September 9, 2025 • 44 mins
Ep. 232 Barry Givens is managing partner at Collab Capital.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Tickets and moving fast to keep your.
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the power of the platform. Now let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
My name is Will Lucas, as you know, and I'm
so glad to be with you for another episode.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This one was gonna be a fun one for me.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I've known Berry for a long time and he's making major,
major moves. So Barry gibbns a managing partner at the
Lab Capital and he's a dynamic entrepreneur and technology innovator,
widely recognized for his work to bring parody to the
innovational economy. Collab Capital recently raised seventy five million for
fun two, bringing their total assets under management to one
(01:43):
hundred and twenty five million dollars. So if you need
a ten dollar loan, he's the.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Guy asked I can do ten. I can do ten.
It's good to see, very good to see you, brother.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Absolutely absolutely so. I want to go kind of back
to the beginning. So you said, when.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You guys started out, the Collab Capital was built to
be the firm you and Jule, your partner, wish you
had when you were starting out. What did the traditional
VC model get wrong back then for black founders?
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Oh, man, that's a deep question, and it's so many
answers to that question. But I'll take it very like,
this seems like a thing that you wouldn't think about
or you wouldn't feel as important. But venture capitalists didn't
see black founders, and not like visibly seeing them. But
(02:40):
when you walk into a room as a black founder
and you're pitching your company, you know there's this thing
where you know, investors say that we know whether or
not we like to deal within the first ten minutes,
and for a black founder, we spend that first ten
minutes typically validating that we even deserve to be in
the room. And so, how can I get across to
(03:02):
you that my business is worth investing in If you
haven't even got over the point that there's a black
person sitting in front of you that has the ingenuity
and the intelligence to build this innovative product that they're
pitching to you, it's a lose, like you can't win
in that manner. And so when we say we wanted
to build the fund that we wanted, we just wanted
(03:24):
people to see black founders as what they were, which
is brilliant, innovative, educated, creative people that can build things
that will change the world. And that little tiny switch
in mentality allows us to go find alpha in places
where you know, other investors think that alpha doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Apologies.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Alpha is a term I'm not even sure when it
was created. We didn't use it back when I was building,
but it's a term that basically means there's the opportunity
to build an extremely valuable company. We call those companies alpha.
That's who you find the best returns and the best
investment opportunities.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Got it, Got it?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So I've heard it said that, you know, for VC,
you really don't know if you're a good VC until
like ten years in, because it takes that long to
really see how these companies shape out to shake out.
How would you describe the core thesis behind fund two and.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What like successes were you able to display.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
In fund one that says to your investors, let me
get them to more money.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So, one big thing about being an emerging manager, particularly
first time fund manager, is that if you're able to
get through the gauntlet and raise the first fund, I know.
We'll get into that a little later. That the second
fund is really about did you do what you told
me you were going to do, because, as you mentioned,
to show true performance, we're typically going out and we're
(05:00):
raising starting the fundraise of a fund two, probably three years,
three and a half years after we've closed out on
Fund one, and the companies just don't move fast enough
in order to see true progress. We're not returning any
of the capital to most of the time, you haven't
returned any of the capital back to the investors, and
so the investors are looking for really two main things.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That is, did you do what you said you were
going to do.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
We said that we built a fund that was going
to focus on black founders and building products in the
future of health, the future of care, and community infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
We did that.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
We said that we were going to support those founders
because me and Joel have operational backgrounds and we will
be able to provide something different than maybe other metro
capitalists could not provide because they hadn't been in those trenches.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And we did that. And then the.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Second thing that investors or that at LP's look forward
to invest in that fund too is did you learn anything?
And this is where I think a lot of fund
managers fall a little bit because they're afraid to talk
about the things that they did wrong. And at the
end of the day, we're all getting no matter what
you do, the goal is to be getting better at
(06:15):
the thing that you're doing. You know, your podcast is
totally different produly than it was with your first.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Episode, and so and so.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
If you can go into that fund too, and you
can tell your investor that this is what my diligence
process look like when you invested the first time, or
when I raised the first fund, and look at how
our diligence process has grown. We've added in better references,
We've added in better tooling to make better decisions on
our investment decisions. We've built out we've trained our investment
team to make better decisions. We've also made decisions that
(06:47):
we look back on and say, maybe we should look
at a founder differently in this vein the next time around,
or maybe we should look at a market differently. And
all of those learnings could turn out to be companies
that went to zero in fund one. But if you
learn from those and then you can show that progression
throughout the portfolio of your fund one, then you're able
(07:09):
to go into that meeting with the investors for fund
two and have a really good opportunity to raise that
second fund.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And then obviously the last thing is performance.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Like I said, maybe you do not have any distributions,
which is capital back to your investors, but you still
want to show that your portfolio companies are progressing, that
they're growing revenue, they're growing in triple digit growth year
over year, that they're able to raise capital from other investors,
that they're moving towards profitability. There are all these things
(07:40):
that you can juggle with the metrics to show, even
in the early stages, that your portfolio is moving in
the direction of success.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So interestingly, I love that you said, you know, there's
things different about my first episode than are different now
because my first episode I would have asked, you know,
being black and having those failures, what's the difference in
walking in because but that's an obvious question. But to
me now being a mature podcaster, I want to ask,
you know, there are things that you've learned in going
(08:12):
to raise money, and what's what you know I think
some start up ownders may not understand is just like
they're pitching to you, you're pitching to funders also, like
you're both pitching somebody. And so when you when you
go to you get with Jewel, you make the call,
hey Jewel, or Jewel calls you're like, yo, let's let's
fuel the fund. Or I call my dog and I'm like, yo, man,
(08:34):
let's let's go build a fund. We need to get
some capital out here. I see opportunity. What happens from there,
Like what is the process like from you making the
call to your homie being like let's start a VC
firm of a VC fund to the point to where
you're in a meeting, Like what's the in between?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like, Oh, there's a lot of a lot of decision making.
I mean, picking your partner is the most important thing, right,
Like who is that phone call to? That's an extremely
important decision that you have to make because you're basically
signing up to be working with this person for a decade.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
You know, most fun lives are ten years, and so
when you are starting a fund.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It's funny because I'll go back to a little bit
of my experience when I was building Masur at the
tail end of Monsieur. One of the reasons and with
drew with part pick we had. Really I'll speak just
to me because Duel's not here to tell her story.
But I had a very bad experience at the exit
of my company. There were a lot of things that
(09:40):
happened between me and my investors that I thought could
have been handled better, that I thought had I been
in the other seat, that I would have handled things
a lot differently, that was more beneficial, and that had
a little bit more heart towards the founder that had
put their blood, sweat and tears into this product. So
(10:00):
the first thing when I called Jewel to have this
first meeting and say, hey, is this something that you're
interested in, you have to have a hy like we
went into this deeply rooted in the problem because me
and Jewel had just experienced this issue and we wanted
to go out and solve it. And investors see that
(10:21):
whether you're starting a company or you're starting a fund,
they can see how passionate you are about said problem.
And so calling Jewel, We're having this meeting, and it
was immediate. I kN know Jewel for over ten years, right,
so I knew she was passionate about the problem as well.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But then it goes into what does this.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Thing look like, and we don't have enough time to
talk about all the different iterations and the things that
we tried, the things we didn't try. But one of
the things that we did very early on is that
we found a champion, a gentleman up in New York
name alparn Robinson, who is an OG in the investor space.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
He's back many funds.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
He runs a coaching platform, education platform for future venture
capitalists called BBCC. And we brought him in very early
on when our documents were rough, when we didn't know
what the hell we were doing. And you need someone
like that that's going to be real with you and
look you in the eye and say you have no
clue what you're doing, but let me bring you in
(11:26):
and tell you what you should be doing. And that
totally changed how fast we were able to build collab
and get it off the ground. And then the last
I know, we talked about just between the first meeting.
I'm going a little further in the first meeting. But
the other thing that I see fund managers doing now
that I think is super important. I'd be remiss if
(11:47):
I did not mention this is people are just jumping
off the cliff and I think they look at people
like Julie and I and they say, oh, well, Julian
Barry jumped in and just started a fund, and that
is not That could be no further away from the truth.
