Thoughts on Being a Black Founder & CEO in Tech

In early April, I had the privilege of speaking with two classes of students pursuing their MBAs at the prestigious McCombs School of Business at UT. Pasted below are some of the quotes from a few student reports after my speaking session followed by some of my own thoughts now two months after the talk.

"The guest speaker who probably reminded me the most of myself was Joah Spearman. His first venture, like mine, was a consumer product. And like me, he started small. He also showed that he, like all entrepreneurs, made some bad decisions. The most prominent one was purchasing the rental space that he simply could not afford, and I have made plenty of mistakes myself. Another similarity between Joah and myself, common with most entrepreneurs, is that he is always thinking of new ideas, and he isn’t afraid to fail. Everyone at some point is going to fail, it’s just a matter of getting back up and pressing onward."

"The discussion of risk was never more apparent than in the visit with Joah Spearman. While his comment, “start-up founders based in Connecticut or from HBS want their companies to work, but my venture, has to work,” on the surface seems to confirm my fear, his discussion on failure assuaged them. He said that despite pouring everything into the company, he could always pursue another opportunity or move to an established firm (his time at Bazaarvoice). Additionally, he has led several failed ventures before Localeur, and he has made it out alive. After taking this course, it seems there will always be opportunities for those willing to go out on their own, and this factor is attractive."

"Yet another strong appeal of the entrepreneurial life is the prospect to leverage diversity of life experience or background into optimizing currently under-utilized business opportunities. Our class speaker Joah Spearman personified this in multiple ways through his entrepreneurial journey, both with his own personal low-income minority background, and also with the numerous instances during his personal life and career where he seized opportunities to socialize and work with those who had different backgrounds and familiarities than he did. Joah’s willingness to take chances with diversity to encounter new opportunities not only demonstrates the impeccable value that different perspectives can bring to an entrepreneurial excursion, but also show how a lifetime of such experiences proved to be a phenomenal breeding ground for being able to see great opportunities where others did not. This is an astute lesson."

"I have lost interest in entrepreneurship since I read Joah Spearman’s case. The case mentioned that founders may lose some friends and their wife or husband, and he experienced divorce in the process of running a start-up. I cannot imagine a thing that is more important than my family. It is not my intention to blame others to prioritize their passions. Spearman seemed to enjoy his life and was the most impressive guest speaker in this course. However, I would like to avoid risks to bring troubles into home. Therefore, an entrepreneurship career does not attract me."

"A great example of a passionate entrepreneur is the founder of Localeur, Joah Spearman. Avid about the solution that Localeur provides to tourists, Joah’s energy and passion is both infectious and admirable. One of the memorable lessons I learned from his visit was the importance of networking. I never considered myself a great networker; however, he demonstrated that there are more ways than one to network. Constantly sharing his stories around him enabled him to achieve his dreams. He often seeks opportunities to expand both his network and experience such as getting a part-time job in the Athletic department during his time at UT Austin."

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I myself didn't attend the business school at UT (I was in the far less advanced Communications school, don't get me started), but I did take a few courses through the Business Foundations program. It was truly a special day for me to speak at McCombs and to be considered someone worthy of sharing advice with aspiring business executives and entrepreneurs, many of them older and more experienced than me professionally. Apparently, my talk was mentioned in over half the end-of-year papers by the MBA students. I was blown away.

I've spoken in hundreds, no exaggeration, of classrooms. Elementary, middle and high schools along with community, private and public colleges and universities, but I think this particular talk took the cake because it was the most personal. I didn't hold back or spare any detail. I wanted to share the true entrepreneurial experience and journey I've had which dates back some 20 years honestly. I wanted to share with the students that my path wasn't linear, that my road has not been easy (nor paved) and that my success is still to be determined, but that I embrace the journey all the while.

Too often I feel, entrepreneurs wait until they've "made it" to do things like speak on college campuses or find ways to help aspiring entrepreneurs, but I think there's so much more value when you're still in the trenches. You have way less success bias, way less "this is how I did it, so this is how you should do it"and, more importantly, you allow the students to perceive your situation more introspectively rather than through the lens of admiration.

