Blavity

“You know, I quit my job, and I worked on Blavity full-time. We had already launched a version of it over the summer, but I really, at that point, you know, quit my job in, in the fall right after Mike Brown happened.”

“I've raised, you know, over eleven million dollars, have fantastic investors that support the mission, but it is a for profit entity.”

“You know, people are very sensitive about running ads or campaigns against black death or murder or social justice, because that's not always ad safe or ad friendly.”

“I think that sometimes people may look at Blavity and say, well, it's a media company that's raised venture funding, and it's really more of a company that raised venture funding because we have a huge audience, and we're building products, brands, experiences…”

“Blavity, we've always had a diversified business because I did not want to be dependent on venture funding, so we've prioritized revenue at our core in terms of operating because it was important that We had multiple industries and multiple revenue streams.”

“Now, when you take venture funding, the only way people get their money back is if you exit. That's a very tough thing that I have to struggle with because that means that we are selling it to someone else and that there's a constant push And drive towards tha…”

“It took me a lot of no's to get 500,000 dollars for Blavity. And I had a million users at the time. If I went out today with that, I would raise five million because there's more venture funds focused on minorities and women of color.”