We did jump in with the idea of starting a fund.
But the part of the process that people maybe didn't
(12:11):
put two and two together is that we did not
have great track records. Jewel had a couple of angel investments.
I had an Angel investment, but we did not have long,
deep track records to be able to put in front
of investors, and so when Jewel took exactly the only
thing we had was our entrepreneurial experience, and so people
(12:32):
with people didn't see was that we actually had a
meeting before Jewel took the job at Google for startups.
We had a meeting before I took the job as
managing director of tech Stars as strategic things for us
to do to be able to get to the end product,
which was a fund. And so we had already started
(12:53):
collab when we took those roles, but we knew we
needed to do a little more to beef up our
resumes to successfully raise the first fund, and so there
were a lot of things that we learned along the way,
like track records, like you know how to put together
a proper L pack and talk about that's the advisory
committee for your limited partners. There were a lot of
(13:16):
things we just had no clue about that we learned
along that year, year and a half before Clad became
a real product in the market, and we had to
make those decisions along the way very strategically, And I
think that's why I love podcasts. A lot of times
people don't hear this full part of the story that
you have to go learn and you have to be
(13:37):
able to fund yourself. And so if you jump off
that cliff and you don't have the proper funding to
take care of you, and if you have a family
to feed yourself, it's a long road to get to
that first close to be able if you ever get
to a first close, to be able to get a
very tiny management feed to be able to take care
of yourself. And so all of these things we had
(13:59):
to put into our equation in order to get the
fund off the ground. And that started from that very
first early conversation of do we even want to do this?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, it is so much there.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I want to kind of translate what I'm what I
believe I heard you say for people who because I've
had people come to me like, yo, I want to
start a fund that they're asking me to start. They
just kind of talk about they want to start one
in their community. And what I'm hearing you say is
it not like, hey, we want to start a fund.
Let's see who we know at this teacher's retirement fund.
Let's call it in and see and if they'll give
(14:31):
us money, or let's go to anabisco and see if
they'll give us money. That's not what you're saying. What
you're saying is we went, we made some connections, and
we learned.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So this this is this book.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
If that statement reminds me of when you talked about
Malcolm Robinson this book to like it's called Who not How,
and it was like, you know, you could have just
when done a bunch of work, but you realize, there's
a person I need to connect with to show me
the game.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And so can you talk to the people who believe
that they have a record.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You've been an entrepreneur, you talked about that. I wanted
you to go a level deeper though, on Yeah, there
was a difference between me and being an entrepreneur and
me being somebody who can write checks.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Can you just talk a little bit more about that
in there.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yes, I mean understanding numbers and being an investor. There
are a lot of people on Wall Street that understand
numbers really well. They're great with spreadsheets, they've been in
finance for twenty years. But if you haven't operated, particularly
at the early stages of a company, there are things
(15:40):
that you don't know need to happen, that need to happen.
And if you think back to the traditional days of
venture capital when it first started, it wasn't started by
folks off of Wall Street that were investment bankers. It
was started by entrepreneurs that it had success that then
said let's leave you this money to go find other
(16:02):
people that look like us, unfortunately, but more importantly, that
think like us, that have the ability to go find
the next great idea and build the next great widget.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That'll shifting industry.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
And so the heart of venture capital has always been
with operators going to find other operators, and what it's
transformed to is that now has become a finance company
right like now this it's been kind of indoctrinated into
the traditional worlds of finance, and a lot of it
is traditional finance. We're looking at your income statements and
(16:38):
your balance sheet, so we're doing all the traditional finance things.
But when you're investing in, particularly in early stage companies,
there's something you're looking for in the founder to know
whether or not they have what it takes to make
it through the trenches of being an early stage founder.
There are things that you're looking for and how quickly
(17:00):
they're able to operate and iterate, how do they handle challenges.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You know, are they in a space in their life.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Where this is a great idea for them to do
it right this moment, Like, there are things as operators
that we have seen, and the other thing is an operator,
you're around a lot of other operators. So I'm not
just leaning into my experience. I'm leading into your experience.
I'm leaning into all the founders that were building things
when we were in the trenches right ten years ago,
because we talked to each other and we build relationships,
(17:31):
and so I'm not just leaning on to my world experiences,
but I'm thinking about all the things that my peers
went through, and now I'm able to take all of
that experience and hopefully help boost the founders that we
invest in so that they can skip over some of
those early steps because I'm seeing around corners. And a
great example of this we made an investment into a
(17:52):
company Blackmail. Founder has a doctor, one of the smartest
people I've ever met, NASA rockets scientists, and I told
him early on, I said, this is the type of
innovation that by the time you get to Series A,
somebody's going to try to remove you as CEO and
(18:12):
get you out of the way because there's a lot
of value in this and as you continue to bring
on investors, this is what is going to happen. I
thought it was going to be years down the line.
He called me like six months later and he was like, man,
you will never guess what happened. He's going out to
raise a bridge between a pre seed and a seed row.
He has didn't even got to the seed. And he's like,
(18:37):
they back channeled with my co founder, who was a
white woman, and tried to get her basic to turn
on him to say she wants to be the CEO
and to move him out of the way. And luckily
they handled it great. We got through it. But being
able to see around those corners, and particularly as a
black founder, we're able to bring those experiences and make
(19:01):
being a black founder, even though a lot of times
just look as a detriment, we're able to take our
experiences and turn it into a positive by beating them
at their own game.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, I want so can you add some clarity because
the way investment is positioned in many cases, it's like
we want to help founders, and you just.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Kind of added.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Reality in that this is about finance, This is about
dollars and cents, and so there's a balance there, and
we get marketed to like they want to help me
grow because they like me and they you know, they
like my idea, and what's really true that's that might
be true, but what's really true is opportunity has to
be there to ten x, twenty x, one hundred x
(19:48):
this investment. So can you can you give some clarity
for the entrepreneurs who might be confused just thinking the
people might want to help them and think that think
that mean not even but they think capital is about
helping them. Can you give them some clarity on what
this is actually about.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Who one of the biggest mistakes that I made as
a founder was believing that my investor was my friend.
And it's not saying that your investor cannot be your
friend outside of the business, but inside the confines of
(20:31):
that business, particularly if that investor has a fund because
they have to answer to LPs. So in the confines
of that business, their job is not to be your friend.
Their job is to be a good fiduciary, which means
there's the good stewards and good managers of the capital
(20:51):
that was given to them to then invest. And so
I think it's a mistake that I made as a founder,
and I tell my founders, I don't I think there's
anyone out there in the world that is an investor
that's going to have your back as much as I will.
I will put me up against andrel as well against
any other investor in the market, like we are going
(21:12):
to have your back, But there's going to come a
time where the friend talk and having your back, I'm
going to have to balance out what is the best
thing for the capital the million dollars that I gave you,
That becomes the most important thing at some point. And
I don't want you to place me in a position
where you expect me to make a decision for you
(21:34):
when I really need to make that decision for the
capital that I gave you. And this gets into board makeup,
which is where I made the mistake. Typically, your early stage,
you create a board. You want one preferred stock ie
the investor, you want one common stock ie the founder,
and then you want one independent. I chose my independent
(21:55):
to be an investor in my company that I thought
was going to be friendly because we had built this relationship.
But when it came down to it and we had
to make decisions, that investor investored and I didn't understand
it when I was a founder. But now that I'm
on this side, I have a lot more clarity, and
I'll take this one step deeper. From an education perspective,
(22:17):
I also believe that founders don't even really know what
that means. And this is where I spent a lot
of time in the last year of getting founders to
understand what even having an investor means. What are the
financial expectations that I have of you when I give
you that million dollar check. And so I've done it
(22:37):
with my founders, I've done it on other podcasts. I
do it very briefly here, but as an investor, my
job is to at the bare minimum give my investors
three times their money back. So for a fifty million
dollar fund, their minimal expectation for me, being in the
lower bracket of success, is giving them three x their
(22:59):
money back. I really want to be closer to five x,
Like that's where I really want to live, so I
can be top desciut kind of top investor in the
country kind of thing. So what that means for a
company is if I'm giving you a million dollars and
I'm only getting ten percent of your business, that means
the for you to return I'm calculating my decision on
(23:22):
you returning that whole hundred and fifty million, not returning
the million back to me, not even returning five million
back to me. Because at the end of the day,
I think all power law where the majority of our
returns are going to come from three or four companies.
