We are saddened to hear of the passing of Rachele Sullivan. Rachele was one of the founders of the LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District. She worked tirelessly to help launch the District and was the first chair of our Land Use Committee. She was active in both the leather and Filipino communities.

The photo below was taken at the District’s ribbon cutting to celebrate our official founding by the city Supervisors.

A nice tribute can be found here:  https://www.facebook.com/Folsom-Street-147246855245

The Bay Area Reporter article on her passing is here.

Our archive holds over a year of video recordings from our Erotic Storytelling Hours.

We want to preserve your favorites.

Check out the archive, then click here to send us the DATE and READER of your favorites.

Watch for a “Best Of” video, coming soon, based on YOUR preferences.

Thanks!

Introducing:
The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District’s
Business Incubator Program

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Did you know that 87 percent of all businesses that have graduated from their incubator programs are still in business?

Source: National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) and the Small Business Association (SBA)

Did you know San Francisco continues to be a start-up bastion, and 2022 is poised to break even more records?

Well, incubators aren’t easy, they take commitment.

Incubators don’t guaranty success, but they do walk you through the steps, one step at a glorious time.

And now there is an incubator specifically for the Leather and LGBTQ community, to create businesses inside the Cultural District’s geographic area.

So, we’re asking, what’s your idea for a start-up business? We want to know.

And we want you to apply to join the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District’s Incubator program so we can help you manifest the business of your dreams.

Complete an application – there is no fee – fill out the form here. Go on, dare greatly!

The Incubator program starts in March 2022, here’s what you can expect:

• • • • An in-depth kick off day outlining the entire 6-month course, at which we’ll walk you through what to expect overall, as well as each step of the way;

• • • • All the tools you’ll need: software, templates, and hands-on workshops galore;

• • • • Award winning instructors leading full-day monthly seminars — virtual, in-person, and hybrid — with an emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion;

• • • • Milestone markers which you must complete before proceeding to the next phase — so you are never left behind; and

• • • • Mentors and accountability partners to stand by your side.

This is a proven program that sets you up to succeed, by:

1. 1. 1. 1. crafting a sound business plan, complete with vision and mission statements
         2. one, three, and ten year sales and marketing strategy creation
         3. organizational chart creation, of the people and team you need
         4. data capture, tracking, reporting and metrics
         5. a full sales cycle workshop
         6. a full marketing calendar for developing the right content to feed your sales funnel
         7. issue-solving forums along the way
         8. additional funding resources — for those start-ups that need more
         9. a Shark-Tank style VC competition at the end, with one main $50,000 winner!
         10. and a graduation with an award ceremony that will be covered by the media and broadcast via press release!

Would you like to talk with the program director before submitting an application?

What kind of businesses are viable in the district?

Bathhouses, bars, retail shops, production facilities, repair businesses, restaurants, publishing houses and media outlets, a motor cycle safety school, or training programs of nearly any type.

Still noodling your idea?

Then check out the top 5 San Francisco Tech Sectors To Watch in 2022

HR Tech – This year, companies across the U.S. and around the world continued to seek out virtual solutions to adapt to the new normal of remote work. HR teams specifically, sought out new ways to recruit and onboard new employees. Numerous HR tech platforms, a handful of which are headquartered in the Bay Area, raised massive amounts of capital as a result. Checkr, for example, leverages its proprietary AI to process employee background checks for a number of tech giants including Lyft, Instacart, Netflix, and Airbnb. In September, the unicorn grabbed $250 million in a Series E round that sent its valuation skyrocketing to a whopping $4.6 billion. (Source: Built in SF)

Is your start-up next?

Fintech – The shift to online banking started long before the pandemic, but over the last two years that shift has rapidly accelerated. As a result, fintech companies big and small have continued to raise massive amounts of capital in order to fuel the expansion of their digital banking services. One such company, Chime, raised over $1 billion in funding this year. In August, the decacorn grabbed $750 million in a funding round led by Sequoia. The huge round sent Chime’s valuation soaring to $25 billion.

Are these numbers too big for you?

Then start where you are! Complete an application and let’s chat about your business idea.

Healthtech – This one might come as a shocker, but the healthtech sector has seen a huge uptick in growth over the course of the pandemic. Hospitals across the country and around the world have rushed to further digitize their health services in order to deal with a much larger pool of patients. This has no doubt led to the speedy growth of several healthtech startups.

