Speaker 1: Will Lucas here, Black Tech, Green Money. I'm super excited
Speaker 1: to be back with you guys. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of things today started the first start
Speaker 1: off talking about afro Tech, getting to some news and
Speaker 1: then the conversation. But afro Tech twenty twenty three back
Speaker 1: in Austin just a couple of weeks. We are less
Speaker 1: maybe three weeks away. Two weeks away from afro Tech
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three in Austin, Texas. I am excited because
Speaker 1: the schedule just dropped and it includes, you know, performances
Speaker 1: by Jadakiss, Rick Ross. I am personally the music I
Speaker 1: listen to mostly like if it's hip hop, if it's
Speaker 1: rap music, I am listening to hustling music. So I
Speaker 1: care about rap music that makes me feel like I
Speaker 1: want to go get a bag and like, So that's
Speaker 1: like Nipsey Hustle, that's jay Z. Obviously it's Rick Ross
Speaker 1: and Rick Ross. I am already brushing up on my
Speaker 1: Rick Ross lyrics so that I am to turn it
Speaker 1: out at afro Tech this year. And so I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: that you guys will join me in having the time
Speaker 1: of my life, having the time of your lives, having
Speaker 1: the time of our lives at afro Tech. This year
Speaker 1: it's going to be big. And every year I leave
Speaker 1: afro Tech wondering how we could ever top the year
Speaker 1: before the time we just had, How can we top it?
Speaker 1: And I am super excited for the work that the
Speaker 1: team has done because this stage is set to be incredible,
Speaker 1: and so I hope to see you there. We've got
Speaker 1: talks like, if you're raising money, you should be there
Speaker 1: because there's a conversation happening around VC trends for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four proactive strategies for fundraising. My guy Marlon Nichols
Speaker 1: is going to be on that panel. He's co founder
Speaker 1: and managing partner at mac Venture Capital. Henri Jacques, Henri
Speaker 1: Pierre Jacques, who's co founder and managing partner of Harlem Capital.
Speaker 1: He will be there speaking on this subject in this
Speaker 1: conversations moderated by Aaron Samuels, who's one of the co
Speaker 1: founders of Blavity, which founded afro Tech, and he's also
Speaker 1: a founder and managing partner at Collide Capital. So if
Speaker 1: you are raising money or you will be, it's important
Speaker 1: to know how VC's a thinking and which verticals they're
Speaker 1: paying attention to and so you need to be in
Speaker 1: that conversation. Also, Robert Smith will be there, billionaire, black billionaire.
Speaker 1: He's talking about creating a shared digital future, powering forward.
Speaker 1: So he is chairman and chief executive officer of Visa
Speaker 1: Equity Partners. He's the guy a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: paid off all the college debt for the guys at
Speaker 1: Morehouse and so he's going to be at AFRO Tech
Speaker 1: this year talking about what he sees opportunities for black
Speaker 1: innovators and how you can scare your ideas. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I love about here and Robert talk
Speaker 1: is how he's always pushing a to think bigger. And
Speaker 1: sometimes we don't even realize we're not thinking big enough
Speaker 1: about the opportunities in front of us. But he issues
Speaker 1: that challenge and he starts to prode you on how
Speaker 1: you can think about your thing a hundred times bigger
Speaker 1: than you may be thinking about it today. So what
Speaker 1: if your journey is an entrepreneurial one and it's you know,
Speaker 1: and it's based on you. Whether it's a lifestyle brand
Speaker 1: and so sometimes we think lifestyle brands can't be big businesses.
Speaker 1: We think lifestyle brands are just ones that we work
Speaker 1: personally day in and day out, and it might do
Speaker 1: six figures, it might do seven figures. But lifestyle brands
Speaker 1: can actually be pretty big. So we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about that. If you're going to be an afrotech and
Speaker 1: you're an entrepreneur, and maybe you're not trying to build
Speaker 1: the next Facebook, but maybe your brand is built around
Speaker 1: you as an individual. So there's talks about that. Whether
Speaker 1: you're trying to get a board seat, there's conversations about
Speaker 1: that about people who sit on boards and who put
Speaker 1: people on boards. They will be on the stage at
Speaker 1: afro Tech. If you're managing remote teams, their talks there
Speaker 1: for you at afro Tech this year, and the big
Speaker 1: conversation of the day is AI. I'm sure in almost
Speaker 1: every conversation that we have at Afrotech this year, AI
Speaker 1: will come up because it's that disruptive to our norm.
