Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1: Jeff Nelson is known as the Relatable CEO for its
Speaker 1: ability to take very complex technology solutions and help others
Speaker 1: understand how and why to implement them to benefit themselves
Speaker 1: and the businesses. He's the co founder and chief operating
Speaker 1: officer for Blavity, the leading company for black culture and millennials,
Speaker 1: and the founder and CEOs and shopping of real time
Speaker 1: software platform for data discovery, analytics, and automation. His companies
Speaker 1: have combined raised over thirteen million dollars in venture funding,
Speaker 1: generating millions in recurring revenue, and created dozens of jobs
Speaker 1: for women and underrepresented people. His book, Having to Start
Speaker 1: a Paradox Twenty Strategies to Build the Business from Scratch
Speaker 1: is out now. And So I was reading a blog
Speaker 1: post on your website and you were talking about the
Speaker 1: pros and cons of outsourcing software development.
Speaker 2: Can you share, you know, like real.
Speaker 1: Life examples where you may have outsourced something in the
Speaker 1: positives and negatives of that, like what was your periods?
Speaker 2: Like yeah, so and all my different stops. Right. So,
Speaker 2: even at Blavity, there are times when we outsource. Sometimes
Speaker 2: when we bring things in house and my other companies
Speaker 2: and ventures, that same decision making criteria applies, right, And
Speaker 2: so generally my rule of thumb is that early on
Speaker 2: it is better to outsource it because you don't know
Speaker 2: if it's gonna work. Outsourcing is more it's it's a
Speaker 2: larger initial upfront investment, but you don't carry the cost
Speaker 2: over time, right. And so for something that you know
Speaker 2: potentially may not work or may not be monetizable, outsourcing
Speaker 2: it allows you to have a very narrow scope. It
Speaker 2: allows you to get more bang for your buck. Right.
Speaker 2: You're typically not having to think about who do I
Speaker 2: need to hire, how many people I need to hire,
Speaker 2: what are those skill sets which takes a lot of time.
Speaker 2: You can work with somebody that has all that and
Speaker 2: you can just sort of say, this is what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to do, this is what I'm trying to build,
Speaker 2: and go and go for it, right, And so that's
Speaker 2: that's generally my advice there. Now, there are some risks,
Speaker 2: and I can think, you know, I've had good experiences
Speaker 2: outsourcing with some firms, even even offshore, right. I think
Speaker 2: you know, ten years ago, it used to be that
Speaker 2: people were very wary of outsourcing to to you know,
Speaker 2: offshore development firms. If there are no regulatory issues, no
Speaker 2: sort of like data security compliance issues, then that's that's
Speaker 2: a viable path. It's very very cost effective. I've had
Speaker 2: good experiences on shore and offshore, some some bad experiences,
Speaker 2: and and what I will say, you know, in those
Speaker 2: bad experiences, what you typically get is you you sort
Speaker 2: of get bad actors from adversarial countries, right, Like, so
Speaker 2: countries who are you know, are interested in stealing intellectual
Speaker 2: property from US sensities. You get either people who are
Speaker 2: from those countries who are posing to be US citizens
Speaker 2: or being citizens of another country, and that really they're
Speaker 2: in it to one either steal ip or to create
Speaker 2: backdoors in what you're doing. And early on at Blavity,
Speaker 2: this was several years ago, I would say, like in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, we had this random thing where we were
Speaker 2: being hacked and our sites were always going down by
Speaker 2: from Russian bots, right, Like, we were always going down,
Speaker 2: and Morgan was like, Yo, what's what's going on? Why
Speaker 2: are we always going down? And I would actually look
Speaker 2: in and see that we are being actively hacked from Russia, right,
Speaker 2: And a lot of this was because early on when
Speaker 2: you are trying to get the market quickly, you're trying
Speaker 2: to build things quickly, and you are outsourcing. Sometimes if
Speaker 2: you are you know, just going for the cheapest vendor,
Speaker 2: you may actually be getting some bad actors who are
Speaker 2: playing a long game. They're trying to put some back
Speaker 2: doors in what your a building. You're trying to or
Speaker 2: excel traate some ip So that that's something to be
Speaker 2: careful of.
Speaker 1: So when you think about outsourcing in those earliest days,
Speaker 1: and you might even be trying to raise funds also,
Speaker 1: So it does outsourced technical talent impact fundraising.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it does right and typically and you know
Speaker 2: this is interesting what I you know, what I talk
Speaker 2: about in my book, which you know, the startup paradox,
Speaker 2: the fourth elements that I talk about, right, which is
Speaker 2: you know, team, product, customers, and then funding. When investors
Speaker 2: are evaluating a startup, they're really looking at those three
Speaker 2: other things, right and really honestly all four right, They're
Speaker 2: looking to see have you raised money before? Right, because
Speaker 2: investors kind of have this herb mentality if you've raised
Speaker 2: or you got money from this other person before, and
Speaker 2: they may get at like if war if Warren Buffett
Speaker 2: is invested in something, then everybody everybody's in the right
Speaker 2: or so. But if you're a startup and you haven't
Speaker 2: raised money before, then they're looking to say, like, okay,
Speaker 2: what about your team? Do you have customer traction? Do
Speaker 2: you have a do you have a good product?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And so yes, your rights to note that in those
Speaker 2: early days, if you if your team is mostly made
Speaker 2: up of offshore outsourced talent, that can be a risk,
Speaker 2: especially as it relates to intellectual property. The investors are
Speaker 2: gonna want to know like, hey, have you made sure
Speaker 2: that the work that these people are doing you own it,
Speaker 2: that they that they don't own it. But but really
Speaker 2: the story has to be how are you leveraging your
Speaker 2: limited resources to you know, if you don't have a
Speaker 2: strong team, how are you somehow building a great product right?
