Speaker 1: Season two of the Black Tech Green Money Podcast is
Speaker 1: brought to you by Lexus in the December to Remember
Speaker 1: sales event from graduation parades to birthday parties. This year
Speaker 1: Driveways hosted some new traditions. Here's to celebrating them all.
Speaker 1: Experience Amazing at your Alexis Dealer. Afro Tech World. Jeff
Speaker 1: Nelson is co founder and CTO at Blavity, the paying
Speaker 1: company of afro Tech and the Internet's biggest destination for
Speaker 1: black millennials. And in his talk at afro Tech World,
Speaker 1: he focuses on the idea of building a tech product
Speaker 1: as a non technical founder and here's his thoughts and
Speaker 1: what kinds of tech products are best suited to fine
Speaker 1: success in the marketplace. If you think about the biggest companies,
Speaker 1: things that we use every day, the the Ubers of
Speaker 1: the world, social networks like Instagram, um, companies that we
Speaker 1: know and use every day. The key thing about the
Speaker 1: the sort of tech companies that are emerging and will
Speaker 1: continue to emerge and the successful are those companies that
Speaker 1: are simplifying the collaboration between humans and technology. And that's
Speaker 1: a really really important distinction. You know, some people have
Speaker 1: the mistaken belief that the goal of technology is to
Speaker 1: displace humans. That you know, things like artificial intelligence and
Speaker 1: machine learning are there to eliminate jobs and eliminate humans
Speaker 1: from certain UH sectors in certain things, and that's not
Speaker 1: really the case. Really, the sweet spot for technology is
Speaker 1: if you make the lives of people easier, if you
Speaker 1: allow people to be more productive, if you allow them
Speaker 1: to be more efficient, and you allow them to be happier.
Speaker 1: The secrets and technology is leveraging it to take things
Speaker 1: that humans aren't really good at doing. Its scale right, UM,
Speaker 1: So if you think about, you know, some of the
Speaker 1: tasks that you have to do on a daily basis
Speaker 1: UM and some of the tools that you may know
Speaker 1: and use on a daily basis UH to to take
Speaker 1: repetitive tasks and make it easier to scale those up
Speaker 1: or to scale those out. It is replacing you. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you don't have to be a
Speaker 1: part of that equation, but it simply means that you're
Speaker 1: using technology to make yourself more efficient and more productive.
Speaker 1: And going forward, that's gonna be even more important, especially
Speaker 1: as we live in a world where technology is going
Speaker 1: to be more paramount. If we're video conferencing more if
Speaker 1: we're working remotely, if we're video, video conferencing, instant messaging,
Speaker 1: doing all those things, having virtual events. Technology is gonna
Speaker 1: be a play a big role in that. But as
Speaker 1: we see, technology is the only part of the solution.
Speaker 1: There's still that human element that we hold near and
Speaker 1: near and so that's gonna be super, super important. So
Speaker 1: as you're thinking about your vision of the world, think
Speaker 1: about how the area of technology that you're passionate about it,
Speaker 1: that you're working with, is going to make it easier
Speaker 1: for humans to be productive and more efficient. How do
Speaker 1: you simplify that interaction between humans and technology. I'm with
Speaker 1: Lucas and this is Black Tech, Green Money. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: you do see to some of the biggest names, some
Speaker 1: of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas. If you're black
Speaker 1: in building or simply using tech to secure your back,
Speaker 1: this podcast is for you. Ruben has his co founding
Speaker 1: CEO at Career Karma in the Bay Area, transplant from Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: where he worked as an investment banker. He got bit
Speaker 1: by the tech bug early in his career and wrote
Speaker 1: a blog post that went viral called breaking in the Startups,
Speaker 1: which put him on the radar Silicon Valley a lead
Speaker 1: career karmas an app that helps job training programs, specifically
Speaker 1: coding boot camps, but also other verticals find qualified applicants.
Speaker 1: I asked him why he wrote that blog post, which
Speaker 1: you can finally from the show notes, and how likely,
Speaker 1: at least in part it opened up his pathway to
Speaker 1: success and the reason why I wrote that blog post
Speaker 1: because I learned about the power of riding through my
Speaker 1: experience breaking into finance. So when I broke into fine
Speaker 1: I first started writing actually in college, UM, when I
Speaker 1: took a class on music history, and I learned about
Speaker 1: philosophers and social reformers and how they were great writers,
Speaker 1: like Socrates and Aristotle and things like that. So I
Speaker 1: had a blog called The Social Reformer that turned into
Speaker 1: my own blog. And then when I graduated from banking,
Speaker 1: I mean from from college, UM, I didn't have any
Speaker 1: internships or and I didn't have any work experience either
Speaker 1: because I was just studying the whole time. And so
Speaker 1: I wrote a blog that explained all the reasons why
Speaker 1: someone wouldn't hire me as an investment banker. But I
Speaker 1: declared that I was going to do it. Anyway, And
Speaker 1: the reason why I think that was powerful for myself
Speaker 1: is because it kind of forced me to do it,
Speaker 1: because I told people I was going to do this
Speaker 1: thing and if I didn't do what, I was gonna
Speaker 1: be embarrassed. And so that also led to thousands of
Speaker 1: people reaching out to me after I got a job,
Speaker 1: and me helping a lot of people do it. And
Speaker 1: so I just did the same playbook that worked for
Speaker 1: me for finance for tech so um. I actually wrote
Speaker 1: this blog post that I published on LinkedIn a few
Speaker 1: years ago called Hey startups, you don't live in Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley and kind of went crazy the on LinkedIn because
Speaker 1: I was frustrated at the time because all the advice
Speaker 1: that was coming out about how to raise capital from
Speaker 1: angels and vcs was from people from Silicon Valley to
Speaker 1: Paul you know, uh, Paul Grahams and etcetera in the
Speaker 1: sam autments where you know well, and I was finding
Speaker 1: that that advice didn't work in a place like Georgia
Speaker 1: or Ohio or etcetera, right, but it worked for Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley people. But there was nothing that related those experiences,
Speaker 1: you know, across geographies. And so how do you keep
Speaker 1: you have this amazing podcast breaking in the startups. You're
Speaker 1: avid writer and etcetera. You put out a lot of content.
Speaker 1: How did you keep that information you distribute on your
Speaker 1: podcasts and etcetera relevant to people who may be not
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley? Yeah, I mean I think I think
Speaker 1: Afrotech knows as well. Um this like career comminos as,
Speaker 1: I would say, keeping fresh content is the key, just
Speaker 1: staying relevant every company. A lot of people in tech
Speaker 1: talk about how every startup, every company is a media company,
Speaker 1: and I think I would take it to another level.
Speaker 1: Every human being is a media company. In order to
Speaker 1: be successful in this day and age, you have to
Speaker 1: take either an artist or a um even a model
Speaker 1: approach like a supermodel has to be their own brand. Um.
