Speaker 1: No, has nothing you know has nothing to do with me,
Speaker 1: So that that's the lesson know is about that person's
Speaker 1: ability to respond.
Speaker 2: Welcome to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 2: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 2: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 2: these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Fitting Omi
Speaker 2: Bell into one intro just might be impossible. The CEO
Speaker 2: and founder of Black Girl Ventures is no stranger to pivots.
Speaker 2: She started her career studying computer science as a single mom,
Speaker 2: later going into teaching as a K twelve educator. She
Speaker 2: founded her first side hustle, developing websites, and from there
Speaker 2: she just couldn't stop. Despite the multiple challenges life has
Speaker 2: thrown her way, She's handled each with grace and determination.
Speaker 2: Omi is a community builder, mom of three systems disruptor,
Speaker 2: spoken word artist, nonprofit executive, educator, and so much more.
Speaker 2: Despite Black women making up the majority of entrepreneurs and
Speaker 2: small businesses in America, they only receive point zero zero
Speaker 2: zero six percent of venture capital dollars. Through her company,
Speaker 2: Black Girl Ventures, she has transformed the way black and
Speaker 2: brown women founders get access to social and financial capital.
Speaker 2: A quick note before we jump in, Omi asked us
Speaker 2: to preserve some details about her children that we had
Speaker 2: discussed in the interview, so to respect their privacy. You
Speaker 2: might hear some quick cuts in the audio where we
Speaker 2: had to take out identifiers. Enjoy.
Speaker 1: I am Shelley Owe, me La de Bell, but I
Speaker 1: go by Omi. I'm the founder CEO of Black Girl Ventures.
Speaker 1: And you know it's always so trucky to say, what
Speaker 1: do you do? I do so much, We'll like black
Speaker 1: Girl Ventures, the company I started. Also just a huge
Speaker 1: advocate for women, so women being empowered me and I
Speaker 1: love that it's is she pivots because I'm fiviting a
Speaker 1: million times. But I've been thinking a lot about that.
Speaker 1: How do I when people say who are you? Because
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking about, like, who am I outside of
Speaker 1: this work that I do? And am I constantly defining
Speaker 1: myself by the work and like and then how does
Speaker 1: that make me feel about the achievements?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Whereas like, oh, no, I want to win this award.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that Forbes come out with a fifty on
Speaker 1: the fifty because I missed the thirty under thirty.
Speaker 4: Time frame you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like that kind of stuff where you just get
Speaker 1: sort of obsessed with the achievement from the work.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's just let's do a quick like stage setting.
Speaker 2: So and backup, Where did you grow up? How did
Speaker 2: you grow up? Give us, give us some childhood background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I grew up in North Carolina, from Durham,
Speaker 1: North Carolina originally, and I grew.
Speaker 4: Up very middle, middle of the middle, middle class. That's
Speaker 4: not funny.
Speaker 1: It's like very middle middle two parents, a little brother,
Speaker 1: you know, the like two parents, one point five kids,
Speaker 1: dog house, Like that was really how I grew up.
Speaker 1: It's funny because like I grew up in a very
Speaker 1: middle class environment and then as an adult because of
Speaker 1: my life, vivoted because I had a child at seventeen
Speaker 1: so and part of that was rebellion. My mom became
Speaker 1: very religious, So I had a pretty free childhood, just
Speaker 1: do what I want. So, you know, like my mom
Speaker 1: was never like a cause I told you so, or
Speaker 1: my dad was never like a stop talking kind of person.
Speaker 1: Like they let me talk as once as I wanted to,
Speaker 1: and my mom would answer all of my questions. So
Speaker 1: it was a pretty free childhood, and then somewhere around
Speaker 1: middle school, my mom became very religious and she started
Speaker 1: going to Pnecosta Church.
Speaker 4: So I thought, okay, well, like if this is what God.
Speaker 1: Wants from us, like women don't were bands, women don't
Speaker 1: look like this or say this, so act like this.
Speaker 1: So the time I was in maybe seventh grade to
Speaker 1: like ninth grade, I didn't wear pants. I was the
Speaker 1: girl at school with the long skirts and a tendis
Speaker 1: shoes on who didn't curse so do anything bad because
Speaker 1: God was just gonna damn me to hell. And so
Speaker 1: I followed that for a long time, and then finally
Speaker 1: I started thinking, like, God can't be this small, Like
Speaker 1: you mean to tell me, out of all the billion
Speaker 1: people in the world, you just checking out for me.
Speaker 1: And then the one thing I do is gonna send
Speaker 1: me to hell, Like come on, y'all for wearing pants, Yes,
Speaker 1: and that would be the one thing. Like that's not
Speaker 1: gonna So I started I went through a phase, actually
Speaker 1: are really challenging. So later in like after college, challenging
Speaker 1: everything with the Bible, Like so if you say man
Speaker 1: should look like a man or woman should like a woman,
Speaker 1: because that was a scripture that I used to say
Speaker 1: women shouldn't wear pants. I'm like, but if I wear
Speaker 1: women's pants, so I still look like a woman.
Speaker 4: Like what are we talking about? Right? So high school
Speaker 4: I just started rebelling.
Speaker 1: Forget that, you know. I started like school all the time.
Speaker 1: I was smoking weed every day. I was wrong, crowd,
Speaker 1: I was. It was just wild, and I did what
Speaker 1: I thought was the thing that my mom told me
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: You would have sex. Comes talk to me. So I did.
Speaker 1: I say, Hey, I want to have sex, and she
Speaker 1: was like, well, let me pray about it. So while
Speaker 1: she was praying about it, I was doing it. And
Speaker 1: I got pregnant, and it really changed my whole world.
Speaker 2: When I first spoke to Omi, one of the things
Speaker 2: she said was that she had something inside of her
Speaker 2: that just made her believe that things would work themselves out.
Speaker 1: And then there's like a rhythm that we have that
Speaker 1: we don't know we have, like this formula that we
Speaker 1: lives inside of us. I think I wasn't thinking about
Speaker 1: my future. I was just thinking it will work out,
Speaker 1: Like whatever's going to work out. I'm gonna go hard
Speaker 1: on whatever I want to do right now, and then
Speaker 1: it will work out when I actually think about that mindset.