So if I want to hit five X, I need
those three or four companies to at least give me
(23:43):
one times the fund.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So I need you to add minimum return fifty.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
But I may be doing math to try to get
you to return one fifty and So you may have
a company that you're pitching me that you're like, it's
going to be one hundred million dollar company, and I'm like,
I agree, But after I get diluted in a couple
of rounds and I own ten percent, but now I
own seven, that one hundred million dollar company isn't going
(24:09):
to do much to move the needle, like that seven million.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Dollars ain't go like what is that going to do
for me?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
When I need to give this back to my investors,
I need you to be a billion dollar company so
that I can get seventy million back. Right, So like
doing and getting them to understand what a billion dollar
company is and multiples and all that stuff. It's a
lot of math that goes in what to what makes
a company venture backable? And I don't think founders, I
(24:35):
know founders are not doing that math before they step
into a zoom call or meeting with me.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So I believe black people are special. That's why I'm here.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And so we are not special will.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Like likelives brother, and so we have not always been
able to take advantage of at that specialist capital wise,
we've not always been a to reap the rewards of it.
So what does it really take for us to turn
genius into generational wealth?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
In your estimation?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Oh, I like how you I like how you took
the took the tagline.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I like that genius the generational wealth is one of
the coolest things I've ever heard.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, it's one of our taglines that collabse.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
But what does it take to turn genius into generational wealth?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
There are a lot of really smart people that are
dead broke.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Genius does not automatically mean that you are going to
be on the mountaintop, just like it's a lot of
great athletes that are sitting at home right now when
they thought they would be in the league. There's a
level and this is where that passion comes in for
solving your problem because there's a level of work ethic.
(25:56):
I'm probably going to say something that is unpopular in
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Soft life doesn't exist when you want to be great,
when you want to build something that is long lasting,
that will outlast you brutal, there are no multiple vacations
of yea, that money should be being reinvested back into
your company. And I know we're in this mental health
you know, you know the soft life. The founders that
(26:26):
I see doing that aren't moving the needle. And I
think what happens is they see founders do that after
the founder has moved the needle and they say, oh,
it's founder's out here, you know, moved, got a beach
house and they kicking it on Instagram showing they went
to four different countries this year, but you didn't see
them twelve years ago when they didn't even leave their
(26:47):
city right let alone the country. And so there's a
certain level of grit and understanding of how much grit
it takes that turns that genius into generational wealth. But
even if you're a genius and you have the grit
and you can show that you have the grit, you
still have to build the right product. And so now
(27:10):
you have to get into is this product something that
people will pay for, that can grow and do one
hundred million dollars in revenue, two hundred million dollars in revenue?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Is it global?
Speaker 4 (27:18):
How much money does it take to scale all of
these things right that go into is the business a
good business? And so then you say, Okay, I'm a genius,
I have grit, I'm ready to work as hard as anybody,
and I'm building this product that's in a great market.
The most unfortunate part is the one thing you really
(27:41):
can't control is that then you have to build it
at the right time. Timing is everything and being a
year too soon or a year too late. There are
companies that I've seen that they created this aout this
company three years ago. It takes off, But you created
in twenty twenty five, and now AI is eating it
(28:03):
in two weeks, right, And so you were three years
off of your schedule from probably having a rocket ship
and being one of the early acquisitions in the AI
time to now you build it three years later, and
you're a nothing burger because you built it three and
you're still smart, you still work your ass off, you
still didn't sleep and ate, you know, Papa John's every
day dominoes.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Every day.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
You did all the things that you're supposed to do.
And so there are so many things along the way
that have to go right to create true generational wealth.
And that's why this is the riskiest capital that exists,
is because you need so many things to go right,
and why the power law exists and why we only
expect we don't go into this investing in thirty eight
(28:44):
companies thinking that only four of them are going to
be successful.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
We think every company we invest in.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Has the opportunity to be a huge success and return
the fund, But the fact show that's not going to
be true because all those things have to go right
to create that generational wealth. We haven't even got into
being black and the inequities and like all that stuff
is this is just normal entrepreneurship. Then you throw in
all of the other things on top of that, and
(29:11):
it really takes a lot of intentionality from the entire
community and ecosystem to get through those barriers. And that's
one of the things that we pray and hope that
we are doing for the community as Collab Capital.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You said something phrase, you know, is it global? That
stuck out to me, and you know, we used to
talk about, you know, it's not enough for your your
homies to want what you're building. It's not enough for
your block or your city is at then it was like,
you know, it can at least it go national, But
you just talked about global, and so I wonder how
(29:45):
you would challenge us to not just think domestically anymore
when you have an international you know, import export of
both thought, ideas and products.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
When it's so easy to do.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Now, is it enough of anymore just to be known
in the fifty States?
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I mean, in some cases, yes, it can be enough
to create a unicorn by just being in the United States.
That being said, it is extremely difficult. I mean, you
have to get so many things right. You have to
find such a market need that is focused here in
the US that everybody that has that market need is
(30:26):
going to want to utilize.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Your services, right or your product.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
But at the end of the day, we are a
I mean we're doing this zoom call from two different
I mean this podcast from two different states. You could
be in Bali right now and we could be doing
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
So information and ideas move so fast that not only
do you have to build something global, but you also
have to worry about global competition because those companies that
are being built in France and and you know, in
India and in you know, Ghana and all these other
(31:05):
places where founders that have all those same things to
turn to create generational wealth, they now have the ability
to get it right to the United States just like
you do. Just like you have the ability to get
your product into their country, and so you have to
be thinking globally when we do checks to see there
are there competitors, particularly if it's a pure software company,
(31:27):
We're looking everywhere to see are their competitors. Is their
room for you to grow this other into this other
content inner country, or is there already a market leader
there because you have When we think about creating unicorns
and getting to multi billion dollar valuations, you need millions
and millions and millions of customers typically to hit that point.
(31:50):
And so by creating something that's global, you just give
yourself a better chance at finding that when you're looking
through seven billion people versus three hundred and eighty four
hundred million people just here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Have you been named to Ifrotech Future fifty you know,
celebrates you on that on and disrecognition, celebrates impact and influence.
How do you define those in your career today?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Oh Man, Influence is a tough one, but I get
I'll get to that one second.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Impact is the easy one for me. I want to
look up in you know, twenty years and I want to.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
See a bunch of black folks with a bunch of
money that are maybe now sitting in the seat that
I'm sitting in today on Will Lucas's podcast, Black Tech,
Great Money, doing the fifteen year edition, And when you
ask them how they got here, they say, man, there
(32:55):
was this dude, there was this company, collap Capital, that
believed in me with nobody else did, and they wrote
me my first million dollar check. And if it wasn't
for that check, I would not be sitting in this
seat on this podcast talking to you today. And I
think that every single one of our founders have the
chance to do that, and unfortunately the majority of our
founders do have that story that their genius was not
(33:19):
seen as this golden opportunity. And we sit in this
space where we're able to absorb that genius and see
that genius and invest and for many times be the
largest check, in some cases, the only check that is
believing in some of these companies.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
You know, we have a company. I'll get you again
into that later.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
But on the impact side, that is what I would
like to see, because what happens is this is a
flywheel and we're playing the long game. And so when
we started this, we did not think that our impact
was going to be seen in you know, five years.
We have to let the cycles go through their their cycles.
And you mentioned it Earlier's a your cycle, twelve year
(34:01):
cycle from an investment to that company getting to an exit,
creating that generational wealth for that person to then go
and reinvest and then create their cycle. And so this
is something that is going to be a twenty thirty
year impact. But I think we're doing a great job.
And influence, man, I think I hate that word. This
is why I'm not on social media a lot, because
(34:23):
I think it's gotten a bad rap. I don't really
like the word anymore. But I think when you influence
just means leadership. It means how are you, how are
you bringing yourself to the table so that someone else
is able to look at you and learn from you
and bring themselves to their table better, right, And so
(34:45):
that's just leadership to me, and I think I'm doing
a good job of that. I mean, time will tell.