Speaker 1: Kanye tweeted artists our founders, and somebody else said founders
Speaker 1: are artists, right. You have to promote yourself right and
Speaker 1: so um in especially in a COVID nineteen world. And
Speaker 1: if you want to work remotely, writing is a superpower,
Speaker 1: and writing fast is even better, and not just because
Speaker 1: it gives you clarity of thought, but it can greatly
Speaker 1: um increase your your your economic salary and attract people
Speaker 1: to you. Um, there's a u UM, there's a great
Speaker 1: quote that one of our investor says is that inbound
Speaker 1: is what happens when outbound is your DNA. And so
Speaker 1: Career Comma like we we we produce six D seven
Speaker 1: hundred articles a month, right, so that's a company general content.
Speaker 1: I know approtype produces a ton of articles a month.
Speaker 1: But then you also have user generated content, right, you
Speaker 1: have opinion writers and then in our community, since we
Speaker 1: have over a hundred thousand users, they're all asking questions
Speaker 1: of getting advice that gets discovered on Google. And then
Speaker 1: you also have programmatic landing pages. So our engineers create
Speaker 1: different combinations of landing pages that will pop up in
Speaker 1: Google that are relevant so that Career Comma stays in
Speaker 1: its position as the number one destination for career advice
Speaker 1: on the Internet. And when they come here and they're
Speaker 1: looking for advice, we can match them to the right
Speaker 1: training and give them support to get his up. Oh
Speaker 1: it's it's it's so good you did that, because I
Speaker 1: mean I was gonna go there later in the interview,
Speaker 1: but since we're here now, UM, I was going to
Speaker 1: talk about this is because you know, when I learned
Speaker 1: the kind of philosophy that every business should treat themselves
Speaker 1: like a media company. Is Gay advantage Chuck said it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's other people who said it, but I
Speaker 1: heard Gay Advantage talk about, you know, every company should,
Speaker 1: and every startup is for that matter, should think of
Speaker 1: themselves as a media company. And you've done a great
Speaker 1: job at that with the podcast, the written content and
Speaker 1: news even um, how do you let's you're an early
Speaker 1: stage startup, how do you justify um or how do
Speaker 1: you even get good at doing so many forms of
Speaker 1: media when you still have to be good at what
Speaker 1: your core business is UM and you may not you know,
Speaker 1: be the best writer or if you are a great writer,
Speaker 1: you may not be great at podcasting. If you great
Speaker 1: a podcast, and you may not be great on video.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm. That's a good question. I mean, so we're
Speaker 1: a marketplace, like on one side, there's there's the demand,
Speaker 1: there's workers, or there's people that are looking to rescale
Speaker 1: an upskill and get a new job. And then on
Speaker 1: the other side you have training programs and hiring platforms
Speaker 1: and companies and even financiers that can help people that
Speaker 1: are looking for these career transitions and need guidance. And
Speaker 1: so whenever you think about a marketplace, you want to
Speaker 1: pick a side, and especially in the beginning, and so
Speaker 1: decide that we chose in the beginning was workers, because
Speaker 1: if we do right by workers and students that are
Speaker 1: looking to make a transition, then all the other platforms
Speaker 1: are going to come to us. Because recruiters don't own
Speaker 1: their own supply, right, schools are always trying to compete
Speaker 1: to get students right UM. Hiring platforms also they need
Speaker 1: to get qualified applicants from not just one school but
Speaker 1: all the schools. And so if we serve workers, then
Speaker 1: we're able to get everybody else. So you'll see in
Speaker 1: the beginning, all of the content on YouTube and on
Speaker 1: our podcast and everything was just catered towards making sure
Speaker 1: they are informed versus us just talking about all the
Speaker 1: things that the schools are offering. You don't hear us
Speaker 1: talking too much about what the schools are offering. It's
Speaker 1: always like the struggles of the users. Now, UM, to
Speaker 1: your point. You know, there's a lot of formats that
Speaker 1: you can follow. You can follow video, you do podcasts,
Speaker 1: you can do writing. Um. We started off with the podcast,
Speaker 1: which is breaking in start us and I think it's important.
Speaker 1: But we learned quickly that podcasts are helpful in certain ways.
Speaker 1: But you have to be mindful of how Google's algorithm works,
Speaker 1: all right, And when it comes to podcasting, it's we
Speaker 1: definitely want to put out our own account content, but
Speaker 1: don't sleep on the importance of being on other people's podcasts.
Speaker 1: Like for example, I'm on your podcast now, and when
Speaker 1: you publish it and you linked, we linked to each other.
Speaker 1: We support each other. That helps me better in Google, right,
Speaker 1: And since these podcasts aren't always transcribed, then like that's
Speaker 1: not gonna pop up very quickly. And the reason why
Speaker 1: you to pop up very quickly and searches because people
Speaker 1: with that are searching for a career advice are going
Speaker 1: to use Google to search. And you want to be
Speaker 1: number one. And so what ranks number one on top
Speaker 1: of you know, podcasts or or programmatic landing pages and reviews.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be written content, right or user generated content,
Speaker 1: and so um we double down heavy on creating user
Speaker 1: generated content, which that is to the point where now
Speaker 1: we have by October will be at over a million
Speaker 1: people coming to us per month. And so I'm in
Speaker 1: the beginning. We started off with video UM after podcasts,
Speaker 1: and we still do a little bit of video, but
Speaker 1: then COVID nineteen hit and now almost all of our
Speaker 1: content is UM either user generated content, company generated content,
Speaker 1: or um A programmatic landing pages, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like what the pinterest will do, although like aggregate different content,
Speaker 1: like if you're looking for a wedding, it looks like
Speaker 1: they made that, but it was actually an aggregation of
Speaker 1: what everybody else did together. And we will pick up
Speaker 1: our podcasts games stronger more. But I'm spending most of
Speaker 1: my time doing other people's podcasts, which allows us to grow.
Speaker 1: But you'll see more of that drops on. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: just because I'm interested as a marketer, you know, I
Speaker 1: think about UM. I wonder what your philosophy is on
Speaker 1: the written stuff, because you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: content and specifically the types of people that career karma
Speaker 1: is targeting because you're helping people reskill is these people
Speaker 1: are consuming content while they're inline that target or while
Speaker 1: they're in line at the grocery store, while they're cooking
Speaker 1: and their kids are making noise in the background. Is
Speaker 1: uh So I think about video a lot in that
Speaker 1: way because again, it takes very low pressure, low you know,
Speaker 1: engagement in order for them to be paying attention. They
Speaker 1: don't have to do a lot. Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: a good it's a good point because um, I think
Speaker 1: you want to figure a go ahead. I think you
Speaker 1: got it. I think you got it. Um, I think um.
Speaker 1: The written part is more for Google, even though they
Speaker 1: are recognizing audio and video. But whenever you discover written
Speaker 1: content on career Comma, you'll also see audio and video
Speaker 1: inside of those pages. For the people who don't have
Speaker 1: time to that. You kind of like get the best
Speaker 1: of everything when you go to the page and so UM.
