WEBVTT - EYL #225 How Actively Black Grew into $30 Million Apparel Brand 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:01.040 Money. 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.160 It comes with a lot of questions. How do I save? 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:07.800 Where should I invest? Can I build wealth to pass on? 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:11.119 It's hard to know where to get answers. That's why 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.960 the people at Fidelity do what they do to make 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.639 it easier for you to get information to make better 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.639 money decisions. It's what they've built their business on. They've 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:24.600 got articles and videos, tips and apps and insights and 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:29.760 perspectives that make planning, saving and investing a little less stressful. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:32.640 And when you want to talk it through, there's a 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.159 real person on the other end with real answers. Helping 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:39.040 people is what they do, and they can help you too. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.600 Help you buy a home, save for your kids education, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:47.080 start a business, support your community, and feel more confident 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:52.040 about the future. Want to learn more, visit Fidelity online 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.840 at fidelity dot com. Slash black Wealth. 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:00.000 An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.000 in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.399 accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:12.360 filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.160 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:19.839 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.639 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:28.240 crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.520 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.440 are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.520 one thousand dollars a day. Imprisoned and deported, you will 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.200 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.640 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.760 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.360 border and families will be protected. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:56.600 Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:58.680 One of the things that I learned from the first 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:01.120 business that I took into the second one was the 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.600 power of building audience and community and then serving them right. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.800 A lot of entrepreneurs get an idea for a productor 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.239 or something, and they rushed to build that. They rush 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:13.480 to do that, and then they go try to find 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:17.320 an audience to sell it to. My advice would. 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.480 Revert be to reverse engineer that right. 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.640 So before I dropped, before we actually launched, I had 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:24.320 ten thousand names on my email list. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.079 I had five thousand names on my SMS list. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.960 As we were building out the Instagram and the social presence, 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:34.440 it was more so about what this brand was, about 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.520 what it was going to stand for and showing the 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:42.239 audience the and I was showing mock ups and people 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:46.520 were just resonating with it because it spoke to them. 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:52.920 My graduates from my school being false backdrop drop, Mike drop, 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:54.840 backdrop drop. 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.840 All right, guys, welcome back. E y L. 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:13.079 This is gonna be a dope conversation. Actively black. This 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:16.440 is somebody that we got introduced to the brand. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.560 I think Kwame Uncle, Yeah, like two years ago. 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:24.880 Yeah, he introduced us to the brand. And then we 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:26.519 got the merchant. 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:29.480 The biggest package of merchandise that I've ever seen from 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:31.040 a brand. I said, wait, what is this? 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.800 But what's happened is that they've been actually progressively like 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.560 climbing up the rankings of this whole situation. You've probably 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.040 seen them being wore. I see the list of celebrities 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:50.840 that have championed the brand, from Steph Curry to Pinky Cole, Meganica, 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:58.320 Steve Harvey, Deon Sanders, Cam Newton, Damon John a bunch 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:00.800 of people, and then a lot of the IL deals, 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:08.280 especially with the Sanders family, Shiloh Sanders, Shador Sanders, Travis Hunter, 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.160 our guy Stagah, Kelly. 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.760 Somebody's been down in Jackson. Well somebody's in Colorado now. Yeah. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.280 Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna be in that cold for 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:17.840 a little bit. 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:20.920 So it's a it's a I guess the best way 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.839 to describe it is an athletic where brand. 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.800 At leisure at leisure sports apparel. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.280 Yeah, at leisure sports apparel. 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:35.080 So it's a dope conversation from starting growing the brand VC, 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:37.760 because you guys took some VC money as well, right, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.440 So that leads into that conversation with the seed rounds 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:45.080 different things in nature, collaborations with Foolble, collaborations with the 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.080 Muhammad ali A State, a bunch of different things that's happening. 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:48.840 So congrats on. 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:49.680 That, man, appreciate it. 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:53.240 He just like breaking news today. Yeah, I just saw you. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:54.280 I just saw the post. 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.080 Multi year deal with the Muhammad ali Ah State. 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.440 We gotta get into that. Yeah. So yeah, we got 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.560 the CEO, Landy Smith. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:03.880 Thank you for joining us. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:05.520 Appreciate you for having me, man. 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.239 Yeah, so it's been it's been a long time coming. 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.080 Yeah, man, it's funny you say two years ago when 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:13.960 Kwame introduced you. That's literally when he introduced the brand, 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:17.200 before we even got started. We just made two years 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.360 on Black Friday this past Black Friday. So we're we're 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.680 brand that's twenty five months years old, man, twenty five 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:23.200 months old. 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:25.520 So yeah, I feel like we've been in text conversation 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.120 probably for about a year of that about that year 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:29.520 and I'm like, yeah, we coming to LA. When we 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.360 come and we're coming, it's like, yoh, man, I just 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:35.080 did this deal that you think Now, I'm like, yo, bro, 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:35.960 it's coming. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.799 Here we are, So yeah, let's talk about it. Man. 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.159 A lot of people start holding brands, but you, like 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:45.839 I said, you've actually been able to reach success and 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:47.040 you're reaching more success. 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.800 You've been able to raise money and everything. But take 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:50.680 us back to the beginning. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.360 What's the idea to start the brand and what's the 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.440 beginning things that you did to get the brand off 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:56.880 the ground. 0:05:57.040 --> 0:05:58.880 Yeah, well this is actually my second one. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.760 The first brand I launch is called Active Faith, launched 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:06.120 that back in twenty eleven. My two business partners in 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.200 that with Steph Curry and Anthony Tolliver. 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:11.600 How'd you get those guys. Man, So I'm a former 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:14.640 basketball player. Man, excuse me? 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:15.520 Where'd you play? Man? 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.320 I played at the University of Houston and finished up 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.239 with the Sacramento Kings. I tore my knee up thirty 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.159 three days after signing my first NBA contract, So, you know, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:27.960 something that was a dream for me since I was 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.440 five years old, chased that dream. Like I said, played 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.160 my college basketball at University of Houston and had the 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.520 opportunity to play in the NBA. And that was a 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.200 devastating moment for me, but it ended up being pivotal 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:43.560 and would led me to doing what I'm doing today. So, 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.799 I mean, jay Z has this this lyric where he says, 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.400 if if you would have told him that whole was 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.440 so clothing not in his lifetime. Wasn't in my right 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:57.560 mind that that lyric. I mean, if there's anything that describes, 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.400 you know, my experience and my testimony, that would be it. 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.480 Because there's no way that I thought I'd be sitting 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.400 here talking to you guys about a clothing brand. I 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.800 was one of those guys where it was NBA or BUS. 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.000 You know, I didn't have a plan B. I thought 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.600 I was gonna plan in the league for ten twelve years, 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:15.840 take care of my family, hopefully take care of a 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:19.560 few people in my neighborhood, and that would be my legacy, 0:07:19.600 --> 0:07:20.960 you know what I mean. But God had a different 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:26.120 plan for me. So the first brand man I from 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.360 that injury. Man, I was in practice, a guy fell 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.240 into my knee. To the articular cartage in my left knee. 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:33.560 I had two micropractice surgeries in my career was over with, 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.840 just like that. So I'm back home in Houston when 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:38.200 I'm from shout out East. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:42.280 Town by the way, number one in the country, number two, Yeah. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:45.000 We number three right now. We lost, you know, last 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.360 game number three. But and you know, I'm back home 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.960 in Houston. I'm a grown man. I'm broke, living at 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:51.400 home my. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:52.400 Mother, and. 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.080 It was it was embarrassing for me to leave the 0:07:57.160 --> 0:08:00.360 house because every time I'm somewhere, somebody like, yo, that's 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.800 Landy Smith, the basketball player, and she's supposed to be 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.440 in the league. Thought she was in the NBA. And 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.480 I'm at home, broke, you know, not knowing what I'm 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.840 gonna do next next with my life. So I was praying, man, 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:14.240 I asked God to give me some guidance, and I 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:16.480 literally said this prayer. I said, if you're gonna take 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.480 this game away from me, I'm begging you to show 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:20.040 me what you want me to do with my life. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:22.880 And it was probably a week after that that I 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.960 had this idea to create a sports appel brand that 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:27.840 was faith based. That's how the first brand came to 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.640 be Active Faith. Growing up as an athlete, I was 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.360 privy to all the best of the best when it 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:36.120 comes to sports apparel. And you know, when I thought 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.559 about my passions in life, my faith was always important 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:38.800 to me. 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:40.520 Sports was always important to me. 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:42.480 So I was like, maybe this would be a cool 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.720 way to put those passions together to create this sports 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:46.680 appel brand that was faith. 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:47.880 Based, had these faith based messages. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.600 So that's how the first one started, man, And just 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.080 through those relationships. The basketball world is very small, man. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.559 So you know Steph. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:59.640 I've been friends with Steph for what was it twelve 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.280 thirteen years now. Obviously he's a man of faith. So 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.560 when I was talking to him about this brand that 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.000 I was getting ready to start that was going to 0:09:07.040 --> 0:09:09.280 be faith based, he wanted to be a part of it. 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:12.280 So yeah, that's how that first one got started. 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.480 And then What were the issues with the first one? 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:17.680 Why that didn't work out? Oh? 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.920 It worked, It still works still. Yeah, we've still got 0:09:20.960 --> 0:09:24.520 that one. Active Faith has done over twenty million in revenue. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.520 We've got customers in seventy five different countries, all e 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:29.600 comm It's the first of its kind of. 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:30.720 Faith pushed that brand. 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.880 You push that because I've seen this pushed a lot. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.280 Is that being pushed in a different channel. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:36.920 Yeah. 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.600 It's got its own Instagram, it's got its own website. 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:40.640 It's completely separate. 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:43.360 You know, I don't I don't have kids yet, but 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.240 I would imagine it's like, you know, you're having a newborn. 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.520 It's got to take all of your attention, you know 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:51.280 what I mean. Active Faith has been going since twenty eleven. 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:53.960 I've got a partner that's still making sure, you know, 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.480 running all the day to day with that. But when 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.400 I had the vision for Actively Black and once this 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:01.679 thing got started, man it was it was a snowball. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:03.920 So I've had to give it, you know, my full 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:05.439 attention to make sure that we grow this thing the 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:05.880 right way. 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:07.200 So I want I want to go back to a 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:11.400 little bit right because embarrassed to come out understandable from 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.440 a standpoint, like you're the man in the town and 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:16.440 now you've got this injury that's devastated. You didn't have 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:19.200 any income, but you had an idea. How did you 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:22.240 go from my idea to actually creating the brand itself? 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:24.319 Like what was the manufacturing process that? 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:26.120 Who gave you? You know what I mean? Like? What was 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:26.840 that process? Like? 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.920 Yeah, man, it's funny all your different experiences in life, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.240 how you can look back and you see where you 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.040 know God was orchestrating things or where these different relationships 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:38.800 will come back into play. So in two thousand and eight, 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:41.160 I was invited to go on the NBA Asia Tour 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:44.920 and so they took you know, a bunch of us. 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.120 We went and played games in the Philippines and China 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.200 and in Korea. And when we were in China, we 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:52.920 actually went on this tour. They took us on this 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.080 tour of some factories, and you know, most of the 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.120 guys wasn't paying any attention to the tour guide. I'm 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.920 asking questions and the dude ended up befriending me on 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.000 Facebook at the time. And so when I had the 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.160 injury and I had this idea, the first thing I 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:11.920 did was I went to Facebook and I hit my 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.280 guy up and I was like, Yo, I need the 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.240 best of the best. I need like real sports apparel. 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.600 I'm not talking about buying blanks and T shirts and 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.160 printing on them. I need moisture, wicking, high quality performance apparel. 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.080 Can you point me in the right direction. And that 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.280 relationship that we have formed when I was over there 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.320 in China helped to come back and help me to 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:34.599 find my first factory at the time to get the 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.640 samples and everything that I needed. I knew I wanted 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.360 this to be premium performance fabrics, you know what I'm saying. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:42.400 So I knew I had to go get it, you know, 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:46.000 from the source. You know, Frank Lucas style, so it 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:50.400 sounds like Frank. And then I tell people all the time, Man, 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.559 I went to YouTube university. 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:53.480 You know what I'm saying. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:54.000 I didn't. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.480 I was a kinesiology major at the University of Houston, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:01.520 so I had no background in design clothes. The only 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:03.520 job I ever had was playing basketball, you know what 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.480 I'm saying. So I went to YouTube and I was 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.840 just religiously looking up everything I could. 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:12.640 Man, I remember googling how to come up with a 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:14.160 company name you know what I mean. 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.880 And I remember the article was saying to make columns 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:19.959 of words that described what your brand was going to 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:20.440 be about. 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:21.880 And literally, you know. 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.160 Active in Faith were next to each other in this 0:12:25.240 --> 0:12:27.960 column of words that I was trying to figure out 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.560 the name for the first company was going to be. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.800 And when I thought about active faith and the double 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.720 entendre of it being the active where brand wanting to 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:39.600 be active but also knowing that would activate your faith 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:42.000 is is you actually have to put forth action, you 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.040 know what I mean. People talk about manifestation, they talk 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.680 about speaking things into existence, but it's the action that 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:52.360 actually unlocks, you know, a lot of these blessings. So, man, 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:56.600 I was on there looking up videos how to build 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.960 your own website because at the time I'm looking up 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:00.040 you know who am I. 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:00.920 Hire a build website? 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.120 And I'm looking they charging ten, fifteen, twenty thousand dollars 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:05.680 to build a website. I don't have no money, So 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:07.520 I'm like, I gotta I gotta figure out how to 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:11.200 do this myself. So I taught myself to cold my 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:15.880 own website, taught myself how to use photoshop and illustrator. 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.120 Like I said, I don't come from a design background, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.520 so I'm just figuring out how to create mock ups 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:22.880 just to get the ideas out of my head and 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:25.760 get them visually onto a platform. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.439 And really that was the start of it, man. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:31.000 So when you get the first product right, the next 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:32.720 thing is how do you market it? Are you thinking 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:34.240 that yourself? Do I need a break a mortar or 0:13:34.280 --> 0:13:36.680 is it like I'm a solely ecommerce this thing and 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:37.640 get it in the right hand. 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:38.040 Yeah. 