But it's kind of similar to the impact, Like I
want my influence to be that I am pushing people
to make better and more impactful decisions, that by looking
at me, that I'm influencing people to do things a
little different. I'm influencing my white investor peers to look
(35:07):
at pots that they may not have looked in before.
I'm influencing founders to think with bigger visions because of
the conversations that they're having with me. And so I
think that that influence by just being a good person
and exuding leadership in the spaces that I'm in will
ultimately lead to that deeper impact and ultimately lead to
(35:28):
all of us hopefully not having to have these conversations
at some point.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Hopefully we're still.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Alive, but we don't have to have these conversations about
needing to do things for black people.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Finally, you know, you once wrote a book called Plan
B Sucks. If you could add a new chapter to
that book, knowing what you know now, what would it
be called?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Who?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
You didn't send that one over? That is, I wasn't
ready if I could add a new chapter.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Oh man, oh plan these sucks work on your dreams,
not your bosses. Man, that was a long time ago.
Which chapter?
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Damn? You got me with this one.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I want this to be like just a braw authentic.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean, you wrote the book and you've lived a
life since, so we can take a moment to kind
of just give you a moment to think about this.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You know what the crazy part is is I wrote
that book at a time where before influencers, before you
had these these mics, And I wrote it at a
time where I was preaching from the mountaintops that I
could find that nobody should have a real job and
everybody should just go quit their job and work for themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Anything. I think totally different now.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
As a person who started companies, it is extremely hard.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
And one I also need to hire people.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So if everyone quits their job and I'm the person
starting companies, who do I get to work for me?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Right? So the maths just didn't.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Math from where we wrote that book, But I think
it came from the heart of doing something that is influential,
that is impactful, like what is your dream? And I
think maybe I don't know if it's a chapter, but
I think something that I would have ingrained throughout the
book is that you're.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
The plan.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
It doesn't have to be like how you get your income, right,
It doesn't have to be around jobs. It was really
more so about finding something that you deeply care about
and go do that thing. You can do that in
many different ways. You can sit on nonprofit boards, you
can start a nonprofit. You can go work at a
company that is deeper into solving that problem so that
(37:58):
you can jump in and bring and your ingenuity, your
skill sets, and your experience to somebody who's already fifty
yards down and helped take it the other fifty yards.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There are so many ways that you can work on
your plan A. And the Plan Be sucks part was
really just about don't get caught for forty years doing
something that you hate or that doesn't bring you happiness
and joy, that doesn't bring impact without ever trying to
find that joy, right, And so I think that will
(38:30):
be a little bit of the shift of the narrative
is that it's not just about it's not about quitting
your job. It's about finding you and doing the thing
that you will put I don't know what people prescribe
to religiously, but for me, it's about finding the thing
that God put me here to do. And when I
leave and go visit Him at the Pearly Gates, I
(38:50):
want to be able to go to that gate with
nothing left and say everything that you put into me
to leave down here, that I left all of it
down there and that's that plan A, Like, what is
that thing that you need to do to fulfill that
spiritual glass so that you were right with yourself and
write with whatever being that you believe in. And I
(39:12):
believe that I found that in the work that I'm
doing with collab, and I just hope that I'm giving
it everything that I can. And like I said, when
I get up there, I can say, hey, I found
my plan A and I gave it everything that I had.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Well, you gave that answer everything. So that was really good, man.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I appreciate you taking that one, man, Barry Givens, thank
you so much, man, Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Thank you for having me, and kudos to you. I
was trying to remember, well we the first we were
one of the first episodes I feel when you first.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Started, Oh for sure, for sure, and I.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Was trying to look back to see if we were
number one. I couldn't remember. I don't think we were
number one, close to it. And so to be here,
you know, for the second round, Man, it's good to
see you still thriving, killing it, seeing your podcast and
people loving it doing numbers, and so kudos to you
for providing this platform.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Kudos to Afrotech for not.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Just you know, giving us this this these kudos, but
all the other black fund manager that are out there
in the trenches doing the work.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Because this work is hard.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's people fighting against us every day to slow us down,
throwing bricks in the road so we can trip up.
And it's a lot of us out there that are
trying to do right by our community.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And I'll take I take a little bit.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Of privilege just to say how important it is for
us right now as black fund managers. I know everyone
doesn't understand the VC world, but there was something that
happened in twenty twenty when the George Floyd situation unfolded.
He was murdered and the video came out and all
(40:51):
these you know, performative dollars came into the market. There
were a lot of fund managers that were funded during
that time and they took advantage. I'm happy we were
one of them. Now we've kind of moved out of
those black dollars and we're into the evergreen dollars, so
we're in a good spot. But the importance of that
comment is that now that we're under fire, the macro
(41:13):
environment is not great. But you mentioned going out to
raise the fund two and then the fund three. We
are now that vintage of fund managers that raise the
money during that time. We're now on the hot seat,
and our industry is going to look at that time
and they're going to say, look at all this money
that we gave to black people, And if we're not successful,
(41:34):
there's going to be a narrative that is written for
decades about black fund managers and black founders and.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
What they're able to do.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
And so this is just a severely and deeply important time,
not just for us as fund managers, before the entire ecosystem.
And so I just want to say to the founders, like,
keep building dope shit to my other fund managers, keep
your head up, keep working to people around us in
the ecosystems supporting. If you see a black fund manager
(42:02):
or a black or a black founder that's building something,
download the app, use their product, because we are in
hard times right now, and if we don't make it
happen in the next four to five years, we may
never see the holy grail of black dollars going into
black companies that we want to see. Because we are
in that space right now and we have to be right.
(42:25):
We have to be right right now, and so please
continue to support, keep supporting the podcast, keep giving people
a voice because people need to hear these stories, so
appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Follow us on socials at Black Effect, join the conversation
with Hastag Black Effect turns five, and keep supporting.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
The voices that shift the culture.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Black Tach Green Money is a production to Blavity appro
Tech's a Black Effect podcast Networking night Hire Media. It's
produced by Morgan Debonne and me.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Well Lucas, with the additional production support.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
By Kate McDonald, Sarah Hurgan, and Jaden McGee. Special thank
you to Michael Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about
my guessing other Techni showup as an innovator's.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
At afrotech dot Com. Video version this episode will drop to.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap in to
join your Black Tech Green Money shure.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
This is somebody, Go get your money that some luck.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Afrotech Conference is back and return to Eightstown, Houston, Texas
from October twenty seventh through thirty first, twenty twenty five
the George R.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Brown Convention Center.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
For years, Afrotech has been the go to experience for
black tech, innovators, founders, engineers, creators, You Investors in twenty
twenty five is shaping up to be the biggest year
yet though, with forty thousand attendees expected. This year's conference
will feature five days of dynamic programming across six curator
stages discovery to executive leadership. Join us to hear from
industry leaders at the forefront of change, learn from top
(43:48):
ten engineers and designers, and connect with recruiters from nearly
two hundred companies. This year, we're digging deeper into what's
next with tracks exploring AI and machine learning, mad tech
and health, equity, CyberSecure, climbate tech, and much more. Whether
you're mounting your first startup, pivoting into a new road,
or scaling as an execut there's something here for you.
Take us and moving fast to keep your spot nowt
(44:10):
at Atfrotech Conference dot com
Afrotech Conference is back and return to Eightstown, Houston, Texas,
from October twenty seven through thirty first, twenty twenty five
at the George R.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Brown Convention Center.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
For years, Afrotech has been to go to experience for
black tech innovators, founders, engineers, creators and investors.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Five is shaping up to be the biggest year yet,
though with fortyzery to ten hees expected. This year's conference
will feature five days of dynamic programming across six curator
stages from discovery to executive leadership. Join us to hear
from industry leaders at the forefront of change, learn from
top ten engineers and designers, and connect with recruiters from
nearly two hundred companies. This year, we're digging deeper into
(00:38):
what's next with tracks exploring AI and machine learning, med
tech and health equity, cybersecurity, climate tech, and much more.
