The Exchanges

Q I loved Fun Dip. It was so great, and I love that. Kool-Aid, Fun Dip, and so you were doing entrepreneurial things from the time you were a little girl. Um, did you always want to do that? Did you always think, I'm going to start a business one day?

A No, I didn't know a name for it. I don't even think when I really started Blavity, I was like, I'm an entrepreneur. Like, I just, I must have always been someone who's like, that rule doesn't make any sense. The reason I did the fun dip and went to Costco is because The city made some sort of rule where there was no candy in the vending machines as if that was going to prevent kids from having candy. I was like, well, that's a stupid rule. Is it illegal for me to sell candy to each other? Like, no. Okay, great. I've just always challenged the rules and asked the question, well, like, but why, you know, and like, what is this really solving for? And I've also, you know, always tried to bring people along with me, you know, in whatever journey It is, uh, for, for good or bad, you know, I also was the girl who got suspended for redistributing candy in that same school, so, you know, it's, uh, sometimes I haven't always gotten the upside of, of, of a win.

AI assessment note: “No, I didn't know a name for it.”

Q Parent Magazine. It's a media company created by black parents for black, mixed, foster, adopted, LGBTQ parents of black children. Um, and she asks, how, how do I raise money for my platform? Like she, she says she needs more staff, more resources. Do you have any advice or suggestions for ways that she can think about bringing in some, some more financial resources to, to build up her company?

A Yeah, so, um, you know, raising money in venture funding, getting venture funding is very difficult, and it's something that I think increasingly has become more and more accessible to the black community, and so I really encourage people to consider it and make sure that it's, it's something that makes sense for your business. Also, venture funding isn't for every business model, right? You know, you have to very much be on a mission to build a hundred million dollar plus business and be able to Get to 40, fifty million dollars in revenue plus, right? Um, 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, it's really more of a company that raised venture funding because we have a huge audience, and we're building products, brands, experiences for that audience, one of which is media. And I think media alone as an industry is very difficult to get venture funding for, Um, we've seen so many media companies go out of business. Now I say all of that to answer her question directly, focus on your business model, figure out how you can scale without venture funding and focus on revenue because typically having revenue now that it is a little bit easier to get venture funding, people are going to look for a little bit more traction. So they're going to want to see that you have proven out that you can scale …

AI assessment note: “focus on your business model, figure out how you can scale without venture funding”

Q When you get, you know, young college graduates coming up to you and saying, Morgan, I want to be like you, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to jump into this, um, what is it that you wish you knew three, four, five years ago that you now know that would have made it maybe just a little bit easier when you started?

A So many things. I didn't know anything. I mean, I didn't know the vocabulary. I didn't know any of the acronyms, and I think that's okay. I actually don't think you need to know all that stuff to get started, but I think that I would have wanted to maybe understand fully the venture funding model. 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 that milestone and that not necessarily wasn't the milestone that I set out to create for. I think I would have thought about that a little bit more and maybe change the business a little bit earlier. I know they always say, well, don't worry about the outcome or who you're going to sell to when you're first raising money. I think it's important to think through those things, actually.

AI assessment note: “I would have wanted to maybe understand fully the venture funding model.”

Q to say and, um, and who you're trying to reach. Um, this is a question from, um, Monica Rojas. She asks, um, how do you, and I, I think Monica is asking on, on her own behalf, how do you reach black communities, um, throughout the nation and not just in your city or your region or in your local area? Do you have any suggestions or advice for Monica?

A Yeah. Um, that's a great question. You know, I think that, uh, the internet's a beautiful place. I mean, you're just a hashtag away from reaching a lot of people. So, understanding how sub-communities group together on Twitter or Reddit or Instagram, um, even within Facebook groups, that's something that we've used to accelerate our growth is actually really focusing on the niche communities within our community because we found that the shares and the virality is much higher when you're actually niching down even further. So, Think about kind of the core demographics, and also look at the data. You know, we spend a ton of time looking at our Google Analytics, understanding our audience and our super users, and understanding what, what they want and what they want to share, and I think that has given us more clarity about the kinds of things we need to continue to do to grow.

AI assessment note: “understanding how sub-communities group together on Twitter or Reddit or Instagram”