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.040 So, in the beginning with Active Faith, there was two 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.960 big Christian sports appail I mean Christian retailers at the time, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.360 Family Christian LifeWay. I'm thinking, once I pitched them this idea, 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.880 they picking me up, We launched and were gone. They 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:54.720 all told me they'd never heard of Christian sports apparel before, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.880 so they were like, this isn't gonna work. So I 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:02.679 actually went to e commerce route by necessity, but it 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:04.439 ended up being a blessing, you know what I mean. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.920 I utilized my existing network. The funny thing, the thing 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.559 that actually put Active Faith on the map, that gave 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.120 us our first big exposure was do you. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:15.160 Guys remember Lynn Sanity? 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, So Jeremy's went a closet 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:23.320 of mind, yeah exactly, and he was wearing wrist bands 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.400 from my company. So I got these wrist bands that 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:27.800 said active Faith. The tagline was in Jesus, name I 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.400 Play instead of name I prayed. The tagline is just 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.600 name I Play. And so I was sending these wrist 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.040 bands out to all the basketball players that I knew 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.360 that would understand this concept of a faith based sports 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.480 a pearl brand. Jeremy was one of them. He was 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.840 in the D League at the time when I first 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.000 got him the wristbands, and the Rockets called him up. 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.640 We met for lunch, gave him some wrist bands, they 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.360 cut him. The Knicks called him up, but he's at 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:56.840 the end of the bench. Nobody, I mean nobody saw 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.280 that coming. And it was it was two weeks after 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:00.960 the Knicks has signed. They came back in time to 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:02.920 play the Rockets. We went to lunch again. I was like, yo, 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.200 let me give you these orange wristbands to match the 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:06.000 Knick's uniform. 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:09.320 And it was probably two weeks after that. 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.880 I think Baron Davis got hurd whoever the two point 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:14.600 guards wherever in front of him got hurt and he 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:17.840 was forced into this role. And you know what, happened 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.240 when with insanity and so he's on the cover of 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.040 Sports Illustrated. Time magazine is everything you could think of 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.160 laying the ball up and you see Active Faith and 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.000 you see these wristbands on his wrist. I mean, you 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:30.520 go look at it right now. Look up any picture, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:35.080 you're gonna see him wearing these wristbands. And Man, USA 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.160 Today reached out to do a story on it. Next thing, 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:42.560 I know, my website crashing because everybody in America was 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:44.360 trying to get these wrist bands that he was wearing. 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:45.640 And then we were. 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.920 Getting all this traffic from China and Taiwan. So first 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.000 year out the gate with Active Faith, we did three 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:58.280 hundred thousand in revenue off wristbands. Yeah yeah, so man, 0:15:58.320 --> 0:15:59.320 that's how it got started. 0:15:59.320 --> 0:15:59.480 Man. 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:03.160 And then you know, having that initial audience that saw 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:06.160 the wristbands, when I introduced the apparel, it just kind of, 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.200 you know, did his thing. We went from three hundred 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:12.240 thousand to jumped from three hundred thousand to one point 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:16.800 five million, to six million to eight and a half million, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.600 Like it was something that was just moving at a 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:23.640 speed that you know, to this day, it's hard to 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:24.680 really put it into words. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:25.280 What was happening. 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.600 I mean, I had I had friends at my mom's 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.440 house feeling orders. You know, my mom's house. I turned 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.480 her my mom's house into an order for filming facility, 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.200 you know what I'm saying, And was feeding my friends 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.120 pizza to helped have them come over and help. 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.680 Me feel orders. So yeah, that's that's how the first 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:41.520 thing got off the ground. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:47.120 So all right, so you get that going, Yep, you're 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:50.040 taking that money and then starting with actively black. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:50.920 Is that how that started? 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:51.360 Man? 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:53.960 So so, like I said, so, Steph was my business 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:56.600 partner also, and at the time, you remember he wasn't 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.320 the guy that everybody sees now, you know what I mean, 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.520 A lot of people don't realize those ankle injuries and 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:04.840 the surgeries that he had that. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:05.840 Second year in the league. 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:08.520 You could be looking at a Grant Hill trajectory with 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.400 Steph versus what he's on. So, man, people wasn't checking 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:14.040 for him like that. But he was rocking with me. 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.640 He was rocking with the brand. Same thing with him. 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:20.240 He gets healthy, he wins multiple MVPs. To this day, 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:22.280 he doesn't play a game without wearing his Active Faith 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.399 Risbane and he still wears them every single game. But 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:31.199 I was having some personal experiences that were challenging what 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.159 I was doing with Active Faith, so I hid myself 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:38.320 from people knowing who the founder of Active Faith was. 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.399 In fact, my Instagram was private up until I launched 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:47.040 Actively Black. My personal instagram. Over sixty percent of my 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.639 customer base for Active Faith the Evangelical Christians, which in 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.359 this country could be synonymous with racist. I didn't want 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.560 them to know that it was this black man who 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.280 was behind the brand. And so you couldn't found my 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.919 name on the website. I wasn't on the social media, 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:07.919 none of that, and that started to bother me internally, 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:09.920 you know what I mean. My mother and my father 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.480 raised me to be proud of my blackness. That's something 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.800 that was taught to me at a very early age. 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:19.840 And here it is I. You know, I bounced back from. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:24.119 An injury that ended my NBA career, built a multimillion 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.320 dollar business out of my mom's house, and I'm afraid 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:30.840 to even show that this is me, you know what 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:36.120 I'm saying. And I had instances where customers will call 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:38.199 you know, entrepreneur in the beginning, you wearing all the 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.840 hats I'm doing customer service. A customer is like, you 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.160 sound like you black, and I was like I am. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:48.320 They immediately asked for a refund. I had experiences where 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.639 there were people wanting to invest in Active Faith and 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.439 would write in go back and forth over email, we 0:18:57.440 --> 0:18:59.960 would set up in person meeting and I'll never forge 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.480 get like walking into that room and seeing the looks 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:05.800 on their faces like, oh damn, he's black. You know 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.040 what I'm saying. Like I saw it in their faces, 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.680 and all of a sudden, those conversations about investing in 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:13.400 the brand completely went quiet, you know what I mean. 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.600 And so I was already having this internal struggle with 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.439 who I am as a black man and how I 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:25.360 was hiding myself from this brand. So I started having 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.159 this idea, if I could build this brand for this 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:30.399 faith based community, can I do the same thing for 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:35.720 my people, for black people? And you know, to this day, 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.080 I get emails from Active Faith customers who were going 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:43.160 through chemotherapy and they were saying, I felt like giving up, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.520 but I wore my Active Faith risk band. I wore 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.080 my Active Faith hoodie to chemo today, and they gave 0:19:48.119 --> 0:19:50.359 me the strength to keep fighting. That let me know 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:52.120 that what I was building was bigger than just another 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.160 apparel brand, Like this meant something to somebody intrinsically, this 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.520 was having an effect on somebody's life, and so I 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.800 wanted to do that same thing for black people. And 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.000 really the catalyst to me finally deciding to do it 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.119 twenty eighteen, the movie Black Panther comes out, and I 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.320 remember walking out of the theater for the first time, 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.600 and I just remember that feeling that I felt. Man, 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:21.119 it was unbelievable to see like the diaspora come together. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:21.680 You know what I'm saying. 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.080 You saw African Black, Jamaica, whatever you were, if you 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.720 were black, you felt something the first time you saw 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:29.920 that film. And I was like, you know what, I'm 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.919 gonna create that brand, and I want people to have 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:34.600 the feeling that I had walking out of the theater 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.080 watching Black Panther for the first time. I want them 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.360 to have that feeling they when they interact with this brand. 