A Toast for 200 Episodes of Black Tech Green Money

Ep. 200 On this episode, AfroTech’s Will Lucas looks back on how Black Tech Green Money became a reality from a simple thought in the mind, and we look back on how the show has grown, its impact, and even get a re-listen of the very first episode.

Follow Will Lucas on Instagram: @willlucas

Follow Black Tech Green Money: @blacktechgreenmoney, @btgmpodcast

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Will Lucas here Black Tech, Green Money, and I wanted
to take this episode and kind of just pause because
I was doing account of our episodes, and about three
or four episodes ago, it dawned on me that we
are creeping up on episode two hundred, and this is
episode two hundred of Black Tech, Green Money. And more

(00:25):
than anything, I'm honored that you allow me into your
living room, into your cars, into your workouts, wherever you
listen to Black Tech, Green Money. I am super duper
honored that you allow me to share space with you
for thirty five forty five fifty five minutes a week

(00:46):
and hopefully inspire you in some way. And so I
like it for me. You gotta understand, like I do
this podcast sometimes for my basement, sometimes from my office,
but I'm typically like by myself, even if I'm like
interviewing somebody, like they may be in another part of
the world and I'm in a room by myself for

(01:06):
the most part. And for people to have a connection
with this podcast something that I do when I'm not
in a room with somebody, and the effort that I
put in that it has impact in the world. Like
I'm trying to figure out how to say this, Like
I'm doing something in a room that I believe has value,

(01:30):
but you don't like see an audience. I guess that's
a better way to put it, Like I don't see
an audience when I'm doing this podcast. And so for
people to either stop me because they heard something on
an episode that meant something to them when like I
wasn't expecting them to say anything about the podcast or
I read you know, cause I have like Google alerts

(01:51):
set up, and so if I get like a Google
alert that somebody has mentioned Black Tech Green Money and
like their top podcast, like I did a couple of
days ago, Like I just got a ding from a
Google alert that somebody like down in Atlanta who was
like a big deal, like I said that Black Teching
Money was like one his favorite podcasts, and so like this,

(02:15):
this means a lot to me, but I believe also
too obviously it means a lot to the people who
listen to this podcast, and so I'm super thankful to
have made it to episode two hundred. We started this
podcast during COVID, and that was a time where like
nobody knew what was going to be what, and so

(02:35):
we were like, okay, we got to, you know, produce
some digital assets because you know, obviously Afrotech couldn't do
a lot of things in person in twenty twenty. And
I come from podcasting and before that, I come from radio,
and so I guess it might make sense for me
to tell you, and I've done this before on the podcast,

(02:56):
but it might make sense for me to give you
a quick, you know, rehashing of how I got to
afro Tech, and then we can talk about how the
podcast came about. So I went to my first afro
Tech in twenty seventeen, which was the second year afro
Tech existed. And before afro Tech, I was doing another

(03:18):
podcast called of ten Podcasts, and it was only called
of ten Podcasts because I was only gonna do ten episodes.
One of ten, two of ten, three of ten. Therefore
you get of ten podcasts. And it was a lot
like Black Tech Green Money in that I was interviewing
black technologists, but I was at the time working on

(03:40):
a specific startup. I was building a company, and an
advisor to my startup, who happened to be white, asked like,
what would it take to get more black kids, more
in the city, kids interested in tech? Like I was,
and I'm like, they need to see like a Mark Zuckerberg,
somebody who looks like them and is realizing success. And

(04:01):
at the end of that conversation, I kicked myself because
I'm like, we have super successful black people in tech,
we just don't know who they are. And again, this
is back in goodness. This was like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
And.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
So I was like, I'm going to do a podcast
that just features these black technologists because tech Crunch wasn't
covering black technology. We we weren't on the cover of tech
Crunch back then. We weren't on the cover of Gizmoto
and all of these other, you know, tech outlets back
in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. And so I'm like, I'm

(04:41):
gonna do a podcast that.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Just features super successful.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Black technologists, and because I want to show the world
that we're out here. And again, I.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Was working on the startup.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
So that's the reason I was only going to do
ten episodes, because I was working on something else and this.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Was like a side thing.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
And so I did that ten episodes, and like somewhere
through the ten episodes might have been around episode seven
or eight, I don't even know, but I'm making that.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Part of it. Somewhere around like episode seven or eight.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
I had heard about this thing called Afrotech and this
was the first year of Afrotech and it was twenty sixteen,
and I had missed it, and I'm like, how did
I miss it?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Because if you look back at.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
The lineup for twenty sixteen, a lot of the people
who were on stage at the first afro Tech I
had on my show for that season of ten Podcasts,
the first season of ten Podcasts, And I'm like, if
I just interviewed all these people and they're on this stage,
number one, how did I not know about it? And
number two, if they do it like that, I'm never

(05:50):
gonna miss another Afrotech. And so I determined in my
mind at that point that I was going to be
there at the next Afrotech and this was it was
back in Silicon Valley of San Francisco, and so that
twenty seventeen, I go and I knew I was going
to have a good time. I just knew it. And
I'm like, I want to make sure everybody else who's

(06:12):
not here realizes that they.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
Need to be here.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
And so I've vlogged every day of that conference. It
might have been like a two or three day commerce.
I don't even remember, but I do remember every day
I'm walking around with a camera in my hand, looking
at myself, looking at the audience, looking at the stage,
and I'm just like vlogging showing people what it's like
to experience Afrotech in real time. And I was vlogging

(06:38):
in real time. So I was recording all day and
a friend of mine had let me stay in his
apartment and he was out of town, so I got
this apartment all to myself. It was like the basement
of somebody's you know, it's like super San Francisco like,
so it's like the basement of somebody's apartment, but he's
living in the like the basement of another apartment, which
is wild. But so I'm staying in this basement of

(07:01):
an apartment and I'm editing all the footage that I
recorded that day. And so imagine, like this is like Thursday,
I'm traveling to Afrotech, So I record all that footage
during that Thursday. I get to San Francisco, I get
to my room, I edit that traveling footage that Thursday night,

