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Speaker 2: You talk about it when you raised twenty five I
Speaker 2: remember that was a few years ago. I think that
Speaker 2: was the values your company out one hundred million dollars, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: so talk about that. A lot of people see the
Speaker 2: headline like slutty Vegan has one hundred million dollar valuation, right,
Speaker 2: But talk about the process of actually raising that money.
Speaker 2: When you got the money, what was the first thing
Speaker 2: you did with the money? Were you beholden? Did you
Speaker 2: have to answer to other people to make sure that
Speaker 2: that you was doing the right thing with the money,
Speaker 2: Like looking back on in hindsight, how was that experience
Speaker 2: of actually getting that twenty five million.
Speaker 3: The experience of getting twenty five million dollars? So when
Speaker 3: I first got the money, y'all, I cried. You never
Speaker 3: know what you're going to do when you get that
Speaker 3: much money. I cried. I cried because you know, it's
Speaker 3: one thing to put pressure on myself, because this is
Speaker 3: my business and I don't owe any like it's my equity.
Speaker 3: It's mine, me, my my mind. But when you take
Speaker 3: money from a strategic investor, it's no longer just me
Speaker 3: my it's hours. So I'm not just answering for myself.
Speaker 3: I'm answering for the people who believed in me to
Speaker 3: invest this level of cap capital to help me grow
Speaker 3: and scale my company. So that's a different kind of pressure.
Speaker 3: If anybody's watching this, if you've never raised twenty five
Speaker 3: million dollars or anything remotely close, it is a different
Speaker 3: kind of pressure because people are counting on you. So
Speaker 3: what happens if people can't count on you no more?
Speaker 3: That really gets tough. So when I got the money,
Speaker 3: I was a bit overwhelmed because you could either do
Speaker 3: great things with the money or you could fumble the ball,
Speaker 3: and here I am. I'm a black woman, and not
Speaker 3: many black women get this level of capital. So it
Speaker 3: ain't just Pinky they just got twenty five million dollars.
Speaker 3: It's every single black woman entrepreneur, every black entrepreneur, every
Speaker 3: minority entrepreneur. You understand what I'm saying. So like, it's
Speaker 3: not just about me when I go in these rooms. Now,
Speaker 3: it's not just oh, Pinky is in the room. No,
Speaker 3: it's that's a black person in the room. And if
Speaker 3: I fumble the ball, then it affects all of us
Speaker 3: because the way that the world works, the reality of
Speaker 3: it is, is sometimes we get grouped together. So I
Speaker 3: come as one, but I stands ten thousand. And I'm
Speaker 3: telling you that because ninety percent of what we said
Speaker 3: we were going to do with the money, we did right.
Speaker 3: We opened up locations, we paid off that, we did
Speaker 3: all of the things. But you never realized how fast
Speaker 3: twenty five million dollars can go when you're building and
Speaker 3: you're scaling and your growing businesses. So if I could
Speaker 3: do anything different, when I change anything, no, however, what
Speaker 3: I would make sure is I would make sure my
Speaker 3: advice to anybody who is about to get a level
Speaker 3: of investment. You need to go and somebody should create this.
Speaker 3: You need to go through a program where you sit
Speaker 3: down with strategic advisors, you sit down with financial advisors,
Speaker 3: so they could really make the money work for you.
Speaker 3: Because actually, I take that back. If I could go back,
Speaker 3: I would alter something. What I would do is I
Speaker 3: would make sure that all of that money would go
Speaker 3: into a fund that is occurring interest and we could
Speaker 3: grow the business off of interest based on that hard money.
Speaker 3: But again, right, it took for me to have this
Speaker 3: level of real time experience to learn. But if you
Speaker 3: do get a lump sum of money in that kind
Speaker 3: of way, you can put it in an account where
Speaker 3: you can live off the interest. You can open up
Speaker 3: stores off the interest, you can pay your payroll off
Speaker 3: the interest. You can put it in treasury accounts, which
Speaker 3: I did, right, and you can utilize that interest to
Speaker 3: make the money that you need to continue to grow
Speaker 3: the business so that you don't run through cash so fast.
