Speaker 1: Afro Techy eighteen, Oakland, California, common the Grammy Award winning
Speaker 1: rappers on the main stage, answering your question from someone
Speaker 1: in the audience about the importance of not leaving behind
Speaker 1: or neglecting the talent towards opportunity and text from those
Speaker 1: who are incarcerating why so many of us seek to
Speaker 1: find ways to evangelize this moment. In text for black
Speaker 1: people to create wealth and legacy, he reminds us not
Speaker 1: to forget those behind bars. I mean, from my experience,
Speaker 1: I've been able to go to some visit individuals who
Speaker 1: are in prison and just sit down and talk with them,
Speaker 1: and I think one of the things that they really
Speaker 1: value is just being able to be heard and be
Speaker 1: recognized as human beings. I think you making an effort
Speaker 1: to show them that in technology that they deserve to
Speaker 1: have the chance to be colders and be a part
Speaker 1: of the tech industry is a is a statement in itself.
Speaker 1: You um, you also have to make it like not easy,
Speaker 1: because it's not gonna be easy, but understand give them
Speaker 1: the path to know that they can do it. But
Speaker 1: you got you find some incredible women and men and
Speaker 1: it's locked up in prison. It's doing life without parole
Speaker 1: and and been through a lot of stuff that are
Speaker 1: just bringing incredible ideas and humanity. So if they get
Speaker 1: a hold of and I did go to a prison
Speaker 1: where they are coding, and I actually met a guy
Speaker 1: named Charles who I sat in the sale with him
Speaker 1: one one month and then five months later he was
Speaker 1: out in prison, out of prison and coding for a company.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a it's um something that we should.
Speaker 1: I think if we bring that to our juveniles that
Speaker 1: that are dealing with incarceration, and bring that to people
Speaker 1: who are incarcerated, we would give them a whole another hope,
Speaker 1: a hold another aspect of hope. So one of those
Speaker 1: questions that came earlier about what we could do socially,
Speaker 1: I think that would be a great idea from the
Speaker 1: tech industry is to make sure we go look out
Speaker 1: for those who are who are cast out, that are
Speaker 1: locked up and isn't and thrown away. We should really
Speaker 1: take care of them. I'm will lucas this is black tech,
Speaker 1: bring money. I'm gonna introuce you to some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names, some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas.
Speaker 1: If you're black and building or simply using tech to
Speaker 1: secure your back, this podcast is for you. How Flimmings
Speaker 1: is a leading brand strategist, speaker, and tech entrepreneur that
Speaker 1: travels nationally inspiring people and brands to build, lunch and
Speaker 1: grow their ideas. As founder of re Brand Cities, he's
Speaker 1: on a mission to get ten thousand local small businesses online.
Speaker 1: Eyes Howes about Silicon Valley, namely about the idea that
Speaker 1: just about using sheer numbers in a bit of math,
Speaker 1: not all of us are gonna move to Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: Miami or Atlanta, And if not, how do we build
Speaker 1: strong tech ecosystems wherever we are? You know, I think historically,
Speaker 1: if you look at the DNA of black and black
Speaker 1: next people, right, we have always had the creative DNA
Speaker 1: and s. And typically we're in a situation where there
Speaker 1: are high barriers of entry, there's access issues, but we
Speaker 1: always seem to be able to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to do more with less, right and so and so,
Speaker 1: what I've always found is that I believe, and I
Speaker 1: used to trade as any example Detroit, I believe the
Speaker 1: barriers of entry are lower here than any other market.