Whether you're launching your first startup, pivoting into a new role,
or scaling as an execut there's something here for you.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Tickets and moving fast to keep your.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Spot out at afrotech Conference dot com. Before we get
into today's episode, we've got to celebrate eight the Black
Effect Podcast Network is turning five five years of powerful voices,
unforgettable moments in the community that keeps growing. This is
the power of the platform. Now let's get into it.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
My name is Will Lucas, as you know, and I'm
so glad to be with you for another episode.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
This one was gonna be a fun one for me.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I've known Berry for a long time and he's making major,
major moves. So Barry gibbns a managing partner at the
Lab Capital and he's a dynamic entrepreneur and technology innovator,
widely recognized for his work to bring parody to the
innovational economy. Collab Capital recently raised seventy five million for
fun two, bringing their total assets under management to one
(01:43):
hundred and twenty five million dollars. So if you need
a ten dollar loan, he's the.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Guy asked I can do ten. I can do ten.
It's good to see, very good to see you, brother.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Absolutely absolutely so. I want to go kind of back
to the beginning. So you said, when.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
You guys started out, the Collab Capital was built to
be the firm you and Jule, your partner, wish you
had when you were starting out. What did the traditional
VC model get wrong back then for black founders?
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Oh, man, that's a deep question, and it's so many
answers to that question. But I'll take it very like,
this seems like a thing that you wouldn't think about
or you wouldn't feel as important. But venture capitalists didn't
see black founders, and not like visibly seeing them. But
(02:40):
when you walk into a room as a black founder
and you're pitching your company, you know there's this thing
where you know, investors say that we know whether or
not we like to deal within the first ten minutes,
and for a black founder, we spend that first ten
minutes typically validating that we even deserve to be in
the room. And so, how can I get across to
(03:02):
you that my business is worth investing in If you
haven't even got over the point that there's a black
person sitting in front of you that has the ingenuity
and the intelligence to build this innovative product that they're
pitching to you, it's a lose, like you can't win
in that manner. And so when we say we wanted
to build the fund that we wanted, we just wanted
(03:24):
people to see black founders as what they were, which
is brilliant, innovative, educated, creative people that can build things
that will change the world. And that little tiny switch
in mentality allows us to go find alpha in places
where you know, other investors think that alpha doesn't exist.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Apologies.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Alpha is a term I'm not even sure when it
was created. We didn't use it back when I was building,
but it's a term that basically means there's the opportunity
to build an extremely valuable company. We call those companies alpha.
That's who you find the best returns and the best
investment opportunities.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Got it, Got it?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
So I've heard it said that, you know, for VC,
you really don't know if you're a good VC until
like ten years in, because it takes that long to
really see how these companies shape out to shake out.
How would you describe the core thesis behind fund two and.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
What like successes were you able to display.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
In fund one that says to your investors, let me
get them to more money.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
So, one big thing about being an emerging manager, particularly
first time fund manager, is that if you're able to
get through the gauntlet and raise the first fund, I know.
We'll get into that a little later. That the second
fund is really about did you do what you told
me you were going to do, because, as you mentioned,
to show true performance, we're typically going out and we're
(05:00):
raising starting the fundraise of a fund two, probably three years,
three and a half years after we've closed out on
Fund one, and the companies just don't move fast enough
in order to see true progress. We're not returning any
of the capital to most of the time, you haven't
returned any of the capital back to the investors, and
so the investors are looking for really two main things.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
That is, did you do what you said you were
going to do.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
We said that we built a fund that was going
to focus on black founders and building products in the
future of health, the future of care, and community infrastructure.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
We did that.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
We said that we were going to support those founders
because me and Joel have operational backgrounds and we will
be able to provide something different than maybe other metro
capitalists could not provide because they hadn't been in those trenches.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
And we did that. And then the.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Second thing that investors or that at LP's look forward
to invest in that fund too is did you learn anything?
And this is where I think a lot of fund
managers fall a little bit because they're afraid to talk
about the things that they did wrong. And at the
end of the day, we're all getting no matter what
you do, the goal is to be getting better at
(06:15):
the thing that you're doing. You know, your podcast is
totally different produly than it was with your first.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Episode, and so and so.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
If you can go into that fund too, and you
can tell your investor that this is what my diligence
process look like when you invested the first time, or
when I raised the first fund, and look at how
our diligence process has grown. We've added in better references,
We've added in better tooling to make better decisions on
our investment decisions. We've built out we've trained our investment
team to make better decisions. We've also made decisions that
(06:47):
we look back on and say, maybe we should look
at a founder differently in this vein the next time around,
or maybe we should look at a market differently. And
all of those learnings could turn out to be companies
that went to zero in fund one. But if you
learn from those and then you can show that progression
throughout the portfolio of your fund one, then you're able
(07:09):
to go into that meeting with the investors for fund
two and have a really good opportunity to raise that
second fund.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
And then obviously the last thing is performance.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Like I said, maybe you do not have any distributions,
which is capital back to your investors, but you still
want to show that your portfolio companies are progressing, that
they're growing revenue, they're growing in triple digit growth year
over year, that they're able to raise capital from other investors,
that they're moving towards profitability. There are all these things
(07:40):
that you can juggle with the metrics to show, even
in the early stages, that your portfolio is moving in
the direction of success.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So interestingly, I love that you said, you know, there's
things different about my first episode than are different now
because my first episode I would have asked, you know,
being black and having those failures, what's the difference in
walking in because but that's an obvious question. But to
me now being a mature podcaster, I want to ask,
you know, there are things that you've learned in going
(08:12):
to raise money, and what's what you know I think
some start up ownders may not understand is just like
they're pitching to you, you're pitching to funders also, like
you're both pitching somebody. And so when you when you
go to you get with Jewel, you make the call,
hey Jewel, or Jewel calls you're like, yo, let's let's
fuel the fund. Or I call my dog and I'm like, yo, man,
(08:34):
let's let's go build a fund. We need to get
some capital out here. I see opportunity. What happens from there,
Like what is the process like from you making the
call to your homie being like let's start a VC
firm of a VC fund to the point to where
you're in a meeting, Like what's the in between?
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Like, Oh, there's a lot of a lot of decision making.
I mean, picking your partner is the most important thing, right,
Like who is that phone call to? That's an extremely
important decision that you have to make because you're basically
signing up to be working with this person for a decade.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
You know, most fun lives are ten years, and so
when you are starting a fund.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
It's funny because I'll go back to a little bit
of my experience when I was building Masur at the
tail end of Monsieur. One of the reasons and with
drew with part pick we had. Really I'll speak just
to me because Duel's not here to tell her story.
But I had a very bad experience at the exit
of my company. There were a lot of things that
(09:40):
happened between me and my investors that I thought could
have been handled better, that I thought had I been
in the other seat, that I would have handled things
a lot differently, that was more beneficial, and that had
a little bit more heart towards the founder that had
put their blood, sweat and tears into this product. So
(10:00):
the first thing when I called Jewel to have this
first meeting and say, hey, is this something that you're
interested in, you have to have a hy like we
went into this deeply rooted in the problem because me
and Jewel had just experienced this issue and we wanted
to go out and solve it. And investors see that
(10:21):
whether you're starting a company or you're starting a fund,
they can see how passionate you are about said problem.
And so calling Jewel, We're having this meeting, and it
was immediate. I kN know Jewel for over ten years, right,
so I knew she was passionate about the problem as well.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
But then it goes into what does this.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Thing look like, and we don't have enough time to
talk about all the different iterations and the things that
we tried, the things we didn't try. But one of
the things that we did very early on is that
we found a champion, a gentleman up in New York
name alparn Robinson, who is an OG in the investor space.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
He's back many funds.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
He runs a coaching platform, education platform for future venture
capitalists called BBCC. And we brought him in very early
on when our documents were rough, when we didn't know
what the hell we were doing. And you need someone
like that that's going to be real with you and
look you in the eye and say you have no
clue what you're doing, but let me bring you in
(11:26):
and tell you what you should be doing. And that
totally changed how fast we were able to build collab
and get it off the ground. And then the last
I know, we talked about just between the first meeting.