Speaker 2: Or how are you somehow getting great customer traction? A
Speaker 2: more attractive option that I will say that has really
Speaker 2: emerged and I talk a bit about it in my
Speaker 2: in the book Having to Start a Paradox, and it's
Speaker 2: something that I do and have done. It is this
Speaker 2: notion of like a fractional cto and so this is
Speaker 2: really for you know, if you're a founder where you've
Speaker 2: got a limited budget, You've got somebody to spend, but
Speaker 2: you can't afford to hire a full team. You have
Speaker 2: not found that technical co founder, but you don't know
Speaker 2: how to find an outsourced development team. What you could
Speaker 2: do is work with somebody who is a fractional cto,
Speaker 2: like somebody in my position who has built companies before,
Speaker 2: who has done it, where their incentive is like, they're
Speaker 2: not going to charge you what they would normally charge
Speaker 2: somebody to do this, right, because you can't afford that. Really,
Speaker 2: what they're what they're trying to do is say, how
Speaker 2: can I partner with you in some capacity and be
Speaker 2: a part of your team and share in the upside,
Speaker 2: but lend my expertise, my time, my credibility to one
Speaker 2: help you build and to help you assemble a strong team.
Speaker 2: What I've seen recently is that investors, in the absence
Speaker 2: of having a core team yourself, when you do have
Speaker 2: this this sort of fractional expertise, that's a good substitute, right,
Speaker 2: Like think of some of the you know, greatest founders
Speaker 2: that you can think of who have built strong businesses.
Speaker 2: If they if an investors like, oh you got so
Speaker 2: and so spending twenty hours a month with you helping
Speaker 2: you build or helping it do this, and they've scaled
Speaker 2: up and they've built companies. Then cool, like they're they're
Speaker 2: willing to work. I'll roll with that. And that's a
Speaker 2: that's a viable model.
Speaker 1: And so think let's take that one step further, because
Speaker 1: if if I am not a technical culte, not not
Speaker 1: a technical founder, I'm outsourcing technical talent and then I'm
Speaker 1: also raising money. The fundamental thought there is that I
Speaker 1: could potentially get funded with an idea because I can't
Speaker 1: implement the thing. And so that's that's let's take that
Speaker 1: conversation like are people still being funded with just ideas?
Speaker 2: Not black people? Unfortunately, unfortunately it's tough. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you are if you're a black person, if you're a woman,
Speaker 2: if you're a black woman, each each of those it
Speaker 2: just makes it.
Speaker 1: Harder, right and so and not technical yeah, and not
Speaker 1: say oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, you're right. So if you're not technical and
Speaker 2: you are, you know you've got you are not a
Speaker 2: white man with a network. You know, I know, I know,
Speaker 2: you know. I used to work at a company where
Speaker 2: the founder and it was part of a story I
Speaker 2: got funded based on an idea, and to me that
Speaker 2: was that was ridiculous. I mean you in the line
Speaker 2: of work that we do, you know, we covered on
Speaker 2: afro tech all the time, tech Crunch covers it. There
Speaker 2: are so many founders and companies where you look and
Speaker 2: they've raised millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then they they just their product never takes off,
Speaker 2: they never make any money. I mean, I can think
Speaker 2: about all these AI companies you know that have built it,
Speaker 2: like the AI pen or the little orange looking rabbit thing,
Speaker 2: like all these companies that raise a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and they have not proven that they deserve it. And
Speaker 2: you get you know, so many entrepreneurs who are non technical,
Speaker 2: but they have good ideas, but they can't build it
Speaker 2: because they're black or and because they are black or
Speaker 2: they are a woman or a black woman, they don't
Speaker 2: get those resources. And so really what it comes down to,
Speaker 2: and this idea of the startup paradox, which you know
Speaker 2: I talked about as I was mentoring people and then
Speaker 2: I wrote this book about it, is that if you
Speaker 2: are a non technical founder, you know, or even if
Speaker 2: you are a technical founder, and you don't have the
Speaker 2: luck or the luxury to just be implicitly believed discredible
Speaker 2: like white men often have. Then building a startup is
Speaker 2: going to be almost impossible unless you get creative and
Speaker 2: figure out how to hack one of these resources. Right.
Speaker 2: If you just got an idea, you either got to
Speaker 2: turn that idea into a product, or you got to
Speaker 2: get some customers who believe in that idea and are like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'll pay you to build that for mere order. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because investors aren't going to be the ones to do
Speaker 2: it right. So it's it's really I wouldn't bank on
Speaker 2: getting funded for an idea, right, you got to somehow
Speaker 2: either figure out how to get that product built using
Speaker 2: some of the things I talk about in the book,
Speaker 2: using automation, using AI, you know, using different tools as
Speaker 2: a non technical founder that allow you to build a product.
Speaker 2: Or you've got to try to build a team when
Speaker 2: you don't have funding, again using some of the ways
Speaker 2: that I talk about in the book, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: bartering your skills, hiring interns or you know, finding co
Speaker 2: founders or working with fractional service providers, or you got
Speaker 2: to try to get some customers, right, get those pre
Speaker 2: orders that you just mentioned, or be an entrepreneur in residents,
Speaker 2: or you know, get somebody who is going to pay
Speaker 2: you as a consultant to to to add value you
Speaker 2: build the product at the same time. So those are
Speaker 2: the tactics. You really got to think about.
Speaker 1: How much does how something works matter anymore? You talked
Speaker 1: about IP a little bit ago. In these days, you know,
Speaker 1: I can take your idea just do it a different way,
Speaker 1: you know, So how much does IP matter anymore? Or
Speaker 1: is it the traction that matters more?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm gonna say traction from an investor standpoint,
Speaker 2: traction is what matters. I mean, we look at businesses
Speaker 2: all the time, and I think most of us can
Speaker 2: probably relate to this. Apple is a good example of
Speaker 2: a company from a just what do their products do?
Speaker 2: Like the iPhone. Everybody always jokes about owing an Android.
