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Speaker 1: You said something about one thing creators and honestly small

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Speaker 1: business owners don't have is marketing dollars. And too often

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Speaker 1: we get into business and we think about every expense

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Speaker 1: or investment except marketing dollars, advertising dollars. And so can

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Speaker 1: you talk about how important it is number one, to

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Speaker 1: have the thinking that I need to set aside resources

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Speaker 1: to put my brand, my product, my stuff in front

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Speaker 1: of people and build awareness, and how we get those

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Speaker 1: resources to be able to do that when we already

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Speaker 1: have limited resources.

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Speaker 2: One hundred percent. I mean, part of what I want

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Speaker 2: to bring up here is the power storytelling. That's really

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Speaker 2: what is in that that your business has to sell things.

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Speaker 2: You have to sell yourself, and you have to sell yourself,

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Speaker 2: not your soul, right like you have to sell your product,

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Speaker 2: you have to sell your service. But the story you're

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Speaker 2: telling and the way you position that story is every thing.

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Speaker 2: And this is you know, with our the way we

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Speaker 2: use our TikTok is all about like how do we

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Speaker 2: help these founders get positioned to tell the story. So

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Speaker 2: if you're local and you're like I'm looking for that

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Speaker 2: hair braider or that skin caroline or that, and you're

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Speaker 2: like hey, or it's at the nearest variety store, go

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Speaker 2: buy it. So to a mass of a two hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand dollars over thirty million impressions, and working with TikTok,

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Speaker 2: the way that we work, it's all about how can

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Speaker 2: we tell the best stories so that people can get

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Speaker 2: access and so in terms of marketing dollars, that's when

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Speaker 2: I realized that people are missing. If I could go

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Speaker 2: if I were to go back to twenty sixteen, we're

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Speaker 2: gonna be ten next year. If I were to go

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Speaker 2: back to twenty sixteen and launched BGV all over again,

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Speaker 2: I would launch your impact report. I would watch some

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Speaker 2: kind of white paper, some kind of report, and then

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Speaker 2: I would go on a narrative tour and I would

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Speaker 2: build the narrative first. So what I did was I

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Speaker 2: went into the I went off of the statle's than

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Speaker 2: one percent of black and miround women are receiving a

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Speaker 2: venture capital, less than two percent and a women over

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Speaker 2: is even venture capital. And I was looking at so

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Speaker 2: much of that as problem. I'm a solution problem, I'm

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Speaker 2: a solution. But in the narrative of this, all of

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Speaker 2: all of this is what I learned over time, which

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Speaker 2: is we talk about families. We're not talking about some

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Speaker 2: flippant just like oh a VC didn't give you funding. Know,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about your ability to be economically sound. And

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Speaker 2: I experienced that firsthand. It still didn't see that tie

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Speaker 2: into a way later where I was like, shoot, had

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Speaker 2: it not been for me starting a business, I wouldn't

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Speaker 2: better put my kids through college by myself on a

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Speaker 2: teacher salary. It's just not a reality, you know. So

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Speaker 2: I think that in terms of like where I've developed

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Speaker 2: over time, what I've learned over time is like I

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Speaker 2: wish that I could get out to founders because sometimes

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Speaker 2: founders can't hear. Yeah, sometimes creators they can't hear. They're

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Speaker 2: doing what they're doing. They're in it, that's all they

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Speaker 2: see that. And I probably was like at some point

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Speaker 2: I was a hard headed teenager, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: So I mean, but I'm just saying that, like it's

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Speaker 2: hard to hear. But if a narrative storytelling position yourself,

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Speaker 2: because I'm the kind of person that if you if

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Speaker 2: I'm on a list and they say, oh, you only

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Speaker 2: is the top one hundred people with glasses, honey, you

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Speaker 2: would have thought I was number one.

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Speaker 1: I was poking it.

