From one entrepreneur to another

Darlisa Diltz had no plans to become a business owner when she and her family moved to Texas. But, as is often the case, she saw a need and was in a position to provide a service.

Diltz took the traditional path to corporate America from high school, she attended college. She contracted with the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in St. Louis, MO. Diltz’s hands-on work with the SBDC in St. Louis included developing entrepreneurs by helping them with business plans, getting their LLC, breaking down how to access funding and assisting them with understanding how to structure their business for success.

NTET is the first woman owned, black owned, for-profit business service organization in the metroplex. Diltz and her team strive to be an asset to the SBDC by training people and helping them understand the ins and outs of entrepreneurship and whether their ideas are the basis for a viable business. Keeping the class size between 15-20, the end goal is to make sure these entrepreneurs have a business plan they can explain clearly and have a clearly defined path to getting their business started and sustained. This understanding is necessary before going to the SBDC who is there to see if they are creating jobs and help them obtain funding. The SBDC only deals with people who have a business plan and can provide evidence to show they can grow the business.  This is the reason NTET was created, to educate and train on what entrepreneurship really is.

The desire is to make sure the people they help and serve get what they came to NTET for in the first place. “It’s about changing the trajectory of low income underserviced, underserved and under-represented businesses that want change,” says Diltz.

To read the full story about NTET, click on the cover of the October 2022 issue of the magazine

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