Speaker 2: You know they've had that sense, you know, twenty twelve
Speaker 2: or whatever, Right, iPhone just dot, But everybody wants an iPhone,
Speaker 2: right and and and so it's less of And this
Speaker 2: is that's an important question because entrepreneurs have to balance this, right,
Speaker 2: It is important that you have some defensibility to protect
Speaker 2: you against bigger companies who can just steal the idea. Right,
Speaker 2: So you want to you want to have some defensibility,
Speaker 2: some intellectual property, some ingenuity that is interesting and creative
Speaker 2: that protects it. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: if you spend, if you focus all of your energy
Speaker 2: and attention on how can I build a wheel that
Speaker 2: is the most innovative and technologically advanced, will Ever, when
Speaker 2: people just want something that's gonna you know, transport their vehicle,
Speaker 2: make it, make it roll continuously from one point to
Speaker 2: the other, you know you have to balance that. And
Speaker 2: so ultimately what you need to be thinking about is
Speaker 2: how do I get some market and get traction. And
Speaker 2: that's where you've got to focus on workflow, and you've
Speaker 2: got to focus on experience and usability. You've got to
Speaker 2: look at as a founder, when you are looking to
Speaker 2: build a product or into a market, the first question
Speaker 2: you should be asking yourself is what are the opportunities
Speaker 2: to make it easier for people to get the value
Speaker 2: that they want? And value typically is about solving a problem.
Speaker 2: And so a good example of this is with like
Speaker 2: a lot of these AI startups, they're literally one hundred
Speaker 2: that start a day, and all of them are basically
Speaker 2: wrappers around chat GBT. They're all just prompting chat GBT
Speaker 2: and doing something. So it isn't so much about whether
Speaker 2: you've got the most innovative, innovative AI solution. It's about
Speaker 2: whether you can understand what are people trying to do,
Speaker 2: how are they trying to get from one point to
Speaker 2: the next, and what is the friction there? Where is
Speaker 2: it cumbersome, where is it complicated? Where is it time consuming?
Speaker 2: And how can I build something? Regardless of how it works,
Speaker 2: but the way users interact with it, it delights them
Speaker 2: because it's simpler. Right. So that's why so many people
Speaker 2: prefer iPhones over androids, because, yes, androids, you can do
Speaker 2: everything under the sun, but I'm not. You know, if
Speaker 2: you're not a A I don't want to do anything
Speaker 2: you're not, or I don't want to I don't know
Speaker 2: how to like root my phone and then install this
Speaker 2: firmware and do this patch up dating. Then you don't
Speaker 2: know what that stuff means. But the iPhone is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we came out with it ten years late. But when
Speaker 2: you do, it's like, ah, man, that just works. That
Speaker 2: that just works. And it's easy and it's delightful. So
Speaker 2: you know, you got to focus on that market share,
Speaker 2: and you get that by focusing on experience of your
Speaker 2: users and your customers.
Speaker 1: You said a couple of things that I want to
Speaker 1: come back to, and it's ideas and making things easier
Speaker 1: for people. It was a I think it was ev Williams,
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Twitter, who said this,
Speaker 1: and it kind of changed the way I thought about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, because when you're working on a startup,
Speaker 1: you hear often, I'm sure you hear often of people
Speaker 1: who have ideas and they want to change what people do.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing what they're doing, they want to make
Speaker 1: them do something else. And Evan he was talking about
Speaker 1: how that's probably not the best idea because you want
Speaker 1: to make it easier to do what they already want
Speaker 1: to do instead of trying to get them to change behavior.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about that from your perspective.
Speaker 2: I love that you brought that up, because people who
Speaker 2: believe what you're what you know, whatever is ever is
Speaker 2: refuting they're always pointing to I think it was Henry
Speaker 2: Ford and Steve Jobs kind of would would would would
Speaker 2: would also mention this, which is the idea that if
Speaker 2: I ask people what they want, they would have said
Speaker 2: they wanted a faster horse, right, And so they look
Speaker 2: at that and saying like, you can't ask people what
Speaker 2: they want. You gotta you just gotta be so far
Speaker 2: in the future that you built that. And really, I
Speaker 2: think if people actually sit and look at it, when
Speaker 2: when this idea of like when you ask people what
Speaker 2: they want, what you really have to focus on is
Speaker 2: not what product you want, because yes, people are only
Speaker 2: constrained by what they know, but you have to focus
Speaker 2: on what what problems are you trying to solve and
Speaker 2: the problem that it's a horse or vehicle like a
Speaker 2: gasoline power vehicle or a self driving vehicle. Ultimately, the
Speaker 2: problem that that's solved is I need to get from
Speaker 2: place one point to another and the distances are long, right,
Speaker 2: I need to get from one place to the other.
Speaker 2: That's the problem, right. And so if you focus on
Speaker 2: if you actually look at it from that standpoint, like
Speaker 2: the core problem that people are trying to solve, what
Speaker 2: are those things? And then your opportunity to innovate is
Speaker 2: in doing those is helping them do those things better? Right?
Speaker 2: The whether it's a horse or a car or self
Speaker 2: driving vehicle is just the delivery mechanism for the solution, right.
Speaker 2: But you have to not focus on delivery mechanisms. You
Speaker 2: have to focus on the actual problem and figure out
Speaker 2: where's the space for innovation and that's where your ideas land.
Speaker 2: And so what I always encourage founders to do when
Speaker 2: they come to me and they have an idea, and
Speaker 2: I would say most nine out of ten founders when
Speaker 2: I talk to them, their idea doesn't make any sense
Speaker 2: because it's it's it's it's a it's a problem that
Speaker 2: only they have. And I always sit back and I say,
Speaker 2: you know, well, what problem are you solving? Because everybody
Speaker 2: comes and they pitch a product, they don't pitch a solution.
Speaker 2: They say I'm gonna build this thing that and they
Speaker 2: tell you about all the features and everything that's going
Speaker 2: to do. And I always challenge them to step back
Speaker 2: and say, Okay, well, what what problem are you solving?