Speaker 1: So I can go to another market where they don't
Speaker 1: know me, and there's and everybody is scrapping for you know,
Speaker 1: trying to find their place, and they want to be
Speaker 1: the only black solution in the market. But why not
Speaker 1: be a big fish in a small pond and put
Speaker 1: my city on And that's the way I looked at it,
Speaker 1: the same way. You know what I'm You know, I
Speaker 1: know that you're from Toledo, right, and so you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So so we have you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's a chip on our shoulder and
Speaker 1: we're like, you know, like there's great stuff that comes
Speaker 1: out of the Midwest or or where we're from. And
Speaker 1: I just looked at it as more of an opportunity
Speaker 1: versus saying I have to go travel someone I can
Speaker 1: learn from somewhere else. But why can't I bring that
Speaker 1: stuff back home and then try to do economic guarding
Speaker 1: and stuff in my own community. So so if we
Speaker 1: do decide to stay in a place where technology isn't,
Speaker 1: actually let me take that back where where the idea
Speaker 1: we have of technology, Because technology is every industry, whether
Speaker 1: you're doing HR for a health care system, where you're
Speaker 1: doing law for an automotive. You're still working with technology
Speaker 1: every day, So how do we start to change our
Speaker 1: minds and the narrative that we're being taught um that
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to build an app, you
Speaker 1: need to be somewhere else. How do we change that
Speaker 1: narrative in our local community so that we can start
Speaker 1: to perpetuate and get more of us doing this type
Speaker 1: of work. So I think some of it is a challenge,
Speaker 1: right because you know, so there are like real challenges
Speaker 1: that exist in our community. So so there is more
Speaker 1: BC funding in you know, in place like Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: and Austin and Boston and stuff like that. So we
Speaker 1: do have to figure out, like what are those challenges
Speaker 1: and how can I, in the space that I'm in
Speaker 1: maximize that and so and so for me, like what
Speaker 1: I tried to do is say, okay, um, I wanted
Speaker 1: to look at what do I do well? What do
Speaker 1: I focus on? What are the things that I was
Speaker 1: created for? Sometimes we have this shiny object like mentality,
Speaker 1: and so we see something happening somewhere else, we see
Speaker 1: somebody doing something cool, and then we want to go replicated.
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure as soon as people saw Afrotech and Blackty.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, well, I can become the next Blab, I
Speaker 1: can come the next Africa without understanding all of the
Speaker 1: stuff that has been happening behind the scenes to get
Speaker 1: to this point. And so and so what I've done
Speaker 1: is like, let me just double down in the space
Speaker 1: that I'm in and try to be an expert and
Speaker 1: not just and not just jump and try to be
Speaker 1: the next Will Lucas. Let me just be the best
Speaker 1: highs that I could be in my market and try
Speaker 1: to make an impact there and see where that leads me.
Speaker 1: And I think we get into this comparison thing because
Speaker 1: of social media and we're trying to become something that
Speaker 1: would you know what I'm saying that we were never
Speaker 1: called to be, and I think that tarts to take
Speaker 1: us places that we don't belong. And so I try
Speaker 1: to I try to really major majors and minor and
Speaker 1: minors and do what I do and be the best
Speaker 1: at it in the space that I'm in. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about you talked about there's there's less venture capital
Speaker 1: funding in cities, I think the cities that we're from,
Speaker 1: and there's these certain economies, geography, geographies where those they
Speaker 1: do have that funding. Let's talk about how we make
Speaker 1: those these cities real then, Like what needs what needs
Speaker 1: to happen, What are the actual things that need to
Speaker 1: happen to build a bigger entrepreneurially friendly ecosystem in community?
Speaker 1: Like what do universities need to get involved? Do the
Speaker 1: big corporations lead? Like what needs to happen to make
Speaker 1: these cities better for entrepreneurs? So I think that all
Speaker 1: these cities there are anchors. So we have university anchors,
Speaker 1: we have organizational anchors. I think also too, we have
Speaker 1: to hold cities and we have to hold big brands accountable. Right,
Speaker 1: So when I looked at uh Um George Floyd's death
Speaker 1: and so on, I saw all these black boxes posting online,
Speaker 1: and I was like, that as great that you support,
Speaker 1: that's great that you are with us. But what rain
Speaker 1: in my mind was, this is the time we have
Speaker 1: everybody's attention. How can we now focus on really trying
Speaker 1: to drive or or or really adjust what's happening from
Speaker 1: an economic standpoint, because it's not just a social issue.
