Salt & Light launches as a new source for Knoxville’s entrepreneurs
The first cohort will launch in March 2025, supporting and promoting eight diverse, marginalized founders.
Empathy is one of the strongest qualities that a business owner can possess. The ability to reason, understand, and approach situations carefully is not easy to master. However, Isaac Pannell, the owner of eight Knoxville-based companies is exercising empathy as his strength in all realms.
His latest venture, Salt & Light, is a living embodiment of Pannell’s care for other people – specifically other entrepreneurs.
The idea first came about three years ago. Being a serial entrepreneur, Pannell wanted to create a replicable pathway for other people in East Tennessee to start small businesses.
“My wife and I struggled as white, middle-class people to start these businesses and get our foot in the door,” Pannell said. “Meanwhile other entrepreneurs in the area don’t even have credit scores and they’re trying to make it work. My heart goes out to those people.”
For this reason, Salt & Light is a mission-led organization created to support marginalized founders – women, veterans, diverse religions, backgrounds, languages, races, cultures, and even formerly incarcerated individuals. It pairs lending services with coaching opportunities, to create a super unique business support system.
Pannell explained the carefully curated structure of the non-profit. The organization can invest up to $250,000 into a founder; however, upon accepting the loan, the founder must also take the program’s coaching, classes, mentorship, and community aspect.
“While the capital may be what draws them in, it’s the coaching and connection that is the real value,” Pannell said. He officially hard-launched Salt & Light at the beginning of 2024 and has helped support four founders.
In March 2025, the organization will begin programming based on a cohort of founders. Pannell teased that about five to eight entrepreneurs will be members of the first cohort, and all will have start-ups younger than three years old.
The inaugural cohort will meet in the Knox Fellows space in Market Square every two weeks for six months. Pannell said the goal of the cohort is to build the fellowship, supportive network, and shared curriculum in one place, at one time.
“My goal with this is to prove to these founders that they’re not alone. They have people in their corner that they can lean on, ask advice, and share hardships with,” he said.
When asked which part Pannell is most excited about, he said “building relationships.” In the nine months since Salt & Light officially launched, the organization has already started producing waves of change in the community.
One of the organization’s success stories is Kandilige Spicy Food, which can now be found in Kerns Food Hall.
The Ghanaian café was founded by Ramson Ayuba, an immigrant from Ghana. He grew up working in his family-owned restaurant back home; however, faced significant hardship when trying to launch a business in East Tennessee. He experienced challenges with the language barrier, capital resources, and even just getting a foot in the door.
In fact, for a long time, Ayuba cooked his food at the incubator at Real Good Kitchen and distributed his food at various breweries and pop-ups around town.
Pannell, through Salt & Light, was able to assist Ayuba in starting Kandilige, finding a space to serve food, and getting him connected with the resources necessary to succeed.
Today, Ayuba is the owner of a profitable, popular café, has eight Ghanaian employees, and has applied for U.S. Citizenship. It’s been a dream come true for Ayuba.
It’s also been a dream come true for Pannell to watch Ayuba succeed. He hopes to multiply those effects to many other marginalized entrepreneurs in East Tennessee.
“My goal is to get them from working a 100-hour week making little to no margin, to working a 40-hour week with noticeable profit margins,” Pannell said. “We need to make their businesses sustainable, so no founder suffers from burnout.”
Pannell knows the balance of entrepreneurship. Locally, he and his wife Savannah Pannell co-own Flourish Flowers, Cultivate Coffee + Flowers in Fountain City, Pannell Construction, Salt & Light, and four other small businesses.
Notably, Pannell Construction is about three and a half years old, and already one of Pannell’s most profitable ventures – securing about $15 million in deals annually.
Now, sharing that wealth of knowledge and experiences with others is of utmost importance to him.
“Small businesses are the salt of the community. Just think about Ayuba and how much flavor his story has added to East Tennessee. Now, I want to help provide the light and pathway for others to do the same,” he said.
The mission of Salt & Light is about extending empathy and empowering entrepreneurs to build sustainable careers and communities.
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