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:43.680 Act of faith kept me plenty busy. 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.800 I moved out to LA six months before the pandemic 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.280 shut the whole city down, and so I told myself, 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.720 I'm not gonna let this time pass without burthening something new. 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.000 And you know, we all witnessed murder George Floyd and 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:58.000 the aftermath and everything that happened after that, and so 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.960 I started to see all these brands. I saw Nike, 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.879 you know, Adeeda, everybody make these declarations about what they 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:06.000 were going to do for the black community after the 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:09.160 murder of George Floyd, and to me, it. 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:10.280 Felt very performative. 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:12.240 It felt like this was just part of their new 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.000 marketing strategy because outside of the pandemic, the stuff that's 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:17.880 been happening in black people has been happening for centuries, 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:20.280 for decades, and none of these brands had ever said anything, 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:23.200 So why are y'all saying something now? And finally that's 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:25.199 when I decided I wasn't gonna put this idea on 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.840 the shelf anymore. Ink Magazine called me to do a 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:31.560 story on Active Faith for Juneteenth. They were looking for 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.239 a black founder to do a Juneteen story on, and 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.000 I said, I'll do the story, but I want to 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:38.840 talk about this new thing that I'm going to launch, 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.520 And so I announced it in that article, that Ink 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.280 Magazine article on Juneteenth, and on Black Friday twenty twenty, 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:47.560 I launched Actively Black. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.160 So now that people know that you're black and you're 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:55.080 running Actively Faith. Has that affected the company? 0:21:57.720 --> 0:21:59.720 I've had some I've had some detractors, you know what 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:00.199 I mean. 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:05.280 But I've also had people who who have decided to 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.760 support because. 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:08.200 Of those detractors. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:09.960 They're like, you know, we want to support this, this 0:22:10.119 --> 0:22:15.800 black entrepreneur. And and and then also the brand awareness, 0:22:15.840 --> 0:22:18.200 the brand equity that already had already been built over 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:20.760 so many years. A lot of people attributed to being 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.919 Steph Curry's brand or you know, the brand that Jeremy 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:24.679 Lynn was wearing. 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:26.400 So I'm not. 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.080 As as as visible for Active Faith as I am 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:30.920 for Actively Black. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:32.800 Is there a level of fulfillment that you that you 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:33.240 have now? 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:36.080 Knowing that, because even when I watch your Instagram now, 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:41.400 it's like I feel it's like unapologetically Like from what 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:44.040 you're telling me the story of the private business, it 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.720 was like I had to hide it. This time, I'm overcompensated, 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.280 and I'm going to be unapologetic about it in everything 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:52.159 I do, because when I see you posts, I'm like, 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.159 I feel, I feel the power in it. 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.560 I wouldn't say over compensating. My my my personal instagram 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.480 was just private. I've been talking this way whole life 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:02.960 I've been this way the whole time. People just outside 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.679 of who didn't didn't know me personally, who who are 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:07.920 allowed to follow me on my personal Instagram They didn't, 0:23:08.240 --> 0:23:10.760 they didn't know. But everybody who knows me, they're like, Oh, 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.159 that's that's that's been landing. You scroll back through my Instagram, 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:16.440 you gonna see the same thing. I've always been this way. 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:18.560 It's just more visible and more public. 0:23:18.600 --> 0:23:21.199 Now do you, I mean, do you? How does that 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:21.840 feel now? Right? 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:24.840 Because you've launched Active Black and it's successful. Yeah, Like 0:23:24.880 --> 0:23:26.520 we said, you mentioned a list of people that are 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:29.680 actually engaged with the brand, that been supporting it as 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:33.960 opposed to just having the monetary success from Active Faith. 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:36.959 Is there a difference in the way that you are 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:38.080 personally taking this on now? 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.359 One hundred percent? 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:42.879 I mean, because the funny thing is, I feel like 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:45.919 we're building this in a way that hasn't been built before, 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:49.959 especially in this in this particular industry where there's been 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:54.920 a lack of black ownership and representation, and in this 0:23:54.960 --> 0:23:59.680 industry that has profited heavily from black culture, from black 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.280 ath leads, from the black community, but I felt like 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:05.440 hadn't adequately reinvested back in the black community. So there 0:24:05.520 --> 0:24:08.480 is a sense of pride of seeing this be successful, 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:12.919 not only because I believe that it would it would 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.720 be successful, but I'm also proving people wrong. 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:17.440 Man. 0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:19.800 I had black people telling me actively black wouldn't work. 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.080 I had black people telling me, Man, if you put 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:24.840 black in the name, it's going to prevent this from 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:29.040 being successful. So there were a lot of people that 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:32.560 I initially told about the idea for actively black that 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:37.200 now are looking at me like, damn, it works, you 0:24:37.200 --> 0:24:42.000 know what I'm saying. And I have a little grace 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:43.879 for some of those that didn't believe. A lot of 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:49.040 them come from corporate backgrounds where blackness is suppressed. I 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.200 got friends at Nike, at Adidas, at Jordan Brand. I 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:54.399 got friends that work in all those different places, and 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:59.600 they can't authentically be themselves where they are, and so 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:04.119 their doubt or they're not believing it just it stems 0:25:04.119 --> 0:25:06.800 from their experiences of you know, what they've had to 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:09.159 do to try to move up on the corporate ladder. 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:11.680 I've never I've never been corporate, you know what I'm saying. 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:13.880 Like I said, I was a basketball player that that 0:25:14.000 --> 0:25:17.080 went straight into entrepreneurship. So I didn't have those same 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:19.920 limits to my thinking as far as we're actively black 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:24.680 was going to be. And I knew. I knew once 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:29.320 once people saw the quality and understood that. When I say, 0:25:29.840 --> 0:25:31.359 I just tell people were getting ready to build a 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:35.159 black Nike, and they would laugh. Then I send them 0:25:35.160 --> 0:25:38.119 some gear and they're like, oh shit, this this feels 0:25:38.160 --> 0:25:40.040 like my Nike, or this feels like my Little Limit, 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:44.360 or this feels like my Jordan. And so now some 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:46.960 of those some of those doubters are turning into believers. 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:50.760 So all right, so you made two point three million 0:25:50.760 --> 0:25:53.800 in the first twelve months. Yeah, that was done through 0:25:53.960 --> 0:25:55.840 mostly like online set like what was. 0:25:55.840 --> 0:25:57.320 All e com all e comm. 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.760 I knew that I needed to cultivate this audience that 0:26:00.800 --> 0:26:04.200 I could reach you online through social media. And one 0:26:04.200 --> 0:26:06.399 of the things that I learned from the first business 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:08.919 that I took into the second one was the power 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:13.000 of building audience and community and then serving them. Right, 0:26:13.080 --> 0:26:16.120 A lot of entrepreneurs get an idea for a product 0:26:16.200 --> 0:26:19.640 or something and they rushed to build that. They rush 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:20.880 to do that, and then they go try to find 0:26:20.880 --> 0:26:24.879 an audience to sell it to. My advice would revert 0:26:25.200 --> 0:26:28.480 be to reverse engineer that right. So before I dropped, 0:26:28.560 --> 0:26:30.960 before we actually launched, I had ten thousand names on 0:26:31.000 --> 0:26:33.320 my email list. I had five thousand names on my 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:37.879 SMS list. As we were building out the Instagram and 0:26:37.920 --> 0:26:41.119 the social presence, it was more so about what this 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:43.200 brand was, about what it was going to stand for 0:26:44.320 --> 0:26:47.960 and showing the audience the and I was showing mock 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:51.240 ups and people were just resonating with it because it 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:55.960 spoke to them. By the time we launched, give it an example, 0:26:56.359 --> 0:26:58.760 we did a three hundred thousand that first year of 0:26:58.800 --> 0:27:03.560 After Faith. We did three hundred thousand probably the first 0:27:03.880 --> 0:27:05.600 first two months of actively Black. 0:27:05.760 --> 0:27:08.359 There were so many people who were waiting for what 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:09.920 we were providing. 0:27:10.119 --> 0:27:11.960 So by the time it was time for launch date, 0:27:12.640 --> 0:27:17.800 they came at it, and actually I was underprepared for 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:19.600 the support. 0:27:19.760 --> 0:27:20.320 Talk about that. 0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:22.520 So the first year is two point three Yeah, two 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.400 was five point six million in revenue, but you said 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.600 you missed out on eight million due to demand growing 0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:29.880 way faster than inventory. 0:27:29.960 --> 0:27:31.040 So talk about that, man. 