(07:23):
put publish it to YouTube that night. And then Friday,
first day at afro Tech, I'm recording all day, capturing
as much as I can. I get back to the
room that night, edit that night, published to YouTube that night,
and so the next day people are like, yo, I
saw your video from yesterday. I even know these people,
but they saw my video and they were like, yeah,

(07:45):
I saw your video from yesterday.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
It's dope.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
And so I did the same thing that next day.
I recorded all day, edited that night, publish it to
YouTube that night, and then like two day two of
doing this, people are like, yo, who is this guy
that's recorded all this footage and editing super duper quick
in this high quality, and like he's like it's happening

(08:07):
like right now, and back then, like nobody was doing this.
It's like now everybody does this, but like when I
was doing nobody else was walking around with a camera,
editing that fast, publishing that fast. But if you go
to Afrotech, now everybody's doing that. But I also, because
if you recall, I had all these people that were
on that stage on my podcast. So what I did

(08:32):
was I took like these they looked like club flyers,
but they were podcast flyers, and so I made flyers
of my podcast, and I was passing out flyers like
people pass out club flyers.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
But it was about my podcast, and it was about
the people.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
It was featuring people who were on the stage at
afro Tech that year. It's twenty seventeen, and again, this
was back when Afrotech was like thirteen hundred people. There
was like not a lot of people. It's thirty thousand now,
but it was like thirteen hundred people back then. And
so I'm passing out flyers and I'm the only one
doing this type of hustle because again I come from radio,

(09:10):
so I know how to work the street. And so
I'm number one vlogging every day, publishing in real time hustling.
I'm passing out flyers about my podcast like people plass
out club flyers. They weren't even passing out club fires
back then. Because again it's San Francisco and it's thirteen
hundred people. It's we not like that big yet. But

(09:32):
I'm the only one doing this one two punch. I'm
only one doing any punch at all and just trying
to market to this audience. And so inadvertently, because I
didn't do it for this reason, but inadvertally I had
made a name for myself and so people started to
pay attention to who this Will Lucas guy was, and

(09:55):
so I had a remarkable time.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
These videos are still up on you.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
So if you go to YouTube right now, then you
type Will Lucas afro Tech, you will see all the
videos I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
And so.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
That next year, I'm like, okay, time for afro Tech again.
It's twenty eighteen, and by this time, I'm like, I'm married,
and I'm like, I told my wife, like, you have
to see what's happening in San Francisco. Like it is,
it's the most incredible thing I've ever seen, number one,
And all of these black people are converging in this

(10:31):
one place, and like we're all talking about technology, and
we're all talking about the future, and like, I've never
been in the place where so many black people are
talking about the future and they're actively building it. And
so I told my wife, like, you have to see this,
And so I took my wife to twenty eighteen and

(10:53):
again another remarkable afrotech. By this point it was like
three thousand people. You know, I had doubled in size
three thousand people. So at the end of it, I
look at my wife and I'm like, Yo, that was amazing, right,
that was amazing, Like, can't believe that was amazing?

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Right?

Speaker 1 (11:10):
You agree? And she was like, yeah, it was amazing.
You should not come back unless you're on stage. And
I'm like, how am I gonna get on that stage?

Speaker 3 (11:20):
And you see who was on that stage?

Speaker 1 (11:22):
You know, do you see who's on that Like how,
like what am I going to say compared to the
people who are on that stage? Like these people are
big deals. And she was like, yes, but you should
not come back unless you're on stage. And so, being
the man, I am number one not knowing how, but
I'm like, I'm like challenge accepted, Like I'm gonna figure
out maybe if it's just like introducing somebody, Like I'm

(11:45):
gonna figure out how to get on stage, because you know,
I've been told like I can't come back unless I
was stage, and so I am. I'm a big vision boarder,
and so I put I found a picture of afro
Tech twenty seventeen. It might have been he's online somewhere,
but I found a picture of a guy giving a

(12:08):
talk on stage at afro Tech twenty seventeen, and I
put that picture on my vision board, and so every
day I wake up and I can see my vision board.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
It's right there.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
And so I'm like, Okay, next time they open up
a call for speakers, I'm going to apply. So that
season that usually happens like around February March April somewhere
around there. And so around that time, this is before
I saw all call for speakers. It was I had

(12:38):
to be somewhere around February March of twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen.
I'm sorry, twenty nineteen. I am you know in the
mindset that I'm going to apply to speak at afro Tech.
But I'm driving down the road. I remember exactly where
I was. I was driving down Central Avenue in Tweed, Ohio.

(12:59):
I'm driving down Central Avenue. I'm at the corner of
Central Avenue and Holland Sylvania about to stop at this
red light. I remember exactly where I was. And I
get this email. And I'm driving my car and get
this email. I'm at a red light. So I read
it and it's from this girl named Marissa who's at Blavity.
And she emails me and says, hey, we're going in

(13:23):
a new direction for Afrotech, and Morgan, who's the CEO
of Blavity Morgan Debarne. Morgan says we should talk to you.
And I'm sitting in my car like what am I
reading right now? Because I hadn't applied for anything. I
hadn't made any outreach. I hadn't you know, made any
connections at Afrotech talking about you know what I'm saying, like, hey,

(13:46):
I should do something more. I have not even applied
to speak yet, and so I'm like trying to figure
out like like this is this real? Like so I'm
going from you understand, I'm going from trying to figure
out how I'm going to get on stage two being
asked to run Afrotech, to be brand manager for Afrotech.