I'm going a little further in the first meeting. But
the other thing that I see fund managers doing now
that I think is super important. I'd be remiss if
(11:47):
I did not mention this is people are just jumping
off the cliff and I think they look at people
like Julie and I and they say, oh, well, Julian
Barry jumped in and just started a fund, and that
is not That could be no further away from the truth.
We did jump in with the idea of starting a fund.
But the part of the process that people maybe didn't
(12:11):
put two and two together is that we did not
have great track records. Jewel had a couple of angel investments.
I had an Angel investment, but we did not have long,
deep track records to be able to put in front
of investors, and so when Jewel took exactly the only
thing we had was our entrepreneurial experience, and so people
(12:32):
with people didn't see was that we actually had a
meeting before Jewel took the job at Google for startups.
We had a meeting before I took the job as
managing director of tech Stars as strategic things for us
to do to be able to get to the end product,
which was a fund. And so we had already started
(12:53):
collab when we took those roles, but we knew we
needed to do a little more to beef up our
resumes to successfully raise the first fund, and so there
were a lot of things that we learned along the way,
like track records, like you know how to put together
a proper L pack and talk about that's the advisory
committee for your limited partners. There were a lot of
(13:16):
things we just had no clue about that we learned
along that year, year and a half before Clad became
a real product in the market, and we had to
make those decisions along the way very strategically, And I
think that's why I love podcasts. A lot of times
people don't hear this full part of the story that
you have to go learn and you have to be
(13:37):
able to fund yourself. And so if you jump off
that cliff and you don't have the proper funding to
take care of you, and if you have a family
to feed yourself, it's a long road to get to
that first close to be able if you ever get
to a first close, to be able to get a
very tiny management feed to be able to take care
of yourself. And so all of these things we had
(13:59):
to put into our equation in order to get the
fund off the ground. And that started from that very
first early conversation of do we even want to do this?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Yeah, it is so much there.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I want to kind of translate what I'm what I
believe I heard you say for people who because I've
had people come to me like, yo, I want to
start a fund that they're asking me to start. They
just kind of talk about they want to start one
in their community. And what I'm hearing you say is
it not like, hey, we want to start a fund.
Let's see who we know at this teacher's retirement fund.
Let's call it in and see and if they'll give
(14:31):
us money, or let's go to anabisco and see if
they'll give us money. That's not what you're saying. What
you're saying is we went, we made some connections, and
we learned.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So this this is this book.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
If that statement reminds me of when you talked about
Malcolm Robinson this book to like it's called Who not How,
and it was like, you know, you could have just
when done a bunch of work, but you realize, there's
a person I need to connect with to show me
the game.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
And so can you talk to the people who believe
that they have a record.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
You've been an entrepreneur, you talked about that. I wanted
you to go a level deeper though, on Yeah, there
was a difference between me and being an entrepreneur and
me being somebody who can write checks.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Can you just talk a little bit more about that
in there.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
Yes, I mean understanding numbers and being an investor. There
are a lot of people on Wall Street that understand
numbers really well. They're great with spreadsheets, they've been in
finance for twenty years. But if you haven't operated, particularly
at the early stages of a company, there are things
(15:40):
that you don't know need to happen, that need to happen.
And if you think back to the traditional days of
venture capital when it first started, it wasn't started by
folks off of Wall Street that were investment bankers. It
was started by entrepreneurs that it had success that then
said let's leave you this money to go find other
(16:02):
people that look like us, unfortunately, but more importantly, that
think like us, that have the ability to go find
the next great idea and build the next great widget.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
That'll shifting industry.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
And so the heart of venture capital has always been
with operators going to find other operators, and what it's
transformed to is that now has become a finance company
right like now this it's been kind of indoctrinated into
the traditional worlds of finance, and a lot of it
is traditional finance. We're looking at your income statements and
(16:38):
your balance sheet, so we're doing all the traditional finance things.
But when you're investing in, particularly in early stage companies,
there's something you're looking for in the founder to know
whether or not they have what it takes to make
it through the trenches of being an early stage founder.
There are things that you're looking for and how quickly
(17:00):
they're able to operate and iterate, how do they handle challenges.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You know, are they in a space in their life.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Where this is a great idea for them to do
it right this moment, Like, there are things as operators
that we have seen, and the other thing is an operator,
you're around a lot of other operators. So I'm not
just leaning into my experience. I'm leading into your experience.
I'm leaning into all the founders that were building things
when we were in the trenches right ten years ago,
because we talked to each other and we build relationships,
(17:31):
and so I'm not just leaning on to my world experiences,
but I'm thinking about all the things that my peers
went through, and now I'm able to take all of
that experience and hopefully help boost the founders that we
invest in so that they can skip over some of
those early steps because I'm seeing around corners. And a
great example of this we made an investment into a
(17:52):
company Blackmail. Founder has a doctor, one of the smartest
people I've ever met, NASA rockets scientists, and I told
him early on, I said, this is the type of
innovation that by the time you get to Series A,
somebody's going to try to remove you as CEO and
(18:12):
get you out of the way because there's a lot
of value in this and as you continue to bring
on investors, this is what is going to happen. I
thought it was going to be years down the line.
He called me like six months later and he was like, man,
you will never guess what happened. He's going out to
raise a bridge between a pre seed and a seed row.
He has didn't even got to the seed. And he's like,
(18:37):
they back channeled with my co founder, who was a
white woman, and tried to get her basic to turn
on him to say she wants to be the CEO
and to move him out of the way. And luckily
they handled it great. We got through it. But being
able to see around those corners, and particularly as a
black founder, we're able to bring those experiences and make
(19:01):
being a black founder, even though a lot of times
just look as a detriment, we're able to take our
experiences and turn it into a positive by beating them
at their own game.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Yeah, I want so can you add some clarity because
the way investment is positioned in many cases, it's like
we want to help founders, and you just.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Kind of added.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Reality in that this is about finance, This is about
dollars and cents, and so there's a balance there, and
we get marketed to like they want to help me
grow because they like me and they you know, they
like my idea, and what's really true that's that might
be true, but what's really true is opportunity has to
be there to ten x, twenty x, one hundred x
(19:48):
this investment. So can you can you give some clarity
for the entrepreneurs who might be confused just thinking the
people might want to help them and think that think
that mean not even but they think capital is about
helping them. Can you give them some clarity on what
this is actually about.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Who one of the biggest mistakes that I made as
a founder was believing that my investor was my friend.
And it's not saying that your investor cannot be your
friend outside of the business, but inside the confines of
(20:31):
that business, particularly if that investor has a fund because
they have to answer to LPs. So in the confines
of that business, their job is not to be your friend.
Their job is to be a good fiduciary, which means
there's the good stewards and good managers of the capital
(20:51):
that was given to them to then invest. And so
I think it's a mistake that I made as a founder,
and I tell my founders, I don't I think there's
anyone out there in the world that is an investor
that's going to have your back as much as I will.
I will put me up against andrel as well against
any other investor in the market, like we are going
(21:12):
to have your back, But there's going to come a
time where the friend talk and having your back, I'm
going to have to balance out what is the best
thing for the capital the million dollars that I gave you,
That becomes the most important thing at some point. And
I don't want you to place me in a position
where you expect me to make a decision for you
(21:34):
when I really need to make that decision for the
capital that I gave you. And this gets into board makeup,
which is where I made the mistake. Typically, your early stage,
you create a board. You want one preferred stock ie
the investor, you want one common stock ie the founder,
and then you want one independent. I chose my independent
(21:55):
to be an investor in my company that I thought
was going to be friendly because we had built this relationship.