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:34.520 So I've been playing ketchup since day one. The initial 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:37.960 inventory that I bought for actively Black, I thought would 0:27:38.040 --> 0:27:41.199 last me the first three months. It sold out in 0:27:41.200 --> 0:27:46.000 the first three weeks. So I've literally been playing ketchup 0:27:46.119 --> 0:27:50.520 from day one. But I didn't know how fast this 0:27:50.600 --> 0:27:55.480 demand was going to grow. So there's a data analytics 0:27:55.480 --> 0:28:03.680 company called Singuli Black founder Black CEO. They specialized in 0:28:03.760 --> 0:28:07.800 analyzing your back end data on your e comm site 0:28:07.840 --> 0:28:13.320 and they provide this for small startups, midsize small businesses. 0:28:13.680 --> 0:28:15.879 You know, because Nike all these other brands, they've got 0:28:16.000 --> 0:28:18.760 entire departments that are that are analyzing this data so 0:28:18.760 --> 0:28:21.120 they can make the decisions for inventory and things like that. 0:28:22.680 --> 0:28:25.880 They did an audit on my site and he came back. 0:28:25.680 --> 0:28:28.919 And he he called me and he said, Man, you know, 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:31.359 I'm I'm the founder of this company. I normally don't 0:28:31.720 --> 0:28:33.520 I normally I'm not on these calls. I have somebody 0:28:33.560 --> 0:28:35.600 to make these calls for me. But when I saw 0:28:35.640 --> 0:28:38.600 your back end analytics and what's going on, I had 0:28:38.640 --> 0:28:40.520 to reach out and call you because I haven't seen 0:28:40.560 --> 0:28:44.040 these numbers since I was at birch Box. I don't 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:46.760 know if you'll familiar with birch Box. It was one 0:28:46.800 --> 0:28:51.760 of the most successful what do you call it, the 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:55.760 subscription subscription businesses subscription boxes. 0:28:56.080 --> 0:28:57.200 They went from zero two. 0:28:57.160 --> 0:29:00.120 Hundred million in two years and and. 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:03.760 So, and he was there at Birch Box. 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:06.120 So he hit me, He's like, I haven't seen these 0:29:06.160 --> 0:29:08.600 types of numbers since I was at Birch Box, and 0:29:09.320 --> 0:29:10.640 you need to sit down when I tell you how 0:29:10.720 --> 0:29:13.440 much revenue you missed out on. And so he went 0:29:13.440 --> 0:29:16.520 through everything, went through the deck and the presentation, and 0:29:16.560 --> 0:29:18.280 he was like, you missed out on eight million on 0:29:18.320 --> 0:29:21.600 the low end, because we noticed when you sold out 0:29:21.600 --> 0:29:25.640 of these certain things, you also turned off your advertising forum. 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:28.720 So if you had kept your advertising going and the 0:29:28.760 --> 0:29:30.920 type of return that you were getting on it, you 0:29:30.960 --> 0:29:33.040 would have done well more. You'd have done way more 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:35.560 than eight million. We're just telling you base level you 0:29:35.600 --> 0:29:37.320 lost that you missed out on eight million dollars of 0:29:37.360 --> 0:29:41.560 revenue not having enough inventory to support the demand. So 0:29:43.400 --> 0:29:47.680 when when you think of those types of numbers, are 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:50.640 you got familiar with Jim Shark? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So 0:29:51.120 --> 0:29:54.120 Jim Shark just became a unicorn last year. They're valued 0:29:54.160 --> 0:29:58.800 at one point six billion. Another e comm direct consumer 0:29:58.880 --> 0:30:02.200 at leisure where brand their niche audience is the gym 0:30:02.240 --> 0:30:03.760 heads who were in the you know, in the gym 0:30:03.880 --> 0:30:07.560 seven days out of the week and their founders started 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:09.200 that company nine years ago. 0:30:09.520 --> 0:30:11.520 I had no idea who they were, and then they 0:30:11.600 --> 0:30:13.400 were walking the streets in London and walked. 0:30:13.240 --> 0:30:14.760 Past and I'm like, they're based in the UK. 0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:17.120 Yeah, Like wait, I've never seen or heard this brand, 0:30:17.120 --> 0:30:19.160 but I just kept seeing that the store was flooded, 0:30:19.200 --> 0:30:22.120 but they had like classes inside the store. I'm like, oh, wait, 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:24.959 this makes perfect sense. I'm about to closing. They work 0:30:25.000 --> 0:30:26.840 out when them right in the same space. 0:30:26.640 --> 0:30:29.240 And that's their first store, is their flagship store there. 0:30:29.360 --> 0:30:31.680 Everything that they've done before then was all e comm 0:30:31.720 --> 0:30:35.360 director consumer And so the reason why I bring them 0:30:35.400 --> 0:30:38.000 up is they were a brand that I looked at 0:30:38.040 --> 0:30:41.360 as my as my north star in getting this thing started. 0:30:42.040 --> 0:30:43.720 Because when I would tell people, man, we get building 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:47.000 a black Nike, it's hard for them to fathom that. 0:30:47.040 --> 0:30:50.600 They can't they can't envision that. I actually encourage everybody 0:30:50.640 --> 0:30:53.200 to read Shoe Dog if you haven't. Shoe Dog is 0:30:53.240 --> 0:30:56.480 the memoir written by Phil Knight, founder of Nike, and 0:30:56.800 --> 0:30:59.480 he's talking about those early days, those beginning days when 0:30:59.480 --> 0:31:03.280 he's selling shoes out as trunk at track meets. People 0:31:03.280 --> 0:31:06.000 can't fathom Nike that way, right. You see this big 0:31:06.080 --> 0:31:08.920 machine that's been that way for fifty years now. But 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:12.080 it started with Phil Knight and he had he had 0:31:12.120 --> 0:31:15.200 inventory in his mom's house and he was selling track 0:31:15.280 --> 0:31:17.600 shoes at track meets out as trunk. So when I 0:31:17.680 --> 0:31:22.600 tell people we building the next the black Nike, We're 0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:24.800 just I'm just I'm just at the track selling the 0:31:24.840 --> 0:31:27.440 shoes out the trunk right now. They can't see the 0:31:27.520 --> 0:31:29.520 vision that I have for this, you know what I'm saying. So, 0:31:29.720 --> 0:31:31.480 but Jim Shark, the reason why I made that one 0:31:31.520 --> 0:31:37.000 to one comparison is their founder, Ben Francis, did the 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:39.600 same thing. He started this out of his apartment, did 0:31:39.640 --> 0:31:41.840 it with e comm, did it with social media, did 0:31:41.840 --> 0:31:43.760 it with the influencers, and. 0:31:45.800 --> 0:31:47.960 Our first twenty four months those. 0:31:48.960 --> 0:31:49.680 Earners, what's up? 0:31:49.800 --> 0:31:52.280 You ever walk into a small business and everything just 0:31:52.400 --> 0:31:55.600 works like the checkout as fast the seats of digital 0:31:56.120 --> 0:31:59.080 tipping is a breeze and you're out the door before 0:31:59.120 --> 0:32:03.240 the line even builds. Odds are they're using Square? We 0:32:03.400 --> 0:32:05.960 love supporting businesses that run on Square because it just 0:32:06.000 --> 0:32:09.240 feels seamless, whether it's a local coffee shop, a vendor 0:32:09.280 --> 0:32:11.520 at a pop up market, or even one of our 0:32:11.600 --> 0:32:15.240 merch partners. Square makes it easy for them to take payments, 0:32:15.480 --> 0:32:19.200 manage inventory, and run their business with confidence, all from 0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:22.680 one simple system. If you're a business owner or even 0:32:22.800 --> 0:32:26.320 just thinking about launching something soon, Square is hands down 0:32:26.320 --> 0:32:28.640 one of the best tools out there to help you start, 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:32.640 run and grow. It's not just about payments, it's about 0:32:32.640 --> 0:32:35.080 giving you time back so you can focus on. 0:32:35.000 --> 0:32:36.440 What matters most ready. 0:32:36.480 --> 0:32:39.840 To see how Square can transform your business, visit Square 0:32:39.920 --> 0:32:44.600 dot com backslash, go backslash eyl to learn more. That's 0:32:44.640 --> 0:32:50.080 Square dot com backslash, go backslash eyl. Don't wait, don't hesitate. 0:32:50.200 --> 0:32:52.600 Let's Square handle the back end so you can keep 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:58.719 pushing your vision forward. This episode is brought to you 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:01.000 by P and C Bank. A lot of people think 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:04.960 podcasts about work are boring, and sure, they definitely can be, 0:33:05.440 --> 0:33:08.719 but understanding a professionals routine shows us how they achieve 0:33:08.760 --> 0:33:13.000 their success little by little, day after day. It's like 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:15.840 banking with P and C Bank. 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These are just 0:33:55.280 --> 0:33:59.040 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 0:33:59.080 --> 0:34:02.600 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Noman, the United States 0:34:02.680 --> 0:34:07.480 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:11.040 crossings are at the lowest levels ever recorded, and over 0:34:11.120 --> 0:34:14.319 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested. If you 0:34:14.400 --> 0:34:18.240 are here illegally, your next you will be fine nearly 0:34:18.320 --> 0:34:22.359 one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned and deported. You will 0:34:22.400 --> 0:34:26.040 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 0:34:26.080 --> 0:34:29.440 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:34.600 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump, America's laws, 0:34:34.719 --> 0:34:37.160 border and families will be protected. 0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:39.840 Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security. 0:34:39.560 --> 0:34:43.120 Numbers are blowing their first twenty four months out the 0:34:43.120 --> 0:34:46.440 water while missing out on eight million dollars in revenue. 0:34:46.719 --> 0:34:49.719 So if you think about their trajectory of creating a 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:53.759 billion dollar at leisurewear brand in nine years, and I'm 0:34:53.800 --> 0:34:55.719 telling you my numbers are better than that and I 0:34:55.840 --> 0:34:58.680 missed out on eight million, That's why I'm telling you. 0:34:59.520 --> 0:35:01.600 That's why know what we'll be getting ready to build. 0:35:01.719 --> 0:35:04.160 When we spoke about inventory, what it was the difference 0:35:04.200 --> 0:35:06.680 in the products, because when you're trying to create Actively Black, 0:35:07.000 --> 0:35:09.120 obviously you want to differentiate from the other brand. I 0:35:09.160 --> 0:35:11.359 know we had risk bands with the other products. How 0:35:11.360 --> 0:35:12.960 did you sit down and come up with the listeners? 0:35:12.960 --> 0:35:15.040 All right, well, this is going to be specifically for 0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:18.160 this brand. These products in this line is specifically for 0:35:18.160 --> 0:35:18.680 that one. 0:35:19.040 --> 0:35:20.640 They're all they're all very similar. 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:24.359 I'd say the only difference is I elevated the materials 0:35:24.560 --> 0:35:28.720 on Actively Black and and then the messaging the messaging 0:35:28.760 --> 0:35:29.280 in the branding. 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:31.080 But other than that, they're very similar. 0:35:31.200 --> 0:35:34.400 So it's like the premium. 0:35:34.440 --> 0:35:37.960 So all right, talk about so at what point do 0:35:38.000 --> 0:35:41.759 you decide to good idea to raise money and talk 0:35:41.800 --> 0:35:43.920 about the process of raising money like I said, I 0:35:43.920 --> 0:35:48.200 know you had Kwame uncle on the Black Star Fund 0:35:48.360 --> 0:35:52.160 it's a black venture capital fund. And then Rich Dennis yep, 0:35:53.239 --> 0:35:56.080 who invested in a variety of different companies. 0:35:56.480 --> 0:35:58.239 We spoke to Risk Dennis a few days ago. He said, 0:35:58.280 --> 0:36:01.080 if it's black and it's business, yo, man. 0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:02.400 Shout out to both of them. 0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:06.600 One Kwame, it became, you know, the cool thing to 0:36:06.640 --> 0:36:09.640 invest in black after twenty twenty. Kwame's been doing this 0:36:11.120 --> 0:36:13.600 long before that, you know what I mean. And he 0:36:13.719 --> 0:36:17.120 was the first money in off of a conversation. To 0:36:17.160 --> 0:36:18.600 be honest with you, I told him the vision for 0:36:18.640 --> 0:36:22.839 actively Black. He put in fifty thousand before before I 0:36:22.880 --> 0:36:26.560 had the website up, so you know, shout out to 0:36:26.600 --> 0:36:29.040 Kwame for believing in the vision from from the jump. 0:36:29.600 --> 0:36:32.560 And then Man, to be honest. 0:36:32.960 --> 0:36:37.480 My journey with with raising capital hasn't been traditional and 0:36:37.880 --> 0:36:41.319 it hasn't been with what most people have to go 0:36:41.360 --> 0:36:43.680 through with doing that, I've been very fortunate, very blessed. 0:36:46.080 --> 0:36:48.080 I had a friend of mine who is the founder 0:36:48.080 --> 0:36:51.560 of Solo Funds, Rodney William. Shout out to Rodney man 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:56.759 doing incredible things as another black founder, and he Rich 0:36:56.800 --> 0:36:59.840 Dennis had already invested in his company and he was 0:37:00.000 --> 0:37:03.960 I went over to Rich's house for Christmas and I 0:37:04.040 --> 0:37:07.320 was like, bro, I got this actively black hoodie and joggers. 0:37:07.800 --> 0:37:10.439 Just take this with you. Man, just gifted to him. 0:37:10.920 --> 0:37:12.759 I'm not making no pitch. I just wanted to see 0:37:12.800 --> 0:37:16.520 what I'm building. And to Rodney's credit, man, he was like, man, 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:18.319 give it to me. I'm gonna take it to him. 0:37:18.719 --> 0:37:22.840 And a week later he was like, Yo, Rich loves 0:37:23.080 --> 0:37:25.919 your stuff. Man, he wants to meet you. He set 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:29.520 up a meeting. I came over to Rich's house and man, 0:37:29.560 --> 0:37:33.840 we sat right there at his kitchen table and I 0:37:33.880 --> 0:37:35.440 told him my vision. I told him what I was 0:37:35.440 --> 0:37:37.680 trying to build, and he laughed at me and said, man, 0:37:37.719 --> 0:37:42.480 you remind me of myself thirty years ago. And after that, 0:37:42.640 --> 0:37:44.200 he said, I'm gonna make sure you get an invite 0:37:44.239 --> 0:37:46.040 to my Entrepreneur Assembly. 