Speaker 1: So I guarantee there's something there for you. And one
Speaker 1: of the things I try to stress when I'm talking
Speaker 1: to anybody about afro Tech is sometimes people think because
Speaker 1: they're not directly working in a technology related role. If
Speaker 1: you are using technology to perform your duties at work,
Speaker 1: you should be at afro Tech because whether you're working
Speaker 1: in healthcare, whether you're working in law, whether you are
Speaker 1: working in sports entertainment, you are utilizing technology to power
Speaker 1: your work, and so it's important that you're in the
Speaker 1: room where the conversations are being had that can in
Speaker 1: many ways dictate the future of your role. So highly
Speaker 1: encourage you to be at afro Tech this year getting
Speaker 1: some new It is notoriously hard to get a true
Speaker 1: Kangnac and it has he made in a certain region
Speaker 1: in France, the Cognac region. So shout out to Faughn Weaver,
Speaker 1: founder of Uncle Nearest. So look, Hennessy is by far
Speaker 1: the biggest distiller of cognac and they account for like
Speaker 1: almost half of all cognac production. I think it's like
Speaker 1: forty six percent. Then there's like Martel, there's Remy Martin
Speaker 1: and Covasier, which like are started in like eighteen o nine,
Speaker 1: so they've been around for two hundred plus years. Uncle
Speaker 1: Nears is now the young gun and according to a
Speaker 1: press release they sent to afro Tech Fawn Weaver, they
Speaker 1: just acquired domain Saint Martin in the state, which encompasses
Speaker 1: over one hundred acres with Charente River frontage and a
Speaker 1: unique island. Furthermore, it's fifty acres are dedicated to Grant
Speaker 1: Shan Paying Vineyards make it Kanyacs Citi's crown jewels. So
Speaker 1: Kanyac City is a place in France where kannac is made.
Speaker 1: They're made Kanyak is made from a much more delicate,
Speaker 1: like seasonal raw material grapes, so and that distillation period
Speaker 1: is like super duper short, so like they got five
Speaker 1: months every year to make kanyac. It's hard to make
Speaker 1: and therefore it's like expensive, and so it is a
Speaker 1: status symbol, you know, because it's priced in the way
Speaker 1: that it's you know, ability to be made dictates. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to do and kanyak makes up like less
Speaker 1: than one percent of the world's spirits by volume. And
Speaker 1: so the fact that there's now a black owned kanyak
Speaker 1: coming to market is very, very exciting. So shout out
Speaker 1: to farn Weaver and the work her and her team
Speaker 1: at Uncle Near's are doing. Sony Group wants to put
Speaker 1: money into African entertainment startups. A lot of people who
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast are on the content, so shout
Speaker 1: out to you, especially if you are building something in
Speaker 1: the gaming, music, film content distribution space, Sony Innovation Fund
Speaker 1: wants to fund you, and they're putting ten million dollars
Speaker 1: of capital in that fund to deploy two startups, particularly
Speaker 1: ones in South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana. Last year,
Speaker 1: according to Partech Africa, the venture capital that was spent
Speaker 1: or deployed into African entertainment startups equaled about zero point
Speaker 1: nine percent of the continent's total venture capital investments. And
Speaker 1: Jen Toshikawa, who's CEO of Sony Ventures, believes that there
Speaker 1: is an untapped potential for African creators, entrepreneurs and teams
Speaker 1: and that there's a growing adoption of technology that is
Speaker 1: developed on the content. So if you are in that space,
Speaker 1: or or if you have an idea to get into
Speaker 1: that space, now is a good time to get your
