Serial entrepreneur Timothy D. Craggette founded the National Association for the Advancement of Small Business Innovation in December 2023. NAASBI empowers beginner to mid-level business owners with the tools, training, partnership opportunities, and workshops necessary to thrive in today's competitive market. 

In my past life, I helped rich people get richer. In doing so, I was exposed to a lot of behind-the-scenes business practices. The only issue I had was that I didn't see people that looked like me in this environment, and at a certain point, that got to me. I felt I needed to do good work for people like myself.

When I left that environment, I made the conscious decision to work with people I could impact directly. I had the knowledge. I had the skills. I had the abilities. I had the resources. I wanted to affect business owners and their businesses where I knew I could cause real impact.

So, I first decided to get into teaching. My plan was to “save the kids.” But once inside the system, I quickly realized that the system wasn't made to save kids. It's made to teach kids what the curriculum dictates. While I impacted some students, I had to get creative in following the system while influencing students to turn passions into profits. Overall, it was not sustainable. 

But, soon after getting started, I met a teacher in the Montgomery County Public School system named Cassandra. When she learned about my background in small business education and consulting, she told me her story. She had a Masters degree in graphics but started teaching computer foundations because she could not find work in her field. As a teacher, she wasn't making enough money to make ends meet and she’d had to start a business just to get by. This is what we call an educated entrepreneur…someone with talents who got into business because they needed to.

I taught Cassandra in three months what it took me 15 years to learn. Now, she has the power to choose if she wants to remain a teacher – or not. Cassandra was my muse, and since then, it's been my mission and focus to help people who have put in the work, made the effort to enhance their lives through entrepreneurship, but are not seeing the fruits of their labor – not because they don't deserve it,  but because systematically, it's just difficult to do. 

That’s how I got started. I saw who I could impact the most. 

Who are my clients? My clients are educated entrepreneurs with advanced degrees or talents who have started a business but have struggled to grow the business.

Tools, Training, and Talent: With Connection at the Core

NAASBI’s main focus is helping small business owners create systematic business growth.

Three things all businesses need for success are tools, training, and talent.

1. Tools are for day-to-day business operations.
2. Ongoing training is essential. The learning never ends.
3. Access to talented people helps grow a business systematically.

We serve as an entrepreneur-support social enterprise, aiding entrepreneurs with education and technology. 

We have our own CRM as a benefit of membership. This cuts down significantly on operational costs for our members: costs for things like websites, funnel building, telecommunication, and marketing. The benefits cover functions such as phone SMS marketing, email marketing, and social media management to name a few.

To help members source new talent we offer workshops, training, intensives, and masterminds that reduce the costs of making new connections. 

Our model also gives members access to a range of subject matter experts who teach critical business skills. Topics include list building, funnel design, paid media, authorship, and more. 

And when it comes to finding talent, that's where networking, masterminds, joint ventures, and partnerships come in. 

Facilitating greater connections exists in all facets of what we do: whether it's connecting to technology, education, or human capital.

Why NAASBI is Not a Nonprofit

NAASBI operates as a membership association, not a nonprofit. The cooperative social enterprise is the model by which NAASBI operates. A “Dot com” web address was not appropriate for what we were planning to do.

Originally, I had conceived NAASBI as a nonprofit because I have a background in the nonprofit space. Once I moved into the private sector, I saw many of the tools, techniques, and talents that transformed me into an industry insider were things we had complete control over. In the nonprofit space, that level of control would be lost. Funders and other stakeholders can shift the direction of a nonprofit organization in ways that leave the executive director acting more as a manager than a visionary. For NAASBI to function at capacity, we needed autonomy to be fluid and nimble. 

I'm an entrepreneur through and through, and I have been visionary in everything that I've ever built or helped other people build. I didn't want to lose the “association feel.” I wanted the social enterprise mechanisms of an association – without the governance of outside influences. 

The main ingredient for the soul of NAASBI is creativity. I decided we needed more flexibility, because small businesses need to be more creative, more innovative. They need room to experiment. Regulation may stifle creativity, so we combined the best of both worlds and created a unique experience that promotes innovation and creativity without barriers.

Building NAASBI Membership

The first step for anyone wanting to engage with NAASBI is to join our community, which is absolutely free to do. We invite interested parties to join the NAASBI START Mastermind. That way, the benefits of membership are available to them before we even begin talking about paid membership.

Then, membership begins when they visit the site at NAASBI.org and purchase a book or workbook. For a time, new members can get the membership at a discount – the founder's rate through a purchase of either our book or workbook, saving $720 a year.

We will soon re-launch our radio show “The Swift Kick Show” on WERA 96.7 FM. Classic episodes can be heard on YouTube.

Our goal for NAASBI is to enroll 2,500 members within the next 2 years. 

Making Local Connections

My business is in Montgomery County because I live in Montgomery County, but we can serve members nationwide.

I'm a D.C. native.  For some time, I moved to Florida in the late 80s, but when I returned in ‘93, my family had moved from D.C. to Montgomery County. So I've been in Montgomery County for most of my adult life. 

This county has served me well, in terms of the comforts of living, the resources, and the access. While developing the concept for NAASBI, I've participated in the Universities at Shady Grove Equity Incubator Program that was funded in part by a grant from the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation. That has been a great program for networking and meeting like-minded small business owners. It helped me clarify how to define NAASBI’s positioning in the marketplace. We also gained new members from participants within the program.

Take Imperfect Action!

When I released my first information product on the internet in 2012, I generated over $40,000 in revenue in 3 days. The revenue was just five thousand dollars short of my annual salary at my government job. I became internet famous. People knew who I was and what I had done. 

Being an introvert, I hated the attention. When you release a product to the internet, the expectation is what are you going to do next. Internet customers are ravenous. I stressed about trying to make sure everything was perfect before launching subsequent products. The stress alone made me feel like one false move and I could lose it all. 

As I was getting all recognition and congratulations for this successful launch, I was troubled. I worried constantly. I thought ‘What's the encore? What do I finish with? What do I do next?’

It took me about 6 months before I released my next product to the world.

One day, one of my mentors sat me down. He was a gentleman by the name of Mario Brown. With a very earnest grin he said, “You put too much pressure on yourself. The world can accept a version 1.0. Take imperfect action.”

And from that point on, that's all I've ever done: I've taken imperfect action.

I get started. I don't wait for perfect conditions. I know that once I have version 1.0, I can make 1.5.

The practice of “taking imperfect action” will apply differently to different businesses at different times. The practice will meet different needs for different people. The core tenets of that grand idea are at the core of NAASBI and its education. Taking imperfect action is creativity, innovation, and experimentation.

So, that’s always my advice to the NAASBI community and other small businesses and start-ups. Just get started. Take imperfect action.