Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have very
Speaker 1: special guests, entrepreneur Jillian Gates, owner of her ride in
Speaker 1: the building. And yes we are not in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: We are over here hanging out at eighty five South
Speaker 1: Studios this week, so you will see a lot of
Speaker 1: eighty five South.
Speaker 2: I love this kitchen so much, isn't it It's so cool?
Speaker 2: Shout out SA eighty five South for hooking us up.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love it so Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like I.
Speaker 1: Can come down to Atlanta anytime now, no sweat, like
Speaker 1: we coming. We coming, So, Jillian, I'm happy to be
Speaker 1: here with you. I'm very curious on what you're gonna
Speaker 1: have me eating today.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be good, I promise. What is it so
Speaker 4: we are going to be preparing. I call it salmon
Speaker 4: and rice. Salmon over rice. It's very simple. Before I
Speaker 4: got introduced to the filet salmon, this is the salmon
Speaker 4: that I grew up on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever I see you can meet after being on
Speaker 1: Eating While Broke.
Speaker 3: Can meat can scare you, understood.
Speaker 2: I've seen people eat it with no heat. I wonder
Speaker 2: how they did that.
Speaker 1: The only can I eat out of a can prior
Speaker 1: to eating while broke.
Speaker 3: Was tuna, I understood.
Speaker 1: I never heard of eating chicken out of a can,
Speaker 1: salmon out of a can. I eat oysters out of
Speaker 1: a can. I think I've done that before, you know,
Speaker 1: but sardines maybe once.
Speaker 2: In a while.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 1: But after doing a lot of episodes of eating while broke,
Speaker 1: can meat scares me.
Speaker 2: So what are the ingredients for your dish?
Speaker 4: So the ingredients for this dish would be your simple
Speaker 4: butter of course, your can, say, an egg, and then
Speaker 4: some bacon.
Speaker 3: So bacon is for taste.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right? So oh and Rice, I'm and Rice
Speaker 2: and Rice.
Speaker 1: Okay, so go ahead, you can start making this beautiful
Speaker 1: dish that I'm a.
Speaker 2: Little scared to eat. I got faith in you, scared,
Speaker 2: I promise I. So take me back to do you
Speaker 2: need a butter knife?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we got a butter.
Speaker 2: Knife over here.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I love how eighty five. So I'll set this up.
Speaker 1: By the way, I got a shout out some again.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure, take me back to what's going on
Speaker 2: in the land of canned salmon?
Speaker 3: So hold on, let me make sure we're all right here.
Speaker 4: So in the land of can salmon. So I was
Speaker 4: introduced to this dish middle school, high school ish. I
Speaker 4: played three sports in school, and so feeding me as
Speaker 4: a as a growing teenager can be kind of expensive.
Speaker 4: And so when I wasn't eating at school and my
Speaker 4: mom didn't have time, you know, to cook something, you know,
Speaker 4: a large mirror large meal for us, this was one
Speaker 4: of our go tos.
Speaker 3: She will cook this or either be u.
Speaker 4: She would go to Kroger and get one of those
Speaker 4: little tisstery chickens and we would just tear it down.
Speaker 4: But yeah, this will be one of those go two meals.
Speaker 4: It's high in protein. You got your rice for your carbs,
Speaker 4: you got your egg I mean, and then you got
Speaker 4: your bacon for taste. So I mean, you can't go
Speaker 4: wrong just that.
Speaker 3: It yeah, a little salt and pepper. Really it's the juice.
Speaker 3: It's the juice.
Speaker 4: And if we had raw bacon, it's the bacon grease
Speaker 4: that makes it. That's what that's what that's what puts
Speaker 4: the taste. So you don't really need any seasoning. It's
Speaker 4: the juice from the can, the juice from the meat,
Speaker 4: and then the grease from the bacon.
Speaker 3: Okay, and then that egg too.
Speaker 2: Okay, we go see you gona scrambled egg.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's gonna scramble it, but it's gonna be mixed
Speaker 4: in with the It's gonna be mixed in with the
Speaker 4: meat mixture.
Speaker 3: I promise it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good.
Speaker 3: I got you, I got you. I won't let you down.
Speaker 2: We gonna see how good it is? All right? Uh So,
Speaker 2: take so were you single parent household? Two parent household?
Speaker 3: So I grew up in a two parent household.
Speaker 4: But my dad passed away when I was well. So
Speaker 4: he died the day after my birthday. He had leukemia,
Speaker 4: and so that was a very traumatic experience for me.
Speaker 3: Kind of grew me up really quick. I had to
Speaker 3: really grow up.
Speaker 4: A lot of people that meet me, they think that
Speaker 4: I'm a lot older than what I am, because I
Speaker 4: guess I'm a little wiser for my years. When my
Speaker 4: dad passed away, I just realized that I needed to
Speaker 4: be the one to you know, I felt like I
Speaker 4: didn't need to be like the man of the house
Speaker 4: or whatever they would say. But because I was the
Speaker 4: oldest sibling, I felt like I needed to be the
Speaker 4: most responsible.
Speaker 2: How many siblings.
Speaker 3: Only have one sibling? So I have a younger brother.
Speaker 2: Oh that's not bad. Somebody could beat up on too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, did he outgrow you?
Speaker 4: He ended up outlowing me, but after it wasn't until
Speaker 4: I left to go to college.
Speaker 2: So he actually shocked me.
Speaker 4: When I came back home. I came back home, he
Speaker 4: was taller at me. I was like, Wow, I didn't
Speaker 4: think this was gonna happen.
Speaker 2: But I have a baby brother that's taller than me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but key word baby brother. He's like in his
Speaker 1: thirties now, and I'm like.
Speaker 3: He will always be a baby, always be a baby.
Speaker 2: What's the age gap?
Speaker 3: Three years?
Speaker 2: Oh that's not bad. Ye, Like that's like.
Speaker 3: Little brother, real little brother for real.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you took on helping mama out a little
Speaker 1: bit more passed.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I actually got my first job in seventh grade. Well,
Speaker 4: not in seventh grade, might have been in eighth grade.
Speaker 4: But one of my first jobs was at a fish market.
Speaker 4: There was a guy that went to our church that
Speaker 4: opened up a fish market, and my mom started helping
Speaker 4: out there, and then I started helping out.
Speaker 3: He paid under the table.
Speaker 4: I want to say that summer after that, I got
Speaker 4: my first job helping another member at the church.
Speaker 3: She had a daycare, So.
Speaker 4: I started working with her doing that and she paid
Speaker 4: me under the table as well. So I like started
Speaker 4: working in middle school and like was just super focused
Speaker 4: on like making money in middle school. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 4: that's where that started for me.
Speaker 2: Did you grow up in a family with entrepreneurs I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't have many. I don't have many entrepreneurs, if any, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about it. I really can't think
Speaker 3: of any that you didn't.
Speaker 2: You didn't cross the path of any on your way
Speaker 2: growing up.
Speaker 4: Nope, okay, I'm not not.
Speaker 3: Not not my personal family members.
Speaker 2: No, okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I used to have a theory that entrepreneurs kind of
Speaker 1: had to come from some kind of lineage of of
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship because because the traditional route, which is always cultered.
Speaker 2: I love how you guys are because I was thinking
Speaker 2: the same thing.
Speaker 1: Uh, the traditional route, I always feel is like you
Speaker 1: have to kind of see someone kind of in that
Speaker 1: lane first before becoming one. So is her ride your
Speaker 1: very first entrepreneur adventure?
Speaker 3: It is not.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you not only did not experience any entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: but this isn't your first, It is.
Speaker 3: Not my first venture. I've been an entrepreneur.
Speaker 4: I would say my first entrepreneur a venture started when
Speaker 4: I was in high school. Okay, yeah, started selling care
Speaker 4: and in high school. That was an interesting story. I
Speaker 4: don't know if my mom knows about this or not,
Speaker 4: but yeah, so the candy we sold in high school,
Speaker 4: we actually stole it all.