Speaker 1: wheels going because the set date for distribution of that
Speaker 1: ten million dollars into African entertainment startups is pending. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you stay ready, you ain't got to
Speaker 1: get ready. This conversation about Africa and so many African
Speaker 1: companies and things from the African culture, whether that be
Speaker 1: afrobeats or otherwise, they are now starting to come to
Speaker 1: mainstream here domestically in the United States. And it's so
Speaker 1: interesting to me because what that says to me about
Speaker 1: what's happening back on the continent is that there's more
Speaker 1: opportunity for people to be able to do things that
Speaker 1: can be exported to the world then historically. And what
Speaker 1: that causes is more people, younger people particularly to find
Speaker 1: more career opportunities that are available to them now than
Speaker 1: historically might have been available to them. And so when
Speaker 1: I think about that in my experience, and so I
Speaker 1: have a couple of companies in one particular that makes
Speaker 1: sense to talk about in this scenario, it's Creatio. So
Speaker 1: Creatio we are a full service video production, website development, communication, strategy, design,
Speaker 1: and more. And we focus on companies that want to
Speaker 1: reach and engage multicultural and diverse audiences. And so what's
Speaker 1: been important to me is, you know, when I started
Speaker 1: this business, I was doing all of the work. I
Speaker 1: was teaching myself how to develop websites because I didn't
Speaker 1: have the capital to pay somebody else to build a
Speaker 1: website or to even the website for Creatio, our own
Speaker 1: individual website. I didn't have the money to ship that
Speaker 1: out to somebody else to build a website for Creatio,
Speaker 1: or whether I was installing a system at one of
Speaker 1: our client locations. I had to learn how to install
Speaker 1: those systems at a client location. And we started venturing
Speaker 1: into other offerings service wise, whether that be in video
Speaker 1: production or photography, I had to learn how to do it.
Speaker 1: And so what's been important to me about our entire
Speaker 1: arc of you know, so far in our art I
Speaker 1: should say, is you know, having this scrappy mentality of
Speaker 1: a desire personally to be really good at the things
Speaker 1: that we are going to be providing to our clients.
Speaker 1: And so this does not necessarily mean that whatever you're doing,
Speaker 1: you should be spending the time to learn, you know,
Speaker 1: if especially if you're gonna, you know, do something that
Speaker 1: scales really really fast. This company wasn't designed to scale
Speaker 1: really really fast. When I started the company, I didn't
Speaker 1: really understand, you know, about scale. And so it is
Speaker 1: a lifestyle company. It's a successful one, but it is
Speaker 1: a lifestyle company. We have employees and et cetera. But
Speaker 1: it was not designed to take off like a unicorn.
Speaker 1: And so this particular conversation I want to have is
Speaker 1: for people who you know are building lifestyle companies, and
Speaker 1: it is about the idea of how do you grow
Speaker 1: talent and should you grow talent. Often in particularly black
Speaker 1: owned businesses, lifestyle businesses that are not funded by outside parties,
Speaker 1: you do not have outside investors. You are at a
Speaker 1: disadvantage when you're trying to attract high caliber talent because
Speaker 1: you may not have the resources to pay high caliber
Speaker 1: talent what they can get in the marketplace. And so
Speaker 1: what do you do. You could, you know, throw your
Speaker 1: hands up and say, you know what, I can't afford
Speaker 1: the people that it's going to take for me to
Speaker 1: be able to run this business successfully. And you give up.