Speaker 1: You know, what they like to me and so and
Speaker 1: so and so. What I've tried to do is in
Speaker 1: my market, what can I do to try to get
Speaker 1: at the table? For many of us were really not
Speaker 1: at the table. And so when these decisions are made,
Speaker 1: So when Chase brings a hundred million dollars into your
Speaker 1: community and you're not a part of that conversation, and
Speaker 1: by the time they get to you, when we have
Speaker 1: a five thollar grant, I'm not knocking the five dollar grant,
Speaker 1: but how do we get up highering the food chain
Speaker 1: so that when the real dollars are allocated, they go
Speaker 1: to the real organizations that are close to the problems,
Speaker 1: that understand and are empathetic towards that community. And it's
Speaker 1: typically people to look like us. But by the time
Speaker 1: we get it, we should be happy for five And
Speaker 1: I'm not knocking to five grand, but if I can
Speaker 1: get a million, ten million, or you know, I'm that's
Speaker 1: where those are the spaces that I want to play.
Speaker 1: So let's go in on that, like what kind of
Speaker 1: person do I need to be to get at the table?
Speaker 1: Like what what do I need to do with even
Speaker 1: my personal brand or what kind of what is my
Speaker 1: resume need to look like to get at the table? Yes,
Speaker 1: so so there's a narrative that says that you have
Speaker 1: to go to you know, Harvard or Stanford and so
Speaker 1: and so there's certain things that happened, right, there's pattern
Speaker 1: matching all of these things where the people who are
Speaker 1: making those decisions happened to be happened to look a
Speaker 1: certain way, and they kind of and they kind of
Speaker 1: green like certain projects. So I'm giving example. So when
Speaker 1: we started Rebrand Cities, we started out as Rebrand Detroit
Speaker 1: and we're part of UM. So there was a call
Speaker 1: from or from from the Knife Foundation. It was the
Speaker 1: night of the Night City channel. There was seven thousand
Speaker 1: people that applied. We were one of thirty two winners, right,
Speaker 1: and so we had a better chance of hitting hitting
Speaker 1: like the actual lottery. But we took that idea and said, okay,
Speaker 1: how can we pilot this to figure out how we
Speaker 1: can turn this into something even bigger. So, so we
Speaker 1: wanted to rebrand a neighborhood, a black neighborhood, the same
Speaker 1: way the city had already did our Midtown area, and
Speaker 1: so we and so we took that and then we
Speaker 1: started to look at what is a business model for
Speaker 1: us to be able to follow, right, So we looked
Speaker 1: online and we saw that you know what, saying that
Speaker 1: there was twenty million small businesses had no website. We're
Speaker 1: cash only, all right, and so and so we started
Speaker 1: to do this accelerator in the neighborhood and we realized
Speaker 1: that nobody had a website, or almost almost nobody had
Speaker 1: a website. So we said, okay, we have we have
Speaker 1: to address this issue. Then we started looking at city
Speaker 1: So there's there's approximately nineteen thousand, four and nine five cities, towns,
Speaker 1: and villages in the United States. And then we paired
Speaker 1: it down and we found out that there's three and
Speaker 1: ten cities that have a hundred that have a population
Speaker 1: of a hundred thousand or more. And so we said,
Speaker 1: let's focus on those cities and addressing a problem that
Speaker 1: every single city has. So we looked at a problem,
Speaker 1: we found an addressable market and um, and then we
Speaker 1: figured out who do we need to talk to? So, okay,
Speaker 1: so we need to talk to people who are in
Speaker 1: economic development, we need to talk to mayors, we need
Speaker 1: to talk to people who who have the bag right,
Speaker 1: and so we had an issue that we know all
Speaker 1: of them were concerned with. We knew that if they
Speaker 1: addressed that issue, it was going to be able to
Speaker 1: impact their cities, and so we knew that we were
Speaker 1: onto something, but some of that happened by trial and error. Right.
Speaker 1: The other part is having the opportunity to be on
Speaker 1: a platform like this. Many of us don't have media connections, right,
Speaker 1: and so you contacting me and giving me this opportunit
Speaker 1: unity is a lifeline for me. It's I mean, it
Speaker 1: means everything. Not because I love what you guys do,
Speaker 1: but I know that you have a why, you have
Speaker 1: a huge community that's going to support and so those
Speaker 1: are a couple of things that we thought about in
Speaker 1: terms of kind of how we want to focus on it.