Speaker 1: And stole it from where from Walmart? And you would
Speaker 1: steal the case packs or the little snicker Bars packs.
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure you're getting the bulk
Speaker 1: and are you stealing both candies?
Speaker 3: We just put them in our book bag and we
Speaker 3: just walked up the store. Okay, I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 3: is news to her.
Speaker 4: Okay, so yeah, we just said we as in my
Speaker 4: partner in crime, not my brother, and so we sold
Speaker 4: it for a dollar.
Speaker 3: It was one hundred profit.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's not that's that's not entrepreneurship. That's called hustling.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: Just so you know, I have a firm belief that
Speaker 1: in business, all parties have to win. Otherwise you just
Speaker 1: swindles somebody and you are a successful Swindler at eighth grade.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's good. That's a good start.
Speaker 4: So that was my intro. When I got to college,
Speaker 4: I cleaned it up a lot. I actually got into
Speaker 4: designing hat lids, so snapback hats got really popular. I
Speaker 4: graduated high school around twenty ten, so from twenty ten
Speaker 4: to about twenty twelve, snapbag hats were super popular and
Speaker 4: people started designing the lids. There was a brand called
Speaker 4: Tisa that came out and they just they just decided
Speaker 4: to charge one hundred and fifty dollars for a regular
Speaker 4: hat that they decided to replace the fabric with. And
Speaker 4: so I was like, oh, I didn't know there was
Speaker 4: a market for that. So I started doing the same
Speaker 4: thing in my college and then so that was my
Speaker 4: first taste.
Speaker 3: So I started doing that.
Speaker 4: I think I did it for about ten dollars when
Speaker 4: it got fabric, would put it on people's hats for them.
Speaker 4: But that was my first intro into entrepreneurship. And then
Speaker 4: while I was in college as well, I taught myself
Speaker 4: how to cut hair. I became a resident assistant, and
Speaker 4: so because I was a resident assistant, I had access
Speaker 4: to all of the freshman guys that lived there because
Speaker 4: we had a co ed dorm and co yes, I
Speaker 4: was already and a co ed dorm. Half of the
Speaker 4: building was girls. Half of them are guys, and.
Speaker 3: They were all freshman. The dumbest idea ever.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I learned how to cut hair and yeah
Speaker 4: that's uh. I taught myself how to cut hair from
Speaker 4: watching YouTube videos. So that is that's that's where entrepreneurship.
Speaker 4: I guess that's where it really started. That's where it
Speaker 4: really You.
Speaker 2: Learned how to cut here from a YouTube video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, trial and error and YouTube. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Only imagine a guy being so pissed off at you
Speaker 1: for messing up his hair.
Speaker 4: So my brother thanks to him. You know, my brother
Speaker 4: let me try out on him a few times. But
Speaker 4: I'm very, very particular, so I was just scared to
Speaker 4: mess up anyway. So I really, if anything, I would
Speaker 4: be too scared to fade you crazy.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't have a crazy fade.
Speaker 2: Guys.
Speaker 1: Guys weren't walking away like Yo're going We're going out tonight.
Speaker 2: They was like, you know, yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Was like a nice little line, and that's who I was.
Speaker 4: I just did a nice little touch up.
Speaker 1: So okay, you so you're entrepreneurs, but really like a
Speaker 1: gangst the hustler.
Speaker 2: I was say at this point, like everything.
Speaker 4: I was just yeah, I was interested in getting into Yeah,
Speaker 4: I was just I was upsessed.
Speaker 2: With making money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, anything that I could do to make money.
Speaker 4: But while I was in college at the same time,
Speaker 4: I was a collegiate athlete, so I was on scholarship.
Speaker 4: So because I was on scholarship, I didn't have the
Speaker 4: freedom to work like everybody else did in college.
Speaker 3: So I had to figure out how.
Speaker 4: To make money in between the times I wasn't practicing
Speaker 4: or playing and so those are the ways that I
Speaker 4: had to do it. I had to get really friendly
Speaker 4: with people, just become a become more of a people
Speaker 4: person so that I could use those connections to get
Speaker 4: the things that I needed. I think the biggest highlight
Speaker 4: for me in college would be when I started my
Speaker 4: clothing line.
Speaker 3: Because I played sports up with a nickname.
Speaker 4: Somebody gave me a nickname, Beast from when I played volleyball.
Speaker 4: They said I looked like I played volleyball like Lebron James,
Speaker 4: so got that nickname.
Speaker 2: That was a compliment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm no right, you know, I couldn't be mad
Speaker 4: at that, and so I got that nickname. I had
Speaker 4: a friend that worked at LYDD, she was a manager.
Speaker 4: Over Christmas break, I asked her to make me a beanie.
Speaker 4: She did it came back. I just changed the way
Speaker 4: that the word beast was spelled, and a few of
Speaker 4: my teammates wanted it, and so I got them some beanies.
Speaker 4: And then after that, people were on campus wanted them,
Speaker 4: and I was like.
Speaker 2: Oh, I just struggled again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this might be a thing.
Speaker 4: And so that's that's what really jumped started my entrepreneurship career.
Speaker 4: I Relata even offered to buy the rights to the
Speaker 4: name from me for like five thousand dollars when I
Speaker 4: was in college. Nobody knows about that story, but yeah,
Speaker 4: she offered to buy the rights to my clothing line
Speaker 4: name Beast when I was in college, and I was like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to sell it. Yeah, so I didn't
Speaker 4: sell it to her. I still owned the name. I
Speaker 4: still own the rights and it's just been a clothing
Speaker 4: line that I've I just ran release stuff whenever I
Speaker 4: feel like it.
Speaker 3: But there's people from my school that still wear it
Speaker 3: to this day.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, Yeah, I think that's super dope.
Speaker 1: So so we're industry is kind of backtrack. Where is
Speaker 1: this hunger for money coming from?
Speaker 4: I think it's because of the fact that I did
Speaker 4: lose my dad young and then me realizing that I
Speaker 4: didn't come for money, Like I didn't realize that because
Speaker 4: my mother did such a good job at raising us.
Speaker 4: She wasn't really someone who like expressed like if we
Speaker 4: were having money issues in this fand like, she didn't
Speaker 4: express that to us. So I didn't know how much
Speaker 4: money my mom made until I happened to look at
Speaker 4: the faster paperwork she was filling out one time, and
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 3: Like, we're surviving off of this salary.
Speaker 4: Because I was very aware of how much what numbers
Speaker 4: were and how much people should be making. I was like,
Speaker 4: you're raising both of us off of this, and I
Speaker 4: was like, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: So that's where you like, Mama, come on, stop playing. No,
Speaker 2: you fudging them numbers for financial aid?
Speaker 3: She was legit, Yeah, yeah, because that's yeah, because I was.
Speaker 4: I was just super impressed. I was like, how have
Speaker 4: we been maintaining off of this? And so that's when
Speaker 4: I got super obsessed with like, Okay, when I go
Speaker 4: to college, I'm a major and something that I know
Speaker 4: it's gonna set me up as soon as I get
Speaker 4: to college. I'll be making a certain amount of money
Speaker 4: as soon as I leave. So that's really why I
Speaker 4: moved the way I'm moved.
Speaker 1: Did you ever find out that your mom was selling
Speaker 1: stolen candy bars?
Speaker 2: You guys are both missing each other in past.
Speaker 3: No, so she wasn't.
Speaker 2: Wasn't.
Speaker 3: I will say she knows how to make a dollar stretch.
Speaker 3: I will say yes, but she didn't.
Speaker 2: She didn't do. No what you ain't gonna go home
Speaker 2: in the car tonight and find out that she?
Speaker 3: If I do, that'll be that'll be a huge shock
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: You're in a microwave those how else I supposed to
Speaker 2: cook on? I was just I was, no, you do it?
Speaker 3: You do? I was assumed it was microwave wave on paper. Okay, yep.
Speaker 2: We learning how people cook bacon nowadays. It's real. It's
Speaker 2: real interesting bacon.
