September 10, 2024 • 37 mins
Sheena Allen is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, investor, and creative architect. Her fintech startup, CapWay, focuses on creating economic access and opportunities for all through inclusive financial products and services, including banking, content, payments, and more. With Capway, she became the youngest female in America to own and operate a digital bank.
Today she’s working on AI tools and other technology to help non-technical or early coders create mobile applications.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green money.
She and Allen is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, investor, and
creative architect. Her fintech startup, Capway, focuses on creating economic
access and opportunities for all through inclusive financial products and services,
including banking, content, payments, and more. With Capway, she became
(00:24):
the youngest female in the America to own and operate
a digital bank. Today, she's working on AI tools and
other technology to help non technical or early coders create
mobile applications. And so I'm interested in what representation means. So,
you know, typically when we think about representation, we think
(00:45):
about it if I grew up seeing people who looked
like me in successful positions, I see myself as potentially
being successful one day. But in your case, I want
to correlate this to your geography where you grew up
and so coming from a place that had one bank
financial institution, what does that do to the psyche of
people when they grow up and walk around, go to school,
(01:07):
go to work, and don't see any financial centers. What
does that do to you?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You know, it's interesting because you only know what you
know if you if you've never left Terry or you've
never left. That'side of Mississippi. What you see is all
that you know anyway, so it seems normal. It wasn't
until I've left that I was like, Okay, there's more
to life, There's more that this is not.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I would say it's not normal because technically for us,
it was normal.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So I don't say it affects you psychologically if it's
the only thing that.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You know, it's not until you leave. Social media has
made a difference.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I will say that because now we through the world
for the social media. But once again, when this is
all that you know, it seems normal.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
What was your first technological entrepreneurial endeavor that showed you,
you know what, this is what I'm gonna do with
my life.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Oh well, you know, most people don't know that art
was my first love. It was not technology. So art
was my very first love. I was drawing in paintings
and like in middle school. I made my money in
high school because I used to design shoes. I would
bring me like, it's a white pair of shoes. We
were old, they were I was just fongebob shoes. I
want to hell a kiddy shoes And I would design them.
(02:25):
So that was my first love.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I didn't. I fell into tech in college not wanting
to be there.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm being hunt and honest, I went because my dad
wasn't you forced me to go, But it was very
much a you're astrail as student. Yeah, scholarships go to college.
But I when I technology, it was always art. I
thought I was going to be an artist. That was
gonna be my I wasimate entrepreneur with the sense of art.
(02:54):
But then when I fell into the world technology, I
knew it was no question for me, like that's what
I want to.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Do, like without question. The passion for the fact that my.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
First app didn't do well with I was like, I
want to continue to do this building, build and build
without question.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
For me, that was it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What was the first app?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
First app was so crazy enough.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My first app people think was the receipt app because
that's kind of what I talk about a lot. The
truth is my first app was actually an alcohol party
tale and it was I was at Southern miss I'm
not a party girl.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
By the way, I have two let feets, so you
will not see me in the in any way.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
There was an app called party, so it was mainly
because the USM, everybody was like trying to figure out
college town, what's going on, who's doing what, And it's
a smaller town so it's easier to know. But it
was also like, what if there was an app that
like just not habis a bird and sippy, but like
anywhere you could go to this app and figure out,
like what's going on in this city, especially if you're
(04:00):
not from there. So the first app idea was actually
app called party Tale and.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It actually did pretty well. And then not that was
like maybe my sophomore year of college.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And then the first app that started, Shena Allen Aps
was my senior year of college, which was the Receipt app.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
The idea the idea was clearly I was ahead of
my time. I did was.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I wanted to make it so that if you go
to any place retail or whatever it said them giving
you your receipt, you actually scan your phone and you
can keep going with your money or receipts just through
digital versus like getting an actual receipt.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So that was the idea of it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I clearly didn't know all that it took to make
that happen, so I kind of did my workarounds of
what I could. But that was the first app per
se that started not take journey, especially as Shanna Allen apps.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, I want to get into She and the Island apps,
you know, because that was something you were bootstrapping, like,
you didn't go out for funding for this first of all?
Why not? Why didn't you pursue funding?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I didn't. I don't know what the heck I was doing.