Speaker 1: So you, let's talk about you. What you noticed as
Speaker 1: an issue is a lot of these small businesses didn't
Speaker 1: have websites. They weren't technologically solving. Let's start with just
Speaker 1: the website. Why is it important for that small mom
Speaker 1: and pop who might do you know dry cleaning or
Speaker 1: might have you know a restaurant? Why is it important
Speaker 1: that they be online and with an actual website? Why
Speaker 1: is that important in first place? So ninety the center
Speaker 1: people who make a buying decision go online first, right
Speaker 1: and then and so when you're going to set the stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Google Maps if you're not in Google Maps,
Speaker 1: or or if the information is wrong, if it says
Speaker 1: that you're open to five o'clock and you closed at
Speaker 1: three o'clock, and then you know and so and and
Speaker 1: now I'm going somewhere else. I'm going I'm spending money
Speaker 1: somewhere else. And so we become invisible in the digital economy.
Speaker 1: So then COVID hits right. And then now people who
Speaker 1: weren't online, you're I mean, you were really in a
Speaker 1: tough situation because now people couldn't buy your project, you
Speaker 1: couldn't buy your services. And then even when you got online,
Speaker 1: you then had to then take another step of pos
Speaker 1: you had to have you had to operationalize the business,
Speaker 1: right and so those are the things where now we're
Speaker 1: putting all Now we're stacking all these problems on top
Speaker 1: of an access to UM capital, on all these other things.
Speaker 1: And then now for us, like we did a project
Speaker 1: locally called UM it was called Digitality Trade and in
Speaker 1: that project we work with the City, UM and the
Speaker 1: Rocket Community Fund to work with a hundred businesses. We
Speaker 1: had to do all of this virtually. One of the
Speaker 1: challenges we had is that we had to have the criteria.
Speaker 1: People needed to have some kind of device because we're
Speaker 1: doing this stuff remotely. Everything was remote, and so that
Speaker 1: we had people who didn't know how to screen share,
Speaker 1: and digital literacy became a major issue, and so those
Speaker 1: things stacked the deck against us, and so it just
Speaker 1: creates this another challenge, you know, that we had to
Speaker 1: overcome basics. So, if I'm hearing you correctly, there are
Speaker 1: instead of always trying to build the next Snapchat, instead
Speaker 1: of always trying to build the next Instagram or whatever,
Speaker 1: they are real core issues that these smaller cities and
Speaker 1: not necessarily always smaller, but you know, not unless than
Speaker 1: the all Silicon Valley. There are real issues that create
Speaker 1: opportunity for entrepreneurs. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: so and so, you know, so we don't have to
Speaker 1: solve the biggest problem in the world. I know, if
Speaker 1: you're getting BC funding, you know what I'm saying, they
Speaker 1: want ten x plus return, right, um, and that's not going.
Speaker 1: But everybody is not venture Everybody doesn't have a venture
Speaker 1: backable idea. But the idea that you have can be
Speaker 1: something that can scale. It can be an idea that
Speaker 1: can also allow you to be able to create a
Speaker 1: nice lifestyle and to be able to generate the kind
Speaker 1: of return so that you can do this full time
Speaker 1: and so and so I think just trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what that is because also too, I would much
Speaker 1: rather work with somebody who has a passion for what
Speaker 1: they're doing and they love what they're doing and their
Speaker 1: whole goal is I'm not creating this because I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get an exit. I'm not knocking that strategy because
Speaker 1: there are people getting great returns. But but I mean,
Speaker 1: by how many of those unicorns do we have? How
Speaker 1: many people like Delane Parnell, Like do we have Who's
Speaker 1: gonna raise a hundred and seven million? And that's gonna
Speaker 1: happen for that's my guy. I'm happy for him. But
Speaker 1: that's not gonna be everybody. But that's okay, and we
Speaker 1: have to be okay with the fact that we can
Speaker 1: do something that could be that could be transformational for
Speaker 1: our community. There was a young lady during the pandemic
Speaker 1: who was braiding hair, who who um and all the
Speaker 1: barbershops and salons were closed down. She started teaching people
Speaker 1: how to braid hair on Zoom and she was charging
Speaker 1: people how to braid hair, and and it began to
Speaker 1: expand her community and her reach. That's innovation to me,
Speaker 1: that's innovation. I want to talk about, you know, just
Speaker 1: the actual direct rebranding of a geography, rebranding a city,
Speaker 1: you know, branding as you know, I know, it's what
Speaker 1: other people say about you, not what you say about yourself. Right,
Speaker 1: how do you change the narrative about a community? Um?