Speaker 1: I probably had that a couple of times throughout my career,
Speaker 1: right throughout my life, where I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what's about to happen, but I know all I'm about
Speaker 1: to put all.
Speaker 4: Into what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: And I'm never actually articulated in that way, but like,
Speaker 1: if I think about that feeling of right now is
Speaker 1: what I have. Right now is what I'm going to do,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to tell me how I'm going
Speaker 1: to live my life. I think I've carried that throughout
Speaker 1: my life, this moment of like, no, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go hard here and we'll see where it goes.
Speaker 4: It'll be fine.
Speaker 2: But after her conservative upbringing, getting pregnant at seventeen created
Speaker 2: complications and strains in her family.
Speaker 1: So my dad was very upset and he blamed my
Speaker 1: mom and it was kind of the beginning of the
Speaker 1: end for them. And so my mom and I drew
Speaker 1: closer because of my dad and my mom kind of
Speaker 1: being in os over this pregnancy because my dad did
Speaker 1: not want me to have it, but my mom was
Speaker 1: super religious, so she's like, no, no, we can't do that.
Speaker 1: We can have an abortion and So after that went
Speaker 1: on and I just went hard. I negotiated with my
Speaker 1: teachers like, hey, I need to pass. I was dedicated
Speaker 1: to graduating on time. I went to summer school, night school,
Speaker 1: everything I could do because just because I had been
Speaker 1: skipping school so much and got it all back together
Speaker 1: graduated on time. My mom was like, you're not going
Speaker 1: to be statistic. You're going to college. I'm like, oh okay.
Speaker 2: So she attended North Carolina A and T University in
Speaker 2: HBCU and settled on studying computer science.
Speaker 1: I like computers. I want to make money. They're gonna
Speaker 1: probably make money.
Speaker 4: Let's go. And that was pretty much it.
Speaker 1: But everything went into That's when that switch flipped of
Speaker 1: like hardcore. I'm gonna go hard. I'm gonna get what
Speaker 1: I'm coming for. I want everything that I want to achieve.
Speaker 4: I want success.
Speaker 1: It started there. It was like I'm not gonna fail.
Speaker 1: Nobody's gonna tell me I can't be something.
Speaker 2: So I imagine there were very few women, very few
Speaker 2: women of color, very few mothers going through that.
Speaker 4: What was that like?
Speaker 1: Well, one, computer science is nothing like this game that
Speaker 1: you're having your head. It is super hard, and most
Speaker 1: people were dropping out in the first semester, and it
Speaker 1: was other kids that came from similar backgrounds to me.
Speaker 1: And actually in Maryland they teach computer science in high school,
Speaker 1: and like as an adult, I taught computer science at
Speaker 1: in the city of Alexandria at TC Williams High School
Speaker 1: because I saw the power of the kids that came
Speaker 1: from Maryland to school.
Speaker 4: They already knew how to program and.
Speaker 1: So it was like, oh wow, like I knew nothing
Speaker 1: about programming or that even computer programming existed in that
Speaker 1: way like the way that I actually learned it. And
Speaker 1: so it was community funding students, other students that was
Speaker 1: staying in it.
Speaker 4: We were like, hey, we're going to bind together.
Speaker 2: Between all the ones and zeros of coding. Only still
Speaker 2: had to juggle the demands of motherhood and child's care.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: The first year, my oldest son stayed home with my
Speaker 1: parents and Durham and Greensboro's maybe like an hour away
Speaker 1: from each other, so I was able to like drive
Speaker 1: back home, come back, drive back, that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Between my parents and my oldest.
Speaker 1: Son's dad, they would handle the childcare and it was
Speaker 1: kind of like weekend visits and like maybe come up
Speaker 1: sometime during the week.
Speaker 4: But that bar was a.
Speaker 1: Little hard, right because now there would going on two
Speaker 1: and I'm one or two, and I'm like in school
Speaker 1: and trying to manage that. By the time I got
Speaker 1: to my junior year, I ended up staying getting my
Speaker 1: own place.
Speaker 4: The roommate, who just so happened to like.
Speaker 2: Kids, Omi did what she did best. She created a
Speaker 2: community using the resources that she had at her disposal.
Speaker 1: So I went and I found got government assistance for
Speaker 1: like a childcare voucher research.
Speaker 4: And found a random lady. So between daycare.
Speaker 1: And if I had to take a night class, and
Speaker 1: I can remember this woman's house and everything in my head,
Speaker 1: found her. She took my voucher, and so that was
Speaker 1: the way it was like going and getting as much
Speaker 1: assistance as I could. So it's funny, you know, you
Speaker 1: grow up feeling like you have to not ask for help,
Speaker 1: and then when you do ask for help, you may
Speaker 1: be shamed. So you don't want anybody to know you're
Speaker 1: own public assistance. You don't want anybody to know you
Speaker 1: getting like social services and things like that. So I
Speaker 1: just went out and got every available service I could
Speaker 1: get food SAMP Section eight, childcare, vouchers, like everything I
Speaker 1: could do to keep myself afloat throughout my career, just
Speaker 1: for anybody listening as things I've done to get child care,
Speaker 1: like actually enter into groups or put my children in
Speaker 1: sports because of children in sports, and there's other.
Speaker 4: Parents I would keep their kids, they would keep my kids, And.
Speaker 1: So you actually end up networking your way through it
Speaker 1: in a way, and like figuring out when you know
Speaker 1: nobody in the city, you end up developing light levels
Speaker 1: of trust, networking your way through and finding a new
Speaker 1: community for yourself.
Speaker 2: I do find that that there's like a real bond
Speaker 2: among parents that your kids get along with, that you trust,
Speaker 2: that you can like the feeling that you feel good
Speaker 2: about leaving your children with them and knowing that they
Speaker 2: will be cared for, and the reciprocity in it, I
Speaker 2: think does make for a very bonding relationship and community
Speaker 2: one percent.