I'm gonna say, hey, I aint know.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I had no clue, so I had how to even
I didn't know the process of how to raise money.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
For being honest, I had no clue.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Like when I started the Journey of Technology, I got
the money from my dad, who I'm treated about the
call back two more times and it was pretty much
a piece fronted me my refundship from school. But as
far as like saying, how do I pitch, how do
I do a pitch deck, what type of investors should
I go after?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
What's a preceed round with a seed ground? I had
no clue.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That was all foreign to me. What I knew was
just how can I get this app out.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Into the world. I didn't know boofstrepping was I back then?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I couldn't have told you what a preceed round was,
what a seed ground, what a pitch deck was.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That was all completely foreign to me.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The part of me not raising was not knowing how
to raise or the proper way to raise. In the
other side was it was more of like I just
wanted this think done, Like what can I do to
get this thing out?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
My mind, which probably most of us now, my mind
is very much like am I going to do a
preseed Like what's my old front cost? Do I go
out to like preseed funding? And I got like, my
mind is different now. But back then it wasn't that
I didn't want to raise. I didn't know the proper
way or if I should be raised.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Do you believe that not having outside capital constrained the
growth opportunity or do you think that the value proposition
just wasn't there? Like what was the limiting factor?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
When I look back on it now, I actually think
I missed my mark as far as raising, because when
I say that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
There was a moment, there was a moment in time
for months and months.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Almost of a year when we were doing five thousands,
six thousand dollars a day, if not more, and.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
We're talking about millions, millions.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And means of downloads doubling when we released it four
and I'm saying wee it was me. It was literally
just me, me and a team that I would outsource
to offshore too. When I tell you we did a
half million downloads in like two and a half three months,
like I one release of Android, I mean the downloads
were coming again, the requests were coming in.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And I didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I didn't realize like you're hot, like you got to
go out and like raise or like you gotta take
this thing like to the next level.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That never runs across my mind and not in that way.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I do feel like looking back on it, I
feel like I missed.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I missed the mark.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And then once I got more, once I spent time
in the Valley, spend time in Austin, I got mentors,
I really.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Learned the game.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I realized I had missed my mark, and so at
that point it's like I'm going to boostrap it, finish bootstrap,
and get what happens happens. I've learned a heck of
a lot from this, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Not going to raise for it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So you go to Silicon Valley with I'm sure some
sort of expectations. What were your expectations going to Silicon
Valley and what was the reality living there on the ground.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Honestly, I didn't going to the valley. First off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I went there because I googled where do you go
to start a tech company? And people when I say that,
people think I'm saying as a joke, but like legit,
Like that's why I went, because I didn't know anything
about build a tech company. Versus saying what I what
I expected, I will say what I got there. What
I did not expect. I did not expect not to
(08:43):
see any black people. To be quite honest, that was
a huge shock.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
For me to not see a very small reputation of
people who look like me, a small reputation of representation
of women, a small reputation of people of color.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I was very fascinated by it, though, But you know,
I got to go. I went to like the Google campus,
and one of the first I got to meet was
at a Google meet up, which was like David Sex
was speaking. He had just so, yeahver, we're a billion dollars.
So I was very fascinated by the things I got
to see there. With the expectation I didn't necessarily have
an expectation going there of then to learn, but it
(09:22):
was a culture shock for me, to.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Be quite honest.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, before I want to ask you something about that specifically,
but I want to go back to She and Alan
apps one more time. You know, there was this quote
I found where you said the company was doing really well,
over ten thousand dollars some days, millions of downloads total,
and we did well in revenue. But I made the decision,
even as the business was growing and investors became interested,
that this wasn't going to be my home run. I
(09:46):
knew this wasn't going to be my unicorn, but it
would be my greatest lesson. Say more about that, because
when people find something that is working at any level,
it's hard to be like, you know what that's but
there's something else and not even have that something else
operational or profitable or realize yet. So tell me give
(10:09):
me the thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, well, kind of, like I said, I felt like
I had missed my mark.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
When Dublin Pickxlet were doing millions of downloads. Those apps
also were being used by before social media influence, that
were being used by celebrities are people that had huge
followings and.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
I got ready to go into at the time, which
was the sixth.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
App under an Allen house brand, and I remember the
investors all of Hamilton being one crazy enough kind of
being like, you know, what you're doing is amazing, You've
done it by itself, like are you going to raise money?