Speaker 1: And what are the tactical things you need to do
Speaker 1: to make other people say something different about that space? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: so I think you have to have an inclusive lens,
Speaker 1: but you need to have people who are in a
Speaker 1: decision making position. People who are in i mean, public
Speaker 1: policy drive so much of what happens in our cities.
Speaker 1: And I know we love to, you know, vote for
Speaker 1: the presidential election and that's great, but what happens in
Speaker 1: the local community and so and so trying to get
Speaker 1: buy in from from that kind of leadership becomes critically important.
Speaker 1: And what we've tried to communicate to the cities that
Speaker 1: we work with, because we're doing stuff in nine cities
Speaker 1: and in two different countries, is that is that we
Speaker 1: try to have the conversation to say Look, what if
Speaker 1: people could navigate your city based upon small business owners.
Speaker 1: What if in Detroit, if they needed to go to
Speaker 1: a coffee shop and and we could say, okay, you
Speaker 1: can go to Narrowey Cafe, which is a black owned
Speaker 1: coffee shop on the Liberois Avenue of Fashion, and you
Speaker 1: can now explore that looking at looking through a small business,
Speaker 1: supporting that small business. It's a different lens, right, And
Speaker 1: so a lot of the stories that I see, even
Speaker 1: in my city, I've seen stuff where they talk about
Speaker 1: small business. Oh, we love being in the city of Detroit. Yes,
Speaker 1: But if you came from the suburbs and you went
Speaker 1: to an Ivy League school and you were already set
Speaker 1: up with all this stuff, of course it's amazing for you,
Speaker 1: Like there's no question it's amazing. It would be amazing
Speaker 1: for me too if those things were all in place,
Speaker 1: right and so and so, what we've tried to do,
Speaker 1: and we're working on a project right now, and it's
Speaker 1: called Rebrand Black and so we have an accelerator where
Speaker 1: we're working with um twelve small business that are all
Speaker 1: black owned. And what we've tried to do with the
Speaker 1: stakeholders and the people that we're working with is let's
Speaker 1: focus on making sure that we are including businesses that
Speaker 1: don't get the same coverage, right, And so I think
Speaker 1: when cities are looking, they have to they have to
Speaker 1: take the blinders off and look at how do we
Speaker 1: create a city for all people and not just for
Speaker 1: homogeneous community of people that are going to be okay
Speaker 1: regardless of what you know. And so those are things
Speaker 1: that we've really tried to hammer and and for us,
Speaker 1: it's been it's been, um, it's been uh, it's been
Speaker 1: a labor of love. Love. You know, I'm you bring up.
Speaker 1: You talked a lot about you know, these small businesses
Speaker 1: and historically having been you know, online not very sophisticated
Speaker 1: in the age that we live in, and I think
Speaker 1: specifically about the Midwest. You know, we come from a
Speaker 1: place where manufacturing drove the day, and you know, so
Speaker 1: a lot of these folks you're talking about, maybe first
Speaker 1: generation entrepreneurs, mom and pop shops and et cetera. How
Speaker 1: do you, at the same time of helping them, you know,
Speaker 1: be more sophisticated with their technology, also help them along
Speaker 1: the way where they don't perpetuate some of the stereotypes
Speaker 1: about working with black owned companies. You know, like you
Speaker 1: talked about it says you opened the fire type but
Speaker 1: you left at three. You know, you didn't say hello
Speaker 1: to me when I walked in the door, or all
Speaker 1: all these things. How do we because these folks don't
Speaker 1: have you know, like you and I like lineage of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: We gotta learning stuff on the fly. How how do
Speaker 1: we get those business principles as well for your programming? Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: I think like part of it is is that we
Speaker 1: have to be willing to give each other a chance.
Speaker 1: We think everybody's the isis coder and so somebody would
Speaker 1: do something wrong and and it will be okay. Or
Speaker 1: if somebody goes to the club and somebody steps on
Speaker 1: your shoe, you still go back next week or whatever.
Speaker 1: But if one thing goes wrong with supporting a black
Speaker 1: owned business, then that's the end of the world. And
Speaker 1: we just wanted to throw our hands up, right, And
Speaker 1: so we understand that we have a tremendous we have
Speaker 1: tremendous economic buying power. What if we took some of
Speaker 1: that and we began to support each other. And so
Speaker 1: that's part of what we do, like through our community,
Speaker 1: is that all right, how do we support to people
Speaker 1: who are in this course the business that we're working with.
