Lessons - From Running Billion Dollar Brands to Funding Black Founders | Keenan Beasley - Venture Noire Founder & P&G/L’Oréal Exec

In this lessons episode, explore how community, confidence, and access to resources shape entrepreneurial success for underrepresented founders, discover why density and shared ecosystems accelerate growth, understand how wealth gaps and limited networks create barriers to early funding and uncover strategies that lower entry costs and connect diverse innovators with capital and opportunity. But as you as you built this out like I was looking on the site and you said for venture in war there's three three resource pillars curriculum community and access to capital. Is that when I look at when I think about entrepreneur curriculum the knowledge access to capital is obviously important I feel like community is something that isn't focused on enough is this the community in your mind is it like an incubation program is it somebody who's gone through the same life experiences is somebody of the same color understands cultural background or nuances what's community that you would bring the table because that's the one piece that I. I don't know well no no it's a great question it comes from the philosophy really that you know density breed success. So it's the idea of a strip mall right so you know air air in America we have strip malls where you know you have one company that's doing well well those companies that are around it tend to get some of that you know. fall off track right and they tend to have better sales revenue because of that just from sheer proximity so a lot of what I think was lacking in and the you know underprivileged or underserved or minority communities was that density of creation so there was no Silicon Valley with with diverse black and brown entrepreneurs. So we have to build those ecosystems and what ends up happening is you start to rise then collectively together you share experiences you share resources tips but you also can share talent right a lot of time behind the the failure rate of an entrepreneur is incredibly high. But in order to recruit those people they need to feel like hey well if that company doesn't work out if they're another job nearby that I can get that's the unknown thing about you know Silicon Valley you join a tech company up in San Francisco right or a middle of heart. Hey that company fails you got a thousand other startups that just raise capital that you can jump over to walk down the street rate another job absolutely so that's part of what that community is right it's a way of sharing resources but. It creates a bit of safety and familiarity and and why this is this is a big question I guess I don't want to I don't want to make this question too big but. When there's a why combinator or in Toronto where I am there's creative destruction and there's a whole bunch of other types of these types of programs why commenters probably the best known. At what point does an under an underserved or an underrepresented group. Fail at getting into a why combinator is it when they're very young and they didn't have the educational circumstances to facilitate that or enabled them to get to the point where they felt confident or competent enough to apply is it at the very last point where there's you know maybe perhaps not the ability I don't know I want to say racism at that level where they're not being accepted. Are they getting accepted but they just don't feel like they have a lot of peers represented in the same group like what's the point that the traditional venture capital or incubator programs fail under represented individuals. A lot of it is confidence so so what I found was you know a lot of these minority entrepreneurs just were insecure in the process because. They didn't know anyone else who had gone through there was no one in proximity so there wasn't the entrepreneur in the family there wasn't you know the aunt or the uncle that they could call on to talk about the process so it's this foreign land and a lot of what was happening in that foreign world of entrepreneurship. There were these early stages of capital that were not afforded to some of these groups right and the thing that leads our venture space is not VC capital right less than a percent of of all companies received venture capital dollars the bulk of that is coming from friends and family and personal loan. Well when you have a wealth gap and in the United States that is you know 250 or so years that has a real impact on being able to serve that community because there isn't an accredited investor in your family to give your friends and family well. So that 25 70 75 thousand dollars to get you started doesn't exist right so you you now have to figure out well now have to take out a personal guarantee. Well if I take out a personal guarantee and I fail which 90 plus percent of us do well now that has a huge impact and a step back so now I would just I just took that 250 year gap now just went to 253 years or two others in 60 years right so it's very detrimental so you know you have to figure out ways to build that confidence which is why how can we lower the cost of barrier right the the entry point of entrepreneurship. Why combinator in those groups don't address that that's an interesting way of putting it so you're lowering the cost you're giving them the resources because you have the ability to offer these at scale as opposed to going and and fixing all the venture capital out there and trying to funnel it more towards more towards young black or or under under represented entrepreneurs and I think that's an interesting way of putting it or or or not putting it but actually helping facilitate because. Because all I see all over Twitter is just I hate referencing Twitter i'm sorry it's not an educational resource but I see a lot of anecdotally a lot of people speaking about well VCs have to invest more and VCs have to invest more and under represented and I was actually going to ask you how do we do that I don't know if you have a thought on how we how do we actually facilitate that but you're taking the other you're taking the other route which I think is actually a very smart way because it's a quicker it's a quicker thing to action you don't have to change you know the the whole cultural of a certain VC group that doesn't. and invest in under represented you just you can enable them with the tools and resources you already have out of much cheaper almost like wholesale rate is the best way to put it yeah I mean look that venture capital is is a formula right so there's there's a way to hack that and so they're investing in very like minded companies and and a profile of people you know if you're a Stanford dropout and you want to start a company you'll probably get a million dollars right just just by saying you want for the company. And you know the minority communities you don't have that there are you so I had to address that in a different way and part of what I feel the responsibility with with invention or is to make. The process of entrepreneurship in the underserved community and make it more familiar with that investment communities so invite those venture capital is into workshops let them see the innovation right the creativity the thought now let's give that then innovator the process and the formula and how to package and sell that idea. And that's just part of the work that we have to do and it's it's tough but you know I can give you look you know I don't want to go on too much of a tangent but I think what you also find in a lot of minority based communities is the easiest thing to start with very little capital is a service business does not require venture capital because it doesn't scale in the same way. It's probably only venture capital because they want that they want that exit exactly so so that's why when you when you look at a lot of of minority founders they're just they don't have to write businesses for venture capital. You know now if you you transpose that was you know a guy like my friend Rodney Williams with listener it's a technology right it's a big take so people get that it's totally a very clear narrative that is modeled after a lot of what Silicon Valley has done in the past. I'm not going to say it's ever easy to raise capital but he has a much more a much better chance than someone that is starting an agency like was my first but my agency would never raise venture capital. And where and where about like where are you finding entrepreneurs is it you know what's your best audience that will have the best chance of success is it people in universities or are there individuals that are later on in their career where you sort of finding your your group. I think the great thing is the entrepreneurs find us because they're just so curious so a lot of you know the work that we're doing in and in why we are constantly trying to raise sponsorship dollars is we need to do more event more activities. And is that people can then yep they can find us and and they reach out so we've done some great things with colleges have a great partnership with USC we work with TCU within internships University of Chicago et cetera I didn't done some talks at West Point and you want to believe they have an amazing entrepreneurship community there. So colleges absolutely but then I think there's people with that real expertise from some of these companies that would do well in a startup environment right that I think they could really start to shape a culture because they have that technical expertise i'm also looking at bringing some of those folks over. And then I think you have your influential leaders right your cultural leaders that I call it right people that start trim they may not have the technical ability but they have the the means to get reach and attention which is also needed for success well now i'm pairing them with a technical expert and now you have a really cool team to build from so yeah we look everywhere. If you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one.