(14:09):
I do't. I still to this day, don't know how
that happens. But I attribute that leap in my personal
journey to doing the work, like striving to be excellent
no matter where I'm at. So anyway, like that, I
spent more time when I than I plan to. But
my point is like that's how we got here. And

(14:30):
so during COVID, you know, I had been with Afrotech
for two years a year and a half or so
at that point, and during COVID we had done Afrotech Oakland,
which was in person. Then we get to twenty twenty
and around April May of twenty twenty, we start to

(14:53):
realize that we're going to need some digital assets, and
so Morgan hits me like, all right, it's time to
get podcast going because we hadn't done an afro Tech podcast.
I had stopped podcasting since of ten podcasts, which was
before I got to afro Tech, and so there was
this law in my personal journey of not podcasting. So

(15:15):
during COVID it opened up the opportunity to start podcasting
again because again we needed digital assets because we weren't outside.
So I come up with the name. I remember seeing
the name Black Tech Green Money on like a pillar,
like you know, like when you go to if you've
been to Afrotech, or you've been to any conference, you know,
like they have signed each up everywhere, And I've been asked,

(15:38):
I think maybe Love Love Beach, who's one of my
colleagues here at Blavity Love Beach or somebody asked me
to come up with the name for the podcast. And
so I had come up with a name, like five
different names, but one of them was a kind of
saying that I remember being on a wall at whatever

(15:59):
recent Afro tech I had been to. So I had
to be twenty nineteen in Oakland and it had said
black Tech Green Money on like this wall, and I'm like,
that's one of the names in you know, my list
of names that I had to put up, and that's
the one that we rocked with obviously. So about two

(16:20):
three months after starting the podcast, Morgan has a conversation
with Charlemagne Charlemaine the God from the Breakfast Club, and
she forwarded me to email along and he's like, yo,
like what's up with Black Tech Green Money Because he
was starting iHeartRadio Network. His partnership with iHeartRadio Network called

(16:44):
Black Effect, and so Black Effect is Charlemagne the God's
imprint at iHeartRadio iHeartMedia And this was just starting back
in twenty twenty. And so after about a couple of
months of doing Black Tech Green Money just under the
Blavity profile, Charlotte Mayhead just was like, let's give this

(17:04):
a bigger or different, you know, distribution channel. So that's
how we today have a partnership with Black Effect and
iHeart Media, which iHeartMedia is the biggest podcasting platform in
the world, and so that's how that happens. But suffice
it to say, to be, you know, effectively for almost

(17:27):
five years into doing this podcast. It's a blessing, you know,
because you have thousands of people every week, legit, thousands
of people every week who hear your voice and want
to hear what you have to say. And that part
still is a little tricky for me because I'm like,
I'm a host, I'm an interviewer, and I love to
interview and I love to talk to people and glean

(17:48):
insights from other people's journeys. But I've realized, you know,
in the past however long, that people also want to
hear what I have to say, and that that is
a little bit more comfortable for me. But you know,
I'm growing into it because I'm by nature, you know. Again,
since my radio days, even my job was to present

(18:11):
the next song, or present the next question, or present
the next idea that somebody else has to provide a
platform for other people to speak. And I've always taken
that job very seriously, and so that's why you hear
you know, I'm gonna do real research on the guests
that I do. Like, I don't just throw up, you know,

(18:32):
stupid questions. I'm gonna actually really dig into things that
you've said before and interviews you've done before, and I
want to hear your backstory, and I'm gonna actually do
research so I can just point you to the specific
things in your backstory that I found interesting and I
believe my audience might find interesting also. So this is
a particular way I do research. And maybe one day
I'll show you guys, you know, on maybe a YouTube

(18:54):
video or something. But I take this job. I take
this trust that you've put in me very seriously. There's
a lot of podcasts you could subscribe to, a lot
of podcasts that you have unsubscribed from. But the fact
that you hear with me, trusting me to present to
you some value, inspiration, motivation, insights, it means the world.

(19:20):
And I take it very serious that I never, you know,
take that for granted. So Black Tech, Green Money is
two hundred episodes, and I have learned a ton and
the people that I've gotten a chance to talk to,
some of them, you know, run ten thousand dollars you know,

(19:40):
a month or a year even startups and are trying
to figure it out. You know, a lot of the startups,
founders that we've talked to or CTOs, you know, those
startups don't even exist anymore. And that kind of stuff happens.
You're building a company and you're building something from nothing.
But many several of the you know, technologists, investors particularly,

(20:05):
maybe not investors so much, but the founders, many founders
I've talked to, are running billion dollar valued startups today.
You know, if we're talking about you know, Dave, Dave Salvaan,
or we're talking about Frederick Hudson or other you know,
folks like this, there are building hundreds of millions of

(20:26):
dollars or billion dollar valuations. Their startups are worth a
ton of money. You know, we talk about Paul Judge,
and we talk about people like that who are completely
inspiring and we can learn a lot from them. And
there's more, you know, But to be doing this work

(20:46):
for you, I believe as a service. And again I
never take that kind of thing for granted, because I believe,
especially in the day that we live in now, that
content like this is more important than ever. I don't
come to afro tech or the work that I do.
With a victim mindset, I'm always going to come from
a position to strength because I know what I provide,

(21:07):
and I want you to know what you provide, And
if you don't believe you provide enough, then that means
you need to get about it. That means you need to,
you know, put the work in to make sure you're
providing value and to do your best. But this content
that we put out every single week is designed to
provide you the gasoline that you need.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
To go do your thing. Whatever it is that you've.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Been sitting on, whatever it is that you've been dreaming about,
whatever it is that you've been actively working on, and
are trying to find the way to put.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
The pieces together. That's what this is for.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
And so hopefully there is an episode in our history,
in our archives that has provided you some guidance.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
And if you have.

Speaker 1 (21:53):
Not went back, if you're brand new.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
To this, I suggest you should go back.