0:37:47.239 --> 0:37:51.120 Man, what can I actually say about about that that 0:37:51.239 --> 0:37:52.560 I share? I'll just say this much. 0:37:53.440 --> 0:37:56.719 Rich is one of those people who's really about this 0:37:56.800 --> 0:37:59.960 thing when people talk about investing in black and power 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:04.560 black founders. He has an assembly every year that he 0:38:04.680 --> 0:38:09.560 allows black founders to pitch. It's a combination of Shark 0:38:09.600 --> 0:38:14.319 Tank meets gladiator, because uh, you up there in front 0:38:14.360 --> 0:38:18.719 of in front of a lot of powerful people and 0:38:18.840 --> 0:38:22.319 they throw you in the fire. I went and I 0:38:22.360 --> 0:38:24.719 pitched and riched it up and said, ma, I'm gonna 0:38:24.719 --> 0:38:28.640 take your whole first round. So we closed our Series 0:38:28.680 --> 0:38:35.560 A in April of twenty twenty two seven million dollars. 0:38:35.680 --> 0:38:36.800 And that's seven million dollars. 0:38:37.200 --> 0:38:38.759 Actually, how much of the equity is that? 0:38:39.360 --> 0:38:43.680 So we did it at thirty two post evaluation, so 0:38:44.360 --> 0:38:46.880 give up a little a little less than twenty four percent. 0:38:48.160 --> 0:38:52.000 So the idea of did you have to take the 0:38:52.040 --> 0:38:55.719 money or did you feel like what was your even 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:59.720 thought process of even going down that path? Was it 0:38:59.800 --> 0:39:03.279 to just do it faster? Or were you really in 0:39:03.400 --> 0:39:04.440 need of capital? 0:39:05.200 --> 0:39:07.239 I understood through a lot of the struggles that I 0:39:07.239 --> 0:39:10.480 went through with active Faith that I did need that 0:39:10.520 --> 0:39:12.800 next level capital. So I told you those numbers for 0:39:12.800 --> 0:39:15.600 active faith, those those numbers for active faith would be 0:39:15.640 --> 0:39:18.120 triple if I had, if I had the capital to 0:39:18.160 --> 0:39:20.279 do what I needed to do with those things. A 0:39:20.320 --> 0:39:22.560 lot of the things that I'm experiencing were actively black 0:39:23.080 --> 0:39:26.920 I already experienced before active faith. My best year of 0:39:26.960 --> 0:39:30.240 active faith, we did eight and a half million. That year, 0:39:30.840 --> 0:39:33.319 and my website was sold out for almost four months 0:39:33.320 --> 0:39:35.799 of that year, So that lets you know what I 0:39:35.840 --> 0:39:36.200 could have. 0:39:36.160 --> 0:39:37.000 Done, you know what I'm saying. 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:38.000 So the. 0:39:40.040 --> 0:39:44.920 Cycle of the inventory, that's been a challenge, right because 0:39:45.160 --> 0:39:47.440 I'm not going to buying blank T shirts and hoodies 0:39:47.440 --> 0:39:50.520 and printing on them. Everything we got is made from scratch, 0:39:50.800 --> 0:39:53.520 like they're sourcing the material, they're cutting and so on 0:39:53.640 --> 0:39:59.640 it all the embellishments. So that type of production in Asia, 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:02.719 it's gonna take thirty to forty five days just to 0:40:02.800 --> 0:40:05.440 make it, you know what I mean. And so that 0:40:05.560 --> 0:40:08.759 cycle of selling through something and then trying to get 0:40:08.760 --> 0:40:10.760 it back as fast as possible to meet that demand 0:40:11.640 --> 0:40:14.839 was tough. And when you are just flipping your profits 0:40:15.280 --> 0:40:16.839 and waiting to you know, you sell through something, I'm 0:40:16.960 --> 0:40:21.080 flip this profit. You need that infusion of capital not 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:24.600 only to plan further ahead and buy more inventory, but 0:40:24.640 --> 0:40:28.080 then also to be able to grow your team and 0:40:29.360 --> 0:40:33.080 reinvest into the marketing and advertising and all those things 0:40:33.160 --> 0:40:35.319 that can grow your brand. So I knew what I 0:40:35.360 --> 0:40:38.239 was trying to build Actively Black, I knew how much 0:40:38.360 --> 0:40:41.960 not having that extra capital stifled some of the growth 0:40:41.960 --> 0:40:42.600 to Active Faith. 0:40:42.600 --> 0:40:45.000 So I was like, man, let's let's go do it, man. 0:40:45.040 --> 0:40:48.400 And it's been been beneficial. 0:40:48.440 --> 0:40:51.239 It's allowing us to start scaling in a way that 0:40:51.640 --> 0:40:54.560 I know most black businesses struggle to do without getting 0:40:54.560 --> 0:40:55.560 that outside capital. 0:40:55.680 --> 0:40:55.879 Yeah. 0:40:55.920 --> 0:40:58.640 So you're building a brand and obviously you had that 0:40:58.719 --> 0:41:01.640 opportunity to see what it like with the first one, 0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:04.920 not make the mistakes with the second one. But you 0:41:05.200 --> 0:41:08.920 launched this during the pandemic, and so you're setting out 0:41:09.719 --> 0:41:13.120 the merchandise to get made in China. While you're taking orders, 0:41:13.200 --> 0:41:14.880 you said, you've been playing for mine since day one. 0:41:15.000 --> 0:41:17.720 So what was the impact that that had on the business? 0:41:17.800 --> 0:41:19.879 And now coming out of it, what has that been 0:41:19.880 --> 0:41:21.200 like from a supply issue. 0:41:21.280 --> 0:41:21.520 Yeah. 0:41:21.560 --> 0:41:25.600 So the funny part is I knew about COVID and 0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:30.880 what was getting ready happened months before. Like everybody in 0:41:30.920 --> 0:41:34.400 America realized what was going on because of my relationship 0:41:34.400 --> 0:41:36.960 with my factories and stuff in China. I had people 0:41:37.000 --> 0:41:39.040 telling me like, yo, stuff is shutting down over here. 0:41:39.640 --> 0:41:44.640 And I'm talking to one of them. They were illegally 0:41:44.719 --> 0:41:47.520 in their country because you know, their government's different. They 0:41:47.520 --> 0:41:51.000 were showing me stuff of how many people were dying 0:41:51.040 --> 0:41:53.680 every day. They were showing me, you know all what 0:41:53.840 --> 0:41:56.520 was going on, and in my mind, I'm like, Okay, 0:41:57.600 --> 0:42:00.000 this is happening in China. I didn't I didn't expect 0:42:00.120 --> 0:42:02.400 this thing to become the global pandemic that it did. 0:42:03.640 --> 0:42:07.560 But I also knew that what was going to happen 0:42:07.760 --> 0:42:10.520 when things shut down At leisure, weear has become this 0:42:10.560 --> 0:42:13.000 thing that it's not just for in the gym and 0:42:13.040 --> 0:42:15.560 working out, people traveling in it, people want to relax 0:42:15.600 --> 0:42:18.920 in it. And most at leisure where brands actually saw 0:42:18.960 --> 0:42:23.880 a spike during the pandemic. Nike, Yeah, even outside of 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:27.400 the apparel space, you know, your pelotons, anybody who was 0:42:27.480 --> 0:42:29.640 kind of in that space, you actually saw a spike 0:42:29.760 --> 0:42:34.360 during that time. So the initial inventory I had already 0:42:34.440 --> 0:42:38.560 ordered before things had started shutting down, getting those reorders, 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:40.799 that's where things were delayed, and that's why I was 0:42:40.840 --> 0:42:43.399 missing out on so much revenue because it was taken 0:42:43.480 --> 0:42:45.800 so long to restock the things that were. 0:42:45.640 --> 0:42:48.040 Sold out, and so you really didn't have an accurate 0:42:48.440 --> 0:42:50.319 This is year two, so you haven't really had an 0:42:50.360 --> 0:42:53.319 accurate two to three year span of seeing like what 0:42:53.320 --> 0:42:54.480 the business really could. 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:55.879 Be at all at all. 0:42:55.920 --> 0:42:59.440 I'm this year moving forward from today, moving forward will 0:42:59.480 --> 0:43:03.640 be the first first opportunity I actually have to really 0:43:03.680 --> 0:43:06.600 see what my real demand is and actually meet it 0:43:07.480 --> 0:43:10.000 because we we've just been behind so much. But the 0:43:10.040 --> 0:43:13.120 thing is we've had all these multiplying factors that are 0:43:13.160 --> 0:43:18.440 pushing that meeting that demand further and further away. So 0:43:18.480 --> 0:43:21.120 when you're talking about you know, in February, last February 0:43:21.400 --> 0:43:24.040 and were talking about Black History Month, we were the 0:43:24.080 --> 0:43:26.880 only black on brand present at the Winter Olympics. We 0:43:26.920 --> 0:43:29.480 outfitted Team Nigeria at the Winter Olympics. That's February, you 0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:31.759 know what I'm saying. So when people see that and 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:35.319 not just not just being there, not just showing up, 0:43:35.719 --> 0:43:37.560 but People magazine ranked. 0:43:37.320 --> 0:43:38.000 The top. 0:43:39.480 --> 0:43:43.160 The top outfits for the opening ceremony for the Olympics. 0:43:43.440 --> 0:43:46.640 We came in number four. There's eighty five countries and 0:43:46.680 --> 0:43:50.319 you on the same global stage with Nike, Adidas, everybody else. 0:43:50.320 --> 0:43:52.680 You know what I'm saying, Actively Black was number four 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:56.000 out of eighty five countries. And so that type of 0:43:56.040 --> 0:44:00.799 exposure exposed the demand. Then you have things like you know, 0:44:01.600 --> 0:44:04.080 Barack Obama wearing the Actively Black I. 0:44:04.080 --> 0:44:04.600 Was going there. 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:06.799 I was because the first time that Kwame sent us 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:09.480 a text message it was you got to see this brand. 0:44:09.760 --> 0:44:11.920 Oh Barack Obama's wearing to watch too. 0:44:12.040 --> 0:44:12.320 Yeah. 0:44:12.360 --> 0:44:16.080 I'm like, okay, so how did how did that relationship even, like, 0:44:16.120 --> 0:44:16.840 how did that happen? 0:44:17.000 --> 0:44:21.400 Yeah? Make sure I'm careful my words. What I what 0:44:21.480 --> 0:44:24.120 I can say. So I had this. 0:44:24.280 --> 0:44:24.719 I had this. 0:44:26.120 --> 0:44:29.040 I have this notebook that has all my I write 0:44:29.080 --> 0:44:31.680 everything down, all my visions, all my ideas, all my dreams. 0:44:31.920 --> 0:44:33.560 And I've got this Active Black notebook. 0:44:33.600 --> 0:44:36.000 And I was as we were heading towards launch, I 0:44:36.080 --> 0:44:39.080 was writing down all the people that I thought this 0:44:39.160 --> 0:44:41.120 brand needed to be on or who needed to wear 0:44:41.160 --> 0:44:43.239 this brand, and who would be a great brand ambassador 0:44:43.239 --> 0:44:44.000 for Actively Black. 0:44:44.080 --> 0:44:44.239 Right. 0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:45.799 So I've got this list of people. 0:44:46.040 --> 0:44:51.040 And I wrote down Michelle Obama And in my mind, 0:44:51.440 --> 0:44:53.839 I was like, only thing that would be bigger than 0:44:54.800 --> 0:44:58.319 Beyonce's Ivy Park with Adidas is if Michelle Obama had 0:44:58.320 --> 0:45:00.560 her own active wear line with a black brand. 0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:01.640 When you think. 0:45:01.520 --> 0:45:03.640 About what her brand was at the White House, it 0:45:03.880 --> 0:45:08.200 was getting people moving, getting people fit, getting people healthier, 0:45:08.280 --> 0:45:12.080 especially our community. And you know that's that's one of 0:45:12.080 --> 0:45:14.839 the missions for Actively Black, is to you know, get 0:45:14.880 --> 0:45:17.279 our people in our community healthier. So I was like, 0:45:17.360 --> 0:45:20.960 she would be the perfect brand ambassador for Actively Black. 0:45:22.840 --> 0:45:25.040 I've got a couple of friends, I'll just say this much. 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:27.719 I've got a couple of friends that worked in the administration. 0:45:28.719 --> 0:45:30.440 And when I told them my idea, they were like, 0:45:30.560 --> 0:45:33.879 you crazy, it ain't gonna never happen, So just leave 0:45:33.920 --> 0:45:35.120 that alone, you know what I'm saying. 0:45:36.080 --> 0:45:37.120 And I just I was. 0:45:37.200 --> 0:45:39.319 I was begging them, begging them, begging them, like, Yo, 0:45:39.480 --> 0:45:41.680 just just send the gear to him. That's all I'm 0:45:41.719 --> 0:45:46.279 asking to send the gear to him. And they eventually like, 0:45:46.320 --> 0:45:47.840 that's all we're doing. We're just going to send it 0:45:47.840 --> 0:45:49.839 to them. That's all we're doing. And when they got 0:45:49.880 --> 0:45:54.239 the gear, I got a letter from President Barack Obama 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:58.520 probably three weeks later, and when I read it, I 0:45:59.160 --> 0:46:01.239 saw that he unders stood what I was building because 0:46:01.239 --> 0:46:04.200 he didn't say thank you for the package the gear 0:46:04.320 --> 0:46:04.760 was nice. 0:46:04.960 --> 0:46:07.320 He was like, the mission of this. 0:46:07.280 --> 0:46:11.239 Brand to uplift and reinvest back into the black community 0:46:11.320 --> 0:46:15.279 is an important one, and we love the gear, you 0:46:15.320 --> 0:46:18.640 know what I'm saying. And so that started that relationship, 0:46:19.560 --> 0:46:24.319 and you know, I've been I'll say this much. We 0:46:24.360 --> 0:46:26.960 are kind of a standing orders you know, whenever a 0:46:27.000 --> 0:46:29.960 new collection or a new product drops, make sure we 0:46:30.040 --> 0:46:30.680 get to him. 0:46:30.880 --> 0:46:34.160 And they requested some gear for Christmas. 