Speaker 2: So when they gave you, when they gave you to
Speaker 2: twenty five, they just gave you a check for twenty
Speaker 2: five million dollars and like, do your thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we did. We did our think we did
Speaker 3: I think. But what I'm saying to you is doing
Speaker 3: your thing means a lot. Doing my thing ain't necessarily
Speaker 3: doing my investors thing. Understand what I'm saying. So if
Speaker 3: I had to do this all over again, I would
Speaker 3: make sure that I'm being super intentional on the who, what, when,
Speaker 3: where and why. Luckily for me, I've been blessed with
Speaker 3: the best investors in the world. So Richie lu Dennis
Speaker 3: from New Voices is my lead investor, and then EHI
Speaker 3: and Lightened Hospitality Group. That's Danny Meyer who created shape Shack.
Speaker 3: So like, it don't get no better than that. Like,
Speaker 3: God really just blessed me on that opportunity because I
Speaker 3: can pick up the phone and any relationship that I
Speaker 3: want to have as a phone call away. So it's
Speaker 3: also very important to be mindful of who you decide
Speaker 3: to take money from. But I'm glad that the twenty
Speaker 3: five million allowed me to propel my business to now
Speaker 3: being a household name from covers of magazines to being
Speaker 3: in Target stores and getting picked up in Walmart. We're
Speaker 3: going into Walmart week thirty seven, to being able to
Speaker 3: open up more locations, to be able to have brand
Speaker 3: partnership deals, so the opportunities are continuing to roll. But
Speaker 3: it's a result of the level of investment that the
Speaker 3: investor said, you know what, I'm gonna give you this
Speaker 3: money so you can grow this brand.
Speaker 1: So you said you did ninety percent of the things
Speaker 1: that you wanted to do, which leaves the door open
Speaker 1: for the ten percent that still hasn't been done. Talk
Speaker 1: about that because as you're scaling, you're also diversifying, whether
Speaker 1: you know on your personal level in real estate. I
Speaker 1: know Barvegan has had some of the change. We got
Speaker 1: a lot of events happening there, loved music having in there.
Speaker 1: To talk about that balance. As you're growing in scaling,
Speaker 1: you're also diversifying and accomplishing that ten percent that we
Speaker 1: still want to get done.
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting because I am diversifying, but right
Speaker 3: now I'm trying to undiversify. What they don't tell you
Speaker 3: is that when you start to grow this business, then
Speaker 3: we want to do all of these things. And I
Speaker 3: mean we all creatives on the phone. Let's be honest, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we got this thing that's the bread and butter, and
Speaker 3: then we want to go off and do this and
Speaker 3: movies and television and blah. Blah blah blah, and all
Speaker 3: these things are great, but the reality of it is
Speaker 3: is you cannot serve two mansters, right, So it's important
Speaker 3: to make sure that home is always good because home
Speaker 3: will always make room for other things. So when I
Speaker 3: created bar Vegan, that was really just a concept that
Speaker 3: was like overnight, Oh, this is a multimillion dollar company too.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought?
Speaker 3: And I came up with this concept and I made
Speaker 3: what like five million dollars the first year and that
Speaker 3: one location. So I'm like, oh, this is like, this
Speaker 3: is a real business and this is separate and a
Speaker 3: sign from Slutty Began. So I'm like, okay, this is great.
Speaker 3: So then I just recently I did a soft opening
Speaker 3: for my next Barbgan. It's opening and next week. But
Speaker 3: Barbiingan and Slutty Vegan I kind of like my bread
Speaker 3: and butter right now. Before I wanted to do like
Speaker 3: a Slutty Vegan record label, and I wanted to do
Speaker 3: all these things. But then I had to have a
Speaker 3: conversation with myself as an entrepreneur that guess what, when
Speaker 3: I get Sludy Vegan to where I wanted to be,
Speaker 3: whether I decide to go public. Whether I decide to sell,
Speaker 3: whatever decision I make on the business, that'll make room
Speaker 3: for me to do all the other things that I
Speaker 3: want to do. But I have to make sure that
Speaker 3: this is sound. I got to make sure that this
Speaker 3: continues to make the money. I have to make sure
Speaker 3: that this brand continues to grow, because this brand is
Speaker 3: going to set me up for everything else that I
Speaker 3: want to do in my life.
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