Speaker 1: And I think you understand each other in a way
Speaker 1: that maybe other people don't, especially like it was a
Speaker 1: single mom, So a single mom you kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with that same thing.
Speaker 4: I also couldn't make it pick up my kid, could
Speaker 4: you keep my kid? Oh?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Like my kids coming out the bus, will you go
Speaker 1: to the bus? So even now in the building that
Speaker 1: I live in now we have a group of moms
Speaker 1: and so some of us do mourning bus duty and
Speaker 1: some people what we do afternoon bus duty. Or it
Speaker 1: was like, hey, like can you get my child from school?
Speaker 1: You're going to the school. All those kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Community is so important to me. It is like the
Speaker 1: number one thing I've learned to always build no matter
Speaker 1: where I am.
Speaker 2: And she did build. Even after graduating and becoming a
Speaker 2: teacher at a K twelve school, she continued to find
Speaker 2: new side hustles, and so.
Speaker 1: I started teaching computers. I started my first company with
Speaker 1: the other computer teacher. We started a well development company.
Speaker 1: And this is back in the day. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to date myself, but this is back in the day
Speaker 1: when Adobe didn't own the suite of things. It was Macromedia.
Speaker 4: I don't know we.
Speaker 1: Remember it, but it was Macromedia back then, Okay, And
Speaker 1: so you had the sweet dream. We were flash that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and so we would build websites and
Speaker 1: use flash or animation. But even during teaching, I worked
Speaker 1: so many different kinds of jobs. I was a nanny,
Speaker 1: I mean, as a teacher, you have to have a
Speaker 1: zize because you're not making enough money. America is not
Speaker 1: set up for you to be one person with kids.
Speaker 1: You need multiple adults. And it doesn't even have to
Speaker 1: be marriage. It can be grandparents whoever. But you need
Speaker 1: more than one adult to raise even one child in America, right.
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times when I tell this story,
Speaker 1: I always say, like, my story is not a black
Speaker 1: story or a woman's story or a person from the South. Story,
Speaker 1: is an American story. There's so many people who are
Speaker 1: dealing with the challenges of I didn't marry, but I
Speaker 1: wanted a kid, right, and then what did that mean
Speaker 1: for what I had to set up for myself? And
Speaker 1: so that challenge that I was facing around like I
Speaker 1: can't just be a teacher. Even though it's one of
Speaker 1: the most like appreciated, at least verbally appreciated jobs in
Speaker 1: the country, it's most underappreciated, I think when it comes
Speaker 1: to the work that we're doing with America's children, and
Speaker 1: the pain that you get.
Speaker 2: Will only continue to hustle and find her purpose. Her
Speaker 2: kids were also on their own journey.
Speaker 1: I have two trans children. My son transitioned right after
Speaker 1: high school, which I was really nervous about because going
Speaker 1: into college just so many changes, and they're like, are
Speaker 1: you sure you want to do it right now while
Speaker 1: you're also going into college.
Speaker 4: I'm glad you asked me about it, though.
Speaker 1: So my other child is non binary, but bro now's
Speaker 1: day and she honestly, for me, my biggest fear when
Speaker 1: my son decided transition was I didn't raise you to
Speaker 1: be a black man, and so I didn't get an
Speaker 1: opportunity to like instill these you gecided by the beliefs.
Speaker 4: You need to do these things.
Speaker 1: You see these things happening, so where you need to
Speaker 1: move this way, you need to be this kind of
Speaker 1: proximity to women or not this kind of proximity to women.
Speaker 4: You need to think about when a woman is saying
Speaker 4: this is what you mean?
Speaker 1: Like I didn't get that space, and so I felt
Speaker 1: handicapped a little bit in my motherhood because now I'm like, oh, gosh,
Speaker 1: what if it gets wrong as a black woman. Not
Speaker 1: to say that police won't harass you as much, but
Speaker 1: you're still a woman, and so I think there's certain
Speaker 1: things that you can feel through and not maybe experience
Speaker 1: the same way men will and so that really scared me,
Speaker 1: and I think for my child who's non primary, I
Speaker 1: was more worried about scrutiny and like, you know, whether
Speaker 1: or not they would be accepted and like how that
Speaker 1: would look.
Speaker 4: There are two different schools.
Speaker 1: Somebody said and graduated from North Carolina Anti, which is
Speaker 1: where I went with a SBCU. My other pot they
Speaker 1: are at George Mason. Totally different environment. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a PWI predominantly white institution, so it's totally different. Even
Speaker 1: the level of acceptance is different or the level of
Speaker 1: questioning is a little different because it was also being
Speaker 1: in the South, so getting access to tea like getting
Speaker 1: access to as South around getting access to the doctors.
Speaker 4: That would like be able to do the blood.
Speaker 1: Tests and things like that, like you would have to
Speaker 1: come back home to kind of get easy access to
Speaker 1: it and not kind of like where could I go?
Speaker 1: Even the down to things like the you know, the
Speaker 1: gender gender neutral bathroom situation.
Speaker 4: Right, It's like now he has.
Speaker 1: To be on campus while bunch of students are just
Speaker 1: feeling like, you know, no, I don't want to I
Speaker 1: want to go to this bathroom.
Speaker 4: I don't think it should be gender, nuture, bathrooms.
Speaker 1: For whatever reasons, other oppression and trauma that we've dealt
Speaker 1: with just as black people, right, I mean both. I
Speaker 1: would say it's the same generation, so everybody's a little
Speaker 1: bit progressive, so it's not so bad in the differences.
Speaker 4: I think interestingly enough.
Speaker 1: Though, my middle child, they're dealing with more race things
Speaker 1: versus my oldest son, who didn't have to deal with
Speaker 1: more race things, but maybe had to deal with more
Speaker 1: gender or LGBTQ things, So it's like they're both having
Speaker 1: to deal with things in a way. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's interest in journey as a mom, you know, Yeah, did.
Speaker 2: You have that same feeling when your child came out
Speaker 2: as non bordinary did you have that same feeling of
Speaker 2: not preparing them? I honestly don't know how I would
Speaker 2: prepare a child for the world as non binary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh lord, we need a couch, So I am.