Proptech – Despite what a certain Netflix series might tell you, tall blonde models can’t sell a home on looks alone. Like other realtors, they oftentimes have to work with multiple parties in order to go into escrow. The constraints of the pandemic have made this process a bit slower but luckily a bevy of Bay Area-based proptech startups are popping up to help speed things along.

Logistics – In-person shopping opportunities have continued to shrink over the last two years. Many small businesses have struggled to bounce back following more than a year of quarantine measures and lockdown procedures. As a result, consumers continued to turn to online retailers in order to have their needs met. The increasing popularity of online shopping has unfortunately led to supply chain issues in the U.S. and abroad.

Do these top 5 sectors spending money and growing based on demand excite you, or give you anxiety?

If you have an idea for a start-up,
we want to hear it!

Complete this confidential form and we’ll reach out to you directly.

And yes, we will sign an NDA first.  We are here to support the growth of businesses inside the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District; we will not steal, borrow, or trade your idea.

Check out the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District map here.

Requests are already being made to each to line up funding for our Incubator graduates.

If you are a VC and want to sit on our panel for choosing the winner
OR
If you are a speaker, mentor, or teacher who wants to contribute to this first cohort
OR
If you are a sponsor (i.e. if you could offer your money, your third party endorsement, and/or your support)
and want your company name broadcast all over the city, state, country, or globe
THEN
Please email incubator@sflcd.org

But if you are a start-up, waiting to come to life, stop waiting!
Register now!

Questions?  Email incubator@sflcd.org

The other, less positive story

While Big Tech flourished and money continued to pour into potential additions to that group, the gap between those flourishing from that performance and Silicon Valley’s poorer residents is wider than ever. Lower-wage workers lost their jobs or had to put their health at risk to hang onto their positions.

“The pandemic wiped out our service sector and in-person economy,” said Russell Hancock, chief executive of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which published its annual Silicon Valley Index detailing what happened in the region last year.

“There’s real carnage out there. People have lost their livelihoods.” The region’s community infrastructure and service jobs declined 54% by midyear 2020. Hispanic people were 1.5 times more likely to file unemployment claims as white people, Hancock said. And in December, more than 626,000 households in the Bay Area, including nearly 200,000 households in Silicon Valley, were at risk of eviction or mortgage nonpayment, according to the index. (Source: MarketWatch)

Yes, it continues to be a challenging time in San Francisco and beyond; which makes this Incubator program that much more powerful!

The LEATHER & LGBTQ Cultural District Business Incubator Program is a full-fledged startup incubator, offering mentors, workshops, courses, leading industry speakers, and program tools to develop new businesses within the Cultural District (see /map-of-district/), created by, owned by, and/or serving the needs of the Leather and LGBTQ community, all with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

All aspects of the 6-month course will be provided free of charge, including software tools, templates, full-day monthly seminars with award winning instructors, and assistance in obtaining start-up financing.  (Graduation does not guarantee funding.)

Our first cohort will choose only 12 applicants to join the Incubator program! Complete your application now, and dare greatly. 

Additional cohorts are pending.

Click here to join the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District – membership is only $15!

Or click here to donate, because you LOVE what we’re doing!
100% of your tax deductible donation will be used specifically for the Incubator program!

Questions or comments: incubator@sflcd.org

Transform1060 is a leather/kink/fetish community space at 1060 Folsom Street, formerly the social and educational space called SFCatalyst. It will be outfitted as you remember with upgrades in the works.

The space’s new operation team has finalized a new lease on the space, a crucial step the transition from its previous management by the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance,.  The team is actively recruiting folks to host events there, as well as donations to their Capital Campaign. 

You can read more about the space — its history, the ongoing transition, the new management team, and the values that will guide its operations — at their new Web site, transform1060.org, or their Facebook page. A Press Release is also available, with with important details and quotes from team members Christopher Wood and Leigh Ann Hildebrand,.

The Transform1060 team is asking for active community involvement, urging folks to commit to attending an event, volunteering at an event, or hosting an event in the first 60 days of 2022.

They are also seeking donations to help retire the substantial back-rent debt, to begin making space and accessibility improvements, and to weather COVID-19 surges or other emergencies.  Learn more or make a donation at transform1060.org/home/donate/.

This fundraising campaign replaces the SFCatalyst Patreon campaign, which will no longer go towards operation of the 1060 Folsom space.

The survival of this space ensures that kinky folks from all of our communities will continue to have a safe space in SF to gather, play, teach, and learn.  The new team is committed to providing event facilities to a broad spectrum of the San Francisco Bay area’s fetish and kink communities, with an intentional focus on increasing services to and participation of historically excluded and under-represented people.