Speaker 1: When we buy something, let's post something online, let's share
Speaker 1: so when you know someone pandemic started last year, we
Speaker 1: took an entire week and we just we're just supporting
Speaker 1: black businesses and we posted, we tagged online, we showed
Speaker 1: the product. Part of that was to encourage other people
Speaker 1: to say, hey, look, if you're gonna buy something, let's
Speaker 1: share that you're actually doing that. There's a great platform
Speaker 1: it's called Spendified. Spendified in the platform m um has
Speaker 1: ran by Antoine Davis, and it is a list of
Speaker 1: black owned businesses, right and so and so and so
Speaker 1: we try to partner or try to share these kind
Speaker 1: of opportunities because people will say, well I don't know
Speaker 1: where to go, and I find that like disheartening, right,
Speaker 1: But so we tried to demonstrate from example and then
Speaker 1: share what other people are doing. For sure. We got
Speaker 1: a question that I came in on stable um. It says,
Speaker 1: what should you do first? A business plan or product development?
Speaker 1: All right, So, so I remember doing a business playing
Speaker 1: years ago. I had this this big stack of paper.
Speaker 1: It was like, I don't know a hundred pages after
Speaker 1: I developed it. I couldn't even tell you how many
Speaker 1: times I looked at the business plan after I developed it.
Speaker 1: What I think is more efficient is now getting and
Speaker 1: looking at UM creating UM your business model. Everybody has
Speaker 1: heard of the business model campus, right, and so I
Speaker 1: think developing a canvas, which is the sheet it goes through,
Speaker 1: revenue streams, customer segmentation, um UM, the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the you know what, like the problem that you're focused on.
Speaker 1: I would say developed that that is something, but that's
Speaker 1: a living document. Is something that you can continue to update.
Speaker 1: That will be something that as you're pitching or sharing,
Speaker 1: it will allow you to be able to pull the information.
Speaker 1: And I think that's most important right in terms of
Speaker 1: you understanding the business. At the end of the day, though,
Speaker 1: you have to have a product or service that people want, right,
Speaker 1: So and people talk about, oh, I want to go viral. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll create something that people want, right, That's the That's
Speaker 1: the first thing. If it's not something that people want,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter about You can go hire all the
Speaker 1: marketing companies and you can do crazy stuff. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, create something that people want.
Speaker 1: And I would say, and again, I know all the
Speaker 1: NBA programs are gonna be like, Hi, don't say this,
Speaker 1: but the canvas to me is gonna be more value
Speaker 1: than this. Um, you know the big business plan that
Speaker 1: you're never going to update because the canvas is a
Speaker 1: living document. So I would start there. And then we
Speaker 1: always talked about in design thinking serviles, that getting in
Speaker 1: front of the customer, taking an idea and getting in front. Well,
Speaker 1: I remember when you were doing podcasting prior to getting
Speaker 1: on this, right, you started something and you just started
Speaker 1: just doing your thing, and look at what you're doing now, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, because I'm a testament. I'm a
Speaker 1: testament to do the work and do the work. Um.
Speaker 1: There's another question that came in which I think I
Speaker 1: may have to rephrase it because I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: understand it, But it says, should you bother with physical
Speaker 1: goods or must it be software or be a software
Speaker 1: as well? When scaling? And what I think they're trying
Speaker 1: to say is, when you're trying to scale a business,
Speaker 1: is it better to do it with physical goods or
Speaker 1: build a software? So I think they're trying to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know what I'm saying. So I'm forty nine
Speaker 1: years old. So I remember when you could buy software.