Speaker 1: To your point, a lot of people are busy, which
Speaker 1: is why we created audio and video for people to
Speaker 1: consume UM. But most of the written content programmatic landing
Speaker 1: pages are designed to optimize for Google. But now that
Speaker 1: podcasts are blowing up and videos go blowing up, we're
Speaker 1: monitoring to see what is recognized the most by Google
Speaker 1: so that we can make sure that those podcasts and
Speaker 1: those videos rank as well and are discovered by people.
Speaker 1: Actullent um before I get too much for them. People
Speaker 1: will have regio bio and I already introduced you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what career Karma actually does
Speaker 1: and forth. Yeah, so career Comma is the easiest way
Speaker 1: to find a job training program online. So we are
Speaker 1: our core user is we serve blue collar workers between
Speaker 1: the ages of thirty five years old. Doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: age you are, but just that's the core years old
Speaker 1: that want to want to get a job in tech
Speaker 1: and we help them choose from six different career paths
Speaker 1: that are technical and non technical. So if you want
Speaker 1: to break into tech, we can help you become a
Speaker 1: sales person, an engineer, designer, data scientists, data analysts, or
Speaker 1: in cybersecurity. And the Irish salary that we help you
Speaker 1: make is about sellars and that will usually take you
Speaker 1: between three to twelve months in order to get a job.
Speaker 1: I think what's unique about our platform is not only
Speaker 1: are we the easiest place to find the right job
Speaker 1: training for you, but we'll also match you with the
Speaker 1: people that have your shared struggle in a small group
Speaker 1: called a squad that will give you support during the program,
Speaker 1: during the job search, for the rest of your life,
Speaker 1: all the way through the jobs. So you get access
Speaker 1: to not just the right job training programs, but you
Speaker 1: get access to a network. We have over a hundred
Speaker 1: twenty years inside a Career Comma now last year it
Speaker 1: was ten thousand, so we're growing very fast. And so
Speaker 1: these users are people that can that are currently intending
Speaker 1: these programs that can that you can always message to
Speaker 1: help you find a school, finish the school, and get
Speaker 1: a job. So I think that's what important. So you're
Speaker 1: getting access to a network, and that's important because we
Speaker 1: are in a world where people are changing careers five
Speaker 1: or more times in their lifetime the average tenor and
Speaker 1: the job is one or two years. So anytime you
Speaker 1: want to switch jobs or or get a new skill,
Speaker 1: you can always come to Career Comma. We can manage
Speaker 1: to the right training. Currently we offer a safe career past,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna offer We're gonna launch twenty five new
Speaker 1: career pass in the next twenty four months, so stay tuned. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember when it was just just coding, and so
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit.
Speaker 1: What I think about um, this pandemic COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: that a lot of people without work um and and
Speaker 1: many probably I don't want to say more, but in
Speaker 1: many cases less desirable work realities, right, and for the
Speaker 1: people you target as career common users or people who
Speaker 1: would benefit from the programs was typically the makeup of
Speaker 1: those people who might find it interesting. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, most of the people if
Speaker 1: you look at the frontline workers that are fighting hard
Speaker 1: and the essential workers that are like the heroes in
Speaker 1: this pandemic, UM, a lot of them also are are
Speaker 1: suffering too. You know, you see a lot of retail
Speaker 1: workers UM that are giving us food, that are that
Speaker 1: are affected from from restaurant closures. You see a lot
Speaker 1: of UM nurses that come to career commedies, see a
Speaker 1: lot of UM. You see a lot of teachers that
Speaker 1: come to career COMMA because schools are shutting down as well.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of people that most of the
Speaker 1: time they went to community college or got their specialists
Speaker 1: or UM got some college and a degree, or never
Speaker 1: finished college, never tried to do college, UM that come
Speaker 1: to career COMMA. That doesn't mean that we don't have
Speaker 1: like white collar people that went to Avolie schools that
Speaker 1: come to career come as well. But the core's people
Speaker 1: that have gone to college or had some schooling that
Speaker 1: are an adult that are looking to make a career
Speaker 1: transition in their life. I'll say that's that's the core
Speaker 1: user that comes to Career Comma when it comes to
Speaker 1: their struggles. That a lot of people don't realize is that, yes,
Speaker 1: matching you to the right training is one thing, but
Speaker 1: many people that come to us have bad credit. You know,
Speaker 1: how do you navigate that a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: understand how to navigate that. We can help you navigate that.
Speaker 1: A lot of people come to us and their child
Speaker 1: stepped on their laptop. How you navigate that? So we
Speaker 1: can help you get access to a laptop because we're
Speaker 1: giving away five thousand laptops right now. We're currently running
Speaker 1: this campaign called Rescale America, the Great Rehiring Initiative, and
Speaker 1: we have cool people like Colin Kaepernick and Square and
Speaker 1: get Hub and a Firm and air Table and always
Speaker 1: other people that have donated um in our campaign to
Speaker 1: raise about half a million dollars to get you all devices.
Speaker 1: So we'll give you that for free if you're serious
Speaker 1: about this, like it's super important to obviously there's conditions,
Speaker 1: but like we want to make sure that you have
Speaker 1: all the support that you need in order to get
Speaker 1: a job. So I would just say, um, it's the
Speaker 1: core users, that blue collar worker between the needs of
Speaker 1: of of of five years old that's looking to get
Speaker 1: a skill, and I think it's important to have empathy
Speaker 1: with what's happening right, you know, jabry training is this huge, massive,
Speaker 1: growing trend and everybody's getting at a game. And this
Speaker 1: is why there's there's over fifty five million people that
Speaker 1: have filed Americans. I filed for unemployment UM this year alone,
Speaker 1: and fifty four percent of the workforce requires reskilling about
Speaker 1: two all right. Also, you know, how are you going
Speaker 1: to pick what job training program you're gonna do. There's
Speaker 1: nine thousand boot camp and trade schools out there, sixty
Speaker 1: million people go there every year. There's over five thousand
Speaker 1: different colleges out there. Twenty million people go to college
Speaker 1: every year. And then you have college employers launching their
Speaker 1: own boot camps, you have you know, uh, their own
Speaker 1: credentials and things like that with Google launching their credentials.
Speaker 1: So how do you pick what's going to be best
Speaker 1: for you? And so we help people navigate that sea
Speaker 1: of options UM through our software, but also about connecting
Speaker 1: up with people that are currently doing it and they
Speaker 1: have done it before this maybe you know a mind
Speaker 1: field for you. But I wonder how you think the
Speaker 1: educational system has to adapt the traditional education system colleges, universities,
Speaker 1: and etcetera, um forced or otherwise have to adapt because
Speaker 1: of the COVID nineteen pandemic and preparing people for actually
Speaker 1: being able to get out there and find a job
Speaker 1: versus you know, people graduating with a communication degrees and
Speaker 1: don't really have and I know not to you know
Speaker 1: down that, but you have to actually have a skill,
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah, I think. Um. So, the reason why
Speaker 1: we chose to start with coding book camps, that's because
Speaker 1: we felt that boot camps are the first rapid rescaling
Speaker 1: model at SKI that house blue collar workers enter high
Speaker 1: paying career fields. Right and now that bootcuts have set
Speaker 1: the example, traditional education players are not following their lead.