But when it came down to it and we had
to make decisions, that investor investored and I didn't understand
it when I was a founder. But now that I'm
on this side, I have a lot more clarity, and
I'll take this one step deeper. From an education perspective,
(22:17):
I also believe that founders don't even really know what
that means. And this is where I spent a lot
of time in the last year of getting founders to
understand what even having an investor means. What are the
financial expectations that I have of you when I give
you that million dollar check. And so I've done it
(22:37):
with my founders, I've done it on other podcasts. I
do it very briefly here, but as an investor, my
job is to at the bare minimum give my investors
three times their money back. So for a fifty million
dollar fund, their minimal expectation for me, being in the
lower bracket of success, is giving them three x their
(22:59):
money back. I really want to be closer to five x,
Like that's where I really want to live, so I
can be top desciut kind of top investor in the
country kind of thing. So what that means for a
company is if I'm giving you a million dollars and
I'm only getting ten percent of your business, that means
the for you to return I'm calculating my decision on
(23:22):
you returning that whole hundred and fifty million, not returning
the million back to me, not even returning five million
back to me. Because at the end of the day,
I think all power law where the majority of our
returns are going to come from three or four companies.
So if I want to hit five X, I need
those three or four companies to at least give me
(23:43):
one times the fund.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
So I need you to add minimum return fifty.
Speaker 4 (23:48):
But I may be doing math to try to get
you to return one fifty and So you may have
a company that you're pitching me that you're like, it's
going to be one hundred million dollar company, and I'm like,
I agree, But after I get diluted in a couple
of rounds and I own ten percent, but now I
own seven, that one hundred million dollar company isn't going
(24:09):
to do much to move the needle, like that seven million.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Dollars ain't go like what is that going to do
for me?
Speaker 4 (24:14):
When I need to give this back to my investors,
I need you to be a billion dollar company so
that I can get seventy million back. Right, So like
doing and getting them to understand what a billion dollar
company is and multiples and all that stuff. It's a
lot of math that goes in what to what makes
a company venture backable? And I don't think founders, I
(24:35):
know founders are not doing that math before they step
into a zoom call or meeting with me.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
So I believe black people are special. That's why I'm here.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
And so we are not special will.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Like likelives brother, and so we have not always been
able to take advantage of at that specialist capital wise,
we've not always been a to reap the rewards of it.
So what does it really take for us to turn
genius into generational wealth?
Speaker 2 (25:08):
In your estimation?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Oh, I like how you I like how you took
the took the tagline.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
I like that genius the generational wealth is one of
the coolest things I've ever heard.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
You know, it's one of our taglines that collabse.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
But what does it take to turn genius into generational wealth?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
There are a lot of really smart people that are
dead broke.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Genius does not automatically mean that you are going to
be on the mountaintop, just like it's a lot of
great athletes that are sitting at home right now when
they thought they would be in the league. There's a
level and this is where that passion comes in for
solving your problem because there's a level of work ethic.
(25:56):
I'm probably going to say something that is unpopular in
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
But.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Soft life doesn't exist when you want to be great,
when you want to build something that is long lasting,
that will outlast you brutal, there are no multiple vacations
of yea, that money should be being reinvested back into
your company. And I know we're in this mental health
you know, you know the soft life. The founders that
(26:26):
I see doing that aren't moving the needle. And I
think what happens is they see founders do that after
the founder has moved the needle and they say, oh,
it's founder's out here, you know, moved, got a beach
house and they kicking it on Instagram showing they went
to four different countries this year, but you didn't see
them twelve years ago when they didn't even leave their
(26:47):
city right let alone the country. And so there's a
certain level of grit and understanding of how much grit
it takes that turns that genius into generational wealth. But
even if you're a genius and you have the grit
and you can show that you have the grit, you
still have to build the right product. And so now
(27:10):
you have to get into is this product something that
people will pay for, that can grow and do one
hundred million dollars in revenue, two hundred million dollars in revenue?
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Is it global?
Speaker 4 (27:18):
How much money does it take to scale all of
these things right that go into is the business a
good business? And so then you say, Okay, I'm a genius,
I have grit, I'm ready to work as hard as anybody,
and I'm building this product that's in a great market.
The most unfortunate part is the one thing you really
(27:41):
can't control is that then you have to build it
at the right time. Timing is everything and being a
year too soon or a year too late. There are
companies that I've seen that they created this aout this
company three years ago. It takes off, But you created
in twenty twenty five, and now AI is eating it
(28:03):
in two weeks, right, And so you were three years
off of your schedule from probably having a rocket ship
and being one of the early acquisitions in the AI
time to now you build it three years later, and
you're a nothing burger because you built it three and
you're still smart, you still work your ass off, you
still didn't sleep and ate, you know, Papa John's every
day dominoes.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Every day.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
You did all the things that you're supposed to do.
And so there are so many things along the way
that have to go right to create true generational wealth.
And that's why this is the riskiest capital that exists,
is because you need so many things to go right,
and why the power law exists and why we only
expect we don't go into this investing in thirty eight
(28:44):
companies thinking that only four of them are going to
be successful.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
We think every company we invest in.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Has the opportunity to be a huge success and return
the fund, But the fact show that's not going to
be true because all those things have to go right
to create that generational wealth. We haven't even got into
being black and the inequities and like all that stuff
is this is just normal entrepreneurship. Then you throw in
all of the other things on top of that, and
(29:11):
it really takes a lot of intentionality from the entire
community and ecosystem to get through those barriers. And that's
one of the things that we pray and hope that
we are doing for the community as Collab Capital.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
You said something phrase, you know, is it global? That
stuck out to me, and you know, we used to
talk about, you know, it's not enough for your your
homies to want what you're building. It's not enough for
your block or your city is at then it was like,
you know, it can at least it go national, But
you just talked about global, and so I wonder how
(29:45):
you would challenge us to not just think domestically anymore
when you have an international you know, import export of
both thought, ideas and products.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
When it's so easy to do.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Now, is it enough of anymore just to be known
in the fifty States?
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I mean, in some cases, yes, it can be enough
to create a unicorn by just being in the United States.
That being said, it is extremely difficult. I mean, you
have to get so many things right. You have to
find such a market need that is focused here in
the US that everybody that has that market need is
(30:26):
going to want to utilize.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Your services, right or your product.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
But at the end of the day, we are a
I mean we're doing this zoom call from two different
I mean this podcast from two different states. You could
be in Bali right now and we could be doing
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
Right.
Speaker 4 (30:44):
So information and ideas move so fast that not only
do you have to build something global, but you also
have to worry about global competition because those companies that
are being built in France and and you know, in
India and in you know, Ghana and all these other
(31:05):
places where founders that have all those same things to
turn to create generational wealth, they now have the ability
to get it right to the United States just like
you do. Just like you have the ability to get
your product into their country, and so you have to
be thinking globally when we do checks to see there
are there competitors, particularly if it's a pure software company,
(31:27):
We're looking everywhere to see are their competitors. Is their
room for you to grow this other into this other
content inner country, or is there already a market leader
there because you have When we think about creating unicorns
and getting to multi billion dollar valuations, you need millions
and millions and millions of customers typically to hit that point.
(31:50):
And so by creating something that's global, you just give
yourself a better chance at finding that when you're looking
through seven billion people versus three hundred and eighty four
hundred million people just here in the United States.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Have you been named to Ifrotech Future fifty you know,
celebrates you on that on and disrecognition, celebrates impact and influence.
How do you define those in your career today?
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Oh Man, Influence is a tough one, but I get
I'll get to that one second.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
Impact is the easy one for me. I want to
look up in you know, twenty years and I want to.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
See a bunch of black folks with a bunch of
money that are maybe now sitting in the seat that
I'm sitting in today on Will Lucas's podcast, Black Tech,
Great Money, doing the fifteen year edition, And when you
ask them how they got here, they say, man, there
(32:55):
was this dude, there was this company, collap Capital, that
believed in me with nobody else did, and they wrote
me my first million dollar check. And if it wasn't
for that check, I would not be sitting in this
seat on this podcast talking to you today. And I
think that every single one of our founders have the
chance to do that, and unfortunately the majority of our
founders do have that story that their genius was not
(33:19):
seen as this golden opportunity. And we sit in this
space where we're able to absorb that genius and see
that genius and invest and for many times be the
largest check, in some cases, the only check that is
believing in some of these companies.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
You know, we have a company. I'll get you again
into that later.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
But on the impact side, that is what I would
like to see, because what happens is this is a
flywheel and we're playing the long game. And so when
we started this, we did not think that our impact
was going to be seen in you know, five years.
We have to let the cycles go through their their cycles.