Speaker 1 (21:57):
And you know, find episodes that might be relevant, and
then honestly find episodes that may not be on the title,
because what I've learned is sometimes when we are looking
for things that are super duper specific and we don't
know the answer. We don't know the answer, so why

(22:18):
are we looking for things that are super specific? You
should be open to finding the answer in unusual places
because you obviously don't know the answer, so how can
you know where it's found.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
And so I.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Believe that every episode of Black Tech, Green Money is
a valuable one. And so you know, you could play
roll the dice, spin the wheel and find an episode,
and I believe that you will find something of value,
even if it's just a that person didn't give up
and they kept going. So that inspires me not to
give up and to keep going. But there are episodes

(22:53):
that actually provides you real tangible insights on how you
can do the thing, how somebody else did it, and
you can learn from that. And I admonish you, I
encourage you. I am shouting from the mountaintops to go
get your things, go get your money. And so I'm
thankful for everybody who's been a part of this, everybody

(23:13):
who's helped, you know, put together an episode, produce an episode,
you know. Special thank you to Morgan Debond obviously obviously
uh CEO Blavity, founder of Blavity, Jeff Nelson, hear Samuels,
Charlotmagne to God who believed and provided a platform. I
want to end this episode with a few minutes of

(23:34):
the very first episode of Black Tech Green Money. We
can go all the way back to episode one. It's
an episode I did with Morgan Debond, and there's just
a clip that I just want to provide at the
end of this episode, just kind of give you, you know,
a taste of what where we came from, what it

(23:55):
sounded like in the history of Black Tech Green Money.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
Well, we didn't talk about the podcast. What are you
excited about the podcast?

Speaker 1 (24:05):
Let's do that, so I am. This is what Morgan Debond,
co founder and CEO at Blavity, says to me after
we've talked for about an hour. I just finished asking
her about her thoughts on lifestyle companies, her BOMB community
and friendships with other rock star founders, and her thoughts
on the importance of black media since she was first
up on Black Tech Dreen Money. What she wanted to

(24:25):
talk about is what we can expect from this show.
I'm going to be asking things that you may not
hear other places. Right, I want to dig I want
to ask the follow up for the interviewer who didn't
get to ask the follow up. I want to dig
into those things that we haven't gotten an opportunity for
these people to speak on.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
So I'm very excited about that.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Well, I'm so grateful for you because a lot of
what we do at Blavity was a vision in the
mind and you've been able to come on board and
bring it into real life, and it's sure that we
are a place of accessibility. And I'm really grateful for
you because of that, because I don't think that we
could have done it without you gotten this far, and
we have so much room to grow and so much

(25:05):
more that we should be doing. And this podcast is
a natural extension of what we've already committed to as
a company, and I hope that this podcast can be
something that's an extension of the mission of ensuring that
young Black entrepreneurs and young Black professionals and technology can
rise to be leaders within our community, have ownership, have equity,

(25:28):
and get the behind the scenes along the way that
they don't have to know what to Sean or me
because they can hear us right here on this podcast
giving you exactly what we need to know, what you
need to know what I should have known, so that
we could all move faster towards our future together. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
I want to entertain our audience. I want to educate
our audience, and I want to make sure that when
they finish an episode, they got something to go do.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
That's right, That's absolutely right. I'm tuning in. I think
we should get into the nitty gritty all the money.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Thanks, all the money things, where it.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Is contracts and money, black tech, green money. That's why
we came up with the name.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I'm Will Lucas, and this is black Tech, Green Money.
I'm going to introduce you to some of the biggest names,
some of the brightest minds and brilliant ideas.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
If you're black in building or.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Simply using tech to secure your bag, this podcast is
for you. Morgan Debon is the co founder and CEO
at Blavity, which is home to Afrotech twenty one to ninety,
Shadow and Acting Travel Noir. She's raised over ten million
dollars in venture funding to expand her empire and leads
a team of over seventy people. She's been featured in

(26:41):
Now Week's Top thirty Media and Tech Innovators, Kank's Top
one hundred female founders Forbes Top fifty Women in Tech
in America, and it's also Forbes thirty Under thirty along.
I asked her about the power of the black voice
and how black media can leverage technology to amplify it.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well, I think black media was created because of the
need for us to connect as a community. We couldn't
use the mainstream distributions of information. They weren't built for us,
they weren't owned by us, and they did not want
us to communicate with one another. So, you know, media
has been critical for our own advancement as a community.

(27:22):
Is particularly given that we're as part of the diaspora.
By nature that we weren't connected, we weren't physically together,
and that was by design, by their design, that we
were torn away from one another throughout this country. So
having our own media brands and as early as Frederick Douglass,
I mean that is that is the beginning of the

(27:45):
entire infrastructure that Blavity has been following and built on.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
So do you feel like a responsibility, you know, spanning
all your brands, so you have the Blavities, the travels,
afrotechs on any and more. What type of responsibility do
you feel if you feel the responsibility to black awareness
of what it takes to make us make progress for us?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
You know, I think about the progress of our community
and Glavity's responsibility in two different ways, because in some
ways it's incredibly overwhelming when you look at a macro
level of what Glavity Inc. The big corporation that we are,
the impact that we're responsible for in the industries that

(28:28):
we're holding accountable. I mean, Glavity Inc. Is responsible for
holding accountable the technology industry, the venture capital industry through Afrotech,
Hollywood production, the news, mainstream media corporations, police brutality, social
justice through Glavity News and Blavity politics, elected officials, local, state, regional,

(28:52):
national twenty ninety. There's just so many places and people
and industries that we are shining a light on and
stories that we're shining light on, and really at the
macro level, it can feel overwhelming. And so my strategy
oftentimes is what can we make a difference at today?

(29:14):
And what is Blavity Inc's unique opportunity to make a difference?
And I challenge our writers, our audience, our community, and
everyone on our team to constantly ask that question. Well,
what is our unique contribution and what were you uniquely
positioned to make an impact here, particularly what I think
about Afrotech. Because of our scale and because of the

(29:37):
clients that we have, we can make a big difference.
And because we're venture funded from some of the top
vcs in the country and perhaps arguably in the world,
we can make a difference there too, because I can
hold my own investors accountable, which we'll have an implication
within the VC community, So we take it very seriously.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
There's this Black af episode where Tyler Perry s down
with Kendra Burras and talking about his you know, neglect
of white people's takes on his work right, and but
he's in the business of serving his audience and that's
really all he cares about, and if they are into it,
he's he's good. And so I wonder your thoughts on
that particular perspective with regards to what you're building.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
Uh. I didn't make it that far into Black Fall Asleep.
I probably four or five.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
I think that was the best show period.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
I liked it. I just couldn't get through it. But
it wasn't I didn't, you know, I don't know if
I agreed with all the all the Twitter haters, but
for me, Yeah, when we first started the company, we
explicitly said, I do not care what white people want
to need think. I don't care what they think we