Speaker 1: For example, you know, boot cants prove that flexible financing
Speaker 1: options like income share agreements or defer tuition work and
Speaker 1: for the people that don't what an income share agreement
Speaker 1: is an income share agreement as a promise to get
Speaker 1: you a job, and if you don't get a job,
Speaker 1: you don't pay anything. But if you do get a job,
Speaker 1: then the tuition comes out of your new salary. And
Speaker 1: there's variations on the model called defer tuition and things
Speaker 1: like that. So now that that has worked consistently, now
Speaker 1: you have UH welding schools and diesel training centers that
Speaker 1: are offering this as well. And now that traditional edification
Speaker 1: players are are copying them, this model is expanding into
Speaker 1: other industries. Houses and universities themselves not have their own
Speaker 1: boot counts, and so as you, I think what's gonna
Speaker 1: happen now is all these traditional industries that have destroyers
Speaker 1: of workers need to understand what the needs of the
Speaker 1: employers are and match it with the right training so
Speaker 1: that you cannot just get people the job, but get
Speaker 1: people the job quickly. Because this the wrong decision has
Speaker 1: a high cost of failure. Right, people are investing time
Speaker 1: and money into this right three to twenty four months
Speaker 1: of your time, ten of your money, whatever program that
Speaker 1: you go through, and if you choose wrong, then that
Speaker 1: could cause financial ruin for your family for generations to come.
Speaker 1: When your question was about education players, I think education
Speaker 1: players have to understand the needs of the worker and
Speaker 1: understand this high cost of failure ideally provide accessible financing um.
Speaker 1: Maybe even the employer paying for it themselves right um,
Speaker 1: which is even better than the income share agreement. UM.
Speaker 1: Maybe the government even figuring out how to give workers
Speaker 1: some kind of reskilling stype in which would be cool
Speaker 1: if that had But in general, education players need to
Speaker 1: do things faster and make sure that they're relevant with
Speaker 1: what employers want. Um. And honestly, I think what will
Speaker 1: be radical is like some type of uh not keeping
Speaker 1: the Department of Labor in the Department of Education separate,
Speaker 1: just like put them together. For people who are not
Speaker 1: super technical, um, but have a maybe maybe don't have
Speaker 1: a desire to be engineered, but they want to be
Speaker 1: in this industry that is obviously the future and it
Speaker 1: is today. Also, even talk about what career cerminent offers
Speaker 1: those people who have no interest in sitting in front
Speaker 1: of a computer writing code every day. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say the faster way to get in outside of coding
Speaker 1: is sales. And the reason why I say sales is
Speaker 1: because you know he talks about this too. In the beginning,
Speaker 1: in the early days of startup, you want to be
Speaker 1: writing code and talking to users. The people that talk
Speaker 1: to users are the CEO of the sales guys are
Speaker 1: the people that the distribution guys, the customer support, customer
Speaker 1: success guys. Sales is the highest page job in the world.
Speaker 1: It is, all right, It is like I have a
Speaker 1: friend who's a contract. Last year he made fos. But
Speaker 1: the reason why it pays so much is not just
Speaker 1: because it's like a walk in the park. It's hard
Speaker 1: most of the time. They say, like closing an enterprise sales, dude,
Speaker 1: is like passing a bill in Congress. Right, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not easy. Sales cycles be long and and it's
Speaker 1: not easy to It's very easy to have that first meeting,
Speaker 1: it's not easy to do the follow up. It's not
Speaker 1: easy to like make sure you're on it for understanding
Speaker 1: everybody's paying with multiple people in your pipeline, and you've
Speaker 1: got to be recognized that most of the things that
Speaker 1: you're gonna do are gonna fail. Right, And but well,
Speaker 1: it's nice about sales is you can get a job
Speaker 1: faster than coding. It pays well, uh, you can. You
Speaker 1: can make the same amount of money the engineers and
Speaker 1: make and there's no cap to your upside. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: have to choose a company that has no cap, which
Speaker 1: most companies is that standard. Like you're gonna have no cap,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have a quota for you, which is a
Speaker 1: goal for you to hit and usually that's going to
Speaker 1: get you in the six figure range if you hit it,
Speaker 1: and then anything else that you cause is upside. So
Speaker 1: you are in control of your own destiny, which is
Speaker 1: also very good experience for running a company. The other
Speaker 1: thing that's a good experience for running company is when
Speaker 1: things are going well, they're gonna acknowledge you. When things
Speaker 1: aren't going well, they're gonna holize and they can't you manage,
Speaker 1: you know, and you've gotta be comfortable with that and
Speaker 1: recognize that, Like, even if it's not directly your fault,
Speaker 1: leaders take more. In my opinion, I think it's better
Speaker 1: to take more of your share of the lame and
Speaker 1: less of the credit even when things are going well. Right,
Speaker 1: So whenever you're going through this process, it's always like
Speaker 1: recognize that, like in order to keep the party going,
Speaker 1: you want to keep going in and acknowledge all the
Speaker 1: people around you to help you get there. Like if
Speaker 1: I'm a sales and I'm doing well, marketing helped me, right,
Speaker 1: the research team helped me get inside, you know, like
Speaker 1: like all the engineers helped me understand, Like when I
Speaker 1: told him what the problem was, they built the feature
Speaker 1: to make sure that this person was happy. So you
Speaker 1: gotta always spread love to everybody else, you know. Also,
Speaker 1: the reason why this is important because the fort loss
Speaker 1: of power UM, you know, number one of four. The
Speaker 1: loss of power is never outsiging the master. If you
Speaker 1: start getting too good, especially in the Dog Eat Dog team,
Speaker 1: you know, they want to cut your head off, So
Speaker 1: you always want to kind of like downplay yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit. Played again. So I would say, for the
Speaker 1: people are listening that are non technical, I would I
Speaker 1: would explore UM sales UM. Another close runner up is
Speaker 1: UM Marketing, but marketing and starting to become more technical
Speaker 1: these days. UM. But it's great because you know, what
Speaker 1: we talked about earlier with s c O is that
Speaker 1: UM and and mark and content is that most startups
Speaker 1: don't understand how to do SCO properly. That's why forty
Speaker 1: cents of every dollar, may see dollar goes to Facebook
Speaker 1: and Google, all right, And it's hard to create content epically,
Speaker 1: especially written content, but also video and audio. Although HR
Speaker 1: and there too. We need more back people in HR. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how more of us get in the door, because
Speaker 1: these compass right. Season two of the Black Tech Dreen
Speaker 1: Money Podcast is brought to you by Lexus, known for
Speaker 1: celebrating driveway moments for over thirty years, Lexus invites you
Speaker 1: to create more with exclusive offers on the most popular
Speaker 1: Lexus models at the December to Remember Sales event experience
Speaker 1: Amazing at your Alexis dealer. According to Myers Briggs, I'm
Speaker 1: an I N T P and if you like me,
Speaker 1: many jobs in tech will be a great fit, per
Speaker 1: study done by Career Kerma. For instance, as an aerospace
Speaker 1: engineer you can make it around eighty thousand dollars annually.