And you mentioned it Earlier's a your cycle, twelve year
(34:01):
cycle from an investment to that company getting to an exit,
creating that generational wealth for that person to then go
and reinvest and then create their cycle. And so this
is something that is going to be a twenty thirty
year impact. But I think we're doing a great job.
And influence, man, I think I hate that word. This
is why I'm not on social media a lot, because
(34:23):
I think it's gotten a bad rap. I don't really
like the word anymore. But I think when you influence
just means leadership. It means how are you, how are
you bringing yourself to the table so that someone else
is able to look at you and learn from you
and bring themselves to their table better, right, And so
(34:45):
that's just leadership to me, and I think I'm doing
a good job of that. I mean, time will tell.
But it's kind of similar to the impact, Like I
want my influence to be that I am pushing people
to make better and more impactful decisions, that by looking
at me, that I'm influencing people to do things a
little different. I'm influencing my white investor peers to look
(35:07):
at pots that they may not have looked in before.
I'm influencing founders to think with bigger visions because of
the conversations that they're having with me. And so I
think that that influence by just being a good person
and exuding leadership in the spaces that I'm in will
ultimately lead to that deeper impact and ultimately lead to
(35:28):
all of us hopefully not having to have these conversations
at some point.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Hopefully we're still.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
Alive, but we don't have to have these conversations about
needing to do things for black people.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Finally, you know, you once wrote a book called Plan
B Sucks. If you could add a new chapter to
that book, knowing what you know now, what would it
be called?
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Who?
Speaker 5 (35:52):
You didn't send that one over? That is, I wasn't
ready if I could add a new chapter.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
Oh man, oh plan these sucks work on your dreams,
not your bosses. Man, that was a long time ago.
Which chapter?
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Damn? You got me with this one.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
I want this to be like just a braw authentic.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I mean, you wrote the book and you've lived a
life since, so we can take a moment to kind
of just give you a moment to think about this.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
You know what the crazy part is is I wrote
that book at a time where before influencers, before you
had these these mics, And I wrote it at a
time where I was preaching from the mountaintops that I
could find that nobody should have a real job and
everybody should just go quit their job and work for themselves.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Anything. I think totally different now.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
As a person who started companies, it is extremely hard.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
And one I also need to hire people.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
So if everyone quits their job and I'm the person
starting companies, who do I get to work for me?
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Right? So the maths just didn't.
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Math from where we wrote that book, But I think
it came from the heart of doing something that is influential,
that is impactful, like what is your dream? And I
think maybe I don't know if it's a chapter, but
I think something that I would have ingrained throughout the
book is that you're.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
The plan.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
It doesn't have to be like how you get your income, right,
It doesn't have to be around jobs. It was really
more so about finding something that you deeply care about
and go do that thing. You can do that in
many different ways. You can sit on nonprofit boards, you
can start a nonprofit. You can go work at a
company that is deeper into solving that problem so that
(37:58):
you can jump in and bring and your ingenuity, your
skill sets, and your experience to somebody who's already fifty
yards down and helped take it the other fifty yards.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
There are so many ways that you can work on
your plan A. And the Plan Be sucks part was
really just about don't get caught for forty years doing
something that you hate or that doesn't bring you happiness
and joy, that doesn't bring impact without ever trying to
find that joy, right, And so I think that will
(38:30):
be a little bit of the shift of the narrative
is that it's not just about it's not about quitting
your job. It's about finding you and doing the thing
that you will put I don't know what people prescribe
to religiously, but for me, it's about finding the thing
that God put me here to do. And when I
leave and go visit Him at the Pearly Gates, I
(38:50):
want to be able to go to that gate with
nothing left and say everything that you put into me
to leave down here, that I left all of it
down there and that's that plan A, Like, what is
that thing that you need to do to fulfill that
spiritual glass so that you were right with yourself and
write with whatever being that you believe in. And I
(39:12):
believe that I found that in the work that I'm
doing with collab, and I just hope that I'm giving
it everything that I can. And like I said, when
I get up there, I can say, hey, I found
my plan A and I gave it everything that I had.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Well, you gave that answer everything. So that was really good, man.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I appreciate you taking that one, man, Barry Givens, thank
you so much, man, Thank you so much, man.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
Thank you for having me, and kudos to you. I
was trying to remember, well we the first we were
one of the first episodes I feel when you first.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Started, Oh for sure, for sure, and I.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Was trying to look back to see if we were
number one. I couldn't remember. I don't think we were
number one, close to it. And so to be here,
you know, for the second round, Man, it's good to
see you still thriving, killing it, seeing your podcast and
people loving it doing numbers, and so kudos to you
for providing this platform.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
Kudos to Afrotech for not.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Just you know, giving us this this these kudos, but
all the other black fund manager that are out there
in the trenches doing the work.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Because this work is hard.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
It's people fighting against us every day to slow us down,
throwing bricks in the road so we can trip up.
And it's a lot of us out there that are
trying to do right by our community.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
And I'll take I take a little bit.
Speaker 4 (40:31):
Of privilege just to say how important it is for
us right now as black fund managers. I know everyone
doesn't understand the VC world, but there was something that
happened in twenty twenty when the George Floyd situation unfolded.
He was murdered and the video came out and all
(40:51):
these you know, performative dollars came into the market. There
were a lot of fund managers that were funded during
that time and they took advantage. I'm happy we were
one of them. Now we've kind of moved out of
those black dollars and we're into the evergreen dollars, so
we're in a good spot. But the importance of that
comment is that now that we're under fire, the macro
(41:13):
environment is not great. But you mentioned going out to
raise the fund two and then the fund three. We
are now that vintage of fund managers that raise the
money during that time. We're now on the hot seat,
and our industry is going to look at that time
and they're going to say, look at all this money
that we gave to black people, And if we're not successful,
(41:34):
there's going to be a narrative that is written for
decades about black fund managers and black founders and.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
What they're able to do.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
And so this is just a severely and deeply important time,
not just for us as fund managers, before the entire ecosystem.
And so I just want to say to the founders, like,
keep building dope shit to my other fund managers, keep
your head up, keep working to people around us in
the ecosystems supporting. If you see a black fund manager
(42:02):
or a black or a black founder that's building something,
download the app, use their product, because we are in
hard times right now, and if we don't make it
happen in the next four to five years, we may
never see the holy grail of black dollars going into
black companies that we want to see. Because we are
in that space right now and we have to be right.
(42:25):
We have to be right right now, and so please
continue to support, keep supporting the podcast, keep giving people
a voice because people need to hear these stories, so
appreciate you.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Follow us on socials at Black Effect, join the conversation
with Hastag Black Effect turns five, and keep supporting.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
The voices that shift the culture.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Black Tach Green Money is a production to Blavity appro
Tech's a Black Effect podcast Networking night Hire Media. It's
produced by Morgan Debonne and me.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
Well Lucas, with the additional production support.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
By Kate McDonald, Sarah Hurgan, and Jaden McGee. Special thank
you to Michael Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about
my guessing other Techni showup as an innovator's.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
At afrotech dot Com. Video version this episode will drop to.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Black Tech Green Money on YouTube, So tap in to
join your Black Tech Green Money shure.
Speaker 2 (43:11):
This is somebody, Go get your money that some luck.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
Afrotech Conference is back and return to Eightstown, Houston, Texas
from October twenty seventh through thirty first, twenty twenty five
the George R.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Brown Convention Center.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
For years, Afrotech has been the go to experience for
black tech, innovators, founders, engineers, creators, You Investors in twenty
twenty five is shaping up to be the biggest year
yet though, with forty thousand attendees expected. This year's conference
will feature five days of dynamic programming across six curator
stages discovery to executive leadership. Join us to hear from
industry leaders at the forefront of change, learn from top
(43:48):
ten engineers and designers, and connect with recruiters from nearly
two hundred companies. This year, we're digging deeper into what's
next with tracks exploring AI and machine learning, mad tech
and health, equity, CyberSecure, climbate tech, and much more. Whether
you're mounting your first startup, pivoting into a new road,
or scaling as an execut there's something here for you.
Take us and moving fast to keep your spot nowt
(44:10):
at Atfrotech Conference dot com
Host
Will Lucas
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