(30:50):
should do and what they should build. I started the
company without any funding, and I waited over a year
to get investments and take outside investments, part actually because
I didn't want to be influenced by what they wanted
us and need to be for them. And even as
we've grown, I was just on a call literally today

(31:13):
with a black VC and I was like, you should
lead our Series B, because honestly, that's I don't want.
I don't want if I don't have to. If we're
in a position to have the best vcs in the
world and they're also black, let's do that. Because you
get on my board. You know, I need people around us,

(31:35):
around our company, around our mission, around my employees, around
our audience that are a reflection of our passion. Now,
if you're down and you're with it, and you understand
what we're doing and you support us, like GV is
on our board and they've been incredibly supportive and they
get it, that's that's all right too. I'm alright with that,

(31:56):
But my preference is always going to be our because
I think that it has such a significant residual impact
on everything that people touch. When you when you're owners
of your own destiny, in your own brands, that's right.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Do you think we potentially underestimate the scale of building
four black people?

Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yeah? I got that question a lot, which was, are
you artificially like already segmenting off the fact that your
company can only ever be as big as fourteen percent
of the US population and you know, and you're already
opting in to a smaller percentage of the total market.
And my response to that is, have you heard of Africa?

(32:42):
Have you heard of Brazil? You know? And it's just
such an American point of view that we're limited to
what we see right around us, and the rest of
the world just doesn't function like that. And because of
the Internet, you know, in my opinion, the opportunity for
a black brand is limitless because we are one of

(33:05):
the fastest growing sets of populations within the world regarding
our economic wealth as well, because we are rising up
into the middle class around the world with access to
technology in job development and multinational corporations and so that
is the work. We have an opportunity to make that
a reality. Now there are systemic reasons why that may

(33:25):
not happen, but we have an opportunity with the sheer
numbers in other countries and other continents that make companies
like Blavity and or any black brand a very profitable
business opportunity.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
I remember Jessica Matthews speaking at afro Tech seventeen I
want to say it was twenty seventeen, and she talked
a little bit about the investment she got from the continent.
But I wonder what your ideas on the black.

Speaker 3 (33:58):
Business opportunity cause done. We've dabbled, especially, we've reported.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
On a lot of things coming off the continent on
afrotech dot com, and I wonder what your thoughts are
on how afro tech can make impact for people who
are living there now, whether it's networks, connections or what
is it.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
You know. I don't know that I've given that enough
thought quite yet. I still feel like we have a
long way to go here in the US, and there's
a lot that I would need to do to learn
and to make sure that we do that appropriately. And
what I'd most likely do is hire someone who is
already there that lives in Nigeria. We probably start with

(34:36):
Nigeria and or London and perhaps Khana and do a
regional country based strategy, you know, because each each country
has its own flavor, its own problems, its own system,
its own infrastructure, and you know, just Nigeria alone is
a bajillion times bigger than the black population in the US,

(34:57):
Like you can build a whole Blavitu over there. So
it's a huge, huge opportunity. And yet I still feel
like Afro tech in the US hasn't fully made reach
our full potential. We still have a lot of work
to do when it comes to equity in tech, and
we have a lot of work to do, and when
it comes to advancement of black professionals in the technology industry,

(35:20):
and also access to funds beyond just a cute one
hundred K two hundred k check from VCS that people
are doing right now. I want you to lead People's
series as I want you to lead People's Series B.
I want you to buy and acquire these companies. Then
I'm gonna go abroad. But we still have some ways

(35:40):
to go here.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
Honest facts, and you know you're among I don't want
to say a few because there have been more Black
women who've raised a lot of money. Then we may
know that or that get with the respect of it.
But I wonder how you think about your role in
making sure that the investment pipelines have more Morgans in them.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
It's a great question. Will I've struggled with that question
because in some ways I've watched other black founders that
were a part of the few burnout completely because they
were always giving to everyone else. And I imagine that
that was very difficult for them, because the inbound of

(36:21):
requests for one on ones or speaking or advising or
angel investing can be exhausting, and I've certainly felt that
for myself and have to. I've had to balance the
ebb and flow of being a public figure when I
really didn't expect to sign up to be a public figure.
I really started this business because I wanted to start

(36:42):
a business and make a difference. I didn't factor in
the fact that I needed to be a personality or
a role model. I'm happy and grateful and humble that
I am for people, but I also it is in
the second job in a lot of ways, on top
of a very hard job already of run as successful companies.
So what I believe is my unique contribution is building

(37:06):
the scalable systems and tools and platforms and enabling other
people to continue to carry the torch and to help
them carry a big torch that's loud, that has fuel,
and to put more fuel on their fire. And that
is what we can do with Afrotech, with the brand,
with platforms like this new podcast, with our user generated
content platform, with Glavity, and making sure that we as

(37:27):
an institution are able to empower other people and make
it easy. You don't need to know me. My hope
is that you don't need to know who I am
to benefit from the work that we do at this company.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Yeah, you make me think about in this interview, I
spoke with Charles Hudson at Afrotech in twenty nineteen and
I asked them about, you know, when you're the only
or one.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Of few black vcs who.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
May be at a conference, not an afrotech because because
everybody's you know, pretty much black, an afrotech, But if
you at a conference and you've got a couple of
US peppers sprinkled in, right, you become the only guy
who they feel like can relate to where they're coming from.
And how does it feel not wanting to be And
I don't want to speak for anybody, but you know