Speaker 3: You can microwave this. This ain't there because I would
Speaker 3: have cooked.
Speaker 2: That urse it's already cooked.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: You gotta do is he didn't know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I wanted to be a little bit more crispy,
Speaker 3: so I can a.
Speaker 2: Little bit more crispy in the microwave.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Christie's gonna get krispy in the microwave.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: I just I'm gonna see if the microwave explodes. I
Speaker 1: don't cook bacon in the microwave. Please don't blow up.
Speaker 1: Eighty five, I'm out the studio one shooting.
Speaker 3: No, you only need to cook it for like ten
Speaker 3: fifteen seconds. All right, thank you?
Speaker 1: Okay, So, okay, so mom, Mom just knows how to
Speaker 1: stretch a dollar. She don't she's not necessarily uh robbing
Speaker 1: and stealing and hustling.
Speaker 4: Okay, I forgot the egg. Okay, I can go ahead
Speaker 4: and put it in there. Okay, Sorry, I helping my
Speaker 4: mom's helping me out with this guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we're in this journey. Does her ride into
Speaker 1: the picture?
Speaker 4: So her ride doesn't enter the picture until almost seven
Speaker 4: years later. I moved to Atlanta twenty oh yeah, right there, okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: I moved to Atlanta twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: In the hopes of.
Speaker 2: There's a utensial things. I don't know what you call
Speaker 2: those cook weird things.
Speaker 3: Oh one of these.
Speaker 1: You're one of those people that, like I promise you,
Speaker 1: someone's got to yell at you for using a.
Speaker 3: Fork on oh on the typeware. Yeah, well the my
Speaker 3: mother is the one that does it. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: try not to scrape as much as I can.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, it's it's already happening now, so it's okay.
Speaker 2: It's all good.
Speaker 4: So I moved to Atlanta to pursue basketball professional basketball career.
Speaker 3: Start driving.
Speaker 4: Were in lift at night because it works out best
Speaker 4: with my work schedule, and I noticed a lot of
Speaker 4: women at night were telling me that they were canceling
Speaker 4: rides until they recognized a woman's name my name is Jillian,
Speaker 4: or they recognized a woman's picture. And so I noticed
Speaker 4: that this kept happening. I'm an avid podcast listener, and
Speaker 4: so I was listening to another podcast and they had
Speaker 4: the founders a Lift on there. And when I found
Speaker 4: out that it was only two people that started that company.
Speaker 3: I got extremely intrigued.
Speaker 4: I was like, wait, one of the people that started
Speaker 4: this company, they have the same degree that I went
Speaker 4: to school for, so why can I do the same thing?
Speaker 4: So I was like, I started thinking a lot more
Speaker 4: and finally decided to make the decision to go to
Speaker 4: a full Like, okay, so it's called a full Stack
Speaker 4: Developer boot camp for people that are familiar with that
Speaker 4: in computer science terms. I just went to s I
Speaker 4: went to a boot camp to sharpen up my skills
Speaker 4: so I can learn how to make apps. Finished that
Speaker 4: boot camp in six months, and I was just determined
Speaker 4: to make an app. I didn't know what app I
Speaker 4: was gonna make. And then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 4: was sitting at my pizza delivery job, just chilling, smoking,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, it literally hit me, like
Speaker 4: the name just hit me. It hit me in the
Speaker 4: front of my eyes, and it was like her Ride.
Speaker 4: I immediately called one of my friends and I was like, hey,
Speaker 4: what do you think about a ride strap for women
Speaker 4: but only women drivers called her Ride and they was like.
Speaker 3: I think it's genius.
Speaker 4: And I was like, okay, Bet, I'm gonna call you back.
Speaker 4: And I called like two other friends and I told
Speaker 4: them the same thing, and they was like, I think
Speaker 4: that's really good. It was I really like the name.
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, Bat, I'm gonna call you back.
Speaker 4: And then I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna get
Speaker 4: this done. The next day, I looked up a trademark contract.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry trademark attorney and actually got the name trademark.
Speaker 3: So I got the name trademark before I got that
Speaker 3: a maid.
Speaker 1: Yep, you got the name trademarked for a car ride service.
Speaker 3: Yep, for a ride share service.
Speaker 1: Okay, so were you were you when you developed this application?
Speaker 1: Were you able to bite off what Uber and Lyft
Speaker 1: had already kind of created because I know in tech
Speaker 1: they kind of you can build because it's more of
Speaker 1: a sharing industry.
Speaker 3: Right, Yep, you are.
Speaker 4: So It's so the thing with apps are people think
Speaker 4: that you can trademark or pattenham. You can't really do that.
Speaker 4: If you change a lot of code then then it's different.
Speaker 4: So what you would be looking for it will be
Speaker 4: a clone app. So that's what I went for. I
Speaker 4: looked for a company that creates clone apps, and they
Speaker 4: made a clone app of like Uber or a clone
Speaker 4: app of Uber. I tested it out, did the demo.
Speaker 4: I liked what I liked what I saw, asked them
Speaker 4: some questions about how it was built, how it was maintained.
Speaker 4: They sent me over some contracts. I had, you know,
Speaker 4: had a lawyer read over the contract just to make
Speaker 4: sure that I owned the source code and everything. Once
Speaker 4: I paid for it, Once everything was good with the contract,
Speaker 4: I got it done.
Speaker 2: Did you have to bring on a CTO.
Speaker 3: I'm the CTO.
Speaker 2: You're the CTO after six months of boot camp?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I got my degree in computer science.
Speaker 2: So oh your original degrees computer science? Okay, okay, yep.
Speaker 4: My original degrees in computer science. So I'm confident. I
Speaker 4: was confident that I could.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you take on this application. Where are you
Speaker 1: funding these attorneys and all that stuff from?
Speaker 3: So that's coming from my personal savings.
Speaker 4: I worked about two to three jobs while I was
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, and so I just took that money and
Speaker 4: funded it.
Speaker 2: Were you living at home with your mom or were
Speaker 2: you living on your own?
Speaker 3: Living on my own?
Speaker 4: But I was living with a roommate, so I was
Speaker 4: renting out a room, so living expenses was pretty low.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're stacking all your bread, but the bread
Speaker 1: you're making is from like the liveries.
Speaker 2: And stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how long How many years of savings did
Speaker 1: you have to do to get her rights?
Speaker 2: Source?
Speaker 4: It actually took me. I did it with less than
Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars. It was like it was less than
Speaker 4: half of year. It was like half of a year's savings. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: it didn't take me that long to get it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get you get the money together. You
Speaker 1: you now have the application. Now as a CTO, are
Speaker 1: you bringing on some kind of officer to.
Speaker 2: Help market because you see, the CTO doesn't.
Speaker 4: So that's what I was looking for next, with somebody
Speaker 4: to sell it. I was looking for a co founder.
Speaker 4: And so the first person I originally brought on. They
Speaker 4: they were older than me. They're older, older black women.
Speaker 4: They they they're their I guess their experience was more
Speaker 4: so in like the in like lobbying, in like the
Speaker 4: political field, in politics, and so that's where their experience
Speaker 4: lied in. They didn't end up working out because the
Speaker 4: person that ended up being my next co founder, she
Speaker 4: got jealous of her because I was bringing her in
Speaker 4: for marketing like marketing and advertising because she was more
Speaker 4: so skilled in social media and so we needed to
Speaker 4: have our name more out there on social media. So
Speaker 4: I was bringing her in, and so the first co
Speaker 4: founder actually didn't work out because she got jealous of
Speaker 4: the second person. Second person stayed on for about a year,
Speaker 4: so brought her in twenty twenty one. No, twenty twenty
Speaker 4: brought her in twenty twenty. She stayed for a year,
Speaker 4: almost two years, and then quit. So she quit abruptly
Speaker 4: on me in February twenty twenty two. She felt like
Speaker 4: I was pushing her out the company, but it was
Speaker 4: only US two, so I don't know how that was possible.