Speaker 1: You've given up even before you started, right, And so
Speaker 1: that is not a mentality that was going to work
Speaker 1: for me. And so I was like, look, I'm first
Speaker 1: of all going to become the high caliber talent that
Speaker 1: I wish I could hire, and then I am going
Speaker 1: to replace myself in each of those particular roles. So
Speaker 1: one of the first things, fortunately I got an opportunity
Speaker 1: to stop doing which I actually do enjoy it personally,
Speaker 1: but I stopped doing video production and photography. While I
Speaker 1: did enjoy doing it, it's time consuming, and what I
Speaker 1: could not afford to do was keep doing it just
Speaker 1: because I enjoy doing it. If I am in in
Speaker 1: front of a computer editing video and I'm out at shoots,
Speaker 1: you know, taking pictures, who is out building the business
Speaker 1: for everybody else to continue to have other projects to
Speaker 1: work on. Because producing video, taking pictures, that is two
Speaker 1: jobs right there. It could be three even because some
Speaker 1: people can just be videographers, some people can be editors,
Speaker 1: some people could just be photographers. That could be two
Speaker 1: to three jobs right there. So if I'm doing two
Speaker 1: to three jobs just based on the capturing of content,
Speaker 1: who is out finding you know, business for the next
Speaker 1: round after this particular project is done. Now, it's a
Speaker 1: different thing. If we're talking about you know, being there
Speaker 1: because the client wants to see you and you're their
Speaker 1: representative and et cetera, and you're making making sure everything
Speaker 1: is going well, that's a different conversation. But the conversation
Speaker 1: I'm having is about, you know, if I am actively
Speaker 1: doing the work, if the product, the asset doesn't get created,
Speaker 1: if I don't create it myself with my hands, with
Speaker 1: my eye, with my skill and my ability to perform
Speaker 1: the work, then we can only grow so far. So
Speaker 1: I also don't have the capital to go higher. You know,
Speaker 1: a photographer or a videographer at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: business at the rate that they can afford to get
Speaker 1: either freelance or with an agency that's more established. So
Speaker 1: what do you do? You have this business, you want
Speaker 1: to get off the ground in your early stages, whether
Speaker 1: that be a couple of months old or you're a
Speaker 1: couple of years old. In so many cases, because you
Speaker 1: can still be in the early days. If you haven't
Speaker 1: caught traction yet, you're in the early days. You don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the capital to go hire people who are
Speaker 1: very well versed in that work, in producing that work,
Speaker 1: because they can get more money from a freelance perspective
Speaker 1: or with an agency firm company that is more established,
Speaker 1: has deeper pockets than you. What do you do? What
Speaker 1: I did was I started knocking on the door of
Speaker 1: my local university. What I did was I started to
Speaker 1: hire people who were earlier in their career and just
Speaker 1: wanted a shot. Maybe they were learning videography or maybe
Speaker 1: they were learning photography, but they may not necessarily have
Speaker 1: the skills to go be successful from a freelance perspective,
Speaker 1: which means they can't go sell themselves. And so I was,
Speaker 1: you know, in many ways, their representative. I could have
Speaker 1: been their manager, except they were coming into the fold
Speaker 1: of my enterprise. That's how I built this company. I
Speaker 1: built this company by leveraging ambition, by leveraging initiative of
Speaker 1: other people who otherwise wouldn't have been given a shot
Speaker 1: at a company or a firm that's more established. But
Speaker 1: I wanted to give them a shot because they were
Speaker 1: taking a shot on me. I could sell. I also
Speaker 1: knew how to do the work, so I was able
Speaker 1: to be able to vet people who were while they
Speaker 1: were early in their journey. I could see that they
Speaker 1: had something, and so my ability to both sell and
Speaker 1: to bring the best out of somebody even though they're newer,
Speaker 1: was where I found success. Now, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: go and encourage somebody who's early in their career to
Speaker 1: come alongside you and you can't bring the best out
Speaker 1: of them, they will not stay with you long. These
Speaker 1: are ambitious people, and ambitious people want to be challenged,
Speaker 1: and so your ability to both a sell so that
Speaker 1: you can pay them and be coach them bring the