(38:12):
you said you felt like it's a second job being
the representation. But how do you manage in a way
being the only one that they that people can see as.
If I can just get the Morgan, then I'm going
to get I'm going to get the answer I need.
If I can just get the Charles Hudson, I'm going
to get somebody who understands that, Okay, I need this
money to do X, Y and Z.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
It's such a tough question, Will and I really really
do struggle with it because every person that emails me
and says, hey, can we have fifteen minutes? Or hey,
can you look at my deck? Can you warm intro
me to someone? It is a decision making calculus of
am I taking away from blavity? Am I taking away
from my self care? Am I taking away from my family?
Am I taking away from my partner? Am I taken

(38:54):
away from from everything? You know? And I still say
yeah a lot of the time. I also have tried
to create again scalable structure so that I can say
yes more easily, so I say, well, I would love
to chat with you. Are you on my email list?
Do you follow me on Instagram? Have you listened to

(39:15):
these podcasts? Have you watched these videos? If they're like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
I'm like I cool. Stop. But if they're like you
have a newsletter, I'm like, bra, you haven't really tried
that hard. I'm not going to try harder than you
have to help you if you really want to know
my advice. I try as much as possible to make
my information accessible, my point of view accessible, and I

(39:38):
think that more black vcs and founders should try to
give back in that way so that there's also an
archive and a library of information for those people who
maybe don't even know how to even reach you to
ask you that question. But if they can find that
Twitter thread, if they can find the Medium post, if
they can see something that was shared by someone else,

(40:00):
you're giving them more opportunities to just have this information
and normalize some of the things that we talk about
in tech. And that to me, I think about the
Morgan version of myself when I was sitting in Saint
Louis and I didn't know the difference between Mountain View
being in the mountains and mountain View being in California.
I thought mountain View was like literally in like Michigan

(40:21):
in the mountains, you know, And I didn't know. Why
was I supposed to know? It wasn't part of my story,
It wasn't a part of my vision, It wasn't in
tech Crunch. Tristan at the time, Tristan Walker was the
highest black person that I'd ever seen, and it was
because he was at four square and like I think
he was b D. And I apologize Tristan if I'm
butchering your title, but like that was like the biggest

(40:43):
black person in tech Crunch at the time, you know.
So we've come a long way since when I was
a girl in Saint Louis, and I'm proud of us
for that, but we still have a long line ago.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
In twenty eighteen, after two years of hosting the Afro
Tech Conference in San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley,
decided to move the conference to Oakland, closer to the
community she wanted to expose to the black wealth opportunity
in tech. Here she is at the kickoff of the
twenty eighteen events.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
So there's just a lot of doubts that I had
to work through and our team had to really process
to be able to make this move and to feel
confident about it. And really what it came down to
at the end of the day was like, okay, again,
ten years from now, twenty years from now, when we're
thinking about the future and we're looking back at what
we've done and what we're doing for the next generation,

(41:30):
are we going to be proud of where this is? Right?
Are we going to be proud that we're putting money
and resources into this city? Not necessarily right, but Oakland,
absolutely right. We're buying out all the restaurants, we're buying
out all the clubs, we're hiring, all the people.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
You're vot turned up all the way running Blavity in
this brands Afro Tech, Shadow and Act twenty one to
ninety and Travel Noir, as well as her own personal
brands in Rods Essentials, Work Smart and the both No
Book Can Take It's told. I asked Morgan about how
she manages to carry this world on her shoulders.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
I am someone who very much has boundaries with my time.
I think time is the most valuable thing that we
all have, and I've learned the hard way what happens
when I don't put restrictions on my time and I
give myself too much to everyone around me. So for me,

(42:31):
it means that I don't typically have meetings after a
certain time because I know that my brain is fried.
I try to give it all that I have from
the morning to about three o'clat and then after that
it's like if you're after that tail end of that
meeting at that three flat, you go get what you get.

(42:52):
But and I still have to have the meeting, you know,
But the people around me know that they know that,
and or I'm explicit about it because it's important to
me that I show up at my best and I
also spend my weekends I work. I basically wake up
at the same time every day. It doesn't really matter
what day it is. I think as an entrepreneur, your

(43:12):
Saturday and your Tuesday, and it's just the same difference. Like, Yeah,
until we had like real employees that were like over
fifteen people, I didn't even really respect holidays. I was like,
what the holiday? Tomorrow?

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Holiday?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
What are y'all talking about? Because the work doesn't stop.
But now at this point, I know that entrepreneurship is
a journey and a lifetime for me. It's a way
of life. There is no final destination. It's just a
part of who I am. And so I've learned how
to have a routine that allows me for that sustain
work ethic. So I wake up at the same time
every day, I do the same thing every morning, and

(43:50):
then you know, I work hard for the first few
hours of the day, so that by twelve o'clock on
a Saturday, when it's time for brunch and the beach,
I'm gone. I'm out, and I'm enjoying myself and I
feel good. I don't feel guilty. I got my work done,
and I'm also able to have a full day.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
Yeah, I wonder how you develop as a leader, because
I think about so many of the founders that we
see these days, you know, coming to very young late teens,
early twenties and thirties even, and you know a lot
of these folks in many respects have not had like
a ton of career experience, but they come in found

(44:29):
a company, grow a team, and have to learn along
the way. So I'm interested in like the things that
you've done, like books you've read or classes like what
have you done to develop Morgan into the leader?

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Yeah, I started the company and I was twenty three
when I first had the kind of we're going to
do a thing moment, and twenty four when it launched publicly,
and you know, so I'm six years in. And one
interesting thing about being a young founder is that you
are young, which gives you a certain level of privilege

(45:04):
of not having the responsibility that others typically have in
their mid thirties. And so I was able to do
things like sleep on the couch and sleep on the floor.
I was able to do things like, you know, sit
and work for fifteen hours straight and do it every day.
I was able to do those things, and certainly I

(45:24):
could do them now, but the consequences would be much harder.
My knees would start hurting an old lady, and I
don't want to sleep on the couch anymore. I want
to bet and so in a lot of ways, though,
that stage and that time in my life gave me

(45:45):
so much freedom to make a ton of mistakes, and
there were mistakes that it impacted very few people because
we weren't that big, and it was very genuine and authentic,
and it still is now. But I have a much
larger responsibility. Withployee base and being the chairwoman of the
board and huge investors who've invested millions of dollars into