Speaker 1: So why did you go the co founder route instead
Speaker 1: of like maybe contract to hire.
Speaker 4: So it's easier to uh, when you're when you're a
Speaker 4: tech company and your app and you're trying to get
Speaker 4: funding or raise funding, it's easier to get funding if
Speaker 4: you have a co founder.
Speaker 1: So you were trying to raise capital after getting co
Speaker 1: founders yep, So you were also the CEO okay, so
Speaker 1: CEO CEO, and then you're looking for a CMO yep, okay, so.
Speaker 2: Who are you hitting up?
Speaker 1: Are you hitting up angel investors or venture capitalists at
Speaker 1: this point?
Speaker 4: So at first I originally started by like contacting vcs,
Speaker 4: but then I realized that, like when I decided to
Speaker 4: start my app, the economy was also shifting. So right
Speaker 4: before I decided to start my app, vcs were throwing
Speaker 4: money left and.
Speaker 3: Right to anybody with an idea. You got an idea.
Speaker 3: They think it's good enough, they're gonna give you money.
Speaker 1: For it, but your idea it's weird. I don't know
Speaker 1: how vcs handle this situation, because do you technically have
Speaker 1: these uber you have lift these platforms, and then you're saying, well,
Speaker 1: out of this sector, you know, I'm going to carve
Speaker 1: out this this woman, this woman light. Now I heard
Speaker 1: that there's a car right service for children, right, but
Speaker 1: you decide that this organization that you're building is also
Speaker 1: going to be all female contractors.
Speaker 3: All women drivers, no male.
Speaker 2: And there was no legality issues in.
Speaker 4: That, Nope, because of because of how gig workers or
Speaker 4: ride share drivers are placed in terms of employment. So
Speaker 4: they're ten ninety nine independent contractors.
Speaker 1: So you could you could technically be discriminative towards them.
Speaker 2: I hate to say that word. I'm trying to find
Speaker 2: a nicer word.
Speaker 4: So basically, I can we have the right to choose
Speaker 4: who we can and who we do and who we
Speaker 4: don't want to hire as contractors.
Speaker 3: We do have the right to choose that.
Speaker 2: But that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So in your companies based in Atlanta and there's no
Speaker 1: regulations on whether you can hire Nope, because.
Speaker 4: They're if they're if they are labeled ten ninety nine,
Speaker 4: there are no there are no regulations around that now.
Speaker 4: So these people that drive for her ride are not
Speaker 4: W two employees, they are ten ninety nine contractors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're ten ninety nine.
Speaker 1: But I'm surprised that there's no legalities in discrimination on that.
Speaker 3: Nope.
Speaker 4: There's a guy that already reached out to the EOC
Speaker 4: courtesy you know, you know, because people are going to
Speaker 4: do that. But he decided to make up a story
Speaker 4: and say that we didn't hire him. He never even
Speaker 4: applied to her ride, but he just made up a
Speaker 4: story said that I'd said that we don't hire men,
Speaker 4: and that I, you know, we don't, you know, we
Speaker 4: don't hire men for our platform.
Speaker 3: I end up having to spend about five thousand dollars
Speaker 3: to fight.
Speaker 4: That case, and the EEOC, which is the federal government,
Speaker 4: found us in no wrongdoing when it comes to discrimination.
Speaker 1: So yeah, because your hyper niche is like your I
Speaker 1: guess your appeal is that you're creating a safe space
Speaker 1: for women, yep.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 4: And also there are two other companies that control ninety
Speaker 4: eight percent of the market in ride share that exists,
Speaker 4: So it's not like I'm the only ride share company
Speaker 4: that exists. If I was the only ride share company
Speaker 4: that existed and then I'm doing what I'm doing, then yes.
Speaker 3: There will be an issue.
Speaker 4: But because there are more than there are other companies
Speaker 4: that exist besides me, there's.
Speaker 2: Now how do you handle the transgender situation with that?
Speaker 4: So we are still working through the details of it,
Speaker 4: but I've met I've had a couple of meetings so far,
Speaker 4: because there are some people that I personally know that
Speaker 4: have transitioned and so they we have well we've already
Speaker 4: discussed what it is that they're looking for when it
Speaker 4: comes to just doing gigwork or what is it they
Speaker 4: expect out of us as a company. And so I've
Speaker 4: been told that they just want jobs. They just want
Speaker 4: somewhere to work, because trying to get hired when you are,
Speaker 4: when you're in that category, it's very difficult just trying
Speaker 4: to get any type of employment.
Speaker 2: But how would you how how do you?
Speaker 3: I guess, so right now we got to go by
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 2: So go a by the book is like what you're
Speaker 2: born as is what.
Speaker 3: Well, what's on your driver's license?
Speaker 2: Oh, what's on your drivers license?
Speaker 3: What's on your driver's license.
Speaker 4: And I mean people have told me like, oh, you
Speaker 4: can get your drop, you can get your sex changed
Speaker 4: and different in different states, and all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I believe there's paperwork that's associated with that.
Speaker 4: I don't think you can just go to the DMV
Speaker 4: and say hey, i'm a I'm a man now and
Speaker 4: hey i'm a woman now. Now I can get some
Speaker 4: more clarification on that. But like I said, after the
Speaker 4: conversations I've had, it's not just as simple as going
Speaker 4: to the d m B and saying that, okay, so
Speaker 4: but right now, there's other things that have to take
Speaker 4: place before you do that.
Speaker 1: So right now, transgendered is like in that it's you're
Speaker 1: not fully accepting it yet, but you're trying to figure
Speaker 1: out when.
Speaker 4: We are accepting or people that are fully transitioned. So
Speaker 4: what we're trying to what we're trying to work out
Speaker 4: right now is people that are in transition. So the
Speaker 4: people that haven't gotten to the finish line, the people
Speaker 4: that haven't gotten to the.
Speaker 1: Point transitioned, you can be considered, oh, child, I'm the
Speaker 1: wrong one to have this conversation. This is this is
Speaker 1: it's a touchy subject because you know, I believe that
Speaker 1: we'll make women women. Isn't just a lady and mail
Speaker 1: parts man. We got that at one time of the month,
Speaker 1: we give birth and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's very tricky. It is tricky, tricky land. Okay,
Speaker 2: so is your meal done? Serve me up, Serve me up,
Speaker 2: serve you up. Let's serve you up.
Speaker 3: Let's get you right, all right.
Speaker 1: Uh So, one of the clips that I had caught
Speaker 1: online I think someone had DM me, was this clip
Speaker 1: of you, uh interviewing about the Atlanta Airport trying to
Speaker 1: get uh your name recognized with the lifts and the
Speaker 1: ubers and the other ride share companies. Was were you
Speaker 1: the one leading that or was H Did you have
Speaker 1: your partner or someone lead.
Speaker 3: That both both of us.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 4: I was the I was definitely spearhead, spearheading the social
Speaker 4: media campaign aspect of it.
Speaker 3: But she was behind the scenes doing all the emailing.
Speaker 3: I'm not good at doing all of the all of
Speaker 3: the corporate communication.
Speaker 4: She did all that, but I was the person on
Speaker 4: the ground, like letting everybody know, rallying the troops like, hey,
Speaker 4: I feel like this is not fair.
Speaker 3: I feel like you know, don't y'all think the same thing.
Speaker 4: And you know a lot of people online they rallied
Speaker 4: behind us, and they really helped get that get that
Speaker 4: that airport signage up because we actually been talking with
Speaker 4: them about that since j're live last year. So you know,
Speaker 4: they've been telling us that it was temporary and da
Speaker 4: Dad this, and that they'll be they'll be doing you know,
Speaker 4: what they need to do, and that you know, the
Speaker 4: signs will be changed.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, all right, well, I'd have.
Speaker 4: Missed the holiday season, which is the busiest time for
Speaker 4: ride share, and you guys still haven't changed the signage.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna need something to happen around you know,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go to phase two. Phase two is me
Speaker 4: getting hiring a group of well, hiring a group of
Speaker 4: volunteers to call the airport every hour on the hour
Speaker 4: and ask them, you know.
