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Tennessee Small Business Development Center awards Taiwo Stanback of Youdle Rising Star Award

By Diana Fedinec 

TSBDC Rising Star Award winner Taiwo Stanback.
TSBDC Rising Star Award winner Taiwo Stanback.

Tennessee Small Business Development Center (TSBDC) at Southwest celebrated SBDC (Small Business Development Center) Day March 16, 2022 with the announcement of Taiwo Stanback, chief strategy officer of Youdle, as its 2022 Rising Star Award recipient. 

The “Rising Star Award” recognizes the outstanding accomplishments of local small business owners. This year Stanback, on behalf of her fellow female business owners of Youdle, an all-female tech company based in Memphis, Tenn., took home the coveted TSBDC award. She shares the honors with Youdle founder, former WMC-TV news personality Konjti Anthony, and Johnita and Aurora Anthony, sisters of Konjti. 

Youdle is an award-winning “shop local” community mobile app that launched during the pandemic. The company crowdsources data on different types of merchandise in stock locally so that shoppers can find their favorite products quickly. The crowdsourcing concept originated in April 2020 when Kontji created a Facebook group in Memphis called "Product Sightings" where members could post real-time sightings of coveted pandemic products spotted in stores and online. She also penned the app’s acronym which stands for You + D for data; L for location and E for engagement.  

A native Memphian and graduate of Yale, Stanback has shared her experiences and lessons in creating a startup with budding entrepreneurs. “We learned that it really does take a village to make an idea come to life,” Stanback said. For Stanback, that village included staff at TSBDC at Southwest who assisted with business strategies, marketing, investment strategies, and financial projections.

“We are excited to recognize Tai as our Rising Star recipient, especially during Women’s History Month, and to celebrate her achievement and the achievements of many other women across the nation whose ideas have helped shape our future,” TSBDC at Southwest Executive Director NaShawn Branch said. In 2021, despite the challenges of the pandemic, his center helped more than 319 women-owned businesses with the resources and support they needed to sustain their business or jumpstart a new one.  

SBDC Day is a national, collective proclamation of the impact of America’s Small Business Development Centers on the success of our nation’s dreamers, innovators, and doers – America’s small businesses. 

For over 30 years, the TSBDC network helps small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals with business ideas, providing access to financial and technical resources needed to establish and grow businesses competing in the global marketplace. Business owners can make an appointment to speak with a TSBDC professional advisor at www.tsbdc.org or call 901-333-5085.