Speaker 2: Like what solution is? That's good? And then once they
Speaker 2: get there, it's like, okay, well who has this this problem?
Speaker 2: And then the last question you got to ask is like, okay,
Speaker 2: is this a problem? They're willing to pay to solve
Speaker 2: because I got a lot of problems that I'm not
Speaker 2: going to pay any money to solve. I got a
Speaker 2: lot of annoyances in my life. I got a lot
Speaker 2: of things that are like, oh, somebody, if somebody fixes
Speaker 2: that would be cool, but I'm not paying for it. Right,
Speaker 2: So as to be an entrepreneur, that's successful. Right, you
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you've you have an idea
Speaker 2: that it's touching on a problem that a lot of
Speaker 2: people have, and a lot of people are going to
Speaker 2: pay to solve. Those are the ideas that make.
Speaker 1: It and pay at enough of a rate to make
Speaker 1: it make sense.
Speaker 2: Exactly to pay. They're gonna pay more than it costs
Speaker 2: you to deliver the solution, exactly. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: If you could distill your entrepreneurial journey into a tweet,
Speaker 1: give you that tweet.
Speaker 2: Man, I will, I would. I would say this that
Speaker 2: my journey is an entrepreneur. This is gonna be not
Speaker 2: entirely accurate, but it's it's about seventy percent there. One.
Speaker 2: There's this uh Kanye West line, Kanye West, not yea
Speaker 2: or yeasy. This is old ye pink post all right,
Speaker 2: So it's a lyric. Do the wrap and attract triple
Speaker 2: double no assists, and deadline just always sticks out to me.
Speaker 2: One now, obviously is the co founder of Blavity. I got,
Speaker 2: I got a great team. One. We've got a tremendous
Speaker 2: leader of Morgan, who is is just a workhorse, who
Speaker 2: is a is a visionary who none of this happens
Speaker 2: without her. So anybody is triple doubles, this is Morgan.
Speaker 2: But I relate to so much to that line, not
Speaker 2: to imply that I've never had help or that I
Speaker 2: do this all on my own, but we as founders.
Speaker 2: And what I think Morgan had to learn, what I
Speaker 2: had to learn, what Aaron had to learn, is there's
Speaker 2: no cavalry coming right. We're not gonna get the one
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars just for an idea that all we
Speaker 2: have is us in our community. And so when you
Speaker 2: think about the story of Blavity and our journey as entrepreneurs,
Speaker 2: you think about my individual journey as an entrepreneur, which
Speaker 2: yes includes Blavity, but also includes sin Chappion. It also
Speaker 2: includes you know, other things outside of Blavity that I've
Speaker 2: built and I've done. I've had to be in a
Speaker 2: space where I had to learn not only yes, I
Speaker 2: have a technical background so I could build product, but
Speaker 2: I had to learn how to build businesses. I have
Speaker 2: to learn how to build financial models. I have to
Speaker 2: learn how to do sales. I had to learn how
Speaker 2: to do more. Morgan had to learn how to build
Speaker 2: product and be a product manager. Nobody taught us these things.
Speaker 2: We didn't go to college and learn these things. We
Speaker 2: had to come out and we had to not only wrap,
Speaker 2: we have to make beats, we had to mix, we
Speaker 2: had to go market, we had to go on tour.
Speaker 2: We had to do it like we have to do
Speaker 2: all of that. And so that's that's what my entrepreneurial
Speaker 2: journey has been about. It's been about that hustle, and
Speaker 2: it's been about not waiting on somebody to come and
Speaker 2: support you, but figuring out how to do it and
Speaker 2: doing it on your own.
Speaker 1: How involved should a technical co founder be when they're
Speaker 1: brought in after the idea is already thought up, Like,
Speaker 1: are they I need you to come in and sit
Speaker 1: in front of the keyboard or are they involved? Should
Speaker 1: they be involved in you know the idea of flourishing
Speaker 1: even further potentially?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think that the best technology is built
Speaker 2: when the people building the technology understand the business case
Speaker 2: for it, because often when technologists are building in a vacuum,
Speaker 2: the you know, at the end of the day, technology
Speaker 2: building technology is both is an art and a science,
Speaker 2: and what technologists and engineers are motivated by is a challenge.
Speaker 2: And the most immediate challenge is can I build the
Speaker 2: most impressive thing technically, And so if you're in a
Speaker 2: vacuum as a technologist, that's what you're going to do.
Speaker 2: But as we just talked about, you know, it isn't
Speaker 2: necessarily do you have the best advanced back end thing.
Speaker 2: It's about can you build a business retraction? And so
Speaker 2: the more you can get the people building the technology
Speaker 2: closer to the business and at the very least understanding
Speaker 2: what the challenge is there so that they can get
Speaker 2: motivated by that, but even beyond that, contributing their ideas
Speaker 2: and saying, Okay, cool, I understand this is what we're
Speaker 2: trying to do from a business standpoint, this is the
Speaker 2: problem we're trying to solve, this is what users are saying.
Speaker 2: They can then contribute ideas about how to use technology
Speaker 2: to do that more quickly, more efficiently, and at a
Speaker 2: greater scale. So I definitely think that if you're somebody
Speaker 2: that you're like, look, I got an idea, I've been
Speaker 2: building this and I just need somebody to come in
Speaker 2: and do it. The more you can actually involve them
Speaker 2: in saying like, hey, you know, this is what we're
Speaker 2: trying to do. What are your thoughts, what are your opinions?
Speaker 2: Are we all base? Should we be thinking about this differently?
Speaker 2: The better ultimately the product is going to be.
