Kwame Kuadey is an entrepreneur and small business bootstrapping expert. Kwame started his first company, GiftCardRescue.com on a shoestring (funded on credit cards). Through the power of bootstrapping, he successfully built GiftCardRescue into a million dollar business, without outside funding. That experience has shaped his faith in the power of bootstrapping. Kwame believes that most start-ups will be well served by bootstrapping their way to profitability before entertaining any outside funding. That puts the business owners in a much better position to get the maximum benefit from all the long hours and hark work they had to put in to grow the business.
Kwame has published several articles about bootstrapping and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, NPR, WABC (Philadelphia), WBAL and ABC 2 (Baltimore). Kwame was a contestant on the hit ABC show “Shark Tank,” where his business landed a $200,000 investment.
In addition to his business ventures, Kwame runs a Small Business development program at his local church (Empowerment Temple), where he helps aspiring and current entrepreneurs learn “The Art of Bootstrapping”. He also serves on the Maryland Council for New Americans, an initiative launched by Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley to help integrate immigrants into the community as constructively and quickly as possible.
A graduate of Middlebury College with a B.A. in economics, Kwame also holds an M.B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. Prior to founding GiftCardRescue, he spent 7 years at Citigroup in various roles in Operations, Compliance, and HR. He lives with his wife Patricia and daughter Ava in Ellicott City, MD.