Speaker 1: best out of them, create an environment that they that
Speaker 1: they enjoy working in. That's your job, and so we
Speaker 1: were able to find success in that way. Some of
Speaker 1: the first people who ever worked for Creatio I got
Speaker 1: directly out of college or before they graduated, and they
Speaker 1: were producing work under the umbrella of Creatio that put
Speaker 1: us on the map. But it wasn't just about the
Speaker 1: money for them. They enjoyed the money, but they also
Speaker 1: enjoyed working on something that meant something. They got a
Speaker 1: chance to build something alongside somebody who took a shot
Speaker 1: on them, because they recognized that they were early, and
Speaker 1: they also recognized that they weren't going to be able
Speaker 1: to go and demand a lot from an agency that's
Speaker 1: been around for a long period of time and had
Speaker 1: very senior people there. They knew that probably in that
Speaker 1: firm they were going to be bringing somebody's coffee, and
Speaker 1: so here in this newly formed company, they were going
Speaker 1: to get an opportunity to be a part of building
Speaker 1: something and creating a culture that valued ambition and ambition
Speaker 1: and people trying to figure it out together. That's a
Speaker 1: special place to be in So I've always valued people
Speaker 1: who want to take a shot on themselves because I
Speaker 1: took shots on myself, and so we're taking shots on
Speaker 1: ourselves together. We abandoned brothers and sistors, and so alongside that,
Speaker 1: it's important also to think about why do the norms
Speaker 1: that exist in traditional enterprises, traditional companies? Why do they
Speaker 1: have to why do they have to exist here? So
Speaker 1: my team knows I only care about I care about
Speaker 1: three things. Some companies you go to have a long
Speaker 1: list of things that they care about. I care about
Speaker 1: three things. That the work is done on time, that
Speaker 1: is fire, and that you guys work well together. You
Speaker 1: figure out a way to work well together. That's what
Speaker 1: I care about. And so there is no list of Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, office hours are from eight to five when
Speaker 1: we expect you to be here, and there's two weeks
Speaker 1: off a year, and you know those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: It didn't work for us. I didn't even try to
Speaker 1: make it work for us because I didn't want to
Speaker 1: work in a place that operated that way. So why
Speaker 1: would I institute some policies and ways of doing things
Speaker 1: that I didn't appreciate Being both a creative and a businessman,
Speaker 1: so I got to design the company I wanted to
Speaker 1: work for. And so many of you listening to this
Speaker 1: are in a position to design the kind of company
Speaker 1: that you would want to work for, if you just
Speaker 1: recognize that you have that opportunity to do that. Why
Speaker 1: am I telling and demanding a creative somebody who's editing video, Hey,
Speaker 1: you need to be here at nine am? Why what
Speaker 1: if they work best at noon. I used to have
Speaker 1: a guy who shout out to nick. I used to
Speaker 1: have a guy he's in La now doing movies, and
Speaker 1: he used to come into the office at eleven pm
Speaker 1: and he would be there till three in the morning. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously when we got a shoot, he would show up
Speaker 1: for the shoot and on time and be professional, etc.
Speaker 1: But when there's a deadline for computer work, when there's
Speaker 1: like things that he needed to do at his desk
Speaker 1: that didn't require interfacing with a client, why do I
Speaker 1: care if he's there at you know, nine am, eight am?
Speaker 1: For what reason? And so the important thing for me
Speaker 1: to do and every again, it's another thing that everybody
Speaker 1: on my teams knows. My job today is not to
Speaker 1: produce videos. My job is to make sure you have
Speaker 1: what you need to produce videos. So if you come
Speaker 1: to me and you say, hey, will you know my
Speaker 1: my you know, my iMac is a little slow. You know.
Speaker 1: My job is to figure out why is it slow?
Speaker 1: Is the memory running low? Is it old and you
Speaker 1: need a new computer, you know? Or is it you
Speaker 1: need is you need to clear some hard dry space
Speaker 1: off so you can, you know, more freely move around.
Speaker 1: That's my job, and my job is to make sure
Speaker 1: you have what you need. So if you need to
Speaker 1: work in order for you to work best, if you
Speaker 1: need flexibility in your schedule, as long as that is
Speaker 1: not disrupting to the business. Why do I care? Why
Speaker 1: do I care if your hair is a natural color.
