‘Free Enterprise’ hosts helping former inmates start own businesses

Brian Hamilton and Lawrence Carpenter, of Inmates to Entrepreneurs, talk about their new reality show “Free Enterprise” in which they help formerly incarcerated people make money with their business ideas. (April 2)

Video Transcript

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 Starting a business would change my life drastically. I’m tired of just surviving. I want to live.

BRIAN HAMILTON: Why do I like working with people who have been incarcerated? We can give them a window to a whole different world of wealth creation and building businesses.

Free Enterprise, right? Our show is about helping people who get out of prison to start their own low capital business to become the beneficiary of self determination.

Yeah, we take somebody who really doesn’t have many assets at all. They have a dream to be an entrepreneur. They usually come with a product idea, with a service idea, like pressure washing, painting, landscaping, cutting lawns. And they’ve got the idea. And we literally walk them from where they are right then to starting a business. And we’re not talking months here. We’re talking about, let’s make money in the next week or two.

LAWRENCE CARPENTER: That’s one of the reasons I got involved as well. I’m formerly incarcerated myself. I knew the trials and tribulations that I was going to face coming home. And I just felt like I shouldn’t have to live in poverty for the rest of my life just because I made mistakes. I knew the best way to kind of control my own destiny in life was to create a business.

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