Helping entrepreneurs with disabilities build thriving businesses

As a licensed occupational therapist, Joseph DiFrancisco was focused on helping his clients—largely people with disabilities, or those recovering from injury or illness—adapt to the mundane activities of daily life. A major hurdle, he discovered, was finding comfortable, attractive shoes that were easy to put on and take off.

In 2016, DiFrancisco took matters into his own hands. Spurred on by one client, a stroke victim who was unable to find accessible shoes that were appropriate to wear to business meetings, DiFrancisco took a hacksaw, scissors, needle and thread and created a pair in his garage.

From there it didn’t take him long to realize he was on to something that could benefit his clients, as well as anyone else who wanted comfortable, stylish footwear. Using the blueprint from his original design, he and his partner, Ryan Garcia, had formal samples made in South Brazil. They then branched out to create other styles for other needs. They applied for the necessary patents and trademarks, and Friendly Shoes was born.

A barrier to independence

“Few shoes are designed with adaptive and age-related needs in mind,” DiFrancisco explains. “Footwear that doesn’t fit properly, doesn’t look good and is difficult to put on is a real barrier to independence, vitality and dignity.”

DiFrancisco found an eager and enthusiastic market for his innovative footwear. Sales were taking off through the Friendly Shoes website and the pop-up shops they opened throughout the San Diego, CA, area—as well as through partnerships with Zappos and JCPenney. When DiFrancisco met Anthony Reynolds at San Francisco’s 2022 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, the new founder began learning how to scale his business internationally.

As the first head of Business Growth & Entrepreneurship for people with disabilities, Reynolds helps Friendly Shoes and other small businesses by connecting them to JPMorganChase resources and mentors who can help them grow. A seasoned entrepreneur who worked at JPMorganChase from 2016 to 2021 before leaving to create a contactless payment startup in 2022, Reynolds benefited from the company’s educational and technical programs for veterans.

“After I sold my business, I came back to JPMorganChase because I wanted to support people with a dream of owning their own business who encounter the kinds of obstacles I encountered,” says Reynolds. “There’s also a stigma often associated with disability because it’s just not something that investors are exposed to very often.”

Demystifying the startup process

“People with disabilities tend to become entrepreneurs due to biases, adversity and the friction they face in traditional workplaces,” Reynolds continues. “We travel to different markets to help de-mystify the process and then provide the coaching, mentorship and opportunities to pitch their ideas to investors and alert them to challenges they might face along the way.”

A former minority entrepreneur himself, Reynolds is also familiar with the challenges that people of color face when starting and scaling a small business.

Diego Marsical, Founder, CEO & Chief Disabled Officer of 2Gether-International, is a Mexican-American whose motor skills are compromised by cerebral palsy. Growing up in Mexico, he saw the power of entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social change and surmised that the three-decades-old American with Disabilities Act (ADA) had yet to have any significant impact on unemployment for people with disabilities. He knew there had to be a better approach. The answer, he decided, lay in framing disability as a competitive advantage.

“Innovation is part of being disabled,” he says. “It’s imbedded in our day to day as we continually figure out how to navigate our daily tasks, from the best ways to travel and communicate to taking care of ourselves. We are constantly problem solving, which is what entrepreneurship is about.”

As a community designed exclusively for people with disabilities, 2Gether-International connects entrepreneurs with the resources they need to create thriving high-growth, high-impact startups. 2Gether-International’s flagship accelerator program—offered twice a year since 2019—provides tools and guidance to founders of early-stage, technology-based startups, 70 of whom have collectively raised over $54 million.

In June 2023, JPMorganChase provided support to help launch 2Gether-International’s Venture Labs, a four-week online program for self-identified disabled founders who are in the beginning stages of their startup journey. Some 35 founders, selected from 88 applications, gained much-needed knowledge to help them validate, test, and showcase their ideas.

Providing direction, transforming attitudes

Awareness of his own “horrible sense of direction”—and the fact that 90 percent of people who are blind or low vision don’t make use of Braille signage—led Idan Meir, Co-founder with Gil Elgrably of Right Hear, to develop a smartphone app that provides audio descriptions and directions for people with disabilities.

Users ask Right Hear questions like “Where am I?” and “What is around me?” and the app provides directions to a building’s main points of interest, such as entrances, restrooms and elevators. Currently available in 2,400 locations throughout Israel and Europe, Right Hear offers 26 languages and also serves individuals with language barriers, cognitive and even mental health challenges.   

A year after he arrived in the United States from Israel in 2021, Meir met Reynolds through a TechStars program in Washington, D.C., where he went to learn more about funding and support for startups. JPMorganChase has invested in TechStars based on the principle that great ideas can, and do, come from anywhere and anyone—no matter what backgrounds the entrepreneurs have or where they live. Founders, particularly those traditionally undervalued and overlooked by venture capital sources, participate in TechStars’ programs.  

The ideal “big brother” for startups

“JPMorganChase is the ideal big brother, which small startups need,” Meir observes. “Anthony believes in us, asks the right questions and has introduced us to clients, investors and other potential stakeholders.”

According to Reynolds, financial services firms have yet to fully embrace the marketplace of people with disabilities—a group that has billions in discretionary income, as well as unique financial needs.

“Our Office of Disability and Inclusion is seeking to make JPMorganChase a leader in this space,” says Reynolds. “By letting people with disabilities know it’s okay to be themselves, we hope to transform the attitude of businesses everywhere.”

To learn more about JPMorganChase’s focus on driving disability inclusion while aspiring to be a bank of choice for people with disabilities, visit www.jpmorganchase.com/odi.