Speaker 1: An electrician could put in fifty k. I as ruping
Speaker 1: about the opportunity in tech and why too many people
Speaker 1: are apprehensive to get started in the industry, Ruben Harris
Speaker 1: speaks on it um lack of confidence, lack of belief
Speaker 1: in themselves. Um, it's like imposter syndrome is a very
Speaker 1: big deal for a lot of people. So, but if
Speaker 1: you don't know what imposti syndrome is, it's um. It's
Speaker 1: when you are fully qualified to do something, but you've
Speaker 1: convinced yourself that you're not enough and that you don't
Speaker 1: belong UM, and so you know, you might be like, wow,
Speaker 1: there's no women in tech and no black people in tech,
Speaker 1: so you know, who am I to do this? Right?
Speaker 1: When you don't realize that whatever you feel as weird
Speaker 1: or you're unique about you as I will be your
Speaker 1: superpower on what you want to double down on. And
Speaker 1: I think that we don't realize our power, like our story,
Speaker 1: like you know, the fact that we didn't grow up
Speaker 1: with the solver spoon or that we didn't grow up
Speaker 1: in certain things, is is the key part of your
Speaker 1: story that you really want to preach and you want
Speaker 1: to tell and you want to and you want to
Speaker 1: hone in on. And I think that, UM, the reason
Speaker 1: why a lot of people don't don't take that for
Speaker 1: a step is not just because of lack of confidence UM,
Speaker 1: but also and I positive, but also because of strife
Speaker 1: around us, but also because of UM lack of familiarity
Speaker 1: with the skills that are required and what it takes
Speaker 1: in order to pass the emissions process, to survive the
Speaker 1: program and go through the job search. Right. I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason why we create a career
Speaker 1: commons to be this rapid round support system that educates
Speaker 1: you on what's going on. Right, Automation is going to
Speaker 1: create and destroy jobs for ever, and that's not a
Speaker 1: bad thing. That's just how it works, right, Um, but
Speaker 1: you need to always and most of the time when
Speaker 1: we're looking for a career advice, we're gonna talk to
Speaker 1: our friends and family, but they're probably not going to
Speaker 1: have the most up to date information about required skills
Speaker 1: and the career paths. And since we don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends and family that are in these roles,
Speaker 1: that's another reason why we don't go in that direction.
Speaker 1: And that's another reason why we create a career comments
Speaker 1: so that you can have other people that look like you,
Speaker 1: and why afro Tech has afro Tech World so that
Speaker 1: you can see other people that look like you that
Speaker 1: are doing this, so that you know that you're not alone.
Speaker 1: You know. The post secondary education system, speaking of about
Speaker 1: changes with colleges, they train you for your first job
Speaker 1: and then leave you a loan to navigate forty forty
Speaker 1: years of your life by yourself. All right, Loneliness is
Speaker 1: a big deal. Now, suicide is a very big deal
Speaker 1: now because of unemployment, depression, anxiety and UM, people are
Speaker 1: seeking community even more today. You know, speaking of Afro
Speaker 1: tech world, there's a very viral thing going on on Twitter.
Speaker 1: They're not saying I grew up here. It's a picture
Speaker 1: of video games that people played and that's where their
Speaker 1: community was. It was an escape, you know, this thing
Speaker 1: called second life. All right. It was beautiful about tech
Speaker 1: today is that it's bridging the online of the offline
Speaker 1: world and making it fluid. All right. People say remote
Speaker 1: work is going to be there forever, and in my opinion, yes,
Speaker 1: remote work will be an option forever, but there will
Speaker 1: be some people that prefer in person, some people that
Speaker 1: prefer a hybrid to go online or offline. That's what
Speaker 1: we're going to so, UM, the story answer is imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1: Second is lack of familiarity. And third there are struggles
Speaker 1: that people deal with as blue collar workers and that
Speaker 1: most organizations don't understand, like what I said, with credit
Speaker 1: and devices and things like that, housing and things like that.
Speaker 1: And so we'll help you figure that out if you
Speaker 1: need it. You mentioned you know your target demographic. I
Speaker 1: believe thirty five and UM, and I know that's a target.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you don't accept people younger and twenty
Speaker 1: five or people older than thirty five. Specifically, for the
Speaker 1: people who are older than thirty five, let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: thirty seven and forty whatever years old, for those who
Speaker 1: you found in you know what, I'm asking you about
Speaker 1: specific cases, but you can be general. What is typical
Speaker 1: about those on the higher end of your users that
Speaker 1: I found success. What's what's typical about those cases? The people?
Speaker 1: So we have several people that are in their fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties that have gotten jobs in the career Comma
Speaker 1: as well. The way that they get jobs is through
Speaker 1: communication and through leveraging the life experience that they have
Speaker 1: in other spaces. Right, there's a really good movie that
Speaker 1: I watched recently called UM's called The Intern Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw with Robert de Niro and Ann Hathaway Because for
Speaker 1: the people that don't know, it's about a senior internship
Speaker 1: program and essentially it's for people in the sixties that
Speaker 1: are that are going to get an internship at a
Speaker 1: growing tech company run by a woman that's played by Hathaway,
Speaker 1: e commerce company. That's really dope movie because this dude
Speaker 1: was a very successful salesperson at a company that that
Speaker 1: happens to be the same building where she works in.
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna tell the whole movie, but the
Speaker 1: point is is that um whoever is older than thirty
Speaker 1: five or has life experience in some place or work
Speaker 1: experience in some place. So whenever you are thinking about
Speaker 1: making a career transition as an engineer or designer, data
Speaker 1: scientists or whatever, focus on building projects related to the
Speaker 1: domain that you know. Right. So, for example, you got
Speaker 1: a piano in the background, right, I say, Let's say,
Speaker 1: let's say that you are a musician. I'm a musician
Speaker 1: like that, and so like if you are building projects
Speaker 1: related to music and you have a history, like you've
Speaker 1: been playing, I say, you're a jazz musician for for
Speaker 1: thirty years before you decided to break into tech. What
Speaker 1: you get to the job search and you're applying to
Speaker 1: companies like Spotify or SoundCloud or Title or whatever. You're
Speaker 1: not a junior developer. You are a seasoned professional musician
Speaker 1: that happens to know how to code, right, And so
Speaker 1: you have to be able to communicate that story because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you are in an
Speaker 1: advantage because if you're applying for a company that's hot,
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna have the coding skills, everybody's gonna have the
Speaker 1: sales skills. There's gonna be nothing that makes like your
Speaker 1: sales and code. Let's pretend like that that will and
Speaker 1: I got the same skills and and in in coding
Speaker 1: or sales. What's gonna make you hire him over me?