Speaker 1: He came in that same guy, he came in with
Speaker 1: yellow hair one day. What impact did that have on
Speaker 1: his work? Zero? And So these things that some of us,
Speaker 1: you know, think matter because those are the way we
Speaker 1: were raised in business, and there were these rules and
Speaker 1: guardrails that restricted creativity and self expression. Those don't have
Speaker 1: to exist anymore, and so sometimes we just need somebody
Speaker 1: to free us, you know, to the possibility that working
Speaker 1: can be fun and you can build again the type
Speaker 1: of company you would want to work for. You can
Speaker 1: build a culture, you know, and an environment that is actually
Speaker 1: a good place to be, a fun place to be,
Speaker 1: where I want to come to work to, where I
Speaker 1: know I've got projects on my plate. Hey man, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to get to the office tomorrow because you
Speaker 1: notice nobody looking over your shoulder. Now, it comes with
Speaker 1: a lot of trust, and that trust is earned. But again,
Speaker 1: everybody knows there's the three things I care about. I
Speaker 1: only care about those three things, and if I'm consistent
Speaker 1: on those three things, they will trust me also, and
Speaker 1: so we won't let each other down. So going to
Speaker 1: my local university was very helpful to me. There was
Speaker 1: a website it's called Handshake that many universities across the
Speaker 1: country use. I know my local ones use it. But
Speaker 1: it's a website where you can go and you can
Speaker 1: post opportunities, jobs and internships, co ops and etc. For students,
Speaker 1: and it's like a big student job board for colleges
Speaker 1: and universities. They use it. So if you post a
Speaker 1: job to a place like Handshake, you get to say,
Speaker 1: you know here the particular universities that i'd like this
Speaker 1: job to be promoted to. And then those universities on
Speaker 1: the back end, you know, will vet the role and
Speaker 1: you know, either accept or deny your job posting and
Speaker 1: so again you can do internships on there. You can
Speaker 1: do co op opportunities on their actual job opportunities on there.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did. I posted the positions I
Speaker 1: had to handshake, and I even reached out to a
Speaker 1: lot of professors directly on a lot of websites. You know,
Speaker 1: you can find you know, the email addresses of the professors.
Speaker 1: And this might not be something or a tactic that
Speaker 1: a lot of people employed, because, at least in my experience,
Speaker 1: you know, professors seem to be very willing to make
Speaker 1: introductions or to show you, you know, the proper steps
Speaker 1: to getting in touch with their students. I got a
Speaker 1: lot of response, more than you might imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: when you send code emails, you know, I guess, depending
Speaker 1: on who you're emailing, you really don't expect the response
Speaker 1: rate to be super high. But the response rate in
Speaker 1: my experience to this was very high. The professors were
Speaker 1: in many ways, you know, excited to give their students
Speaker 1: the opportunities to work on real things. A lot of
Speaker 1: colleges and universities, particularly in creative works, have their students
Speaker 1: work on make believe projects, like projects that are not
Speaker 1: going to be used in the wild, and so to
Speaker 1: have them work on things that might actually be seen
Speaker 1: in the world. You know, for many that's encouraging to them.
Speaker 1: It's inspiring for them to introduce their students to those opportunities.
Speaker 1: And you got to be smart when you do this,
Speaker 1: Like you're probably not going to go to the largest
Speaker 1: college or university in the state. You know, many times
Speaker 1: the technical institutions, the technical colleges is you know those
Speaker 1: ones that are more community colleges that have programs where
Speaker 1: you know, technical skills can be learned, creative skills can
Speaker 1: be learned, you know, whether that be photography, videography, coding.
Speaker 1: In many ways, a lot of those professors are very reachable.
Speaker 1: They're very reachable, and they have students that are excited
Speaker 1: about doing things. So it's been you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a method of operation that has worked for me. And
Speaker 1: so I highly encourage you when you're trying to build
Speaker 1: a company and you're in your early stages and the
Speaker 1: work that you're providing the world is like a technical
Speaker 1: service or offering grow your talent. You're not going to
Speaker 1: have the capital in many instances to go hire the
Speaker 1: best people, but you know, what you want to put
Speaker 1: into the world. You know the level of care that
Speaker 1: you would take. And so if you can sell somebody
Speaker 1: to coming alongside the journey with you, that says a
Speaker 1: lot about your ability to have success at all. These
Speaker 1: are people who are ambitious. You know, they're taking it
Speaker 1: on themselves to learn these skills. They may not just
Speaker 1: have the ability to go and sell it so that
Speaker 1: they can make an income and make a living on it.