(46:06):
our company, I have a much larger impact for the
mistakes that I make, and I take that very seriously,
and so I have surrounded myself with advisors who hold
me accountable. Two of my best advisors are my co founders,
Aaron and Jeff. You know, Aaron can say things to

(46:28):
me that most people cannot say with me at least
hearing them. And Jeff is the voice of reason so
many times when I feel defeated, and he centers me
and centers us as a group on the purpose of
our business and not to get too tied into the
cents and pennies and dollars of what we're doing, but

(46:50):
why we're doing what we're doing and how to get
it done. And so I think having advisors has been
critical for me. And then I learn a lot throughout entrepreneurs.
So I hold very close to me entrepreneurs who are
either investors or friends. So DeShawn from Maven, you know,
I will call him. I remember one of the first

(47:10):
phone calls I had with DeShawn, Well, Deshaun was actually
one of the first people who've kind of shamed me
into quitting my day job, because I used to see
him at the Black Founders meetups in San Francisco. The
Black Founders group was started by Monique and a few others.
Moniq quitter and I used to go to those networking hours,
but I still had my day jab and so DeShawn
was like, if I see you one more time talking

(47:33):
about this blavity and you still have a day job,
I'm not going to talk to you.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
And I was like, this is harsh, bro and uh,
and so I quit. I quit, And the next time
I saw him, I told him he was one of
the people that pushed me over the edge. But I
remember this time that I called DeShawn and really for
business advice, and as an advisor, I was getting a
term sheet and I didn't know much about pricing the business,

(47:59):
and I didn't really understand the maths. I didn't understand
a lot of stuff when it came to the seed round.
I made a lot of legal mistakes early on in
the business. I made a lot of mistakes about structure.
I just didn't know, and very expensive mistakes to clean up,
by the way, so everyone get a good lawyer if
you're at the seed stage. It's more expensive later. But

(48:23):
I remember calling to Sean and I said to Sean,
I was almost crying. I was like, are you telling
me I have to sell twenty percent of my business
that they want twenty percent? That I'm going to own
less because when you have co founders, you're like, I'm
going to own less than seventy five percent of my company.
And he was like, uh yes, and not only that,

(48:50):
but you're going to keep giving away twenty percent every
time because I didn't know. Nobody talks about these things,
and these are the things that the white boys talk about.
They just they talk this stuff all the time. We
need to do a better job in our community talking
about the numbers and talking about the nitty gritty. And
that's why the communities of like Afrotech are so important
because we get we get through all the fun stuff

(49:11):
and then we really become friends and then it's really like, yo,
let me send you this. This is how you negotiate
this deal. This is how you negotiate this stock at
this company that you're working at this is how much
they really pay people at this company, Like, we get
to actually get into that type of discussion and that
type of advisorship with one another. And that's just been
I've made so much more money because I can talk

(49:34):
to my other business friends about how to structure deals.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
What I respect about you is your respect for lifestyle
brands too, and not just these super scaled monsters. Right,
And do you think enough of us recognize the potentially
life changing wealth capacity lifestyle companies can have.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Well, I think that we are going. I think that
media makes things ebb and flow, and I think as
a black entrepreneurial community, we are awake to the possibilities
and the sexiness of venture capital and how that can
accelerate the business and scale the business and solve one
of the systemic problems that we've had, which was access

(50:18):
to capital. Previously, the only way we could get capital
was through banks, and we all know what those numbers
look like. So this is a new frontier of financing,
which I think is very exciting, and I love how
many new entrepreneurs are pitching and really putting themselves out
there to go raise five hundred K or go raise
a million dollars. That's beautiful to me. I also think

(50:39):
that there is an interim and intermediary type of fundraising
that more people should consider, which is not going after
the huge VC rounds, although I do think we should
there are people that should do that, but also going
after angels and building out and getting investment in that
way for lifestyle businesses. And a lifestyle business can still

(51:01):
mean you're making twenty thirty forty million dollars in revenue.
It doesn't mean you know that you only can afford
a basic lifestyle. It means that you are building a
business not necessarily to be a billion dollar valuation or
or two hundred three hundred million dollar exit. And it's

(51:22):
something that the Blavity team we've considered multiple times to say,
you know what, if all we ever were were as
big as we are today, are we okay with that? Like?
Are we okay with this lifestyle? Are we okay with
the team structure? Do we have enough money like to
pay our team? Do we have enough money in the
bank just in case shit hits the fan, like I

(51:42):
don't know, a pandemic? Like do we have enough? Do
we have enough? Is this enough It's a question we
ask ourselves every six months because it's so important. You know,
I don't know that I always want to be chasing
after the next biggest valuation or the next big the funding.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
How do you think about being like a multifaceted entrepreneur
because you've got several media companies, especially under Blavity, and
you've got him Rosen, You've got gult Journal, and how
do you think about being able to do these different
things and still having laser focus.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Well, Blavity is my number one, one hundred percent. It
always will be. It's like you're firstborn, you know, it's
like but also Blavity's grown up a little bit. Blavity
is basically in like middle school right now. You know,
there's other people who are working on Blavy every day.
Blabby grows while I sleep. We have a huge vision

(52:39):
that people can rally around. That people understand. I have
also shifted my day to day role to be an executive,
which is very different than being an early stage founder.
The thing about me is I enjoy being an early
stage founder. I enjoy being executive in the place that
I am now, but I really enjoy being at the beginning.

