African American professionals in Silicon Valley are few and far between, but two young entrepreneurs are hoping to change that. According to Black News.com, Adenike Sonaike and Nolan Ford are starting their business CorQuests, which will seek to help other entrepreneurs succeed.

“We are passionate in seeing other businesses and entrepreneurs succeed with their corporate goals,” Ford said to Black News.com.  ”We hope that our business services can help them manage and conduct business activities simply and effectively.”

The duo formed CorQuests to represent “CORporate QUESTS,” and they say the name describes their company’s vision. Business professionals embark on a corporate quest journey to realize their goals, and it’s their company’s mission to seem these goals accomplished. To assist in the corporate quests, CorQuests will various user services including: cloud storage and sharing, online meeting and collaborations, financial and budgeting software, corporate task management software and help manage business activities. In addition, the company will provide a social network service to connect their users with other professionals. The duo plans to offer their services at an affordable all-inclusive rate.

To get their business started, Sonaike and Ford used Indiegogo to launch their crowdfunding campaign and hope to raise $150,000.

“We were nervous about starting this campaign but we are hoping to receive as much help and support as possible from the black community to complete our site development,” Sonaike said.

There’s a special incentive to donate for those who want to be CorQuests’ future users. With a donation of $50 or more, users can also join the development team to ensure they have a hand in the product. Those that donate $150 or more will be invited to test the official website.

“We are doing this for our users and we hope they find their involvement valuable. We appreciate all contributions, even if it’s only $1,” Ford said.

“This has been a very enjoyable process so far and we look forward to working with our users and anyone else who wants to help make CorQuests an international success.”

More on Madame Noire Business!

• Do Black Designers Skip Over Black Models to Gain White Customers?
• How She Made It: Maria Lee-Driver Discusses The Success of Her Skincare Line Oria’s O’Shay’s
• Entrepreneur Spotlight: Shafonne Myers, Founder and Owner of Pretty Pear Bride Magazine
• Behind the Click: Shellye Archambeau, CEO of MetricStream
• The Career Blazers: 7 Black Female Medical Pioneers
• How She Made It: Alia Jones-Harvey, Producer of A Streetcar Named Desire

(NewsOne) — You know that I must have a lot on the brain if I’m coming out of hiatus from writing. I just wanted to address a few things, mainly because I feel like the potential for overwhelmingly negativity associated with being black in technology (and in silicon valley) is looming. When we were organizing the NewME Accelerator we got an enormous amount of positive support about the mission and people really stepping up to the plate. There were a few bad apples but I make it a habit not to pay attention to those. Those that supported were people who likely hadn’t heard about me or the work that I have been doing for the past 4 years here. Just about everyone we contacted wanted to be involved which was great. The success rate for gaining both sponsorship and mentorship was off the charts. Not only that, living in the house with the Founders and being able to experience their ups and downs, my own, and their growth has been one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my life. That said I’ve kinda been on Cloud 9 since we began this thing. That is until now.

Read More…