Speaker 1: It's just he's a he's a benefit personality wise, life wise,
Speaker 1: experience wise. And you might be like, well, I never
Speaker 1: worked in corporate before. Great, what's your struggle that you've
Speaker 1: been through. Bring that to the table and apply to
Speaker 1: companies that are focus on solving problems related to that struggle. Right,
Speaker 1: you might have been Yeah. I mean I could go
Speaker 1: into many different examples of this, but the point is
Speaker 1: is that it comes down to communication. Whether you are
Speaker 1: senior or junior or mid level, like, communication at the
Speaker 1: end of the day is what's going to get you
Speaker 1: the job and your portfolio that you build. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: this great Segle. I found this quote that you um
Speaker 1: previously stated, and I want you to expand on this.
Speaker 1: You said, it's easy to think that the way you're
Speaker 1: doing you're going to rise is through your skills technically,
Speaker 1: but the way that you rise is actually through your
Speaker 1: non technical skills and understanding how to communicate and be
Speaker 1: creative and manage your perception, which is also your story.
Speaker 1: I want you to go deeper on that whole thing,
Speaker 1: because you just started there. I'm pushing you to go further.
Speaker 1: I love it, I love it. I love that you
Speaker 1: bring this up. So and in addition to communication, you
Speaker 1: have to realize that building company is as a team sport.
Speaker 1: And using the music analogy, it's like playing in the band.
Speaker 1: Right when you're playing in a band or you're doing
Speaker 1: chamber music, you can't always play loud do. You have
Speaker 1: to figure out how to play in a way that
Speaker 1: blends well with everybody else. But you gotta know when
Speaker 1: to rest. You gotta know when to fall black. You
Speaker 1: don't know when to lean it, and you gotta know
Speaker 1: when to just this is not your this is not
Speaker 1: your turn. Like maybe sit on the bench, you know,
Speaker 1: ask the right questions, watch the plays like so I
Speaker 1: think that, Um, something that people don't understand is people
Speaker 1: aren't just looking for hires that they like. They want
Speaker 1: to understand how you work with others, how you work
Speaker 1: with us. That's why things like pair programming are very important. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're in sales, like, how do you talk for
Speaker 1: people who don't know program? Pair program Pair programming is when, Um,
Speaker 1: if you're a developer, you're gonna be coding with somebody
Speaker 1: else in order to get something else, like somebody being
Speaker 1: in the driver's seat and you're in the passenger seat
Speaker 1: and somebody like you're doing the steering wheel, somebody else's
Speaker 1: like pushing the pedal. It's kind of like it's like
Speaker 1: Batman and Robin. So it's it's a way to get
Speaker 1: things done. And there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: other things that developers do on a team. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not an engineer. I'm in sales, so I'll use a
Speaker 1: sales analogy which is similar, right, and sales you have
Speaker 1: sales development representatives that you have account executives. Sales development
Speaker 1: representatives are going to take all the leads that marketing
Speaker 1: is giving you, or they're gonna hunt their own leads
Speaker 1: that are coming to get those sponsorships from airports site. Right,
Speaker 1: They're gonna qualify them to see if they budget is
Speaker 1: big enough, and if they are, then they're going to
Speaker 1: pass them on to the account executive like an alley
Speaker 1: and then the context of supposed to slam dockhead. Right.
Speaker 1: So this team collaboration is really important. And when you
Speaker 1: think about these non technical skills, it's not just communication
Speaker 1: team dynamic is it's time management? Right. So the time
Speaker 1: management that it took you to figure out how to
Speaker 1: manage your own skill it is important. But how do
Speaker 1: you coordinate schedules for people all over the world in
Speaker 1: a remote COVID world nineteen world. You gotta understand time zones,
Speaker 1: you gotta understand calendar advice, you gotta understand things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: how do you speak EMOHI and givet right? It's different
Speaker 1: level of communication. You know, it's not just verbal, it's
Speaker 1: not just video. It's like how do you talk slang?
Speaker 1: Written wise? So you understand I'm down for the culture?
Speaker 1: How do you do it? You know, it's a different
Speaker 1: it's a different level of thing, and so that takes practice. Um,
Speaker 1: I think um. Understanding when to delegate it is probably
Speaker 1: one of the biggest challenges, Like if you're someone that's
Speaker 1: used to doing things yourself and getting everything done, understanding
Speaker 1: when to if you want to be a leader give
Speaker 1: it to somebody else to do it, because you can
Speaker 1: actually be more effective by passing it on to multiple
Speaker 1: people and the verse as you're doing it yourself. A right,
Speaker 1: That's something that has been a big challenge for me
Speaker 1: in the beginning, Like it took me a long time
Speaker 1: and additional communication to be like, all right, you handle this.
Speaker 1: You handle this because I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: it gets done right. You know, I think all of
Speaker 1: those things are are important. Um, outside of that, I
Speaker 1: would say, make sure you get an outside of perspective
Speaker 1: on yourself. So when we talk about perception, right, um,
Speaker 1: you can be perfect at doing everything that you feel
Speaker 1: you need to do to make your own brand, but
Speaker 1: what you may not realize is the way that you
Speaker 1: think that you're being perceived. It's not how you actually right.
Speaker 1: So you always want to ask people how they feel
Speaker 1: that you're doing right or like if it's your manager
Speaker 1: or your colleagues, like or your roommates or whatever, like
Speaker 1: how do you feel things like like how's your week been?
Speaker 1: Like have a reflection time. That's why like Sunday Sunday.
Speaker 1: Success on Monday starts on Sunday, Like reflect on your week,
Speaker 1: talk to your girl talk to your your people, be like,
Speaker 1: am I being like how you like? You may not
Speaker 1: even know they might have penta frustration, you know, and
Speaker 1: so you've got to understand how to get better and
Speaker 1: based off of that feedback. You need to be open
Speaker 1: to the feedback because they might tell you something that
Speaker 1: hurts or that you didn't intend, and if you don't
Speaker 1: respond to it, then you're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: do better. Right, And so that is all relevant to
Speaker 1: your work, also relevant to your company and your brand.