Speaker 1: They're so different in the way that they are with
Speaker 1: other child it was like, oh, I'm gay, and I
Speaker 1: don't think you're gay, but I also don't think it's straight.
Speaker 1: Like I kind of knew that already before coming out
Speaker 1: a non binary, and I would tell them that and
Speaker 1: they would get offended. Oh well, mom, I'm identifying his gay.
Speaker 1: You should respect that. And I'm like, I do respect it.
Speaker 1: I mean I identify his bye to I'm like, I
Speaker 1: respect it. But I just don't think you're either one.
Speaker 1: And I would say that for a while.
Speaker 4: They would just kind of like whatever.
Speaker 1: And then finally some when they came out as non binary,
Speaker 1: I think it's funny I'll say this and they know this.
Speaker 1: I think I'm having more challenges with moving the pronoun
Speaker 1: to she than I am about they, And I don't
Speaker 1: know why. That's something I need to think through what's
Speaker 1: happening with me, because I mean, like even with them,
Speaker 1: they always been mistaken for a woman, Like people have
Speaker 1: always thought that, and it's nothing.
Speaker 4: Wrong with that. Like I'm fine with them identifying as she.
Speaker 1: It's been a harder transition for me than my older son,
Speaker 1: where like first things first for me was the pronounce
Speaker 1: then the name. So it's like, let's work on me
Speaker 1: saying he, which it took a while to change it over.
Speaker 4: This is the person that you here.
Speaker 2: It's right, you've known every minute other life.
Speaker 1: Every minute you know, it's kind of like the switchover.
Speaker 1: I think if the detrimental feeling that some bears are having.
Speaker 1: Then they're talking about it is this is the part
Speaker 1: that I wish the would talk about.
Speaker 4: I wish they would talk about like.
Speaker 1: Hey, I respect what you did, but these pronouns are
Speaker 1: hard to switch over.
Speaker 4: I need your patience right totally.
Speaker 2: We had a guest on last year who's one hundred
Speaker 2: and one.
Speaker 3: I'm Betty Red Saustin and I'm one hundred years old.
Speaker 5: I started my life out as her son David, and
Speaker 5: in the last five years I discovered that instead of
Speaker 5: a man that had feminine traits, that all my life
Speaker 5: I've been a woman pretending to be a man.
Speaker 6: So that's been a difficult transition for myself, but also
Speaker 6: with my mother, who understood my oldest brother being gay,
Speaker 6: but this isn't a sexual thing. It's an identity thing,
Speaker 6: which is a different, totally different concept for her to grasp.
Speaker 3: I know that it probably is just just as hard
Speaker 3: for you as for me, and you were someone else
Speaker 3: for most of your life and became a daughter in
Speaker 3: the last three years.
Speaker 7: It's hard for me in many ways, but not the
Speaker 7: ways you expect. I don't have trouble accepting I have
Speaker 7: trouble because after all these years of calling you David,
Speaker 7: I expect you to call you Diana. That's that's That's
Speaker 7: about the hardest thing for me.
Speaker 2: It's just the adjustment period. I feel like it's actually
Speaker 2: the conversation I hear among parents more so.
Speaker 1: The adjustment period includes okay, let me lay some of
Speaker 1: it out. It includes the pronouns, it includes the name.
Speaker 1: It includes talking to them, and it includes talking to
Speaker 1: their siblings, and it includes talking to other people. And
Speaker 1: then literally people will in conversations tell you that's a boy,
Speaker 1: that's a girl.
Speaker 4: Now you know what I mean. It's like I birth
Speaker 4: this person.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that it's okay if I tell you
Speaker 1: who it is, and so that transition it can be.
Speaker 1: It's an adjustment period. My son was a lot more lenient.
Speaker 1: I get it, mom, It's cool.
Speaker 4: I am who I am. Other child was up and down.
Speaker 1: Some days they might be leaning. Some days they're like, no,
Speaker 1: you're getting it wrong, and I'm like okay.
Speaker 2: Onmi talks openly about the need for disruption in one's
Speaker 2: own life to create new experiences. In twenty fifteen, her
Speaker 2: life was thrown into disruption, forcing her to pivot but
Speaker 2: not after experiencing what she calls her quote rock bottom.
Speaker 2: I want to share this short excerpt from a profile
Speaker 2: on Omi in Refinery twenty nine. They write quote, In
Speaker 2: the next two months, her entire life flipped upside down.
Speaker 2: Her engagement ended, leaving her on public assistance as a
Speaker 2: single parent of three, which she considers her rock bottom.
Speaker 2: So she went into fight mode, even pitching a tent
Speaker 2: in her living room to rent on Airbnb for extra income.
Speaker 1: And I also get some contexts as so why I
Speaker 1: think it was such an anchoring moment. Right, So, like
Speaker 1: I am working this job at some patent search work
Speaker 1: and my boss caused me in as I say, I
Speaker 1: think you're amazing, but this is not for you.
Speaker 4: Lays me off. I go home.
Speaker 1: I call California psychics because it's some like somebody got
Speaker 1: to tell me something. It out money to hear from
Speaker 1: a universe, because now my life is like it's falling down.
Speaker 4: It's the second time I've got laid off. And that's
Speaker 4: not what I do.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The woman she told me, when you find a thing
Speaker 1: you want to do, the money will come, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to be with that guy, which is my
Speaker 1: fiance at the time. Oh gosh, so now I'm like yay,
Speaker 1: but like what yeah?
Speaker 4: What? So within two miles my entire relationship breaks down.
Speaker 1: And that was where I felt the most rock bottom
Speaker 1: because it wasn't just a relationship rock bottom, which was
Speaker 1: that first relationship. This was my I'm not gonna get married.
Speaker 1: I now have three children. Now I'm a single band,
Speaker 1: which I never wanted in terms of like being a
Speaker 1: single band with three children, I never wanted it.
Speaker 2: I want to pause here because between it all only
Speaker 2: had her third child. The story leading up to her
Speaker 2: third child is funny and complex and nuanced, and she
Speaker 2: shares her experience of choosing to have an abortion so
Speaker 2: that she had the ability to family plan, something that
Speaker 2: is common but not share nearly enough.