Speaker 3: Hey, where's where's her rode?
Speaker 4: I heard there's a new rod Shair app available, but
Speaker 4: I don't see it anywhere in the airport.
Speaker 3: I'm in the airport right now, I don't see it.
Speaker 3: Where How do I get to rod Shair in section?
Speaker 2: Did you guys end up raising the capital that you needed.
Speaker 4: So we still trying to raise. So let me be clear,
Speaker 4: we are still trying to raise. We actually have only
Speaker 4: done family and friends rounds. We've done a total of
Speaker 4: about seventy five thousand with that, and then I also.
Speaker 2: Doing family and friends. You have some good family and friends.
Speaker 3: We did two separate rounds, so we do. Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna lie. I do have some great family
Speaker 4: and friends. I appreciate every single person that donates. I'm
Speaker 4: not donated, but invested.
Speaker 3: In her ride.
Speaker 4: But yeah, we uh. After the seventy five thousand, We've
Speaker 4: also won about forty thousand grants, so I'm constantly applying
Speaker 4: to grant for grants and participating in pitch competitions as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you able to fully fund your yourself or
Speaker 1: do you still have to do some kind of side hustling.
Speaker 2: I still work, I still work for you still work
Speaker 2: full time? Wow? Okay, what is the bacon for in this?
Speaker 4: So the bacon was I lost my train of thought talking.
Speaker 4: But this bacon was supposed to be crumbled up and
Speaker 4: put into.
Speaker 2: A piece of bacon. I'm gonna try and make make.
Speaker 3: Shift the heck out of your dish.
Speaker 2: We need your mama and said, I know.
Speaker 3: She over there shaking her head at me.
Speaker 2: She like, girl, girl, Let's see. Let's see what can
Speaker 2: salmon and bacon and rice and what you had me
Speaker 2: eating here with salt and pepper.
Speaker 3: With salt and pepper.
Speaker 2: Let's see.
Speaker 3: I'm try put sugar on mind, but everybody don't do
Speaker 3: what I do.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you didn't put sugar on this. I'm
Speaker 1: losing faith by the second.
Speaker 2: I wish. Second, I wish your mama was here, shut out.
Speaker 2: Look at her, she's stressed.
Speaker 3: Out over there.
Speaker 1: Hold on, cheers, you got it. Chairs to the grandma
Speaker 1: praying for us. Should have had her uppears.
Speaker 3: Nah, it's it.
Speaker 2: Let's see, here we go.
Speaker 3: It's good. That's the egg. They really do it. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: You don't like it. I like it, mom.
Speaker 2: Mmmm.
Speaker 3: It still tastes fine to me.
Speaker 1: Let's try it without the bacon, because I think if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for this bacon, it would be okay. Yeah, guys,
Speaker 1: if you if you starving at home and you ain't
Speaker 1: got nothing to eat, your mama knew how to stretch
Speaker 1: a dollar.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm telling you. Feels you up.
Speaker 2: You know I had was it ripped. Michael No Carlos
Speaker 2: Hayes comedian here had to see like tunea on rice.
Speaker 3: See, I feel like tun is such a stronger fish taste.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm gonna have to have your
Speaker 1: mom cook this dish because understood, Yeah, just a broke dish.
Speaker 2: It's a broke dish. This dish is what like five
Speaker 2: dollars and confeed the whole family. Yeah, your mom did it?
Speaker 2: Pass me? All that bacon?
Speaker 3: All the bacon. Bacon is where it's at good, But
Speaker 3: I don't know if I don't know, to me the
Speaker 3: bacon needs to be Michael waves. Still I've cooked up
Speaker 3: some mom. I don't like him. I like crispy bacon.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: So you're in the middle of work, in hustling. What
Speaker 2: is your thoughts? Is there days that you wake up
Speaker 2: and you're like, I should give up?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes, how often?
Speaker 3: M about one the season?
Speaker 4: About once a season, it's starting to feel like I
Speaker 4: got seasonal depression or something. But usually when whenever we
Speaker 4: whenever we get hit with a no, I just take it.
Speaker 3: I just take it so personal.
Speaker 4: It's not it's not anything against I know that we're
Speaker 4: gonna get told no all the time, but sometimes we
Speaker 4: have We'll be going on such a high we get
Speaker 4: hit with like a crazy no that I wasn't expecting,
Speaker 4: and then it just kind of kills my mood.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I would say about once in.
Speaker 2: Season I have.
Speaker 1: I've been teaching a class. I do this in my
Speaker 1: free time, which I don't really have free time, but
Speaker 1: I'm really passionate about entrepreneurship and I teach this course
Speaker 1: on mindset of entrepreneurs and one of the things I
Speaker 1: teach is, you know, you count your nose because the
Speaker 1: more nos you get, the closer you get to it.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, and a lot of time in entrepreneurship. I don't
Speaker 1: know the statistics, but I need to incorporate in my
Speaker 1: class that the suicide rate on.
Speaker 2: The entrepreneurs is actually pretty high.
Speaker 1: And you know, you have to be insane to start
Speaker 1: a business most of the time, and to keep that
Speaker 1: level of insanity in the world that has bills and
Speaker 1: peers and shit.
Speaker 2: Social media makes it even harder. It's it's hard to.
Speaker 1: It's really hard to not not you know, get into
Speaker 1: that negative space.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: So, are you reinvesting your checks all the time into the.
Speaker 3: Business, Yes, constantly. I currently still live with my mom.
Speaker 4: Now I'm still I am trying to save up to
Speaker 4: buy to get to purchase my own on if they
Speaker 4: would just relax with the with the home prices.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm the home prices of the whole home
Speaker 1: interest rates.
Speaker 3: Just the interest rates and prices in general.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, I put all my money into her Ride.
Speaker 3: It's my baby, Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you're still in year three. Two, I
Speaker 2: am me in year three now, yeah, you're in the heart,
Speaker 2: but you got through the first part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, have you thought about reaching out to
Speaker 1: the ride share of the ride share competitors.
Speaker 4: No, because they've been watching me this entire time. The
Speaker 4: day before the day before the airport dropped our press
Speaker 4: release last year, Liff actually dropped a press release saying
Speaker 4: that they were going to be dropping the women plus
Speaker 4: Connect feature. So what's that that's there? That's their version
Speaker 4: of her Ride. So basically you can if you're in
Speaker 4: whatever cities that they're doing it in, you can have
Speaker 4: you can just put it's like a button that they
Speaker 4: have on there and it basically filters out vers. But
Speaker 4: if there are no women drivers available in your area,
Speaker 4: you'll still get a mail driver.
Speaker 3: So it's not one hundred proof.
Speaker 4: It's not one hundred percent like like you're only going
Speaker 4: to get a woman driver.
Speaker 1: Do you feel pressure because you raised a capital from
Speaker 1: friends and family?
Speaker 3: I do this year?
Speaker 4: Yeah, why just due to the terms of the invest
Speaker 4: I really want to start generating more revenue so that
Speaker 4: they can actually have a dividend payout. But it's more
Speaker 4: so just pressure that I'm putting on myself so that
Speaker 4: we can start making more money.
Speaker 1: As far as people adopting the platform, what are your
Speaker 1: numbers looking like?
Speaker 2: Are you able to.
Speaker 4: Say, oh, yeah, I can say we have about almost
Speaker 4: twenty thousand people on the platform. In terms of the
Speaker 4: customer side, I have about almost forty thousand people that
Speaker 4: have downloaded the app from just they just have it
Speaker 4: on their phone. We have about two hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: drivers and we have completed over three thousand trips since
Speaker 4: we have.
Speaker 3: Been on money. Good thank you.
Speaker 2: So how are you spearheading growing that?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 4: Growth is my main focus is the airport. So the
Speaker 4: airport actually receives about forty six thousand rideshare requests a week.