Speaker 1: You could get buy illustrator. I get the disk, I
Speaker 1: pop it in, and I would have Illustrator, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, like forever until you know, to a
Speaker 1: point where I was forced to go change. Now you
Speaker 1: can't do it anymore. They created sass products. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff to where now you have to
Speaker 1: get this membership. So I think that there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to be able to how do you how do you
Speaker 1: become a tech enabled company? Right? And so if you're not,
Speaker 1: I mean if the if the product or the or
Speaker 1: the thing that you're working on isn't a technology only
Speaker 1: play trying to put a round peg into a square hole.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the thing. But I think figuring
Speaker 1: out what you want to create and then making it
Speaker 1: easy for people to be able to connect to that idea,
Speaker 1: and if there is a way to be able to
Speaker 1: have people continue to pay for this product or you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, whether it's a membership box or
Speaker 1: things like that, I think those things are great, But
Speaker 1: I don't think you should try to create something and
Speaker 1: just try to be like the sass thing when that's
Speaker 1: not really what you are, right, And so I think
Speaker 1: I think being very clear on that and testing it
Speaker 1: out and figuring out what all entrepreneurs understand is that
Speaker 1: the thing that you start with is never gonna be
Speaker 1: the thing that you're in with. So you start doing
Speaker 1: something and the customer will let you know, Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: I see it like this, or what if you offered
Speaker 1: it this way or if you packa did that way
Speaker 1: and um, And I think those where the natural pivots
Speaker 1: will allow you to be able to reach these unaddressable markets.
Speaker 1: You know, it's so interesting, you know, talking to you
Speaker 1: because you know, having known you for goodness has been
Speaker 1: a while. Now you're like you, You've been really good
Speaker 1: at your personal brand. And I do think that small
Speaker 1: business today is very personality driven in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: Like how do you advise folks? How do they how
Speaker 1: do you build a personal brand? I guess it's the question. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know what I'm saying. So I look at
Speaker 1: brands and I've seen people who would who will be authentic,
Speaker 1: and then I see stuff that's not authentic, but but
Speaker 1: they've developed something that people want to connect you. So
Speaker 1: for me personally, especially being black, I think it's super
Speaker 1: important for me. I want to be authent because my
Speaker 1: word is my bond. So if I say I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do something, I have to deliver, even if even if
Speaker 1: I need to take an ail on certain on certain projects.
Speaker 1: The other thing is being consistent online. And so I
Speaker 1: grew up and I remember when we used to so
Speaker 1: we call it captain growing up, so you know, whether
Speaker 1: it's Captain joning, it's the dozens or whatever. So online
Speaker 1: I can't say what I really really want to say
Speaker 1: because we grew up and we were going for the
Speaker 1: juggler all the time. So what I realized that online, Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just I mean, I'm playing with kid
Speaker 1: gloves in terms of stuff that I say because I
Speaker 1: can't say everything that I want to say. But I
Speaker 1: think being on message, being consistent so that when people
Speaker 1: see you all right, they can they can vouch for,
Speaker 1: they can validate what you're doing, or they want to
Speaker 1: connect with you. I think that's super important. And I
Speaker 1: think we we just start jumping to compare to other people,
Speaker 1: and we keep switching and the other things that I
Speaker 1: think work against the versus working for us. If I'm
Speaker 1: a small business owner, talk about some of the technologies
Speaker 1: I should have in place that helped me at least compete,
Speaker 1: Like the actual technology that I should have to help
Speaker 1: me compete with people who have scaled before I was
Speaker 1: able to, whether that be you know, a digital POS system,
Speaker 1: like what what kind of things that probably generally across
Speaker 1: the board, these are some things that should have at
Speaker 1: core to help me build their sustainable, longal term business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what I say. So you don't have email,
Speaker 1: you don't have email like database. It's great to have
Speaker 1: all the followers online, but you have a million people
Speaker 1: are following you, and I g that's great. How do
Speaker 1: you now connect directly to that customer? So having their
Speaker 1: direct information so that you can communicate with them becomes
Speaker 1: critically important. How do we automate tass? So you know,
Speaker 1: we grow up and we're like, I gotta hustle, I
Speaker 1: gotta work harder, and we understand that we have to
Speaker 1: work hard. But there are certain things that we can automate.
Speaker 1: We can use platforms like safe here, and you can
Speaker 1: and you can put things in place that will allow
Speaker 1: you to focus on what you need to focus on.
Speaker 1: What I try to spend my time on. Is I
Speaker 1: need to be out there raising money and generating revenue.
Speaker 1: So these tasks that are repeatable, I need to be
Speaker 1: at to outsource those or have other people do that,
Speaker 1: because I need to focus on bringing in the money.