Speaker 1: So make sure you're constantly checking, asking for feedback, understanding
Speaker 1: your perception, working on your perception, working on your brand. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and there's a lot of other things. It's fantastic,
Speaker 1: it's real, it's really good. UM. Segue and just a
Speaker 1: little bit because and you've talked about this before, like
Speaker 1: your first application of y Combinator wasn't successful. Um in
Speaker 1: almost every starter founder has been through that, you know,
Speaker 1: hard when God, when you get that email right and
Speaker 1: this um why y see has been its regale like
Speaker 1: like you know, criminal of criminal boot camps, accelerators right
Speaker 1: for startups. Um. A lot of people who will be
Speaker 1: watching this or listening to this will be thinking about applying,
Speaker 1: will have been denied and upset about that, or will
Speaker 1: be interested after this conversation? Right? And so, um, you
Speaker 1: guys didn't get in the first time you applied, But
Speaker 1: what did you learn about that experience that helped you
Speaker 1: get in in the nineteen cohord Um? That may help
Speaker 1: other people. But what was the difference between that first
Speaker 1: application in that second that or maybe the second third
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which one it was, but I know
Speaker 1: you applied before didn't get in, but you did get
Speaker 1: in in nineteen. What was different? Definitely it was the
Speaker 1: second application that we got in. So they the reason
Speaker 1: we didn't get in the first time was first because
Speaker 1: we didn't communicate well what they has important UM in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the C stage is very important to
Speaker 1: talk about what you're doing today, UM, versus like your
Speaker 1: vision UM. And we talked about the vision. And even
Speaker 1: when we talked about this vision, it was like all
Speaker 1: over the place that we talked about a bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: just like it's sounds scattered bang. Like when you talk
Speaker 1: to people, it has to be a clarity of thought,
Speaker 1: like what do you do? It should be very easy
Speaker 1: and say we're the easiest way to find a job
Speaker 1: training program online, like I think. I think the beginning,
Speaker 1: like our thing was like I don't know, um, the
Speaker 1: like the largest social network for blue collar workers to
Speaker 1: get a job or something like that, which sounds like
Speaker 1: marketing was I it could sound okay, I get a
Speaker 1: large social network collar workers get a job, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't clearly say what I do. You know it's big,
Speaker 1: but it's like, okay, so how do you do that?
Speaker 1: Like how do you create a social network? Things like that?
Speaker 1: So I think that's important. I think the other the
Speaker 1: thing that we did is we didn't wait. So as
Speaker 1: soon as as soon as we got rejected um I
Speaker 1: got the feedback from the White combinated people, we took
Speaker 1: the rejection letter, we printed it out, we framed it,
Speaker 1: we put it on our wall, and we raised the
Speaker 1: small seed round, which was the bare minimum amount that
Speaker 1: we needed in order to live, which was about a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty three people to live on. We ended up
Speaker 1: raising a little over three hundred thousand and a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks UM. And what we did was we made
Speaker 1: sure that we followed up on what we said we
Speaker 1: were going to do, all right, so we lost, we executed,
Speaker 1: We built we generated revenue and then the platt again.
Speaker 1: But when we planted again, this time we spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking to otherwise the founders about the
Speaker 1: interview and got a lot of practice for the white
Speaker 1: interview because the interviews only ten minutes and the interview
Speaker 1: they they're gonna end if you interrupted the whole time.
Speaker 1: And the first time they they interrupted us a lot,
Speaker 1: but I let them carry the conversation. But this time
Speaker 1: when they interrupted me, I would acknowledge their point and
Speaker 1: then bring it back to my main three points. Okay,
Speaker 1: So anytime somebody would say something that would try to
Speaker 1: send me on a tangent, I would say, um no,
Speaker 1: that's a great point, and I could see how you
Speaker 1: came to that conclusion. But the way that I actually
Speaker 1: think about it is boom. Well that we think about
Speaker 1: it's like boom. So you always want to bring it
Speaker 1: back to your points because they want to see how
Speaker 1: you align. They also want to see how you work
Speaker 1: with your co founders. So we also like made sure
Speaker 1: that the banter was right between all of us and
Speaker 1: that we're all aligned, that we all had the same
Speaker 1: answer for the same type of things. So it looks
Speaker 1: like so it's it's clear that we are aligned. So practice, launch, execute, communicate.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, practice, find other people, find out the peers
Speaker 1: that can help you. And if you if you want,
Speaker 1: if you feel like you're ready, and I'm happy to
Speaker 1: give you a back interview and his emails right on
Speaker 1: his LinkedIn too, by the way, and so yeah. Season
Speaker 1: two of the Black Tech, Green Money Podcast is brought
Speaker 1: to you by Lexus, who's been celebrating driveway moments for
Speaker 1: over thirty years with the Lexus December to Remember sales event,
Speaker 1: where you can find exclusive offers on the most popular
Speaker 1: Lexus models experience amazing at your Alexis dealer. I remember
Speaker 1: Paul Judge, who I love, you know, he's the Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan poster on my wall of black startup guys or
Speaker 1: black technologists. Um and I remember him saying something in
Speaker 1: the talk that he gave several years ago, and he said,
Speaker 1: you can't get great talent to come and help you
Speaker 1: build a small idea because great talent wants to work
Speaker 1: on big ideas. I love that, loved it. Change you know,
Speaker 1: change about that about stuff. And in the early days
Speaker 1: of career car books, I've heard you talk about you know,
Speaker 1: the mission. You know, we're gonna help a billion people
Speaker 1: in ten years, you know, but against your y see
Speaker 1: things like okay, but how right? And so how did
Speaker 1: you get those early people who believe in your vision
Speaker 1: who aren't the co founders to come along and say,
Speaker 1: you know what I believe in you know, and and
Speaker 1: Reuben and Damn and like, how do you how do
Speaker 1: you get them early? That's a great question, UM, and
Speaker 1: I love that quote. I would say it goes back
Speaker 1: to our earlier thing that we're talking about with Personal Brand.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that we have a podcast that
Speaker 1: has powerful people on it, that our venture capitalists and
Speaker 1: founders and two years that have done big things and
Speaker 1: they have billion dollars like success, I think helps us
Speaker 1: UM attract the right talent in addition to our writing
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. OULD also say what I learned
Speaker 1: in UM in Atlanta, UM throwing parties and showing that
Speaker 1: I like I'm tied to celebrities and I know that
Speaker 1: sounds kind of like, but like having the celebrities like
Speaker 1: a fel technologist, right, having access to celebrities in addition
Speaker 1: to the Top V Season, the Top Founders House, because
Speaker 1: like things like these are these like larger life characters.
Speaker 1: How are they like on a friend basis with these people, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think I think that's important. I also think, um,
Speaker 1: doubling down on your unique qualities about you helps a
Speaker 1: lot um a lot of um a lot. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot of black chillis that played a lot of
Speaker 1: black people that played the cello. And I've been playing
Speaker 1: the cello for almost thirty years. And so a lot
Speaker 1: of times when people talk about team, they'll they'll pump
Speaker 1: their chests about what school that they went to. They'll
Speaker 1: pump themselves about how they went to banking, they worked
Speaker 1: at these cool companies. But then when you look at
Speaker 1: the things that the outside of professional credentials, like they
Speaker 1: might be like, all right, I was an Olympic athlete,
Speaker 1: or I was chest grand master and like all these things,
Speaker 1: or I played golf tennis, like those are all like
Speaker 1: great things. Skiing, snowballing, snowmobilings. Those are all great things.