Speaker 1: So I'm in a club, all right, That's that's where
Speaker 1: the best started. Yes, Yes, ultimately, I've been doing performance poetry.
Speaker 1: I was well known and burnt out like I was tired,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm not doing I'm done last event.
Speaker 4: I'm doing.
Speaker 1: My mom and I were bar hopping in Anams Morgan
Speaker 1: in DC because my mom is my rider Dough and
Speaker 1: I meet this guy. We have a one night stand.
Speaker 1: I will go to this morning, like, why are you
Speaker 1: see her here? I don't understand.
Speaker 4: I need you to go.
Speaker 1: I gotta go walk my cat or wash my tire
Speaker 1: or something like that. So he leaves, he leaves, I
Speaker 1: don't talk to him again. Two months later, I'm like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, some is not right and I'm pregnant,
Speaker 1: so I have to call this guy out of the
Speaker 1: blue and say hey.
Speaker 4: He's like, oh, I'm so glad you can't text me.
Speaker 4: I lost your number or whatever. He was surprisingly cool
Speaker 4: the entire time we met. We talked.
Speaker 1: We agreed that we did not want that to be
Speaker 1: our child's story, but we would not have that child,
Speaker 1: and if we liked each other, we would continue to
Speaker 1: date and we would plan a child. And that's what
Speaker 1: we did. So I had an abortion with that child,
Speaker 1: and then we didn't talk for like maybe a month
Speaker 1: or two, and then he caught me out of the blue.
Speaker 4: We started dating again.
Speaker 1: We kept dating, dating, dating, light each other, hit it off,
Speaker 1: and we planned my youngest chiall Skyler.
Speaker 2: So it was twenty fifteen and Omi's engagement had just ended.
Speaker 2: She was a single parent of three just looking to
Speaker 2: make ends meet. So she did what she does best and.
Speaker 1: Built and now the life I thought I was about
Speaker 1: to live or thought I wanted. And to be honest,
Speaker 1: he was a settle. I mean, he's an amazing, amazing dad.
Speaker 1: I would never take that away from him. But we
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily right for each other. But it was a
Speaker 1: settle because I was just like, I'm getting older, you
Speaker 1: know now I've had this child over thirty, which I'm
Speaker 1: happy about, but like, it's time to just get with
Speaker 1: the best thing. You know that I you know, it's
Speaker 1: an okay thing. The greatest is not you know, all roses,
Speaker 1: but like and to have that break down was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I don't know if I'll ever find that again,
Speaker 1: or if I ever get married.
Speaker 4: So you know what if it, I'm going all the
Speaker 4: way in. What can I do in my hands? What
Speaker 4: can I Like?
Speaker 1: At that point, I was like, I'm not gonna fail.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit around. I didn't grieve that
Speaker 1: until about three years later because I was just like,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing I'm not sitting around and crying about this. Listen,
Speaker 1: at this point, I'm feeling like there is no plan
Speaker 1: in life ever right Like I'm at my lowest of
Speaker 1: low I am still on government assistance, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to be And I'm like, what, there's nothing Like
Speaker 1: if I don't do something, nothing's gonna happen. And when
Speaker 1: I say every available skill from doing the T shirt
Speaker 1: shop that I built to building a tpe in my
Speaker 1: living room to like I was creating my own furniture,
Speaker 1: I was creating my own greeting cars. I was selling
Speaker 1: whatever I could think of the sell like. And it
Speaker 1: was like, by any means, that's I'm going to be successful.
Speaker 4: What else can I do?
Speaker 1: And I came up with a T shirt line, first
Speaker 1: one it was then LGBT line. It sucked, nobody bought
Speaker 1: it. It bombed, and then I was talking to the printer
Speaker 1: at the time and I said, you know what, it's
Speaker 1: made by a black woman.
Speaker 4: I should put that on the shirt.
Speaker 1: So I took the Maid in America logo pattern it
Speaker 1: and I made made by a black women pattern. After
Speaker 1: the Maid in America logo put it on the shirt.
Speaker 1: People loved it. It took off. My mom was my
Speaker 1: first investor. She gave me about ten thousand dollars of
Speaker 1: a retirement to put into the business. I used my
Speaker 1: tax return to buy my own machines, and now we're off.
Speaker 1: At first, it was just the made by Black Woman line,
Speaker 1: and then I said, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: actually start a print shop and then I'm going.
Speaker 4: To print for myself and print for other people.
Speaker 1: So first I'm making like starting to make like about
Speaker 1: five figures just with a T shirt line itself. And
Speaker 1: then when I started doing printing for other people, this
Speaker 1: is when I started breaking six figures and getting.
Speaker 4: More and more more capital and men.
Speaker 1: I also started doing like merchandise, like print merchandise were
Speaker 1: like Google and Amazon, and those deals.
Speaker 4: This is why I'm so.
Speaker 1: Big on supplied diversity, because those deals are really what
Speaker 1: took me to higher six figures. Those deals is what
Speaker 1: got me out Section eight. And so I spent an
Speaker 1: entire year twenty fifteen, working my ass off to make
Speaker 1: as much money as many revenues. I made my own
Speaker 1: greeting guards, We vended as many places we could with
Speaker 1: the T shirts with the med and by Black Women
Speaker 1: T shirts. I started printing for like small festivals, like
Speaker 1: smaller influencers that were growing at that time. We had
Speaker 1: their own T shirt lines, and I just started raking
Speaker 1: in as much revenue as I could to work myself
Speaker 1: off a section and I successfully did that, thank god.
Speaker 4: And from there.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting a contract with Google doing some
Speaker 1: community teaching people about marketing things like that, and then
Speaker 1: we're just now the trajectory is just going up.
Speaker 2: How big was your team as you grew? Like what
Speaker 2: you said that you were in all these different like
Speaker 2: I feel like you would need like a sales team
Speaker 2: or operations again, a variety of industries to get into
Speaker 2: all of these places.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you would think so. Right.