(52:59):
I think It's just so much fun. There's no expectation,
there's no pressure, and you're just solving problems without you know,
all the hoopla of it all and all the approvals.
I still have to get approvals as a CEO Blavity.
You know this look like did you get that approval? Like, ooh,
I gotta get this approved by But I love it.
It's it's a beautiful thing. I also enjoyed just going

(53:21):
and just making and innovating, and so I started MROs Essentials,
my skincare company, because I also wanted to learn a
new type of business, of consumer business with product and
supply chain, and I've learned a lot. I have so
much respect for my sisters who have consumer beauty companies.
Melissa Butler, Luster's Pink Like, there's so many amazing people

(53:42):
who've done this. It's scale, and I'm like, y'all really working.
So much respect to those women, and I also from
a balanced point of view. It ebbs and flows. One
of the beautiful things about having these side businesses. You know,
if I don't post on Instagram on Mro's Essentials for
a week or two weeks weeks, nobody cares, you know,

(54:04):
and so that also gives me just some creative freedom
to allow myself to ebb and flow with my own
entrepreneurial spirit, and it's something that I needed for my
own mental health. And also when I think about the
future of Morgan Dubon the person, I think it's important
for every single person who's listening to this podcast to
not just consider who you are in your role, but

(54:26):
also who are you in the long term. For me,
it's important that Blavity lives beyond me. It's not called
Morgan Dubon and Co. For a reason. Most people who
read our content or go to afrotech, they don't know
who I am, and I love that. Please, I don't
want you to know who I am. I didn't start
off this business for that reason, and so I hope

(54:50):
that my future can be a multifaceted future, and therefore
I need to learn and continue to evolve and also
bring those things that I'm learning back into Blabby as
a company. You know, because I learned about supply chain
and products, I know that we probably should not do
that business within Blabby and so many other other examples

(55:12):
of things that I've learned.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
But yeah, so I'd like to get a list of,
let's say, four things from you that any entrepreneur who
wants to build companies in the vein of what you've
been able to accomplish, things that they should do. And
I'll give the first one. I said four because I'm
gonna give the first one which I'm pretty sure I
believe you would give, and that's build an email list.

(55:36):
So yeah, give me four things that strong entrepreneurs should
be doing to in the macro just build their business.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
So entrepreneurs who are building a business, if I were
building a business today as an entrepreneur, I would absolutely
start with an email list for my audience, not like
a personal brand email list, to be an email list
for my audience. And I was to release content on
a weekly basis, probably daily basis, because you learned so
much about what people click, what they share, what they
open for a very cheap amount of money, and you

(56:09):
build your own communication. If I were building today, I'd
also probably considered getting people's phone numbers, because you know,
that's kind of the next big wave. Back in the day,
that was really an option for me. And I would
think early about what kind of leader you want to be.

(56:33):
You know, I made an intentional decision with Aaron and Jeff,
my co founders, that we did very much care about
what kind of company we wanted to be, and that
we wanted it to be a company. We wanted it
to everyone to work in the same room and to
work around a shared vision, and we felt like being
a startup that stood for something and was public about

(56:55):
it mattered. We could have built a company that was
behind the scenes, that was porly run by contractors all
around the world and there was no culture, but we
got the product done, and we could have done that,
the outcome would have been quite different, and it was
an intentional decision to do it this way. Now, this
way has been way more painful. Lord, let me tell you,

(57:18):
I don't know that I would I would do it again,
but it is quite painful to manage people. You know,
being a people manager and a people leader is in
itself a full time job. And we all are first
time managers and first time people leaders at this scale,
and so we've learned a lot. We made a lot

(57:40):
of mistakes, but I wouldn't change it for the world
because I'm very proud of the careers that we were
able to launch, the people that we took chances on
that wound up being huge, phenomenal leaders within our company
and or moved on to other great careers and other
companies that wouldn't have taken a chance on them if
they hadn't worked at Blavity first. And so I'm very

(58:01):
proud of the alumni of our company and the people
who are still with us today.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
So I'm a capitalist, and I try not to be
romantic about business, and I think I wonder how you
convey the business reality that some things just won't work
and you got to kill it and still inspire people
to have passion about what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Well, well, you know, working at Blavity, I'm not afraid
to say that didn't work. We got to move on.
I also tried to have a community and a culture
of innovation at the company. So we are oftentimes having
our teams show early versions of new products that we're releasing,
get few feedback sessions about new products that are coming

(58:46):
out before they're really ready for public eye. It's important
for every role within the company that we have those
open feedback sessions so that people also can learn the
process of building and shipping products ideas projects so that
they want to one day can go and get that done.
I also try to be explicit, even before one gets

(59:08):
to blavity, that we are a company. We are not
a non for profit and it's critical that we are
a for profit entity because I'm able to invest more
cash flow back into the business that continues to allow
us to grow to impact more people. We're building sustainability
so that one day we will be a sustainable, large,

(59:29):
profitable enterprise. And that is critical for even the mission
of our company, which is black happiness, right, it's all
black people are happy, is the mission of our company.
And that means economic freedom. That means ownership, that means power,
being able to give people a piece of the company
and give everyone equity in the company who's an employee.
Those things are important to me, and that means that

(59:51):
as a part of being a capitalist, being a part
of a capitalist economy, not everything's going to work. Some
things are going to get more investments, some things aren't.
Something are gonna get cut. Sometimes those cuts are gonna
feel arbitrary or hurt, or feel like we're leaving something
behind or leaving something on the table. And my answer
is sometimes we are gonna leave money on the table,

(01:00:11):
but it's because I'm trying to go to this other table.
There's got a bigger, bigger feast over here, and we
got to leave this little appetizer on the tables. You know,
somebody else can eat it, you know, but not everybody
can see that. And so I've definitely, over the years
built up some thick skin for being the person who
has to say, you know what, we're gonna leave this
on the table, and we're gonna go to another table.

(01:00:32):
And I know that y'all want to eat this, and
I know that it looks good and it's gonna taste good,
but I promise you we have something else over here.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
It's very good answer, very good answer, Morgan Devon, thank
you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
You're very welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Black Tech Green Money is a production of Blavity Afrotech.
It is produced by Morgan Debond and me Will Lucas,
with additional production support by Love Beach, Stephanie Aukbogu and
raveniir Born. Special thank you to Michael Davis. Some Carsavon
Jan you know, like the wine and yes that's his
real name, and.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
Karri Ka Green.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
Learn more about Morgan Devond o The Tech Disruptors. And
innovators at afrotech dot com. Go get your money piece
and love