Speaker 1: And those are certain things that I think that we
Speaker 1: that become a lost art. And we can go on
Speaker 1: and on and on if we have more time, but
Speaker 1: I'll probably stop with those two points because those are
Speaker 1: really really big things that people need to think about.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna blend these two questions because they're somewhat similar
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure we get to an
Speaker 1: adequate closes. The first one says, can you get funding
Speaker 1: on a business plan, prospectives or doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: an operation? And the second question is where do we
Speaker 1: it funding? No strings attached like grants. Okay, so there
Speaker 1: are people, um, they might not all all look like us,
Speaker 1: and they can go in there and they can go
Speaker 1: pitch something with flip flops on and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and no slide deck and they gonna get money. So
Speaker 1: everybody can't do that, right, and so your history all
Speaker 1: the other kind oftuff that does playing through so people
Speaker 1: it has happened. Um, I don't know how repeatable that
Speaker 1: is for all of us, but it has happened. I
Speaker 1: would not I would not lean upon that right um.
Speaker 1: So now um in the air of COVID and all
Speaker 1: things that are going in, there are a lot of programs.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of things, whether it's the Entrepreneur
Speaker 1: of Color Fund, there's all kind of things out towards.
Speaker 1: There is grant money also p p P. A lot
Speaker 1: of us didn't apply hold on so a lot of
Speaker 1: us and that was my daughter, So a lot of
Speaker 1: us did not apply for p p P. That was
Speaker 1: free money. So you can still up why it was
Speaker 1: extended to the end of May. And if you put
Speaker 1: all the paperwork in and you follow the guidelines, that's
Speaker 1: free money as well too. And we can't lose out
Speaker 1: or miss out on that. And and lastly, UM, I
Speaker 1: love to ask this question of people like you and
Speaker 1: this how important is this moment for us in business
Speaker 1: when you think about, you know, coming off of our
Speaker 1: social unrest over the last year, sixteen months or whatever,
Speaker 1: the pandemic, so many corporations and organizations paying attention to
Speaker 1: what black people need and who have historically probably overlooked
Speaker 1: or didn't believe we were going through what we were
Speaker 1: going through now and actually seeing that it's real. How
Speaker 1: important is this moment in our history that may not
Speaker 1: be here a year from now that we take advantage
Speaker 1: of what's happening right now. I am so glad you
Speaker 1: asked that question. So so right now we have everybody's attention,
Speaker 1: right and so now what are we doing in this
Speaker 1: moment so that we can now capture that. Part of
Speaker 1: what I think becomes important is how can we hold
Speaker 1: the brands and other organizations that have benefited from Black culture.
Speaker 1: So when we did our rebrand Black Um Peace, we
Speaker 1: reached out to Cadillac and Thriving and in the conversations
Speaker 1: we had were, Okay, what can we do to put
Speaker 1: money back into our community? And they were there to
Speaker 1: be able to to work with us hand in hand.
Speaker 1: But we had to be bold enough to ask the
Speaker 1: question and to reach out to these brands because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of brands that have benefited from us for
Speaker 1: up to four hundred years and now this is a
Speaker 1: time where I don't know whether they feel guilty or
Speaker 1: whatever it is that I'm not talking about cat like,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, this is a moment where let's take
Speaker 1: this moment because it's not coming back again, folks, because
Speaker 1: we're all gonna be outside traveling and doing stuff. The
Speaker 1: only reason that this was a real opportunity was because
Speaker 1: everybody was at home. Black Tech Green Money is a
Speaker 1: production to Black of the Afro Tech, Black Effect Podcast
Speaker 1: Network and I Heart Media, and it's produced by Morgan
Speaker 1: Dabon and me Well Lucas, with additional production support by
Speaker 1: Love Beach and Raven near Port. Special thank you to
Speaker 1: Michael Davis and Sakarsa von Jan you know like the Wine.
Speaker 1: Yes that's his real name. Learn more about my guests
Speaker 1: and other tech dis represent innovators at afro tech dot com.
Speaker 1: The video version of this episode will drop the Black
Speaker 1: Tech Green Money on YouTube next week, So tap in
Speaker 1: enjoying Black Tech Green Money. Leave us a five star
Speaker 1: already on iTunes, Go get your money. Peace of Love,