Speaker 1: But it's not like super different, all right. So like
Speaker 1: if you are a I don't know, a lion tamer
Speaker 1: on the side, like or something just something, it's like
Speaker 1: it's something that's like it's like something that's different, just
Speaker 1: like it has to stand out to be like not
Speaker 1: not just like not just um something that shows that
Speaker 1: you work hard, but just like that you you do
Speaker 1: think big, and you can face danger and you can
Speaker 1: like be calm in that situation. You can be controlled
Speaker 1: in that situation in the face you can you can
Speaker 1: have courage. And and I think that, Like my my
Speaker 1: middle name is linea guy, so I guess and I
Speaker 1: had a big line. I thought about it so and
Speaker 1: as I also saw this like a crazy clip on Twitter,
Speaker 1: this like alligator eating this like twitoise like it like
Speaker 1: jumped out and it was like running away. But anyway,
Speaker 1: like the point is this, like you have to have
Speaker 1: these like check boxes that get people to feel like
Speaker 1: you are someone that they can follow onto the promise line.
Speaker 1: And I think for for us, we've always made big
Speaker 1: claims about what we're gonna do, and we did it.
Speaker 1: Like going back to that original blog post, I told
Speaker 1: people I was going to be an investment banker even
Speaker 1: though I had a two point energy Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: went to a school that nobody's ever heard of, that
Speaker 1: had no interest, work, experience, and people's home. It was impossible,
Speaker 1: but I did it. I told people I was gonna
Speaker 1: work and moved to West Coast. I did it. I
Speaker 1: told people I was gonna get into our commentator. I
Speaker 1: didn't get in the first time. I told some of
Speaker 1: my peer mentors that I didn't get in. They told
Speaker 1: me their stories about how they didn't get in into
Speaker 1: forget about it. I did it again. We got in
Speaker 1: from the people that I thought were gonna give me
Speaker 1: our seed dround money. They didn't, didn't hurt me. Did
Speaker 1: tears come out? Yes? I had to like scrap to
Speaker 1: get like forty seven plus people to get at one
Speaker 1: point five, we got it right. Shout out to guy
Speaker 1: like it was. It was amazing. Now next fit same
Speaker 1: type of things. So you just gotta, like you have to.
Speaker 1: You have to consistently have wins historically or like claim
Speaker 1: that you're gonna do something or proclaim that you're gonna
Speaker 1: do something and be able to prove that you're gonna
Speaker 1: do it, and people people will see that and get
Speaker 1: behind it. They'll say something special about will something special
Speaker 1: about this person you know? And finally, Um, I read
Speaker 1: this quote another quote from you which I loved. Um.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I thought about when I read
Speaker 1: the quote first and then I read you the quote
Speaker 1: is when I when I read this quote, I thought
Speaker 1: about people who may not necessarily be dissatisfied with their
Speaker 1: current job, maybe comfortable, um in etcetera, and maybe not
Speaker 1: thinking about the future that it may be disrupted. And
Speaker 1: the quote was if you feel comfortable, that's your body
Speaker 1: telling you that you're ready to push harder. You're not growing.
Speaker 1: Challenges give you growth and growth is life. And I
Speaker 1: want you to just close this conversation on what about
Speaker 1: those people who maybe quite comfortable and living the life
Speaker 1: that they live right now and perhaps see the change coming,
Speaker 1: perhaps don't more likely see that you know it changes come.
Speaker 1: We didn't see COVID happening, right, and so people who
Speaker 1: were making great money, designed for the future, and like
Speaker 1: all indicators, they were doing all right, and then COVID
Speaker 1: happened and changed everything. Right. UM, talk to me about
Speaker 1: comfort and its relationship to growth. Yeah. Yeah, I retweeted
Speaker 1: something this morning that I really I saw something that said, UM,
Speaker 1: it's okay not to know what you want in your
Speaker 1: career at any age. The pressure to be a certain
Speaker 1: is a capitalist strut. The fuel of your productivity, which
Speaker 1: can be exploited. But productivity is not the goal. Becoming
Speaker 1: the fullest version of yourself and enjoying a life well
Speaker 1: lived is. So I agree with what you're saying about,
Speaker 1: like choosing, like being fully comfortable doing what you're currently
Speaker 1: doing right now. If you do that, you're winning. I'm
Speaker 1: proud of you. You should double down on them. So
Speaker 1: let's focus on that. But even if you are doing
Speaker 1: what you love, I do feel like if you aren't
Speaker 1: pushing yourself in that space, you're not fully living. And
Speaker 1: what I mean by that, Like, what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is if you've you've identified what you love and
Speaker 1: that you feel like you will put on this earth
Speaker 1: to do. I'm I believe in God, So like this
Speaker 1: is versus I talking about airing your talent, burying your talent,
Speaker 1: Like we shouldn't bury our talent, right we might die tomorrow, right,
Speaker 1: you working hard and doing what you love and putting
Speaker 1: that out it's not for you, it's for legacy, and
Speaker 1: your legacy might not be directed to your family, right
Speaker 1: might it might be a spark for somebody else, all right,
Speaker 1: And similar to working out right, you can have a
Speaker 1: perfect body right now, So let's let's use the knowledge
Speaker 1: of Like you chose your job the perfect body right now,
Speaker 1: but if you're not at least maintaining your workout routine,
Speaker 1: you can slip right even if you even if you
Speaker 1: have all the resources that you need, So you gotta
Speaker 1: still do some level of exercise, some level of challenge,
Speaker 1: some level of like pushing yourself in some kind of
Speaker 1: way doesn't always have to be a workout or a
Speaker 1: meal prep type of thing. It might be now you're
Speaker 1: gonna get into yoga or meditation or something like that,
Speaker 1: but something that's like pushing you because it's like it's
Speaker 1: like a car that never that you never turned on,
Speaker 1: Like sometimes it could be a perfectly a car just
Speaker 1: won't start right. You have to use it. And I
Speaker 1: and I and I feel like, especially with people from
Speaker 1: underestimated backgrounds, it's super important for not just one person
Speaker 1: to win, but for all of us to win. So
Speaker 1: if you are fully comfortable in your own life and
Speaker 1: you don't want to put yourself into your job, help
Speaker 1: somebody else get to where you are right apply some
Speaker 1: of your time towards that I'm not saying work of
Speaker 1: the time, but like we gotta get rid of the
Speaker 1: tropic debuokan mentality. We gotta put our our our do
Speaker 1: what we were put on this earth to do, and
Speaker 1: figure out how we can support each other. So I
Speaker 1: would just say, it's it's it's it's less of let's
Speaker 1: become work of holics and more of let's figure out
Speaker 1: how to make this world a better place. As corny
Speaker 1: as that sounds. Black Tech Green Money is a production
Speaker 1: of Black of the afro Tech is produced by Morgan
Speaker 1: Dubon and me Well Lucas, with additional production support by
Speaker 1: Love Beach, Engraven Neerboard. Special thank you to Michael Davis
Speaker 1: and some carsavan Yan you know like the wine and
Speaker 1: yes that's his real name. Learn more about my guests
Speaker 1: and other tech disruptors and innovators at afro tech dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get your money. Peace and love,