Speaker 4: That's why we're so gun ho on them, putting our
Speaker 4: name up on the signage because I want to capture
Speaker 4: at least ten percent of that. If we capture at
Speaker 4: least ten percent of that, we'll be pulling in close
Speaker 4: to a million in a year. Okay, yeah, a million net.
Speaker 4: And that's that's us paying our drivers eighty percent. That's
Speaker 4: on an eighty twenty split.
Speaker 2: Okay. Is there any other things you can do to
Speaker 2: partner with the airport too?
Speaker 4: Partnering Well, outside of just the permit that we have,
Speaker 4: there's nothing we can advertise inside the airport, but it's
Speaker 4: too expensive to do that. We are also focused on
Speaker 4: getting a lot of MoU agreements with just different organizations
Speaker 4: around Atlanta. So the first nonprofit that we partnered up
Speaker 4: with is Common Courtesy. They schedule rise your rides for
Speaker 4: senior citizens and so senior citizen calls their line and
Speaker 4: then they.
Speaker 3: Book the ride for them. Yeah, at like a way
Speaker 3: cheaper cost.
Speaker 4: And so partnering up with nonprofit organizations, organizations that deal
Speaker 4: with women, people, that shelter women, children, kids where I'm
Speaker 4: really interested in getting in the school system. I have
Speaker 4: this great idea where I want to utilize the substitute
Speaker 4: teachers convert them into drivers so that students can get
Speaker 4: to and from school properly without having to wait all
Speaker 4: day for their.
Speaker 3: Parents to come.
Speaker 4: Basically like have it part of the after school program.
Speaker 4: And yeah, so those are my three main sectors right now.
Speaker 4: And then nightlife as well, trying to infiltrate the ninth
Speaker 4: life scene.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then what other jobs are you working outside
Speaker 2: of the application.
Speaker 3: You're talking about just all out of her ride for you?
Speaker 3: What do I do? So?
Speaker 4: I do it support. So I'm a state employee, but
Speaker 4: I do it support. It's very simple. I just reset
Speaker 4: passwords all day. I'm actually held two of those jobs.
Speaker 4: Last year, I had two full time jobs. I'm probably
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get another one. I'm not gonna lie
Speaker 4: to you just because we need to. I just want
Speaker 4: to make sure that we're good for the next few months.
Speaker 4: But yeah, that's what I do. I do very simple
Speaker 4: it support work.
Speaker 1: On the money side, are your rides competitive to a
Speaker 1: certain degree to lift in the uber and those guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we we only charge about I charged about
Speaker 4: eighty something since per mile in like sixteenth cent a minute.
Speaker 4: It's around it's a little bit over a dollar a
Speaker 4: mile when you add it up. It's a lot cheaper
Speaker 4: than Uber and Lyft and we don't. So whenever you
Speaker 4: if you ever search for us the ride, that ride
Speaker 4: price is gonna always be that ride price. What do
Speaker 4: you mean in terms of just time of day? So
Speaker 4: there could be a time of day that you are
Speaker 4: trying to get a ride on an Uber Lyft and
Speaker 4: it'll be ten or fifteen dollars more than what it
Speaker 4: normally is just due to the search.
Speaker 1: Now do when Uber and Lyft do that, does that
Speaker 1: mean that the driver makes more money or just Uber.
Speaker 2: And Lyft make more money?
Speaker 3: Uber and Lyft make more money?
Speaker 1: Okay, So on your application, your drivers are they making
Speaker 1: more or yeah.
Speaker 4: So they're making eighty percent of the fair the average
Speaker 4: driver on Uber and Lyft is and keeping about forty percent.
Speaker 2: Yep, shit, that needs to be your advertising.
Speaker 1: Yeah shit, you could be making forty percent, you could
Speaker 1: be making eighty percent.
Speaker 2: Shoot, but I guess.
Speaker 4: Uber and Lyft has more demand than we do on
Speaker 4: the customer side. So like when you turn on the
Speaker 4: when you turn on the app as an Uber Lyft driver,
Speaker 4: it in about probably thirty seconds you'll get a ding
Speaker 4: saying somebody wants to ride for us.
Speaker 3: It's not like that.
Speaker 1: Have you now ever been in a position where you
Speaker 1: get a customer ask for a ride? This is this
Speaker 1: is real deep, but and and none of your drivers
Speaker 1: are available, and you'd be like, forget it, I'll put all.
Speaker 2: My driver hat.
Speaker 3: Yeah I've done that. Yeah. Yeah, I was saying, my mom,
Speaker 3: what are shaking head? Yeah.
Speaker 4: The only reason I'm not doing it right now is
Speaker 4: because my car. I'm having car troubles. And it's probably
Speaker 4: like for the best that I'm even having car troubles
Speaker 4: right now because my team doesn't even want me driving.
Speaker 4: Like I was a driver. I was legitimate, I was
Speaker 4: a driver. I was one of the main ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that's good that you got out of that seat. Now.
Speaker 2: Do you have mentors?
Speaker 4: I have one that just just started on with me.
Speaker 4: He's a technical architect and he has been helping me
Speaker 4: understand like the code for real, understand the structure and
Speaker 4: the organization of how my app is set up so
Speaker 4: that I can be just a better CTO and a
Speaker 4: better system admin for my for my company. So that's
Speaker 4: my only mentor right now. There's some people that I
Speaker 4: look up to, but I don't not people that I
Speaker 4: can just call and be like hey, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say that I have any No, not any
Speaker 4: entrepreneur and mentors that that are like on me, Like, hey, Jill,
Speaker 4: I'm checking it.
Speaker 3: Nah.
Speaker 4: It's a couple of people that I look up to
Speaker 4: and then I pay attention to and I study.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think mentorship is crucial.
Speaker 3: I think it is crucial.
Speaker 2: It's crucial.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to let my mentor find me.
Speaker 1: It doesn't know, there's no such thing as a mentor,
Speaker 1: oh for real, So that's my mentor.
Speaker 2: I've mentored so many people in my life. It's crazy
Speaker 2: because my garage.
Speaker 1: Literally it has become the home to some of my
Speaker 1: mentees a couple of times or of stories. But all
Speaker 1: my mentees have surpassed me, I think, all of them,
Speaker 1: which I'm very, very very proud of. And then my
Speaker 1: mentors they weren't necessarily in the same field or line
Speaker 1: of work, which I think is really important because when
Speaker 1: you get them in a different field, in a different line,
Speaker 1: they can cover things that you wouldn't think of. I
Speaker 1: remember one of my mentors, you know, he was like,
Speaker 1: your business credit's so good, but what's your credit at?
Speaker 1: And then I bought a range Rover, and I think
Speaker 1: it had like a twelve percent interest rate.
Speaker 2: I was really really bothered by it.
Speaker 1: But now I have like a nine hundred fight though,
Speaker 1: you know, but it took, you know, having mentors in
Speaker 1: areas of my life that could be like, Yo, don't
Speaker 1: forget to do this.
Speaker 2: And you're gonna oversee this.
Speaker 1: You're gonna spend too much time on this and pivot
Speaker 1: here or stop crying and like pick up the phone
Speaker 1: and try something different.
Speaker 2: So mentorship is.
Speaker 1: Very you know, if you're gonna be the entrepreneur, you're
Speaker 1: gonna need to seek them out.
Speaker 2: I stalked on mine.
Speaker 1: I literally stalked them, like, Yo, you're gonna take my calls,
Speaker 1: You're gonna come to lunch for me. You're going to
Speaker 1: see what I'm about. You're gonna see what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna be my mentor.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: It's almost like asking someone out on a date. It's like,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be my mentor. I've been studying you for
Speaker 1: a while. You're amazing, and uh, these are some areas
Speaker 1: that I probably.
Speaker 2: Need your help with.
Speaker 1: And I mean a lot of my mentors like when
Speaker 1: I was younger. So I use that for my benefit.
Speaker 3: See, I was coming from the sport.
