How a Western Washington University Capstone Team Helped Map Our Next Five Markets
In late 2021, a six-student capstone team from Western Washington University's College of Business and Economics took on a real assignment from King's Dream Business Consulting: figure out where the firm should expand next, and back it up with numbers.
Years back, King's Dream was asked to take part in an MBA capstone project — the professors leading the course had discovered the firm through word of mouth and thought it was exactly the kind of real-world case their students needed.
The Assignment
Western Washington University's College of Business and Economics runs an applied consulting capstone course that pairs student teams with real companies for a quarter of hands-on project work. King's Dream was one of those companies, and the team assigned to the firm — Shapei Baker, Nikolai Birchler, Jackson Lapinski, Ethan Liggett, Thomas Nelson, and Veronica Thind — was asked a direct question: given King's Dream's mission of serving minority-owned and women-owned small businesses, which Washington and Oregon markets made the most sense to enter next, and why?
The team built their answer on Mergent Intellect company data, screening for small businesses with $3 million or less in sales and 1 to 25 employees at a single location, then layering on minority-owned and women-owned business flags across seven counties.
Seven Counties, One Target Profile
The research turned up a clear set of numbers for businesses matching King's Dream's target profile: 1,871 minority-owned and 7,289 women-owned small businesses in King County; 608 and 3,610 in Multnomah County (Portland); 148 and 1,344 in Spokane County; 92 and 771 in Whatcom County; 101 and 524 in Benton County; 87 and 482 in Yakima County; and 48 and 147 in Franklin County.
Outside King County alone, that added up to 952 minority-owned small businesses fitting the firm's criteria. Inside King County, the 1,874 qualifying businesses represented just 0.6% of the county's 287,536 total small businesses — a small, specific slice of the market, exactly where King's Dream has always aimed to work.
A Crowded Field, But Not Where It Counts
The team also sized up the competition. Along the I-5 corridor, they found plenty of consulting firms — but only 2 out of 550 named a minority-owned business focus in their mission statement, less than 1%. Big-name firms like Deloitte and McKinsey weren't really competing for the same clients; the real differentiator was how few consultancies centered minority ownership as a focus rather than an afterthought.
Partners, Not Just Prospects
Alongside the competitive research, the team flagged a list of chambers of commerce, economic development groups, and nonprofits as potential collaborators rather than competitors — organizations like 501 Commons, Business Impact NW, Communities Rise, the Central Area Community Development Association, and the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, each already doing complementary work with underserved business owners. In Whatcom County, they even pointed to Western Washington University's own Small Business Development Center as a natural local partner — a nice bit of symmetry, given where the research itself came from.
The Numbers Behind the Name
Drawing on King's Dream's own client history at the time, the team's positioning statement put it plainly: the firm had helped over 80 small businesses, with 83% women-identified and 71% minority-owned — hard evidence for a mission the firm had been living out since 2019.
Why We're Sharing This Now
The research is a few years old, but the approach it mapped out — picking new markets county by county, with real data behind the target profile, and treating community organizations as partners rather than competition — is still how King's Dream thinks about where to grow next. It's also a good reminder of what applied university programs like WWU's can bring to a small business: a fresh set of eyes, real research tools, and a semester's worth of focused attention on a question we didn't have the bandwidth to answer ourselves.
Run a program like this, or want to talk about a partnership with King's Dream? Book a free discovery call and let's talk.
About King's Dream Business Consulting: Founded in 2019, King's Dream Business Consulting is a small business consulting and management firm established initially in response to Seattle's gentrification and displacement of its minority business communities. To date, King's Dream has served over 400 small businesses nationwide. King's Dream Business Consulting is a leading provider of business advisory services, offering strategic planning, marketing strategies, financial management, operational efficiency, and human resources consulting. Committed to the success of small businesses, King's Dream Business Consulting provides tailored guidance and support to drive sustainable growth.
The Local Mogul is King's Dream Business Consulting's blog, covering news, wins, and insight from our work with public agencies, Tribal governments, and community partners across Washington State.
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