Speaker 1: But if you have that ability, go to the people.
Speaker 1: Find ambitious people, often young sometimes you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: are adults who are re educating themselves. But if they're
Speaker 1: willing to come alongside somebody who and they get to
Speaker 1: build something with you, that could be really interesting to
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Imagine the people out there who
Speaker 1: are actually paying to go to technical classes and pay
Speaker 1: to get certificateds to learn these skills. And you're offering
Speaker 1: people who are ambitious the opportunity to be paid to learn,
Speaker 1: to be paid to actually exercise something that they may
Speaker 1: not be an expert at, but they're pretty good. You
Speaker 1: can build a really successful lifestyle company with pretty good talent.
Speaker 1: You don't need the best talent, the expensive talent. You
Speaker 1: can build it with pretty good talent that you are
Speaker 1: willing to invest in from a professional development perspective, and
Speaker 1: put them in an environment that leans into the way
Speaker 1: that they work. They're gonna want to know that they're
Speaker 1: going to get constructive feedback that helps them continue to
Speaker 1: get better and at the same time doesn't put unnecessary
Speaker 1: arbitrary guardrails and rules around them. So not having the
Speaker 1: talent to grow your company. To grow your business is
Speaker 1: not an excuse. There are creative ways to find people
Speaker 1: who know how to do the thing, and the enemy
Speaker 1: of finding success in this way is wishing you had
Speaker 1: and waiting for the day where you can hire experts.
Speaker 1: What you want is hungry, scrappy, ambitious people who know
Speaker 1: how to do it and they're pretty good, and grow
Speaker 1: them into experts, demand the best out of them by
Speaker 1: inspiring them to be the best and to bring their
Speaker 1: best and to lean in on their ambition to learn
Speaker 1: on their own. I love when I walk in the
Speaker 1: office and I see somebody on my team watching a
Speaker 1: YouTube video about lighting or a different way to position
Speaker 1: a camera to get the best angle. That shows me
Speaker 1: that they're invested in their own growth and development. That's
Speaker 1: the kind of person I want. That's the kind of
Speaker 1: person I can grow with. Be the kind of person
Speaker 1: they want to work with. Be so committed to their
Speaker 1: growth and development that you know, it's an exciting conversation
Speaker 1: when you guys come together and you have one on
Speaker 1: ones and you figure out ways to challenge each other
Speaker 1: because you want to bring the best out of one another.
Speaker 1: Be that kind of person. Be a leader who sees
Speaker 1: the potential in you know this rough around the edges.
Speaker 1: You know, person who is already committed to their own
Speaker 1: personal growth and development, but you as a person who
Speaker 1: is leading the organization. They recognize that you're invested in
Speaker 1: their growth and development and their ability to produce great work.
Speaker 1: Product is in both your interests them because they just
Speaker 1: want to be better and they want to produce great
Speaker 1: work and in doing so, more opportunities are created. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys hanging out with me today taking a stab
Speaker 1: at a new format for the podcast. We'll do this
Speaker 1: more often, but I look forward to seeing you at
Speaker 1: afro Tech twenty twenty three or to experience that afrotech
Speaker 1: dot com to learn more. If you got anything out
Speaker 1: of this podcast, please share it with somebody. Would mean
Speaker 1: the most to me, I really appreciate you guys who
Speaker 1: are constantly sharing episode that you find value with your friends, group,
Speaker 1: with your coworkers, you know, with people who that you
Speaker 1: just want to you know, inspire to continue down a
Speaker 1: road that might not be easy. So a share is
Speaker 1: the highest form of compliment you can give me, So
Speaker 1: I would really appreciate that