Speaker 1: Actually, we're talking about my brother and my mom at
Speaker 1: that time and me and I'm dedicating all of my
Speaker 1: day to it, right So I'm doing the sales, I'm
Speaker 1: doing the emails, I'm doing the searching for the product
Speaker 1: that the people asked for. I'm doing the presentation I
Speaker 1: have to send them with the product on it. I'm
Speaker 1: doing the print. Like Luckily, with that first investment and
Speaker 1: my mom gave me, we printed like two thousand Made
Speaker 1: by Black Women shirts and so we never had to
Speaker 1: actually do another run of those shirts because then I
Speaker 1: started using like Shopify and print for which could print
Speaker 1: it on his own.
Speaker 4: And in our first full year.
Speaker 1: We ended up making Essence magazine Holiday Gift Guide, We
Speaker 1: had a baby infant one body suit and said made
Speaker 1: by Black women on it, and people just loved it, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm black, my baby's back, the baby's made by black women.
Speaker 4: I'm like, that's not what I meant.
Speaker 1: But yes, run with it, go buy it, you know,
Speaker 1: And so they were eating it up. And so it
Speaker 1: was that Black Friday and that like Christmas sale just
Speaker 1: went crazy wild in sales. So were you always cash positive?
Speaker 1: Like did you get loans or take investment for that?
Speaker 1: I did not other than my mom giving me that capital.
Speaker 1: I dan'te loans. Is that because at that time my
Speaker 1: credit wasn't great. I didn't feel like anybody would give
Speaker 1: me a loan. I did use scenes like a thirty
Speaker 1: day net with my manufacturers. I did use like business
Speaker 1: credit at Costco. I did use credit, but loans note
Speaker 1: and then the only capital I took was from my mom.
Speaker 2: So how did that transition? You transitioned pretty quickly from
Speaker 2: that into launching Black Girl Ventures.
Speaker 1: So one of the things I say is interesting, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I ever articulated like this, but like
Speaker 1: there was something about the mechanism of making money that
Speaker 1: probably started while I was teaching, right which was just
Speaker 1: like I'm a money maker. Like I can make money,
Speaker 1: give me a couple of tools. I'm a money maker.
Speaker 2: She shared in a Forbes piece, how just do it
Speaker 2: is more than a mantra, It's a way of life.
Speaker 2: She goes on to say, quote, my story of what
Speaker 2: I've built with Black Girl Ventures is the epitome of
Speaker 2: just do it. It would be hard for someone to
Speaker 2: believe that a woman who had had a child at
Speaker 2: seventeen and another child at twenty one, graduates and becomes
Speaker 2: a computer scientist, but doesn't work for a tech company
Speaker 2: but rather a school system, works multiple kinds of jobs,
Speaker 2: and then one day grows a multimillion dollar nonprofit is
Speaker 2: going to change the world.
Speaker 1: The news came out black women ever started business at
Speaker 1: six times in national average, yet receiving less than one
Speaker 1: percent of venture capital. So people aren't getting money to
Speaker 1: raise businesses to grow their business, but they are actually
Speaker 1: starting them right, And so I'm like, I could do
Speaker 1: something about that.
Speaker 4: So they were got.
Speaker 1: Rent parties, so doing a great migration when black people
Speaker 1: migrated from the South to all different parts of the
Speaker 1: country and Harlem. In fact, whiteland owners raised the rent
Speaker 1: and black people would throw parties in their homes now,
Speaker 1: and these weren't like any shabby little parties.
Speaker 4: They would have like you're talking about, like.
Speaker 1: Duke Ellington, lang Sy Hughes, fat Swaller, like Langsy Hughes
Speaker 1: at a little car that they would pass out with
Speaker 1: like little rhymes on it to invite people to come
Speaker 1: to the parties. And then they would charge at the
Speaker 1: door and they would use that money to pay the rent.
Speaker 4: And so this.
Speaker 1: Mechanism of like community centered crowdfunding essentially right crowdfunding.
Speaker 4: Crowdsourcing was innate because where were you gonna go?
Speaker 1: Right, You didn't have anybody, You weren't getting a loan
Speaker 1: let alone, if you were even able to enter a bank,
Speaker 1: you know, so those kinds of things. So that, yeah,
Speaker 1: it came from next.
Speaker 2: Her launch plan for Black Girl Ventures was second to none.
Speaker 2: She put her idea up on meetup dot com and
Speaker 2: hoped a few people would show up.
Speaker 4: None of this was deep thought.
Speaker 1: So like when I was going back to like being
Speaker 1: that teenager that's kind of rebellious, I've probably been doing
Speaker 1: that the whole time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because none of it was deep thought.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, oh, how can I change the world.
Speaker 1: About thirty women showed up. We voted with marbles and
Speaker 1: goffee mugs. You like this person put your mom with
Speaker 1: marble in their goffee mug. I gave the money from
Speaker 1: the door right back out to the lady. I honestly
Speaker 1: didn't think much about it.
Speaker 2: But she had set something great into motion, and one
Speaker 2: thing after another it started to grow.
Speaker 1: Creates access to social and financial capital for black and
Speaker 1: brown women founders. There's lots of initiatives out there for
Speaker 1: minority founders underrepresented founders. We specifically focus on black and
Speaker 1: brown women. Another thing that makes us unique is that
Speaker 1: our event is specifically focused on assets of capital. So
Speaker 1: it's like Shark Tank with an audience, except everyone's a shark.
Speaker 4: So everyone in the audience votes with their dollars.
Speaker 1: So you could come and pitch a three minute pitch
Speaker 1: and walk away with two thousand dollars for your business.
Speaker 1: How would you guys experience here on black old bitchers.
Speaker 4: I can't make it popularity?
Speaker 1: And then I gotta deal with Google, another part of Google,
Speaker 1: not the one I had a contract with. I gotta
Speaker 1: deal with Google Cloud for startups. And then we started
Speaker 1: traveling the country, and so we went from like thirty
Speaker 1: women in the house, forty forty five women in like
Speaker 1: different spaces, eighted one hundred people, and we work to
Speaker 1: like two hundred and fifty three hundred people in Chicago,
Speaker 1: New York, in Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Detroit, and really just the scale started happening from there.
