Combining Ingenuity with Compassion
Every six weeks, Venture Asheville, Mountain BizWorks, Black Wall Street, Eagle Market Streets Development Co., and Hatch convene at 45 S. French Broad Ave. to align their entrepreneur support efforts. Representing the latter at the most recent inter-organizational meeting was Maui Vang, the non-profit’s newly appointed Vice Chair. In just five years, Vang has gone from knowing almost no one in WNC and little about starting a business to founding multiple companies and assuming a prominent leadership position within the region’s entrepreneur support ecosystem.

Her achievements are remarkable, and not just because of the speed with which she’s accomplished them. Time and time again, Vang has combined her ingenuity and insight with her strong sense of social responsibility to drive positive change with profitable businesses. Her first startup idea came to her when she was working as a financial advisor. “Though I was relatively new to the industry, I quickly identified some significant gaps in the market,” Vang commented. “Many people can’t afford sound financial advice, and that makes it hard for them to move upward economically or create generational wealth. I wanted to change that with tech.”

Learning the Ropes with Hatch
Vang began pursuing her fintech vision in earnest in 2018. She signed up to participate in that year’s Hatch This, which challenged aspiring entrepreneurs to build and pitch a business plan in one weekend. For Vang, this Hatch-run event felt “like drinking from a firehose. The weekend was jam packed with terms I’d never heard of and experiences that were completely foreign to me,” she explained. “I didn’t even know what a pitch was before I signed up. But I’m so glad I did. Not only did I learn a ton, but I also met some of the people who would later become my mentors, colleagues, and friends.

Among these individuals was Jon Jones, one of the founding members of Hatch. He was drawn to Vang’s mission and encouraged her to engage in more of the organization’s early programming. “So I came to 1 Million Cups presentations every week for a whole year,” she commented, “and I also participated in an earlier version of the Hatch Pressure Test.” Vang found the networking opportunities and mentorship to be so valuable, she was moved to help Hatch reach more entrepreneurs, even as she was still in the early stages of launching her own startup.

Giving Back while Gaining Momentum
Vang started volunteering with the non-profit in 2019, offering the organization invaluable support through the early years of the pandemic. Then in 2021, George Glackin — former Chair of Hatch’s board — invited her to join the organization’s leadership team. This was around the same time that she launched her financial advisory firm, Tilly, and Vang has occupied the dual role of entrepreneur and entrepreneur-advocate ever since.

“Supporting entrepreneurship is intensive work,” Vang said. “Being intimately familiar with the journey has taught me a lot about how I can best serve other founders.” Of particular concern for Vang is providing groups of individuals often underrepresented in the startup community with what they need to launch successful businesses. As a woman and a minority founder operating in the white male dominated industries of finance and technology, she’s experienced first-hand the challenges that can come with breaking the mold. But she also knows that breaking the mold and becoming a founder can help many become upwardly mobile.

“When my family came here as refugees from Southeast Asia, my parents went from having nothing to founding and owning multiple businesses. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, if you’re able to put your ingenuity to work and find a way to create sustainable, recurring value over time, it’s not just you that benefits, it’s also your family and community.”

Championing Equitable Entrepreneurship

“Social capital can be very hard to come by, but because I’ve spent the past few years involved with organizations like Hatch, I’ve been able to call upon a lot of people with different areas of expertise for help.” In her new leadership role, Vang aims to champion targeted interventions that will connect founders of all backgrounds, ethnicities, and walks of life with the financial, human, and social capital they need to bring their visions to life, too. As she’s put it, “Entrepreneurship is a very risky, turbulent journey, but it is also a powerful tool for uplifting whole communities."