Speaker 4: I'm such a sports focused person that I'm thinking like, okay,
Speaker 4: like they should be like a recruiter, like how recruits recruit.
Speaker 1: I love asking mentors to be your mentor because once
Speaker 1: you get them to agree, it's like you can call
Speaker 1: their cell at anytime, you could send them a text
Speaker 1: at any time. My mentees could call me anytime, anywhere,
Speaker 1: any place, text, call, whatever, And I'm gonna be like, yo,
Speaker 1: I gotta take the call.
Speaker 2: I gotta because I.
Speaker 1: Signed up for this commitment and I'm honored because I
Speaker 1: want to see them succeed.
Speaker 2: Right, You're like, they gotta succeed, you're rooting for them.
Speaker 1: But I love it. I'm that's my I can sign up.
Speaker 1: I'm not the easiest though, because everyone ever, all my
Speaker 1: mentees complain about me at some point.
Speaker 4: To no, I like, I enjoy I come from My
Speaker 4: coaches are very rough, not rough, but very very hard
Speaker 4: on me. So I like I need that. I need someone.
Speaker 3: That's like, yeah, read this, dude doesn't mind cutting me out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't want to tell me what they put
Speaker 1: on their credit cards. They don't want to tell me
Speaker 1: none of that.
Speaker 2: But okay, so where do you see your future landing?
Speaker 3: I see my future being an acquisition.
Speaker 2: Land you know already acquisition.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you always have to think of an exit. When
Speaker 4: you have a tech company, you should always be thinking exit.
Speaker 4: I would love to be acquired. I don't want to
Speaker 4: just sell and just you know, do whatever I want
Speaker 4: to do. I still want to be involved, but I
Speaker 4: would love an acquisition. That would that would be That
Speaker 4: would be super dope.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of other companies in your space that
Speaker 1: got venture capital where they were hyper niche in a
Speaker 1: in a realm that was like really absorbed, not VC, not.
Speaker 3: Big VC money. I've done my research on some.
Speaker 4: There have been some that have gotten like six figure,
Speaker 4: six figure investments, but then they pivoted and went to
Speaker 4: something else. I'm the only one that is taking it
Speaker 4: this far in terms of getting inside of like an
Speaker 4: airport and then also getting signage up there with the airport,
Speaker 4: like there was nobody. No one was out here doing that,
Speaker 4: not before we came.
Speaker 1: Now, you guys came during the pandemic or after, so
Speaker 1: you didn't think about riding the whole black waves.
Speaker 4: No, the reason why, well, actually did. That's how we
Speaker 4: went viral first because of COVID, everything shut down. We
Speaker 4: focused on social media promotion. I'm heavy on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Love Twitter.
Speaker 4: My former co founder was also heavy on Twitter, which
Speaker 4: is why I recruited her. She was very good at
Speaker 4: social media because covid had everybody on social media. People
Speaker 4: used to play a lot of games on Twitter with
Speaker 4: all this other stuff. Different trendy little things was going
Speaker 4: trendy every other day. The one particular one that made
Speaker 4: us go viral was people were doing pictures of themselves.
Speaker 4: They were posting pictures of themselves as the owner of
Speaker 4: whatever is their brand was, and then they posted a
Speaker 4: picture of their business or their brand. And so I
Speaker 4: told my co founder, I said, hey, I want you
Speaker 4: to do this, post a picture of your do you
Speaker 4: know hop in that trend, but don't post me post
Speaker 4: yourself if you know what She looked like you would understand.
Speaker 4: But she was a well okay. So for me, I
Speaker 4: was playing on colorism. She's like light skinned, pretty eyes,
Speaker 4: like light eyes, and so I was like, I said,
Speaker 4: this is going to work. I was like, watch, just watch.
Speaker 4: She posted it and she called me back within thirty minutes.
Speaker 4: She was like, I think we're gonna go viral, just
Speaker 4: based off how people were the traffic she was getting
Speaker 4: on her social media, and we did. We got I
Speaker 4: want to say two or three million, No, it might
Speaker 4: have been seven seven million impressions, but seven thousand people
Speaker 4: signed up that day.
Speaker 2: And do you think colorism?
Speaker 1: But now this was during the pandemic, right, this is
Speaker 1: around the black Lives matter movement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, black lives matter.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to optics, people see when they
Speaker 4: think of when they see, okay, when they hear a
Speaker 4: rides share company or all women's rides share company, who
Speaker 4: would be the face of that? If you took a
Speaker 4: picture of me versus who my co founder was at
Speaker 4: the time, you would assume it was her, not me
Speaker 4: that created the idea. Why because she's just the she
Speaker 4: just she looks different than I do. She's a softer
Speaker 4: version of me, A softer Yeah, it's just a softer
Speaker 4: not of rugged, like I would say, not rugged or whatever,
Speaker 4: like you know, just pretty little girl like oh wow,
Speaker 4: Like I would expect a girl that looks like her
Speaker 4: to create an idea like that. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 4: I was just playing off the internet and it worked.
Speaker 3: It worked.
Speaker 4: I knew it was gonna work. I didn't feel any
Speaker 4: way about it though. I just knew it was gonna work.
Speaker 2: I just think that's interesting.
Speaker 3: That says a lot in social engineering.
Speaker 1: But it says a lot because you said something that's
Speaker 1: very interesting. You said that people wouldn't assume that a
Speaker 1: girl that looks like you could create this application, but
Speaker 1: a girl that looks the opposite of you could create
Speaker 1: the application.
Speaker 3: The reception was way different.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I go back and look at it, just
Speaker 4: just to just do my studies.
Speaker 3: Just look.
Speaker 4: I go back and look at that post, and I
Speaker 4: go through the comments that people were more receptive of
Speaker 4: her creating the idea versus me in terms of just comments.
Speaker 4: So whenever whenever I go viral and people find out
Speaker 4: I'm the founder, the reaction from men is a lot
Speaker 4: harsher versus the reaction when they found out she.
Speaker 2: Was the founder from men or from women.
Speaker 3: From men and women really, but mainly men.
Speaker 2: Man. What were they saying just mainly like.
Speaker 4: Things like uh uh just basically I mean just really
Speaker 4: trying to just attack like my sexuality or just my
Speaker 4: just the way I look. So they'll just be like, oh,
Speaker 4: women don't hit on women and all this other stuff like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but that's not why I created this app. Like the
Speaker 4: fact that you would assume that I created the app
Speaker 4: to hit on women. It's crazy, but they would.
Speaker 2: Say that from her You're you're not straight, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: but you are straight?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I'm not straight.
Speaker 2: You're not straight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, it's just is what it is.
Speaker 2: So okay, yeah, I see. So then in this whole line, do.
Speaker 1: You feel like, see, yeah, you're weaving a nice little
Speaker 1: web because now you are not straight, but then you
Speaker 1: have an app, and then you have the transgenders.
Speaker 2: So this is a tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky waters.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, okay, but hm, so have you thought about
Speaker 1: getting out of Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm originally from Athens, Georgia. So I actually want
Speaker 4: to try a smaller market, like a college town, smaller market,
Speaker 4: just to see how it plays out there. I would
Speaker 4: love to go to Houston. I would love to go
Speaker 4: to Seattle, Washington. I would love to go to US Tampa, Tampa, Florida.
Speaker 4: I think we would do well there. There's so many
Speaker 4: different places I'd rather go. I mean, not not rather go,
Speaker 4: but I want to be at but we have to
Speaker 4: be able to scale Atlanta properly first before we go
Speaker 4: anywhere else.
Speaker 2: How close are you to quitting your jobs just to
Speaker 2: do full time?
Speaker 3: Ooh, I just got in trouble today at work. Not
Speaker 3: even gonna lie to you. I was.
Speaker 4: Just because as the business of her Ride has been
Speaker 4: getting a lot more busy, it's been taking me away
Speaker 4: from my job. How close am I I want to
Speaker 4: be six months away?
Speaker 3: I'm giving myself six months.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it should probably be less than that.