0:46:34.960 --> 0:46:37.239 I just we had just got the samples in for 0:46:37.320 --> 0:46:40.279 the actively Black watch, and I just I just threw 0:46:40.320 --> 0:46:43.080 it in, you know as a Christmas gift. Wasn't expecting 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:44.920 to actually wear it. You know, this is a man 0:46:45.000 --> 0:46:48.480 who wears rolex'es aps. He's got, he's got, you know, 0:46:48.560 --> 0:46:52.960 everything at his disposal. So on January first, New Year's 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:57.279 when the Queen Michelle Obama posted that picture of them 0:46:57.320 --> 0:47:00.319 celebrating New Year's and he had on the actively Black watch, 0:47:00.360 --> 0:47:02.120 I just I just I couldn't even believe it, to 0:47:02.160 --> 0:47:03.960 be honest with you, it's pretty crazy. 0:47:04.200 --> 0:47:04.439 Yeah. 0:47:04.800 --> 0:47:08.520 Yeah, So talk about working in athletics yep. As far 0:47:08.560 --> 0:47:12.239 as the nail deals that you've signed and noticed, shit, 0:47:12.800 --> 0:47:16.160 you're tapped in with Dion Sen and his people. So 0:47:16.560 --> 0:47:19.959 how that relationship happened and how have you been able 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:20.840 to grow that? 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:22.040 Yeah? 0:47:22.280 --> 0:47:24.160 To be honest, the nil stuff was something that I 0:47:24.160 --> 0:47:26.000 didn't think we would get involved in this early. 0:47:28.480 --> 0:47:30.319 I knew it would be something that we would eventually do. 0:47:30.480 --> 0:47:32.120 If I'm saying that we want to compete with the 0:47:32.200 --> 0:47:34.600 likes of Nike and Adidas and these other brands. Then 0:47:34.640 --> 0:47:36.040 we've got to be at a place where we're able 0:47:36.040 --> 0:47:39.279 to sign athletes. So I'm thinking that would be year three, 0:47:39.440 --> 0:47:42.880 four something down the line. But I saw Travis Hunter's story. 0:47:42.920 --> 0:47:45.680 I saw him, uh when he you know, I watched 0:47:45.680 --> 0:47:48.520 the press conference when he decommitted from Florida State and 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:52.080 decided to go to Jackson State, and I was like, 0:47:53.280 --> 0:47:57.000 that's that's somebody who represents what actively black kids. If 0:47:57.040 --> 0:48:01.080 I'm telling our people to support a black on athletes, 0:48:01.120 --> 0:48:03.440 you where a brand instead of these other ones, then 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:04.759 this is somebody who understands that. 0:48:04.760 --> 0:48:06.319 That's literally what he did with his action. 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:09.360 He could have went to this PWY and he decided 0:48:09.400 --> 0:48:11.960 I'm gonna take my talents to an HBCU and I 0:48:12.000 --> 0:48:14.799 was like, I gotta sign him. I need that kid, 0:48:14.920 --> 0:48:19.359 and man reached out was able to get some gear 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:22.320 to him. Same thing, the same reaction man that that 0:48:22.760 --> 0:48:24.680 that you guys had. He was like, Oh, this is legit. 0:48:24.920 --> 0:48:26.680 This s ain't some dude just printing T shirts in 0:48:26.680 --> 0:48:28.440 his garage Like this feels like Nike. 0:48:28.520 --> 0:48:30.719 This feels like, you know, something premium. 0:48:31.080 --> 0:48:33.799 And you know he understood the message and what we 0:48:33.800 --> 0:48:36.600 were trying to build actively black. He was the first 0:48:36.640 --> 0:48:40.719 one that we got that that nil deal done. But 0:48:40.760 --> 0:48:44.879 then Shiloh and Shador they're seeing his gear and they're like, Yo, 0:48:45.000 --> 0:48:47.920 what's this and they're asking about it, and that just 0:48:47.960 --> 0:48:50.719 turned into them wanting to be a part of what 0:48:50.760 --> 0:48:55.480 we were building with this brand as well. So initially, man, honestly, 0:48:55.600 --> 0:48:58.719 I was just trying to get Travis Hunter and it 0:48:58.800 --> 0:49:04.160 led to Shadora Shiloh signing with us, and then definitely 0:49:04.160 --> 0:49:09.000 got a shout out Dejah Kelly. We actually made her 0:49:09.160 --> 0:49:11.239 be the first official athlete because I wanted to be 0:49:11.239 --> 0:49:12.759 a black woman to be the first one that we 0:49:12.840 --> 0:49:17.600 officially signed. So Dajah Kelly, point guard All American at 0:49:17.600 --> 0:49:20.640 North Carolina, was actually our first official athlete that we signed. 0:49:20.719 --> 0:49:24.480 Yeah, that sounds similar to the story of how under 0:49:24.560 --> 0:49:27.360 Armor got Steph Curry when they had Baise War and 0:49:27.400 --> 0:49:29.080 he was getting all these sneakers and that he couldn't 0:49:29.120 --> 0:49:31.680 find out to figure what to do with Steph because 0:49:31.680 --> 0:49:33.239 he was having the ankle injuries, and he was like, 0:49:33.840 --> 0:49:35.759 these guys will make you a shoe for every game, 0:49:35.800 --> 0:49:37.560 And that's kind of how it got signed. So you 0:49:37.600 --> 0:49:40.120 have a bunch of people who have supported the brand, 0:49:40.760 --> 0:49:42.960 but I know a lot of times that's not always 0:49:42.960 --> 0:49:45.320 the case. And so talk about the struggles of having 0:49:45.400 --> 0:49:49.360 some people, especially influencers, who really don't understand the vision 0:49:49.840 --> 0:49:52.439 and not are as supportive as you think they would 0:49:52.440 --> 0:49:53.480 be when they see the vision. 0:49:53.800 --> 0:49:58.640 Yeah, I would say. If there's anything that's that's pained 0:49:58.719 --> 0:50:02.239 me the most in this journey actively black, it has 0:50:02.320 --> 0:50:05.719 been seeing a lot of people something that I've looked 0:50:05.760 --> 0:50:09.680 up to, who publicly are delivering a message that, man, 0:50:09.719 --> 0:50:12.360 we're supporting black you know, we want to support black business, 0:50:12.640 --> 0:50:16.040 and then behind the scenes that's not really the case, 0:50:16.120 --> 0:50:16.800 you know what I'm saying. 0:50:16.920 --> 0:50:17.279 And so. 0:50:18.760 --> 0:50:23.359 I've always thought that for for people like us, you know, 0:50:23.400 --> 0:50:26.120 our culture is the most influential culture on earth. 0:50:26.640 --> 0:50:29.240 And there's so much that. 0:50:31.400 --> 0:50:34.439 Has provided value for brands that are not owned by us, 0:50:34.640 --> 0:50:36.520 by our culture, you know what I mean. You know, 0:50:37.280 --> 0:50:39.359 I wanted a Rolex growing up, because that's all That's 0:50:39.360 --> 0:50:41.239 what I heard Biggie n jay Z talk about. When 0:50:41.280 --> 0:50:42.960 you know, when you reach a certain level of success, 0:50:43.000 --> 0:50:47.919 you know you need to roll How how much money 0:50:47.960 --> 0:50:50.560 has Rolex made over the years, just because that has 0:50:50.600 --> 0:50:53.440 been embedded in our minds that that's what we need 0:50:53.440 --> 0:50:55.640 to go get when we become successful. Right, And so 0:50:55.719 --> 0:50:57.200 in my mind, I was like, if we could get 0:50:57.239 --> 0:51:01.839 some of these black celebrities and influence to champion our 0:51:01.960 --> 0:51:05.600 brands the way that they do these other European owned 0:51:05.600 --> 0:51:08.160 brands that don't care nothing about our people. You know, 0:51:09.200 --> 0:51:13.440 if we turn that global influence inward, what kind of 0:51:13.480 --> 0:51:14.600 power would that give us? 0:51:14.640 --> 0:51:18.080 You know what I'm saying. And you know, been talking 0:51:18.080 --> 0:51:19.040 about that a long time. 0:51:19.080 --> 0:51:21.560 And so as I'm having these meetings and having these 0:51:21.560 --> 0:51:24.960 calls or some of these black celebrities and they're like, yeah, 0:51:25.000 --> 0:51:27.439 I got your package a lot of gear, but I'm 0:51:27.440 --> 0:51:29.000 not going to post it unless you pay one hundred 0:51:29.040 --> 0:51:33.160 thousand dollars. It's like you, but you're wearing Nike on 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:34.960 your gram and they not paying you. You know what 0:51:35.000 --> 0:51:38.960 I'm saying, You wearing you're tagging Louie and Gucci and 0:51:39.320 --> 0:51:42.160 all of your posts, but they're not paying you. But 0:51:42.200 --> 0:51:44.080 you're telling me that in order for you to wear 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:45.600 my stuff and for you to give a shout out 0:51:45.600 --> 0:51:47.120 to actively black, I got to pay you one hundred 0:51:47.160 --> 0:51:50.560 thousand dollars like that. That doesn't that doesn't make any 0:51:50.640 --> 0:51:53.400 sense to me. So what that tells me is even 0:51:53.400 --> 0:51:55.759 though a lot of these people are publicly portraying a 0:51:55.800 --> 0:51:59.239 certain image that they're supporting us, it's not really that 0:51:59.320 --> 0:52:03.080 support And that it also to me, lets us know 0:52:03.120 --> 0:52:06.120 that there's still an inferiority complex even amongst our biggest 0:52:06.120 --> 0:52:12.399 and our brightest, that we think European designer is more 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:16.560 than our own because of who that is, Like we 0:52:16.600 --> 0:52:18.160 are the blueprint, you know what I'm saying. If you 0:52:18.160 --> 0:52:21.320 go look at even the style and how it's changed 0:52:21.360 --> 0:52:23.879 with even a lot of those high end designers, they're 0:52:23.920 --> 0:52:26.239 taking inspiration from the street where and the things that 0:52:26.280 --> 0:52:28.359 we already made popular, you know what I'm saying. And 0:52:28.400 --> 0:52:32.440 so that's been disappointing. That's been highly disappointing to see 0:52:33.120 --> 0:52:39.200 a lot of those figures have a pay for play 0:52:39.239 --> 0:52:42.800 mentality when it comes to Black Owned, but they'll endorse, 0:52:43.160 --> 0:52:46.400 not even endorse, they'll promote these other brands in our 0:52:46.400 --> 0:52:47.280 own bios for free. 0:52:47.360 --> 0:52:50.640 But I feel like that just watching actively Black bro 0:52:50.680 --> 0:52:52.759 I feel like that that didn't discourage you. I feel 0:52:52.760 --> 0:52:55.920 like the game plan kind of changed or it was 0:52:55.960 --> 0:52:57.440 altered a little bit and you could correct me if 0:52:57.440 --> 0:52:59.640 I'm wrong, But it seemed like it wasn't let me 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:01.120 go for the aless celebrity. 0:53:01.760 --> 0:53:04.879 Let me get the entrepreneurs doing that thing and let's 0:53:04.880 --> 0:53:06.200 put the merch on them. 0:53:06.440 --> 0:53:08.640 Was that like the part of the marketing strategy because 0:53:08.640 --> 0:53:10.360 I started seeing with I'm looking at the people in 0:53:10.400 --> 0:53:11.759 our space, I'm like, oh, they were in it too. 0:53:12.040 --> 0:53:15.640 Yeah. I mean, honestly, the strategy. I never thought that 0:53:16.160 --> 0:53:18.880 getting my brand on the celebrity what was gonna was 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:22.040 going to build a brand. I would actually tell anybody who, 0:53:22.120 --> 0:53:25.640 especially people who are getting into this apparel space or whatever, 0:53:26.440 --> 0:53:28.600 don't let that be don't let that be your goal. 0:53:29.160 --> 0:53:31.240 To me, the power to me was always with the people. 0:53:31.280 --> 0:53:34.439 To be honest with you, those are the people who 0:53:34.560 --> 0:53:38.120 were on that site. They one and have been selling 0:53:38.120 --> 0:53:41.040 out all of this stuff without a celebrity endorsement. So 0:53:41.080 --> 0:53:43.440 I figured, if I got the people, it doesn't matter 0:53:44.239 --> 0:53:45.000 what celebrity is. 0:53:45.040 --> 0:53:45.880 Rocking with it or not. 0:53:46.440 --> 0:53:48.319 I got the people with me, and that's what's going 0:53:48.360 --> 0:53:51.400 to sustain you more than any celebrity giving you a 0:53:51.440 --> 0:53:55.600 co sign. And it has established us in a way 0:53:55.719 --> 0:53:58.320 with the people where they know We're always going to 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:01.120 be authentic with whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever 0:54:01.120 --> 0:54:03.200 we put out. It is not going to be because 0:54:03.280 --> 0:54:07.440 of what any celebrity thinks. It's not going to be 0:54:07.520 --> 0:54:12.839 for any amount of money. My marketing I don't even 0:54:13.440 --> 0:54:15.280 even call I wouldn't even call it a marketing strategy. 0:54:15.280 --> 0:54:18.000 It's always been about serving the people. And here's the 0:54:18.040 --> 0:54:21.160 powerful thing about it is Nike wants you to be 0:54:21.200 --> 0:54:25.440 a walking billboard for Nike, where the swoosh Adidas, they 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:27.839 want you to be a walking billboard for Adidas. All 0:54:27.840 --> 0:54:29.759 of those brands want you to be walking billboards for 0:54:29.840 --> 0:54:34.200 the brand. What I flipped it is my customers are 0:54:34.239 --> 0:54:36.880 the tribe as I call them. They don't see themselves 0:54:36.880 --> 0:54:39.360 as walking billboards for Actively Black. They look at actively 0:54:39.360 --> 0:54:43.760 Black and something that represents them. We're not showing you 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:46.880 the best athletes in the world and the biggest celebrities 0:54:46.880 --> 0:54:50.759 in the world with the psychology of the marketing to 0:54:50.800 --> 0:54:52.360 make you think if you buy this, you're gonna be 0:54:52.440 --> 0:54:55.360 one percent closer to being Lebron James. You're gonna be 0:54:55.400 --> 0:54:58.759 one percent closer to being whatever celebrity is. We're making 0:54:58.800 --> 0:55:01.919 stuff not for you to aspire to be anybody else 0:55:01.920 --> 0:55:03.399 for making stuff for you to be the best version 0:55:03.400 --> 0:55:03.800 of you. 0:55:03.800 --> 0:55:04.279 You know what I mean. 0:55:04.320 --> 0:55:07.400 So these other brands are very aspirational, Actively Black and 0:55:07.440 --> 0:55:07.839 Active Fate. 0:55:07.840 --> 0:55:08.560 They're inspirational. 0:55:08.600 --> 0:55:10.640 We want you to be the most authentic and best 0:55:10.719 --> 0:55:14.359 version of you and the people resonate with that. So 0:55:14.560 --> 0:55:17.960 that's more powerful to me than any co sign from 0:55:17.960 --> 0:55:19.440 any celebrity, to be honest with you. 0:55:20.000 --> 0:55:23.960 So before we wrap, talk about your collab with Muhammad 0:55:23.960 --> 0:55:26.359 Ali's The State and Marvel. 