NJ

Housing and Neighborhood Development Services, Inc. (HANDS) is a 36-year-old nonprofit located in Orange, New Jersey.   

At HANDS, we support economic development initiatives that seek to strengthen and sustain family and neighborhood wealth and well-being by assisting local stakeholders to identify, launch, and grow businesses that serve their community—thereby creating a positive feedback loop of economic growth and community revitalization. 

The mission to empower small businesses took on an increased urgency during the pandemic with many local retailers struggling to stay afloat. In response to an increased need for resources and technical support, we partnered with Rising Tide Capital to create a grant-supported small business coaching program: STEP UP!.  

Entrepreneurs selected into the STEP UP! program are paired 1:1 with Dedicated High-Growth Coaches, who are themselves successful business owners. The Coach identifies the business's most pressing needs and works individually with selected entrepreneurs to enact a targeted 90 Day Business Action Plan, build their knowledge base and professional network, and improve the growth potential of their business. To increase the impact of the coaching, the selected entrepreneurs are also granted $9,000 to use for business operations, online presence & marketing, and bookkeeping & accounting.  

IyaSoyoka Karade, founder and CEO of Athletic Arts Academy, was one of the first entrepreneurs selected into the program. Growing up she began, “like most children, flipping on the sidewalks and discarded mattresses of Newark’s Central Ward.” She was introduced to gymnastics though her high school competitive gymnastics program, which challenged her athletically and eventually inspired her to provide a similar invigorating experience to developing kids. In 2005, she opened her first gymnastics school in Newark. When moving to Orange, NJ, she was struck by the lack of recreational after-school activities that encouraged safe and healthy development. In response, she opened Athletic Arts Academy in 2014. Before Athletic Arts, there had not been a gymnastics business in Orange for 40 years. 

IyaSoyoka, referred to as “Coach Iya” by the kids in her programs, offers various athletic programs and classes to school-aged kids designed to “help children not only gain physical strength and ability, but also learn the fundamentals they need to succeed as leaders in school, in communities, and in life.” She considers her services essential for healthy development, especially in a post-pandemic world that has resulted in an increasingly isolated and inactive school-aged population. For Coach Iya, her job is truly her passion.  

Alongside the year-round programs, Coach Iya operates a scholarship program that provides low to no-cost tuition to those in need. Her mission is to use her business to create community leaders through the discipline and rigor of a meaningful athletic experience. 

However, the advent of COVID-19 made actualizing this mission an exceptional challenge. When she was forced to shut down in March of 2020, her business revenue stream vanished. Though not the same, some classes were moved online to secure a marginal stream of revenue for the time-being. Once re-opened, her business still faced significant challenges engaging youth due to low consumer confidence and continued skepticism regarding in-person youth programs like Iya’s. 

STEP UP! was the perfect program for Coach Iya. The personalized coaching would help her develop new approaches to marketing and develop best business practices to strengthen her business’s revenue stream, while the associated grant would help cover payments in arrears due to COVID-19.  

Coach Iya tells us that the grant provides immediate relief and allowed focus to shift on growing other, more neglected aspects of the business. She has especially benefited from the 1:1 expert coaching she received from her Dedicated High Growth Coach from Rising Tide Capital, Charlene Simpson. “Charlene, my coach, has a sharp eye for business and helped identify aspects of my business I could improve and offered many helpful tools to help me achieve success,” remarks Iya. “We had great synergy. It wasn't difficult to communicate at all.”  

She describes her overall experience with STEP UP! as “challenging but invigorating.” As a result of the program, Coach Iya wants to focus of building stronger relationships with the community. “I'd love to serve as a small business representative of some kind to build a peer-to-peer support group within the Heart of Orange. HANDS and the STEP UP! program reminded me of why this type of support is critical to a thriving downtown business area. Thank you!”