Speaker 2: Were you keeping track of your portfolio? Were you operating
Speaker 2: like a VC and taking equity as you were funding them?
Speaker 4: We were not.
Speaker 1: Taking equity as we were funding them. It's been all
Speaker 1: grant so far. We absolutely count because when I look
Speaker 1: at the people that we funded now, so our twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen cohort in twenty nineteen cohorts, they're taking off. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm talking thirty under thirty getting bigger investment, answering
Speaker 1: it to the biggest accelerators on the planet. The companies
Speaker 1: are scaling like they're really taking off. And so now
Speaker 1: I'm looking at launching a fund because one we're proven
Speaker 1: we funded over three hundred women at this point. Two
Speaker 1: I now know, hey, if I look in my twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen coores and now we're in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: I could prove that like with that consistent funding and
Speaker 1: resources they can scale.
Speaker 4: Had we gotten equity, then what would we be now?
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty had an impact on every business. I imagine
Speaker 2: both with the pandemic and with the murder of George
Speaker 2: Floyd that your business was probably kind of at the intersection.
Speaker 2: What was the impact for you?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So twenty nineteen we got our first six figure believer,
Speaker 1: the You and Mary and Kaufmann Foundation. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times when people apply for grants, they apply with aspirations.
Speaker 1: We didn't. I applied with my actual business plan for scaling,
Speaker 1: and so when we got the grant, we were already
Speaker 1: full of force and like what a meant to scale?
Speaker 1: And at that time, scale meant I'm going to train
Speaker 1: a bunch of different women in different ecosystems on how
Speaker 1: we do what we do, hand them a tool kit,
Speaker 1: and let them start doing it for themselves.
Speaker 4: And so people.
Speaker 1: Thought I was crazy, like, oh, you're gonna ge if
Speaker 1: your idea away, I'm like, listen, if everybody started to
Speaker 1: crow fund to pitch competitions, I could back up and
Speaker 1: do something else.
Speaker 4: I've created an immense amount of change in the world.
Speaker 1: Right, So I recruit twenty five women, five from five
Speaker 1: different cities, bring them to DC, We train them, show
Speaker 1: them the competition, everything we're ready to go to get ready,
Speaker 1: everything boomed.
Speaker 4: We quarantine, and I'm like, oh my god, what are
Speaker 4: we gonna do?
Speaker 1: So we start offering coworking on Wednesdays virtually, which still
Speaker 1: happens to this day. We start offering monthly support programs,
Speaker 1: support sessions for people in business. We start offering virtual
Speaker 1: bitch competitions at that point, and this actually the scale
Speaker 1: of service just went to a whole another level because
Speaker 1: now we can reach everybody on the planet. When George
Speaker 1: Floyd was murdered, it was the response, this is something
Speaker 1: I've never seen before in my life.
Speaker 4: Like when I tell you, we was on calls all
Speaker 4: day long.
Speaker 1: I was on calls from like eight am to like
Speaker 1: seven BM ketchup people from the West Coast. We want
Speaker 1: to give you money. We want to give you thirty thousand,
Speaker 1: forty thousand. On top of so that maybe that then
Speaker 1: there was moments of almost playing therapists to some white
Speaker 1: people who realized I had done enough. So I had
Speaker 1: people who are like, oh my god. I looked around.
Speaker 1: I realized my whole team is white. I have no
Speaker 1: people of color on my team at all. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what could have prepared me for this
Speaker 1: except for the life that I've had. We were already
Speaker 1: ready as Black or Adventures. Our programming was solid. We
Speaker 1: knew our offerings, we knew what we wanted to do,
Speaker 1: we knew like the mission was tight. We were already
Speaker 1: offering the program like we were tight. So we were
Speaker 1: ready for all of that. But the level of conversation
Speaker 1: that I had, I don't know that I thought that
Speaker 1: that would be.
Speaker 4: What I was going to be talking about. Just people
Speaker 4: realizing like, I haven't done enough and I want to
Speaker 4: do more? How can I right? What can I do?
Speaker 2: The influx of investors created opportunity after opportunity for her
Speaker 2: not only to grow Black Girl VREs, but to leverage
Speaker 2: her community building skills.
Speaker 1: My relationship building muscle got stronger because I had to
Speaker 1: have empathy, but I also had to tell the truth
Speaker 1: just because it's me like and be authentic. So it's like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're going to have this conversation, and here's how we're
Speaker 1: going to have it. I understand you looked up and
Speaker 1: now you realize, yeah, I've been doing enough.
Speaker 4: What could that mean for how you could do?
Speaker 1: What? You view as enough, like what is an I
Speaker 1: don't know that there's enough right that could have saved
Speaker 1: George Floyd that wasn't policy related, right, Like, so from
Speaker 1: an individual standpoint, let's think about what you can do.
Speaker 4: And I think we became a thing to do.
Speaker 1: But we also became like like coaching people in a way.
Speaker 2: Like a thought partner, a thought partner.
Speaker 1: A problem solving partner, a partner that I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to ding you or you know, give you what you
Speaker 1: should have. I was going to shake my finger at
Speaker 1: you because that's not productive, because I really do want
Speaker 1: you to have long lasting shifts and how you think
Speaker 1: about this right? Then there was places where I just
Speaker 1: pushed ass that I would have never pushed, like doing
Speaker 1: a Nike deal. They were presenting to me like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna do this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have this billboard, we're gonna have visit it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna put you in the
Speaker 1: app like it was an amazing partnership. I said I
Speaker 1: want to be in a commercial and they were like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I don't think we can do that.
Speaker 4: I was like, so what you're saying is not right now,
Speaker 4: and it just kind oflive. But I ended up in
Speaker 4: a commercial, right.
Speaker 1: It may have been like three seconds, but I was
Speaker 1: in there again, Yes you were, so. I think that
Speaker 1: it really caused me to dig into and I still
Speaker 1: have relationships with those people to this day.
Speaker 4: Just good people, Be a good person.
Speaker 1: Be good people right, like in what the label good
Speaker 1: people means, like good hearted, cool, down to earth, able
Speaker 1: to talk to people, be empathetic.