Speaker 2: If you really want to grow this business, I think
Speaker 2: it should be too. Yeah. So what is your job
Speaker 2: giving you that your company can.
Speaker 3: A consistent check every two weeks without me having.
Speaker 1: To But but are you taking that money and putting
Speaker 1: it in the company?
Speaker 2: Are you? Or are you spending that money on something else? No?
Speaker 4: I take that money and well, outside of paying my bills,
Speaker 4: it goes back into the company.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like every business I've ever had to do,
Speaker 1: I've had to just.
Speaker 3: Jump off the porch I've been.
Speaker 4: I've been telling my co founder that that I feel
Speaker 4: like it's time for me to get to that point
Speaker 4: because I don't want her.
Speaker 3: She's not leaving her job. She has a great job.
Speaker 3: But for me, I feel like I could do more
Speaker 3: if I do leave my job. The the thing is how
Speaker 3: I'm going to make the money that I was making
Speaker 3: at my job. How I'm going to replace that. I
Speaker 3: could replace it by just driving a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, eating while I broke, I could go back to Yeah,
Speaker 4: you could see salmon and rice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I probably only ate as
Speaker 1: much as I did because I'm starting.
Speaker 2: I would rate this eating while broke.
Speaker 1: I would say it's like a three. But I feel
Speaker 1: like if your mama came up here and made it,
Speaker 1: it would taste better. I gotta hate a little bit
Speaker 1: on it. M. But your journey is definitely interesting.
Speaker 2: Uh. Is there any bit of advice you would share
Speaker 2: with anybody else? M M.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: If you are someone who is thinking about just hopping
Speaker 4: into entrepreneurship, period, I would say, keep your day job.
Speaker 4: Keep your day job until you figure out how to
Speaker 4: properly scale your business, because a lot of people they'll
Speaker 4: hop they'll just they'll quit their great job to start,
Speaker 4: you know, making a waste beads or making candles or
Speaker 4: something like that. And then realize that that's not what
Speaker 4: they really want to do. But you've also just at
Speaker 4: your job, so now you have to do this, and
Speaker 4: so it's something that now it's turned into something that
Speaker 4: you hate. And so I would say for people that like,
Speaker 4: just make sure that one this is something that you
Speaker 4: really want to do, but try to figure out how
Speaker 4: to do it while keeping your day job. If you
Speaker 4: can figure out how to hustle around those hours, then
Speaker 4: I truly believe that you're ready for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2: That's funny. I would give the polar opposite.
Speaker 1: I know, I get that all the time, because if
Speaker 1: you're going in with a backup plan, you're not going
Speaker 1: into to succeed. Some of the stuff like in entrepreneurship
Speaker 1: is like you gotta pivot. But if you're not, if
Speaker 1: your back isn't against the wall, sometimes you can't fight
Speaker 1: as hard and you can't see everything because you have
Speaker 1: so much comfort in your corner.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: So it's it can be a double edged sword.
Speaker 3: True, that's true.
Speaker 2: You know that that comfort zone is very dangerous.
Speaker 3: I agree, but yeah, yeah, you're right, because it's.
Speaker 1: Nothing teaches you how to scale a company faster than
Speaker 1: struggle in struggle struggle, I promise you can get rid
Speaker 1: of those day jobs. You're gonna figure out how to
Speaker 1: scale that business real quick. Sometimes the backup plant is
Speaker 1: really a bad plan. So either you're all in or
Speaker 1: you're all not. It's interesting, You're in an interesting space.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I've I've seen other people do similar things in like
Speaker 1: they borrow the code or they take on someone else's
Speaker 1: code and hypernt shit.
Speaker 2: Uh So I thought what you were doing is very interesting.
Speaker 1: Approaching the airports fighting for that interesting, you know.
Speaker 2: But I definitely think Quinn in the day job is essential.
Speaker 3: She wants me to quit. That's all my plans, It's
Speaker 3: all my It's definitely on my calendar for this year.
Speaker 2: It sounds crazy.
Speaker 4: I know it is because I just got put on
Speaker 4: full time with a good benefit.
Speaker 3: So it sounds definitely sounds crazy.
Speaker 2: It sounds crazy. It's the way to do it though.
Speaker 1: That's the only way to go up, man, you gotta
Speaker 1: start from the bottom. But anyways, everyone can keep up
Speaker 1: with her ride. Yes, I guess where you go into
Speaker 1: your app store apples?
Speaker 4: Yes, so that's the first thing I want you all
Speaker 4: to do, Yes, app store or Android, And it's her
Speaker 4: ride with one R so H R I D E.
Speaker 4: You can download us on both platforms and it's the
Speaker 4: light purple app.
Speaker 3: But men can be men can ride as customers. So
Speaker 3: if you want to use the platform, you can ride, bro.
Speaker 2: That's how you should advertise it too, what you talk about.
Speaker 1: So every type of man gets in the car, he
Speaker 1: could be in the car with a lady.
Speaker 3: If you guy, it could go it could go left.
Speaker 2: But you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: But yeah that I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't market and or advertised to men, just because
Speaker 4: it's just kind of like one of those things like
Speaker 4: we're like tampons, like guys know about them, but y'all
Speaker 4: don't really know about them, like that type of.
Speaker 2: Thing, like market customers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my goal is women. Now, anybody can use it
Speaker 4: just for legal purposes, but we don't market to men.
Speaker 4: But if a guy finds out about her ride, then yeah,
Speaker 4: not like a creed.
Speaker 1: Yeah what you say, I mean, I'm just no, that's
Speaker 1: what I'm thinking. Like if I was a man, I'd
Speaker 1: be like, wait, so every time I got out of
Speaker 1: this app, I get picked up by a female.
Speaker 2: Not bad at all, not bad, you know, you know
Speaker 2: it's funny. Marketing is funny. I see, I see.
Speaker 1: The goal is to to to to protect women.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I don't know. If I
Speaker 2: was a brother, yeah, I'd be like this, maybe the app.
Speaker 1: To be on you know, then you get you get
Speaker 1: women drivers that need money.
Speaker 2: I don't know this. Look I'm thinking terrible. I'm a
Speaker 2: terrible person. I'm I'm marketing.
Speaker 3: Now, give me more ideas, more security.
Speaker 1: Like all the minute, eighty five sons will be now
Speaker 1: being picked up by her writers.
Speaker 2: Right looking up, yar all shaking head. Yep, they downloaded
Speaker 2: the app.
Speaker 3: And the pre book. If you do just booking events,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That the pricing don't change. You saving money and it's
Speaker 2: not too hard to impress a girl that is doing
Speaker 2: that for a living.
Speaker 3: All of this I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: Give her like a ten dollar tip. No, it's what
Speaker 1: dollar tip? I don't know this is Are you guys
Speaker 1: laughing at me?
Speaker 4: Just take not a dating app. By the way, don't
Speaker 4: please don't think.
Speaker 1: That this is going app.
Speaker 3: It will not be.
Speaker 1: There's like three new downloads today. It's like this is
Speaker 1: the only you.
Speaker 3: Will not find your wife on her ride. You will
Speaker 3: not find her. You never know.
Speaker 1: Shoot, if I was her rider and I said, you're
Speaker 1: gonna see your men numbers go up.
Speaker 3: I know they are. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Are your male are they? Are they the leader who's
Speaker 2: the lead customer?
Speaker 3: Women of our rides are women. Yeah.
Speaker 4: We rarely take men. Men don't know, They really don't know.
Speaker 4: Half of them don't even think it's for them. But
Speaker 4: I'm gonna keep it like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm gonna tell you right now this there's gonna
Speaker 2: be men all over. Where's all right again? To my city?
Speaker 2: Were gonna have to add another feature?
Speaker 1: They are.
Speaker 2: They're gonna add the tender the tender rides. There you go.
Speaker 3: They're gonna have to do something, all right, y'all.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for checking out another episode of Eating While.
Speaker 2: Peace.
Speaker 1: For more Eating While Broke from iHeart Radio and The
Speaker 1: Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.