I get a lot of emails and phone calls and text and LinkedIn request - all told probably 50 to 100 a week - of people asking me for some kind of help. I can't possibly help these people all in the way they'd like, but I do my absolute best to help the people I know and a few of the people I've never met who send very thoughtful, detailed requests. I'm sure people like my board member and mentor Heather Brunner or my adviser and investor Blake Chandlee or my investor and Bazaarvoice founder Brett Hurt get asked for advice all the time - way way more than I do - and they too have learned (as I have recently) that you have to self-curate and self-manage these requests or you'll never have time to accomplish the things you're setting out to do.

My friend Verick Cornett - a new MBA grad from McCombs now making his way through Silicon Valley - is the reason I was able to speak in these classes so big ups to him, but what I really want to thank him for is what he told me over lunch the other day when we caught up. He said, "I don't know if you realize how you look, but you're that dude that's really doing it. If you make it then people are really going to believe they can do it too." I asked him what he meant, and he mentioned the fact that I'm in Texas rather than SF or New York, that I didn't go to Stanford or get an MBA from an Ivy League school like many of the others in tech and I’m still working on securing the kind of VC backing that almost all major tech startups need.

Look, I'm not really that dude. I mean, Localeur is doing pretty well in terms of growth (rising to over 1,000% since December), getting tons of great app reviews and press hits and expanding around the country, but it's not yet so great that I don't stress out almost every single week about something out of my control (someone's mood or some article they read about Yelp) or that I don't have to worry about what one of my investors is saying between the lines or what some member of the media may write about us or what today's user numbers look like.

But what Verick said meant a lot to me because he sees what I see. He sees that right now there still is a huge gap for Black leaders in technology. Especially at the founder/CEO/fundable business level. I told Verick that I think Blacks in tech are precisely where women in tech were 3-to-5 years ago before Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn movement.

What I mean by that is that we're still a few prominent Black individuals and Black founder/CEO led companies away from truly opening the gates for thousands more Black leaders in tech. Right now, if you look around, the leading Black entrepreneurs in SF and NYC are guys who did go to Ivy League schools or get Stanford MBAs or work on Wall Street or did YCombinator. It's very much the same for women, only in slightly better numbers. These are guys and gals who got into the "club" the traditional way one way or another.

My issue with this route is that finance (which includes VC) is an industry that historically has bred a culture of tokenism. Often times, coming from Ivy League or finance especially can occasionally breed an internal line of thinking amongst young professionals that says, "only one of us is going to get accepted/get that promotion/get VC funding, get profiled by TechCrunch, etc." preventing a real sense of community to be created. What you'll often see at several organizations is that only one Black guy can get into this elite university club or only one woman can make VP at 28 years old or only one Latino guy can become a managing director, etc. etc. You catch my drift, it's both a door for us while also being a limiting factor if someone has already stepped inside.

But please know that I don't blame these female and Black founders and CEOs for going the more traditional route to access tech because I hope the dozens of Black folks who’ve made the transition from finance or an elite MBA degree program to becoming leaders in tech eventually pave the way for thousands. This is important work, especially since this seems to be the most logical and industry-approved entry point to this white-male-dominated tech industry for Blacks and women.

Even my best tech relationship can depend on the latest monthly metrics or growth status of my business and I probably would have taken a Stanford MBA degree too if I knew some of the things I know now about the way VCs think. The best I can do is stay on my journey, learn from others, and try to help where I can as I was doing that afternoon at the McCombs School of Business.

Still, regardless of the particular path other Blacks take to get into technology as founders, CEO or early employees, know that you don't have to go one particular route or "make it" in order to begin sharing your journey with others. Don't let where you got your degree or your professional background limit you from pursuing that great startup idea you have or from being a difference maker at a fast-growing company. Trust me, the industry needs diversity of perspective just as much as it needs dollars.