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Speaker 2: I'm the top person with glasses all, you know, like

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Speaker 2: you got to really maximize everything you get when you're

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Speaker 2: in the early stages of entrepreneurship. And I never let

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Speaker 2: that go. Which is why we are so well positioned

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Speaker 2: with companies like Nike or TikTok or pim Co is

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Speaker 2: because that narrative part. I'm always focused on that.

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Speaker 1: So when you partner with a company slash brand like

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Speaker 1: a TikTok, and what are some of the things you

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Speaker 1: insist on, like non negotiable things that you know you authentic.

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Speaker 1: You come into this authentically and they have things that

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Speaker 1: they are trying to achieve. Also, like what are some

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Speaker 1: of the things that are like non negotiables for you

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Speaker 1: and that you assiste on And where might you have

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Speaker 1: had the compromise if at all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. We live in this crazy

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Speaker 2: economic time, so I think that it's shifted in terms

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Speaker 2: of what I have the ability to insist on, who

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Speaker 2: we serve and how we serve in a way. And

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Speaker 2: it's not that you know, it's not the brands that

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Speaker 2: are saying that to me, right, it's more like the

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Speaker 2: landscape that we are living in that causes us to

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Speaker 2: have to shift right, the brands are still doing the work.

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Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I have not the brands that we

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Speaker 2: work with behind the scenes. They still are doing the work.

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Speaker 2: It's just that again from that storytelling Pius, of that

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Speaker 2: narrative feast, we all got to be talking different about it.

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Speaker 2: So I would say that now I feel like I

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Speaker 2: have to compromise because of where we exist the current landscape,

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Speaker 2: not because of the brands. I want to be clear

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Speaker 2: on that. I feel like I have to compromise with

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Speaker 2: how I want to refer to the audience that I serve. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and that pains me. If I'm being honest, it pains me.

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Speaker 2: I hate it. I don't want to do that, Like

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Speaker 2: I don't want to do that. I want to lout

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Speaker 2: and proud say black and brown and not feel like

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Speaker 2: I got to worry about being sued or anything like that.

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Speaker 2: We're just not living in that kind of space right now.

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Speaker 2: And so I so I've been bullished on that though,

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Speaker 2: I've been bullished that, like I want to serve who

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Speaker 2: I want to serve the way I want to serve

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Speaker 2: them where I need to serve them. I know I'm

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Speaker 2: an entrepreneur. I serve entrepreneurs, and I know exactly what

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Speaker 2: I need to do. Just fund us, tell us your wins.

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Speaker 2: We will make the winds happen for you, will make

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Speaker 2: these winds mutual. In terms of compromising, I can't say.

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Speaker 2: I can't say I've had to make a lot of compromises.

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Speaker 2: I mean maybe sometimes I compromise on location, Like somebody,

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Speaker 2: you know, maybe a partner wants to go to a

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Speaker 2: city that I don't that I'm like, we could go

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Speaker 2: to that city, but it is the best city for

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Speaker 2: us to be in. Sometimes I'm lifting a city for

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Speaker 2: a partner, right, So, and that's why they want me

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Speaker 2: to go there, because they're trying to lift the city themselves,

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Speaker 2: and so we One of the things that we're good

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Speaker 2: at behind the scenes, this is something I want to

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Speaker 2: share my entrepreneurship is reporting. Our reporting is a unique

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Speaker 2: value proposition for us in the ways of white people

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Speaker 2: work with us because we really focus on how much

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Speaker 2: impact we can make and how we can report it

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Speaker 2: to you according to your wins. You get money based

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Speaker 2: off of who needs a raise. If I can get

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Speaker 2: you a raise, I'm gonna get money. So yeah, I

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Speaker 2: mean like that that but a me. Ultimately, I haven't

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Speaker 2: had to make a lot of compromises. Like I said,

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Speaker 2: I feel extremely blessed that the partners who come to

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Speaker 2: us say I am authentic, this is who I am,

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Speaker 2: and I'm like, hey, we're gonna do what we do

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Speaker 2: and we want your to rock with us. And they

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Speaker 2: haven't