Speaker 4: You know that. I think that matters so much.
Speaker 2: The Nike deal that only quickly mentioned is an incredible
Speaker 2: mural that is inspired by her poem Entrepreneurship is a
Speaker 2: boxing match.
Speaker 1: It's a eren It's three to four feet taller in reality.
Speaker 1: Its ropes are red, white, and blue. Its platform is
Speaker 1: blank stretched canvas. Commentators say, is.
Speaker 2: Boot Forth being the brilliant and creative woman that she is?
Speaker 2: Omi made a short film about the poem and the
Speaker 2: five incredible black women business owners featured in her Nike mural.
Speaker 2: The mural is featured at Union Market in DC, and
Speaker 2: it's a constant recognition of the tireless work of black
Speaker 2: and brown female entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4: Why is being a black woman entrepreneur different?
Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship is a boxing match, So people don't know that
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs are always dealing with all these things. But in
Speaker 1: addition to doing this, you know, you're still a mom.
Speaker 4: And I'm still never done. Entrepreneurship is a boxing match.
Speaker 4: We the women know how to say lights on our feets.
Speaker 2: Was there a point that you can think of when
Speaker 2: you look back when there it was that moment when
Speaker 2: you thought, oh my god, I'm done. I can't get
Speaker 2: out of this moment, And now in retrospect you see
Speaker 2: it as the thing that helped you move forward and launch.
Speaker 1: Probably my first fundraising call, I am right out in bush.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, and we do this and we have
Speaker 1: that and you know, and I'm like, I'm delivering what
Speaker 1: I feel like.
Speaker 4: Is my best full arm pitch.
Speaker 1: Okay, And the person, the Asian man at a Fortune
Speaker 1: five hundred company said, why would I fund you? I'm
Speaker 1: not a diversity and I'm like, the only initiative job
Speaker 1: is women. But it's all white women. So there's room
Speaker 1: for it to be all white women if that's what
Speaker 1: you want to do, and for it to be all
Speaker 1: black and brown women, then right, because I know that
Speaker 1: if you have room for this part. Then guess what,
Speaker 1: We're going to be a great ad to your portfolio. Right,
Speaker 1: he wasn't here, and he's like, I'm in a diversity
Speaker 1: and I just don't see why this is different when
Speaker 1: I'm already funding and I just don't.
Speaker 4: No, No, that sucks. You suck. This sucks, and.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do everything, like, well, you should think
Speaker 1: about it this way. What is this He's like, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that set me up for now.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: I felt terrible after that. I want to be clear.
Speaker 1: I was like, I suck at this. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm ever going to be able to raise a dollar.
Speaker 1: But now, in hindsight, I'm like, that set me up
Speaker 1: for Like when people don't get it one you don't
Speaker 1: take it personal. A no means it's not the right person,
Speaker 1: not the right time, but not the right ask. Your
Speaker 1: no has nothing to do with me. And I take
Speaker 1: that and I teach that and I coach on that
Speaker 1: like no is not your seb effocacy needs to break down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's not against your confidence. Yeah. So it
Speaker 4: was like, no is about that person's ability to respond.
Speaker 2: So much of it is timing. Also, whether it's funding
Speaker 2: or partnerships or whatever. It is so much of it
Speaker 2: as timing that has nothing to do with you. When
Speaker 2: I had the concept for this show, it's the first
Speaker 2: thing I've ever done that's personal. And even though I
Speaker 2: had raised money before, I had had a show before
Speaker 2: all of that, this felt so vulnerable to go out
Speaker 2: and pitch this show because I wasn't sure if a
Speaker 2: media partner would want it. I wasn't sure if sponsors
Speaker 2: would want it. I wasn't sure if an audience wanted
Speaker 2: to hear me talk about anything personally. That felt so
Speaker 2: vulnerable that it still is a little hard, but like,
Speaker 2: I have to separate the business from the content, and
Speaker 2: the content is me, but the business is the business,
Speaker 2: and the business can be about everybody else around me exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think like being able to like just reshape
Speaker 1: perspective quickly is an entrepreneurial thing, right, because you got
Speaker 1: to be able to move quick. I don't have time
Speaker 1: to waddle in that but for so long, Hey give
Speaker 1: me forty eight hours that I'm over it. So I
Speaker 1: have a book. It's called Originate, Motivate, Innovate. Seven Steps
Speaker 1: for building a billion dollar Network. And I think that
Speaker 1: when when I think about the network is everything? I
Speaker 1: tell people like, the network is everything, right, We're like,
Speaker 1: you're the When you get to a certain level of capital,
Speaker 1: your worth is the deal, not money in your bank account.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's your worth is the deal. It's about the deal.
Speaker 1: But the deals come from the relationships, right exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you so much. Can I give you a hug? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm Omi continues to thrive, building Black Girl ventures and
Speaker 2: giving out millions of dollars in grants. She just released
Speaker 2: her book Originate, Motivate, Innovate. Seven Steps for building a
Speaker 2: multimillion dollar business. You can find that anywhere you get
Speaker 2: your books. She was named one of the one hundred
Speaker 2: most Powerful Women in Business by Entrepreneur magazine and acknowledged
Speaker 2: as a Rising grand Star by Adweek. She continues to
Speaker 2: be featured in publications like Forbes, Fast Company, Marie Claire, Inc. Magazine,
Speaker 2: and more.
Speaker 4: For her work.
Speaker 2: Omi is also the host of Omi's World, a serious
Speaker 2: XM show that has authentic conversations about business, culture and finance.
Speaker 2: She lives with her children in the DC area, making
Speaker 2: sure to regularly check in on her mural at Union Market.
Speaker 2: You can Find all things Omi on Instagram, at black
Speaker 2: Girl Ventures and at Omi Bell Thanks for listening. She
Speaker 2: Pivots is hosted by me Emily Tish Sussman, produced by
Speaker 2: Emily eda Veloshik, with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock,
Speaker 2: and research and planning for Christine Dickinson and Hannah Cousins.
Speaker 4: I endorse che Pivots