0:55:26.760 --> 0:55:30.200 Yeah, man, Marvel, we got a chance to do a 0:55:30.239 --> 0:55:34.479 collab with Black Panther Wakonda Forever. That was a full 0:55:34.480 --> 0:55:36.359 circle moment. As you know I'm telling the story. Part 0:55:36.400 --> 0:55:38.440 of my inspiration for creating Actively Black was seeing the 0:55:38.440 --> 0:55:41.719 first movie. I got a shout out Damon John because 0:55:41.719 --> 0:55:45.360 this wouldn't have happened without him. Damon reached out to 0:55:45.400 --> 0:55:48.480 do a Footboo collab and he came to La. He's like, 0:55:48.520 --> 0:55:50.759 let's sit down and talk about it. We're talking about 0:55:50.760 --> 0:55:52.200 the food Boo collab and he asked me, well, what 0:55:52.239 --> 0:55:56.239 else are you working on? And I almost didn't show 0:55:56.320 --> 0:55:59.719 him because I had created a deck of what it 0:55:59.760 --> 0:56:02.440 would look like of an Actively Black and Black Panther collab. 0:56:02.560 --> 0:56:05.480 When I first launched Actively Black, I have no contacts 0:56:05.480 --> 0:56:07.799 that Marvel and Disney and nothing. I just knew that 0:56:08.320 --> 0:56:10.960 the synergy and what that movie meant to me and 0:56:11.000 --> 0:56:13.120 what it stood for, and what Actively Black stood for 0:56:13.200 --> 0:56:14.000 and what it meant. 0:56:14.800 --> 0:56:16.279 It was just just so much energy there. 0:56:16.320 --> 0:56:19.640 So I created a deck, had a whole collection designed, 0:56:19.800 --> 0:56:21.000 and so I showed him the deck. 0:56:21.800 --> 0:56:23.439 In the middle of the meeting. He picked up the phone. 0:56:23.480 --> 0:56:25.560 He calls the head of licensing for Marvel and Disney 0:56:25.560 --> 0:56:28.200 and he's like, you guys need to see this right now. 0:56:28.840 --> 0:56:31.960 And two days later he set up a meeting. I 0:56:32.000 --> 0:56:33.799 pitched Marvel and Disney. I showed him the deck and 0:56:33.840 --> 0:56:38.400 they were blown away. They fast tracked the whole licensing 0:56:38.440 --> 0:56:41.080 journey so that we could get stuff in time for 0:56:41.520 --> 0:56:43.960 the movie to release, and so we were able to 0:56:44.040 --> 0:56:48.800 drop the first of our collabse with Marvel and Disney 0:56:48.800 --> 0:56:52.320 for Black Panther o'conorf Forever, which has been absolutely amazing. 0:56:52.360 --> 0:56:53.800 It's opened up so many other doors. 0:56:53.840 --> 0:56:56.360 Now Marvel and Disney want us to take on some 0:56:56.480 --> 0:56:59.719 other properties that they own, So the next up is 0:56:59.719 --> 0:57:03.120 going to be Miles Morales, the Black Spider Man. 0:57:03.800 --> 0:57:06.400 So yeah, so so we'll be working on that next. 0:57:07.760 --> 0:57:13.960 And then Man Muhammad Ali collab another uh just incredible opportunity, 0:57:14.239 --> 0:57:16.600 uh that we were blessed with. They actually reached out 0:57:17.480 --> 0:57:23.560 Lani Ali, his his wife, uh widow. She was unhappy 0:57:23.640 --> 0:57:27.520 with how some other brands that have had that licensing 0:57:27.600 --> 0:57:32.600 with them haven't fully portrayed who he was, which to 0:57:32.600 --> 0:57:36.280 me is a microcosmo what what happens in American society 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:39.160 any with some of these mainstream brands. He's watered down 0:57:39.200 --> 0:57:42.000 to just be float like a butterflies, thing like a bee, 0:57:42.000 --> 0:57:43.760 you know what I mean. He's watered down to just 0:57:43.840 --> 0:57:48.880 be the champion that that they are molding him uh 0:57:48.880 --> 0:57:50.480 to be. But we all know when he was alive 0:57:50.480 --> 0:57:52.520 and when he could speak, he was one of the 0:57:52.520 --> 0:57:54.800 most hated men in white America, you know what I mean, 0:57:54.840 --> 0:57:57.920 because of what he stood for, because of his unflinching, 0:57:59.000 --> 0:58:02.560 uncompromising stance on his blackness and what he stood for. 0:58:03.160 --> 0:58:06.840 And when she saw actively black, she was like, this 0:58:06.920 --> 0:58:10.720 is the brand that can actually represent who my husband 0:58:10.920 --> 0:58:15.240 was in his full essence. And so when they reached out, uh, man, 0:58:15.360 --> 0:58:19.440 of course we say yes, and I'm just I'm honored 0:58:19.440 --> 0:58:21.720 and humble to be able to represent his legacy in 0:58:21.720 --> 0:58:25.000 a way that is reflective of who he actually was. 0:58:25.400 --> 0:58:27.800 Yeah, And I think I mentioned this to you when 0:58:28.160 --> 0:58:32.120 you have posted the Instagram posts about the potential collapse 0:58:32.120 --> 0:58:33.560 that you're coming in and it's going to be life 0:58:33.640 --> 0:58:34.760 changing and it's going to be legacy. 0:58:34.840 --> 0:58:37.280 Yep. In my mind, I was going to text you, 0:58:37.320 --> 0:58:38.640 I'm Mike. Yeah. 0:58:38.680 --> 0:58:41.680 I think he signed Kyrie Irving because it felt like 0:58:41.920 --> 0:58:44.720 somebody who had been outcast. Yeah, it felt in that time, 0:58:45.160 --> 0:58:47.280 and I was like, that would be a dope class. 0:58:47.320 --> 0:58:49.520 So for the future of that, are you looking for, 0:58:49.960 --> 0:58:53.320 you know, major athletes to partner with on Brandon? 0:58:53.600 --> 0:58:54.520 So I'll say this much. 0:58:55.000 --> 0:58:58.880 I've got a couple of NBA players who's Nike and 0:58:58.960 --> 0:59:02.160 Adidas deals have did that have expressed interest in Wane 0:59:02.200 --> 0:59:05.080 to sign with actively Black. But one thing that I'm 0:59:05.080 --> 0:59:08.640 going to always maintain is the authenticity about who we are, 0:59:08.720 --> 0:59:16.480 what we stand for. And I'll put it like this, 0:59:17.840 --> 0:59:20.840 I had a meeting with Kyrie's team six months before 0:59:20.920 --> 0:59:23.760 all of everything that ended up happening that led to 0:59:24.400 --> 0:59:30.960 the Nike releasing him, and nobody was talking about what 0:59:30.960 --> 0:59:33.000 they're talking about. Now, that's the thing that's interesting to me. 0:59:33.320 --> 0:59:36.200 I've been yelling from the rooftops, Hey, the same support 0:59:36.200 --> 0:59:38.440 that you're given the Nike and everybody else, do it. 0:59:38.560 --> 0:59:41.200 Do it for a black on brand, and black people 0:59:41.200 --> 0:59:44.320 will ignoring me. And then once Nike dropped Kyrie, then 0:59:44.360 --> 0:59:47.080 it was like, ah, man, forget Nike, we need Black 0:59:47.160 --> 0:59:49.240 And I'm like, yo, I've been saying this forever. You 0:59:49.240 --> 0:59:51.160 know what I'm saying, and y'all weren't listening to me 0:59:53.000 --> 0:59:54.600 in that meeting with his team. I'm gonna just be 0:59:54.640 --> 0:59:58.880 honest with you. It didn't align with what I thought 0:59:58.880 --> 0:59:59.840 it was going to align with. 0:59:59.880 --> 1:00:00.080 It. 1:00:00.000 --> 1:00:02.280 It wasn't about the. 1:00:02.280 --> 1:00:06.120 People in the community and and everything that actively Black 1:00:06.160 --> 1:00:12.600 stands for. The meeting didn't go the way that I 1:00:12.640 --> 1:00:15.560 thought that it would go based on what I thought 1:00:16.560 --> 1:00:21.520 that would represent. I'll say that much and that's no, 1:00:21.760 --> 1:00:25.080 that's no, that's no dis or no slight to to Kyrie. 1:00:25.240 --> 1:00:29.520 I also understand a lot of times people's teams don't 1:00:29.600 --> 1:00:33.840 accurately reflect their personal growth or what they're thinking or 1:00:33.840 --> 1:00:34.880 what they want to do at the time. 1:00:35.360 --> 1:00:37.760 So I have grace for that, but. 1:00:37.840 --> 1:00:39.840 It didn't align with with who we were, and I'm 1:00:39.880 --> 1:00:41.600 not going to sacrifice that for anybody. We had a 1:00:41.640 --> 1:00:44.640 we had a Peloton deal that I pulled the plug 1:00:44.680 --> 1:00:48.320 on because they wanted us to minimize the black talk. 1:00:48.560 --> 1:00:51.240 They wanted us to minimize how bold we were. Matter 1:00:51.240 --> 1:00:52.560 of fact, it was supposed to. It's supposed to it's 1:00:52.560 --> 1:00:53.920 supposed to drop today. It was supposed to be a 1:00:54.000 --> 1:00:58.280 Black History Month. Collabed with Peloton, and they wanted to 1:00:58.320 --> 1:01:00.840 water down who we were, and I was like, man, 1:01:01.080 --> 1:01:03.320 I'm not. It's no amount of money that's gonna make 1:01:03.400 --> 1:01:08.600 me that's gonna make me suppress who we are. You know, 1:01:08.680 --> 1:01:10.800 we're proud to be black. That's what this is about. 1:01:11.160 --> 1:01:13.400 The name is Actively Black, you know what I'm saying. 1:01:14.600 --> 1:01:17.400 And because they wanted us to change some things that 1:01:17.440 --> 1:01:20.480 I thought would sacrifice the integrity of who I am 1:01:20.640 --> 1:01:21.800 and what this brand. 1:01:21.520 --> 1:01:23.600 Stands for, I'll pull the plug on that deal. 1:01:23.720 --> 1:01:27.960 So with anybody that we're gonna partner with, or that 1:01:28.000 --> 1:01:30.240 we're gonna work with, or that we're gonna sign, they 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:33.760 got to understand that, you know, we're standing firm on 1:01:33.920 --> 1:01:36.640 what we on, what we are about. You know, the 1:01:36.680 --> 1:01:39.240 tagline for Active Black is there's greatness in our DNA 1:01:39.560 --> 1:01:44.280 and and we're unflinching in our boldness about about our blackness. 1:01:44.400 --> 1:01:47.680 So if there's anything that's gonna that's gonna uh that's 1:01:47.720 --> 1:01:51.480 going to uh sacrifice that integrity, we're not about it. 1:01:52.920 --> 1:01:53.640 There you have it. 1:01:53.680 --> 1:01:57.200 So how can people buy actively black on the website, 1:01:57.240 --> 1:01:58.080 social media and all that. 1:01:58.320 --> 1:02:02.320 Yeah, actively black dot com, the socials, actively black on 1:02:02.360 --> 1:02:07.520 all the different socials, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. You know a 1:02:07.520 --> 1:02:09.520 lot of people think I'm They still think I'm crazy. 1:02:10.320 --> 1:02:12.479 I'm gonna stop saying we're building a black Nike because 1:02:12.520 --> 1:02:17.360 what we're building is much more, has much more depth 1:02:17.400 --> 1:02:20.720 to it. It's not just another apparel brand. The way 1:02:20.760 --> 1:02:23.160 we give back to the community. You mentioned a five 1:02:23.480 --> 1:02:26.560 point six million that we did in revenue last year, 1:02:26.560 --> 1:02:30.080 we also donated over five hundred thousand dollars. That's almost 1:02:30.120 --> 1:02:32.880 ten percent of our revenue that was donating. There's no 1:02:32.960 --> 1:02:35.960 brand that's donating ten percent of their over our revenue. 1:02:36.200 --> 1:02:38.680 You look at what Nike promised the black community, and 1:02:38.680 --> 1:02:41.120 you actually think you actually look at the numbers of 1:02:41.160 --> 1:02:42.920 what their revenue and what their profit was and what 1:02:42.960 --> 1:02:47.040 they're actually giving back. It's less than one percent. And 1:02:47.440 --> 1:02:49.240 we can go across the board of all these different 1:02:49.280 --> 1:02:51.200 brands that have promised what they're gonna do for the 1:02:51.240 --> 1:02:54.240 Black community, and it's really just this minimal thing that 1:02:54.240 --> 1:02:55.360 they feel like is charity. 1:02:55.760 --> 1:02:58.720 We really about this, you know what I'm saying. So 1:02:59.000 --> 1:03:00.320 not only do we give back to the. 1:03:00.280 --> 1:03:05.280 Community, but what we're building is bigger than just another 1:03:05.280 --> 1:03:07.960 a pair of brand. Hopefully I get a chance to 1:03:07.960 --> 1:03:09.680 come back and talk with you guys, because there's some 1:03:10.120 --> 1:03:13.320 there's some plans with this that involve the next level, 1:03:13.320 --> 1:03:16.000 that involve Web three, that involves some of the things 1:03:16.000 --> 1:03:19.040 that we're going to be doing to make sure our community, 1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:22.000 our people are not left behind in this new era 1:03:22.080 --> 1:03:25.280 of what's getting ready to happen in tech and how 1:03:25.320 --> 1:03:27.080 that applies to actively black. 1:03:26.920 --> 1:03:29.480 Yeah, we appreciate you coming, man, and we show you 1:03:29.520 --> 1:03:30.440 that Fashion Week. 1:03:30.480 --> 1:03:32.520 Yes, sir. Shout out to that, Yes, sir, New York 1:03:32.520 --> 1:03:33.080 Fashion Week. 1:03:33.200 --> 1:03:33.680 Yeah. 1:03:33.480 --> 1:03:37.120 The first and only black athletes are where company to 1:03:37.200 --> 1:03:38.960 have a show on fashion. 1:03:38.720 --> 1:03:41.880 Week exactly, So it's black history, man, were making Black history. 1:03:41.600 --> 1:03:44.080 Every day, yes sir. No, not just for a month, man, 1:03:44.160 --> 1:03:48.080 Yes sir, all right, Troy House, Yeah, shout to everybody. 1:03:48.120 --> 1:03:51.440 On Patreon dot com. Shout to everybody on eyl University. 1:03:51.680 --> 1:03:54.520 Shout to actively black. I am wearing my actively black. 1:03:54.600 --> 1:03:56.880 My brother's here with us, he works out and is 1:03:56.880 --> 1:03:59.400 actively black man. That's a shout out to you. Keep 1:03:59.440 --> 1:04:02.760 supporting and keeps bought in to merch or in Elisia. Obviously, 1:04:02.800 --> 1:04:04.280 we got ask the c ovill abilities to shout out 1:04:04.280 --> 1:04:04.840 to the Mers team. 1:04:05.120 --> 1:04:07.080 Love is love. Y'all all right, God, thank you guys 1:04:07.120 --> 1:04:07.680 for rocking us. 1:04:07.720 --> 1:04:08.840 We see you next week. Peace. 1:04:09.120 --> 1:04:15.720 Peace, My graduates from my school being force back drop 1:04:16.360 --> 1:04:19.960 bag Drop Mike droft backdrop. 1:04:30.480 --> 1:04:34.160 An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child 1:04:34.160 --> 1:04:37.960 in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador 1:04:38.200 --> 1:04:42.360 accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with 1:04:42.440 --> 1:04:46.320 filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just 1:04:46.400 --> 1:04:50.120 some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President 1:04:50.200 --> 1:04:53.800 Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy Nohm, the United States 1:04:53.800 --> 1:04:58.600 Secretary of Homeland Security. Under President Trump, attempted illegal border 1:04:58.640 --> 1:05:02.200 crossings are at the lowes levels ever recorded, and over 1:05:02.240 --> 1:05:05.480 one hundred thousand illegal aliens have been arrested if you 1:05:05.520 --> 1:05:09.400 are here illegally. Your next you will be fine nearly 1:05:09.480 --> 1:05:13.479 one thousand dollars a day, imprisoned, and deported. You will 1:05:13.520 --> 1:05:17.160 never return. But if you register using our CBP home 1:05:17.200 --> 1:05:20.600 app and leave now, you could be allowed to return legally. 1:05:20.960 --> 1:05:25.720 Do what's right. Leave now. Under President Trump America's laws, 1:05:25.880 --> 1:05:28.320 border and families will be protected. 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:30.560 Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security,