Cornetta Lane

Tell us about Pedal to Porch. 

Cornetta Lane: Pedal to Porch is a neighborhood bike ride that includes stops where residents use their front porch to tell their story. We are organizing in Core City which hasn’t been done in decades. By connecting neighbors and learning their stories, the neighborhood can be ready to mobilize when needed. The bike rides highlight diversity…and promote stories that reconnect people to their humanity.

How did you become an entrepreneur? 

CL: Since a child I would always see problem and look for an answer to it. In middle school I coached a team of 40 girls. Our boys basketball team just formed and I spoke out to start a girls team. Since the school was underfunded, I asked the teacher to announce my own cheerleader tryouts and for girls to meet me outside the school. I told the girls and come back to school with their sizes and $15 so I could purchase their uniforms. I was called down to the office because the team was unofficial. In the end my principal allowed me to continue as long as I included all girls. The entrepreneurial spirit comes natural to me.

What was your experience with BUILD?

CL: I was working at United Way at the time I took the BUILD class. I decided to partner with my co-worker Fiona to start a food delivery service. One day, I saw a dry cleaning company in the hallway and thought that it could be done with food. What if there was a chilled locker delivery system for people downtown that don’t have time to shop? Going through BUILD, I was convinced that the technology wasn’t available for chilled lockers yet. I didn’t have startup capital or the passion to carry that out but I am very passionate about historical preservation of neighborhoods. I turned my attention to a social cause. That’s how I pivoted from chilled lockers to Pedal to Porch. It was a very frustrating journey because you want something to happen fast but this happened over a period of 2 to 3 years. Through BUILD, I met great people and I can say that I’m a BUILDd grad alongside hundreds of other folks. It was worth the network and resources. I should also credit K8-80 for helping me to have space and opportunity to develop Pedal to Porch.

“Through BUILD, I met great people and I can say that I’m a BUILD grad alongside hundreds of other folks. It was worth the network and resources.”

What’s next for your business?

CL: We are creating an open sourced toolkit so that anyone can pickup Pedal to Porch without me having to do all the work. Now we are getting requests from cities across the country including: Charlotte, Seattle, Washington, DC, and Flint. We are dealing with two things, how to capture and document Pedal to Porch so that others can plan their own and how to charge consulting fee for people; this causes me to go back to BUILD binder.