Why Camille Dundas Believes Storytelling is as Vital as Capital for Black Entrepreneurs
Camille Dundas, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of ByBlacks.com
Camille Dundas, co-founder and Editor-in-Chief at ByBlacks.com, never set out to be an entrepreneur. “Since I was six years old, I only wanted to be a writer or a journalist,” she recalls. That ambition carried her into Canada’s largest newsrooms—CBC, CTV, and CityTV. But when the 2008 recession triggered mass layoffs, Dundas turned a crisis into an opportunity. She had always been an observer, and what she saw convinced her there was a gap she could fill.
“In the newsroom, I got to observe,” she explains. “And what I observed was a lot of community or grassroots organizations pitching stories—and the media ignoring them.” These organizations weren’t lacking in compelling stories; they lacked the know-how to get their stories heard. Dundas launched a media consulting business to help these organizations craft better pitches. It was her first step into entrepreneurship and became a pivotal turning point in her own story.
That early venture not only highlighted the power of good storytelling on influencing public perception but also revealed the impact it has on self-identity. “If you don’t take time to reflect on your own story- why you are the way you are, your business will reflect all of your traumas—from how you negotiate to how you treat employees and clients,” she says. Self-worth and healing, in her view, are inseparable from business success.
Her instinct to solve problems through storytelling shaped what would become her most influential venture yet. In 2013, Dundas and her husband, Roger Dundas, co-founded ByBlacks.com. Originally imagined as a Black business directory, the project quickly evolved. “A friend told us; you need to give people a reason to come back to the website. Why don’t you tell stories about the businesses?” Dundas remembers. Naturally, as a journalist, it was only fitting for her to step into the role of editor-in-chief. From there, ByBlacks.com grew from a business directory into an award-winning online magazine that gave many Black-owned businesses their first introduction to professional media coverage.
It took several years before the platform became profitable and was funded entirely from personal savings. “So, we did a lot of the work on our own,” she says. “Even my husband was writing articles in the early days, and he’s not a writer. But we knew that’s what we were signing up for. We had friends who were business professionals submitting articles who we couldn’t afford to pay, but we were always working with the vision of being able to pay everyone one day, and we accomplished that.”
Dundas is frank about the realities of building a business: networks matter, but family and friends are not the same as a business network. She points out that access to networks and information can be just as important as access to capital. For Dundas, opportunities flow through connections and building those connections takes deliberate effort. ByBlacks.com itself benefited from her husband’s wide PR and entertainment network, which helped the platform gain traction in its early days. But she acknowledges that not every Black entrepreneur starts with access to an extensive network like they did.
For that reason, the Black Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Map (BEEM) is being developed to bridge that gap in connections, information and resources. As an interactive digital network map, BEEM helps Black entrepreneurs across Canada discover relevant programs, mentors and opportunities that they might otherwise have missed.
Mentorship, Dundas adds, is also essential. Dundas notes that success in business often depends on grasping hidden codes or an unwritten language of rules and expectations that isn’t immediately obvious to newcomers. Dundas herself has not forgotten the impact of the support she’s received from others. Her own career was propelled by Black women mentors who opened doors to newsroom jobs and later encouraged her transition into entrepreneurship. “It is invaluable. And that is probably the reason it’s so important to me to continue to be a mentor myself, because I know the huge difference it can make.”
Today, she extends that same support to emerging Black journalists and founders. Since its launch, ByBlacks.com has employed and published the work of more than 100 young Black writers. “I’m actually really proud of that,” Dundas reflects. “For so many of them, it was the first place they ever published their work. Then I see them go on to the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, or on TV doing amazing things.”