Speaker 1: So then what makes somebody consider elevating that person to
Speaker 1: co founder level? Because you don't have to be there
Speaker 1: on day one to be co founder, but there's got
Speaker 1: to be some decision making calculus that says, you know
Speaker 1: what I actually want you with on the cap table?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Deep, Yeah, it's like that that decision when you
Speaker 2: know you decide to give somebody a ring or accept
Speaker 2: somebody's ring, Right, it's similar to that. You know, it's
Speaker 2: I and I do talk about this in in my
Speaker 2: book Taking On a co Founder. It is that's that
Speaker 2: that is a relationship that is significant. And so because
Speaker 2: you are now no, yes, there's hierarchy, right, there's CEO
Speaker 2: and and you know even with co founders, right, somebody's
Speaker 2: got to be the leader. But you are now moving
Speaker 2: from a place where you are not just giving direction
Speaker 2: and and and holding people accountable to execute. You're now
Speaker 2: entering a partnership where you are collaborating on vision. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's sort of like if you have if you have
Speaker 2: a if you're married, or you have a life partner,
Speaker 2: you have you know, you have kids with someone you're
Speaker 2: collaborating and you're sitting and talking together and saying, well,
Speaker 2: you know where we're gonna live, or how are we
Speaker 2: gonna raise the kids? Or are we gonna let them
Speaker 2: eat these foods? Are we gonna make them do this
Speaker 2: thing or this happen? How are we going to discipline them?
Speaker 2: You're you're having those questions where it can't just be
Speaker 2: your way and it can't just be their way. And
Speaker 2: sometimes what you want is not going to happen. Sometimes
Speaker 2: what they want is not gonna happen. You have to
Speaker 2: come and compromise or come and figure out like, Okay,
Speaker 2: on this thing, you feel more strongly, so I'm gonna
Speaker 2: let you have it. Or on this thing, we're gonna
Speaker 2: you know, we're gonna figure out a way where we
Speaker 2: come to some consensus and compromise. And so the point
Speaker 2: at which you decide to elevate someone to that, I
Speaker 2: think it's when you realize that one thing practically speaking
Speaker 2: is that you want them. You don't want to lose them,
Speaker 2: because when you have somebody who is just either helping
Speaker 2: you on a fractional basis, or they're just an employee
Speaker 2: or they're a contractor, it's trans it's purely transactional, right
Speaker 2: And if they if they get somebody better, if something
Speaker 2: better comes along, I mean it really is like Dayton.
Speaker 2: If if somebody else is it comes along that's better,
Speaker 2: or that you know, is making me feel more motivated
Speaker 2: or more challenged, or you know, pay us better, whatever
Speaker 2: the case may be, then I'm they're probably gonna go there.
Speaker 2: So one is like I can't lose this person. They're
Speaker 2: too valuable to what we're doing. That they need to be,
Speaker 2: they need to feel and I need to recognize them
Speaker 2: more as part of the team. And then two is
Speaker 2: when you really when you are able to work with
Speaker 2: that person and you really feel as though they make
Speaker 2: your life easier, right, Like it's sort of like when
Speaker 2: you manage people. We've all managed people where where like
Speaker 2: managing them is a job in and of itself, like
Speaker 2: your job is just to manage. When you get people
Speaker 2: who are like, hey, I'm no longer at a point
Speaker 2: where I'm managing you, but it's like you are adding
Speaker 2: so much value that yeah, I may be checking in
Speaker 2: on you, and I may be, you know, holding you
Speaker 2: accountable to things, but you're coming up with ideas and
Speaker 2: you're driving things forward, and you're doing this without me
Speaker 2: having to tell you. You're making my life easier, You're
Speaker 2: you're giving me time back, You're you're doing those things.
Speaker 2: So when you get to that point that that's when
Speaker 2: you consider it. And I would say only after you've
Speaker 2: had conflict with that person. Like in any relationship, you
Speaker 2: don't want to marry somebody you never had a fight
Speaker 2: with because you know, you want to make sure that
Speaker 2: that y'all can disagree and and still work together and
Speaker 2: still be productive. So so that's how I would think
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: You know, the book is Hacking the Startup Paradox, which
Speaker 1: you know, which effectively just says a lot of things
Speaker 1: don't make sense to start ups.
Speaker 2: Here's how you navigate it.
Speaker 1: Here's how you navigate exactly. And you know, some things
Speaker 1: may be intuitive some things maybe you know backwards, just
Speaker 1: because of the way it works. You're trying to build
Speaker 1: something out of nothing. And in that regard, what are
Speaker 1: common mistakes you see technical co founders make.
Speaker 2: The common mistake that I see technical co founders make
Speaker 2: is trying to build the most complicated, complex, technically impressive
Speaker 2: product before it has any market validation. And by market validation,
Speaker 2: I don't even necessarily mean traction. Though it's good if
Speaker 2: people are paying for it and using it. But people,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't do customer discovery, which is the
Speaker 2: process of going out and talking to people and saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: is this a problem? Do you know, how do you
Speaker 2: try to solve it today? What are the opportunities to
Speaker 2: do that better? And is it a problem you're willing
Speaker 2: to pay to have solved? You know, Like I often
Speaker 2: try not to pick on product, I often try not
Speaker 2: to pick on actual companies. So so forgive me if
Speaker 2: I'm out of line here. But you know, just contemporarily,
Speaker 2: there is there is all these AI products, and some
Speaker 2: of which I bought off the hype. But there's one
Speaker 2: now I think called friend. Right, there's a story about
Speaker 2: the person paid a whole bunch of money for friend
Speaker 2: dot com. And basically it's a it's a it's a
Speaker 2: it's an imaginary friend. Uh that is AI powered. It's
Speaker 2: always watching, and it's always and and you can just
Speaker 2: sort of talk to it and it will use AI
Speaker 2: as a wrap around AI that's gonna gonna talk back
Speaker 2: to you. And and look, I don't know if that
Speaker 2: product is gonna work or not. I'm not the target user.
Speaker 2: Maybe they did some customer discovery, but for stuff like that,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, you know, you paid a lot of
Speaker 2: money for a domain, you paid, you paid a lot
Speaker 2: of money to to sort of market this thing. What
Speaker 2: problem were you solving? And is it a problem that
Speaker 2: people are willing to pay to solve? Right? And yes,
Speaker 2: maybe yes, I don't know their data or not. I
Speaker 2: don't know what they've done. And maybe they they've done
Speaker 2: some research. And you know, there is a an epidemic
Speaker 2: of loneliness, especially I think coming out of the lockdowns
Speaker 2: that we had, and people were yearning for connection and
Speaker 2: whether that connection is artificial or not, Hey, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but but I think that's a good
Speaker 2: case study and making sure that whether you know, for
Speaker 2: technical founders even non technical founders. Make sure that you
Speaker 2: were talking to real users and not just saying like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm building this product, will you buy it? Don't pitch
Speaker 2: your product, go and say like, look what what? What are?
Speaker 2: What are the things that you wake up frustrated by?
Speaker 2: Like what what when you when you wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning and you think about your day, what are
Speaker 2: you dreading? Cool, let's dive into that. Okay, why do
Speaker 2: you dread that? What? You know? What is it? Is it?
Speaker 2: In in the book I talk about this problems problems
Speaker 2: or when peop people buy things, the reason that they
Speaker 2: buy it is either because it's cheaper than what they're
Speaker 2: doing now, it's faster than what they do now, or
Speaker 2: it's better it delivers better quality. Right, So when people
Speaker 2: are frustrated by something, it's either because this thing that
Speaker 2: I have to do or that I want to do
Speaker 2: is too expensive, or it takes too long, or you know,
Speaker 2: I got to do this thing, but I'm not really
Speaker 2: getting the results back that I want from it, and
Speaker 2: you know, and so you really got to kind of
Speaker 2: hone in and figure out like what's my lane of opportunity? Right,
Speaker 2: what is the thing that frustrates you why does it
Speaker 2: frustrate you? And what do you do now? And what
Speaker 2: are the opportunities to improve what you're doing now and
Speaker 2: build a product that does that. Not enough founders do that.
Speaker 2: They just go and say I've got this idea, and
Speaker 2: they build it and they waste a lot of money
Speaker 2: on it. They spend a lot of money, they spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time, and it's to waste.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's you got me thinking about like MVPs and
Speaker 1: his name escapes me now, but read Hoffman and he
Speaker 1: has said, you know the famous if you're not embarrassed
Speaker 1: by the first version of your product, you know you've
Speaker 1: launched too late. And when he said that, you know,
Speaker 1: it was what ten years ago maybe when he said that.
Speaker 1: And I think about it this way is as you know,
Speaker 1: a technology has gotten so much cheaper. It's a lot
Speaker 1: easier to get things done than it was ten, fifteen,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and the bar has been raised on
Speaker 1: what is minimally viable. And I wonder my question to
Speaker 1: you is is the ugly site, the ugly app acceptable anymore?
Speaker 1: Is that minimally viable anymore?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think there's a literal way to look
Speaker 2: at ugly and there's kind of a figurative way, so
Speaker 2: the literal way, which is like something that's not attractive,
Speaker 2: I do think that users associate, you know, now, you're
Speaker 2: exactly right in twenty twenty four, the way things look
Speaker 2: the it implies as a level of sophistication. And so
Speaker 2: can you just launch with a you know, website with
Speaker 2: a white background in the textbox and people are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do thislist last today? Yeah, you could you
Speaker 2: launch craickflist today? Rights, that's a good question nine times
Speaker 2: out of ten. No, And the good news is that
Speaker 2: building sites, building apps, building AI tools is easier than
Speaker 2: ever ten years ago, fifteen years ago, building a Craigslist
Speaker 2: even though it looks like, you know, it looks like
Speaker 2: somebody just doing together overnight, it involved a lot of work.
Speaker 2: And not only did it involve a lot of work,
Speaker 2: but it involved a lot of expertise. It's very cumbersome.
Speaker 2: Now you can build that literally in an hour or two. Right,
Speaker 2: And so yes, the bar for what is minimally viable,
Speaker 2: as you as you said, has been raised just because
Speaker 2: it is so much easier to build things. Right. So,
Speaker 2: in the literal sense, I think can you launch with
Speaker 2: something that's probably not but ugly in the figurative sense
Speaker 2: of when you have a grand vision And this is
Speaker 2: where founder struggles like they have a grand vision of
Speaker 2: all the things that they want to do, all the
Speaker 2: things that their product is going to do, and it's
Speaker 2: very hard for them to launch with something that only
Speaker 2: does one thing. It's ugly in the sense that it's basic.
Speaker 2: It could look pretty, but it's so basic, and that
Speaker 2: I think is still true. I think that you you know,
Speaker 2: you have to well, we look at the tools we
Speaker 2: use now, you know, there there are so many examples,
Speaker 2: whether it's Netflix, whether it's YouTube, whether it's Instagram, whether
Speaker 2: it's TikTok, whether it's Uber, whatever we use now not
Speaker 2: looking at the interface being ugly, but if you look
Speaker 2: at when they launch, they all really only did one
Speaker 2: thing well, like Uber interface aside. Uber just made it
Speaker 2: easier for you to get a taxi. Yeah, you imagine
Speaker 2: the stories of being in New York, especially if you're
Speaker 2: black and you live in New York a little bit
Speaker 2: where you go to fifth Fab and you're trying to
Speaker 2: held down a taxi. You don't know the taxis for
Speaker 2: higher It drives past you don't know if they're being
Speaker 2: racist or not. Uber just made it. Uber did one thing.
Speaker 2: It did one thing. It made it easier for you
Speaker 2: to get a taxi, regardless of how it looked. That's
Speaker 2: the one thing it did. And now we look back
Speaker 2: and we're like, oh, like you you could build app
Speaker 2: around that. That's that's kind of simple, right, like all
Speaker 2: the things that Uber does, Like that is such a
Speaker 2: minimal and small use case. But that's what they launched with,
Speaker 2: and it solved a real problem that people weren't willing
Speaker 2: to pay for. Right if you could tell me that
Speaker 2: I don't have to waste like I don't have to
Speaker 2: waste ten minutes trying to hell down a taxi, but
Speaker 2: I could do it from our apartment, from my brownstone
Speaker 2: and order it to know as soon as I walk out,
Speaker 2: it'll be there waiting for me. Yeah, I'll pay a
Speaker 2: couple extra bucks for that. And so in the figurative sense,
Speaker 2: I do think that, yes, you gotta you have to
Speaker 2: watch for something that's ugly in the sense that it's basic,
Speaker 2: stripped down. It does one thing well, and then you
Speaker 2: got to incrementally be that up over time.
Speaker 1: I wanted end this talking about the book you just
Speaker 1: released just a little bit ago. I don't want to
Speaker 1: date the podcast, but you just just look recently, you've
Speaker 1: released this recently. What made you say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to document this stuff and put it in
Speaker 1: a binder and put it on the shelves. What makes
Speaker 1: you do that versus you know, just continuing to speak
Speaker 1: like you speak and all these things.
Speaker 2: So as often that happened. Often is the case in
Speaker 2: my life. I am I'm somebody that thinks, you know,
Speaker 2: will have random thoughts that I just kind of leave
Speaker 2: on the on the on the shelf, so to speak,
Speaker 2: and then I'll randomly get these ideas seemingly out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: When I decided to become a full time entrepreneur, I
Speaker 2: remember I was sitting at my job at the time
Speaker 2: and it just hit me, like I wasn't disgruntled, I
Speaker 2: wasn't upset, I wasn't you know, I wasn't uh, there
Speaker 2: was there was no trigger in the moment, but it
Speaker 2: just hit me. And so with this book, it was
Speaker 2: a similar thing. I remember exactly where I was. I was.
Speaker 2: I was at the airport, as is often the case
Speaker 2: since I'm always on the road. I was at the airport.
Speaker 2: I was at DCA Reagan Airport boarding a flight back
Speaker 2: to Atlanta, and as I was boarding the flight, something
Speaker 2: just hit me. It was like start up paradox. I
Speaker 2: should I should write a book about that, because in
Speaker 2: my mind, it was the framework itself, this idea of
Speaker 2: you've got, you know, a team that helps you build
Speaker 2: a product, the product that helps you get customers, customers
Speaker 2: to help you get funding, funding helps you a similar team.
Speaker 2: It was so crystal clear in my mind, and I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, like I really need to write
Speaker 2: this down. I talk about it and I've never written
Speaker 2: it down before. I just I just know what I've
Speaker 2: memorized that I've talked to people about it. But it
Speaker 2: was so clear, the language was clear, the consistency of
Speaker 2: how I thought about it, how I just gribed it,
Speaker 2: how I talked about I was like, you know, I
Speaker 2: need to write this down. And if I'm going to
Speaker 2: write it down, and I might as well, I might
Speaker 2: as well like do something with it. And my initial
Speaker 2: idea was like, yeah, I'll just like put together a
Speaker 2: little pdf, get somebody to design it and make it pretty,
Speaker 2: put it as a downloadable on my website. But then
Speaker 2: as I got into it and I actually started doing it,
Speaker 2: it shifted from just like let me write down this
Speaker 2: idea and like kind of make some collateral, like an
Speaker 2: asset for it that I can give people to like
Speaker 2: writing a book. And that's ironic because you know, as
Speaker 2: I talk about in the book, I don't read books,
Speaker 2: and I always get I get a lot of flak
Speaker 2: for this, like I've I you know, people are always
Speaker 2: sociock that like what you don't read. And I remember
Speaker 2: growing up my dad would always give me books, and
Speaker 2: I had the break. It's hard when I was like,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, I don't read those books. You
Speaker 2: give me what you know? Everybody, everybody assumes that if
Speaker 2: you are a if you're any kind of intellectual, you're
Speaker 2: a well read person. And always what I mean by
Speaker 2: I don't read this, like that's just not how I
Speaker 2: get information. And the way that I get information is
Speaker 2: I'm a doer, right, so like I will I'll deep
Speaker 2: dive on something and I'll just i'll do research, like
Speaker 2: I obviously will read things, but I don't read books.
Speaker 2: I'm much more like this is what I want to know,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to go down the rabbit hole and
Speaker 2: and find it out. And so for me to decide
Speaker 2: to write a book, what's interesting because I have to
Speaker 2: sit back and think, well, like why don't I read books?
Speaker 2: I have to sort of do what I advice founders
Speaker 2: to do is like, well, what's my problem with books?
Speaker 2: And my problem with books was that books, you know, one,
Speaker 2: don't just get to the point. They don't just say
Speaker 2: here's the problem, here's the solution.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a book.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be a book, right, It's just you know,
Speaker 2: authors have this idea of like it's just too it's
Speaker 2: just too much. They it's like I want to open
Speaker 2: it and I want to be like, this is what
Speaker 2: I'm trying to do is on this page. I wanted
Speaker 2: it to truly be like a reference book. And and
Speaker 2: so it was really a challenge for myself to be like, look,
Speaker 2: can I communicate this idea in a manner that I
Speaker 2: would even read it, like I would even read this book.
Speaker 2: And for me, what that had to be is that
Speaker 2: it had to be one. It had to answer a
Speaker 2: specific question, which was as a as a founder without
Speaker 2: resources that is struggling to get over the hump one,
Speaker 2: why am I struggling, and then too, how do I
Speaker 2: stop struggling? And then it had to give you specific
Speaker 2: things to do. And so that's why the book is
Speaker 2: the reason this book is one hundred pages, because the
Speaker 2: startup paradox is I you know, I tell you what
Speaker 2: that is in two pages, right, But the reason this
Speaker 2: book is one hundred pages is because I'm giving you
Speaker 2: twenty strategies to do it. And when I'm giving you
Speaker 2: those twenty strategies, I'm not only saying this is you
Speaker 2: know what to do. I'm telling you how to do it,
Speaker 2: and I'm telling you what website to go to, what
Speaker 2: things to download. You know how to think about it.
Speaker 2: And so it was really important for me to write
Speaker 2: something that I would read. And when I knew I
Speaker 2: was ready to read the book, I took. When I
Speaker 2: knew that I was ready to release the book, I
Speaker 2: had been working on it and I'd stopped for about
Speaker 2: three weeks. And again, I remember I was on a
Speaker 2: flight to Costa Rica shout out to to Morgan and
Speaker 2: CEO spring Break. I was I was going to see
Speaker 2: her retreat for CEO CEO spring Break, and it had
Speaker 2: been three weeks. I was like, all right, I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna read the book and and see what I think.
Speaker 2: And I was reading the book and I was like, damn,
Speaker 2: like I actually kind of like this. I'm really happy
Speaker 2: with it. I was like, Okay, we're ready, let's go.
Speaker 2: Let let's let's put it out there. So that was
Speaker 2: the process. I love that.
Speaker 1: I think this is my last question. I want to
Speaker 1: be respect for your time, but this one is this one.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I believe there's something special here. And so
Speaker 1: this is quote I love. I just looked up who
Speaker 1: wrote it, who said it. It was Lady's name is
Speaker 1: Joan Didion and she said, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: think until I write it down. And I love that quote.
Speaker 1: And it got me thinking about that quote when you
Speaker 1: just said what you said, like, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm number one how to read here? But then you
Speaker 1: were going through these twenty different strategies. What did you
Speaker 1: learn having sat down to write out your thoughts? Yeah,
Speaker 1: what became clearer to you?
Speaker 2: What that you have? So there were a couple of things. One,
Speaker 2: I just want to say that I really rock with
Speaker 2: that quote and that concepts. As an engineer, I always
Speaker 2: tell people the hardest part about writing code is figuring
Speaker 2: out what to call things right, And I actually spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time before I write any code, I
Speaker 2: think about, like, Okay, what am I naming this project?
Speaker 2: What am I naming this variable? Is? What? I like,
Speaker 2: will write the documentation for it out first, and not
Speaker 2: a lot of people approach it that way. But the
Speaker 2: reason I do that is because, as you've alluded to,
Speaker 2: when you can communicate about something and you can actually
Speaker 2: write it down, it clarifies. Yeah, it actually clarifies, guy,
Speaker 2: what the purpose is, what the intent is, what the
Speaker 2: strategy is, and what the approach is. So before I
Speaker 2: embark on anything, I name it. I bring it to
Speaker 2: life by naming it, writing it down, writing what it is,
Speaker 2: writing what its purpose is, because that is so clarifying
Speaker 2: to me. And writing this book, there were a couple
Speaker 2: of things that were clarifying. One was my voice, and
Speaker 2: I think that's so important because when you get to
Speaker 2: a place where you you know, you are asked to
Speaker 2: speak you're or you're asked to write things and submit
Speaker 2: stuff there, you know you unfortunate that you know you
Speaker 2: have a team of people who are like especially now
Speaker 2: with a I, they will write it for you. They're like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, here here's your speech, or here your remarks. Here,
Speaker 2: here's the blog post we're gonna do. And I always
Speaker 2: hated that because nobody, Yeah, I would read things and
Speaker 2: I'm just like, ah, this is like this, this does
Speaker 2: not sound like me and I do a lot of
Speaker 2: things that blavity. But but one thing that that's so interesting,
Speaker 2: you know, in me and me and Morgan's relationship is
Speaker 2: that whenever Morgan like is gonna publish something or write something,
Speaker 2: she always has me copy edited, like I've got it,
Speaker 2: Like I'm like the executive copy editor for a lot
Speaker 2: of everything. And that's because I realized what was clarifying
Speaker 2: for me is like I am so intentional with my
Speaker 2: voice and how I say things and wanting to say
Speaker 2: things in a way that is authoritative but relatable. And
Speaker 2: what I hope people get from reading this book is
Speaker 2: that you know, there there there are those books like
Speaker 2: the Four Dummies series that like really dumb stuff. I
Speaker 2: don't want to say it dumbs it down, but it
Speaker 2: really makes it plain code for dummies. Like I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't want this book to be like that, right.
Speaker 2: I wanted people to read this be yo, this dude
Speaker 2: like knows some stuff like he is, he's an expert,
Speaker 2: like he knows what he's talking about. But I wanted
Speaker 2: it to be so understandable and relatable, and I think
Speaker 2: that that is a very it's a very tough thing
Speaker 2: to balance, and writing this one clarified like, yes, that's
Speaker 2: how I want people to see me. I want them
Speaker 2: to see me as somebody that knows what he's talking about,
Speaker 2: does deep research, is very very knowledgeable. It's not surface
Speaker 2: level at all. But I understand what he means. I
Speaker 2: get what he's talking about. He makes these things that
Speaker 2: were complicated makes sense because they are logical, they are relatable.
Speaker 2: I can understand how to apply it to my specific situation.
Speaker 2: And so that was very very clarifying for me and
Speaker 2: writing this book.
Speaker 1: Jeff Nelson, so glad to have you on the show.
Speaker 2: Appreciate it. It's been great, long time coming. Happy to be hearing.
Speaker 2: And let's not make it the last time.
Speaker 1: Oh it won't be the last, that's for sure for sure.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production the Blavity Afro
Speaker 1: Tech on the Black Effect podcast Networking Nightheartmedia. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas with the Ad
Speaker 1: Digital production support by Kate McDonald, Sayah Ergan and Jada McGee.
Speaker 1: A special thank you to Michael Davis and Lovebeach. Learn
Speaker 1: more about my guests and other technist is an innovators
Speaker 1: at afrotech dot com. The video version of this episode
Speaker 1: will drop to Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, so
Speaker 1: tap in, enjoy your Black Tech Green Money, share us
Speaker 1: to somebody, go get your money.
Speaker 2: Peace in love,