And because I did feel like I had missed that
mark of being our peak, I guess you would say bootstrapping,
(11:02):
what I learned is that I only have to answer
to me, and so why when I say it's my
greatest lesson? I learned you gotta you gotta hit when
strike when when the fire is high hot.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I did learn how to pitch.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
One of my mentors and often taught me very well
how to pitch, how not to pitch what I was
doing wrong bootstrapping, once again, you answer to yourself. Once
you raise money, every check you take your baby becomes
less of your baby. And people don't realize that. But
when you bootstrap, you on one hundred percent. So the
decisions come down to you when you raise money. The
(11:39):
decisions we raise money and we have a team.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
A real team. Those decisions you made is very heavy.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You got stakeholders, and that's just want ten x one
hundred ext their money back. Decisions that you make determined
if your team is gonna eat next month and money.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It's real heavy.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So I learned from bootstrapping the mistakes I made feel
only on me, and so I took that as a
lesson going into my next venture, which was b cback.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
But I learned a heck of a lot by boostracking.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So let's talk about those apps. Where you were it
was sheena, you know, outsourcing offshore. You know, this is
some of the work you did. You did all the
ui ux work. You were doing the flow charts to respects,
the testing, and you're a non technical founder. How did
you do that? How did you find those partners, those
(12:33):
people offshore? How did you go from idea to actually
having something tangible?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, the University of Google is powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, the design piece was kind of natural to me
because clearly designers. Yeah, so that that part became very natural. So,
and I had the idea in my head even from
the very first app to even to the apps I
do today.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I know what I want the apps to look like.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So anything that you've ever seen me do, cafe website,
cafe app, any app, understand apps.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Any app I've ever been.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
A part of, at least the initial designs were done
by me, because it's my vision of how I wanted
to look, how I wanted to operate, what I want
to use to see, how what I want what I
want to use to experience. So the very first part
of like drawing it out, was pretty just normal for me.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
The second piece that comes along with that, though, is
kind of came after, but was a.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Little bit more difficult, especially early on, was I had
to learn that if I draw a screen one and
it has four buttons, I got to figure out where
each of those buttons are going to go. And I
got to be able to really explain that to the developer,
because developers are just there to develop, they're not there
to do anything else. So understanding that piece, the more
information I gave the more the easier I made it
(13:57):
for me and I made it for the developer. And
then because I also didn't have a lot of money,
it was like the availables, like, I'll do the back.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
En now you give me the design to give me
all the information. I'll call this back in with the testing,
the QA deployment that.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Will be on you so also I had I pretty
much learned because I have a choice what to learn,
and so I took that experience from the first one
and I just keep it going through all the.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Rest of Yeah. So and then I want to get
to cawwoays. So you know, coming on a visit back home,
I want you to tell this story of you know,
you you go back to Terry and you see people
still cashing their checks at Kroger or whatever grocery store
or whatever and so, and that's eye opening. I imagine, like, yo,
(14:44):
I didn't you said before, like you know, you don't
realize it when you're in it, like you don't know
nothing different. But then when you left you come back,
you like, hold on, I grew up in this and
this is still happening.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yep. Well capway in itself. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The the name is self sense for a new web
of doing capital that was that was a whole point,
that was a whole goal.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
When I did it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I was living in Austin at the time, and I
would come back home quite often, and it was to
your point where you asked the first time, that is
when for me it was like there's so much more
more to the world. And technology can give us access
in a way that I think none of us quite
realize it. And so the beginning of Cathway it was
(15:30):
me pretty much taking my professional experience of technology or
in the take space, in my personal experience of growing
up in a town with one bank, in a in
a state that it's number one for unbanked and under
bank residents per capital of any other state in America.
It was taking my personal experience and combining my professional experience.
(15:53):
That is how why Cathoway came to be from the
very beginning. It was a struggle from the very beginning
as far as pitching get raising money, mainly because.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Investors invest in what they know.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
First off, we talk about the lack of money that
goes to black women. That's a stat in itself, which
is a whole podcast. There comes the stats of black
women and then women. And then you're talking about a
space so that I'm going in as a black woman
with a country accent talking about fintech, unmased, under bank.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
First off, s fin tech is.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Not it's dominly a male dominated industry within a segment
of the of the tech space.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So finances of is a male dominated industry.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So if I just spent tech this, it's finance too,
and tech is also male dominated. A lot of people
just didn't get it. They just absolutely did not get
what the heck I was talking about. I'm like, hey,
I can if you would like to, we can drive
to Mississippi right now, and I can take you through
the Delta Mississippi. We can drive for thirty minutes. You're
not gonna steal a bank. I can show you can
(17:00):
keep money in the house right now. You know that's
the reality, and that's not the reality of Justsissippi.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
But I can give you. I can show you that.
I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
But I had investments asking me to not make up
the word unbanked, and that's who felt like this was
more of a third world country problem, Like we did
not have this problem in America. So my experience, my
love of home, my experience of home, my experience in
my community, the lack of it definitely would lead to Capway.
(17:30):
But I would tell you that it is by far.
I feel like anything I do after Capway should be
a breeze man that startup. It's so many different ways
brought me.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, So when you have the kind of background that
you have where you've done all of these different things,
these different apps ideas, and you've been able to get
them out into the world without necessarily even being technical yourself.
That lends pretty well to being able to teach other
people how to do it. So talk to me about
what you're doing today with apping out and all these
other things and you're speaking and you know, writing, and
(18:06):
talk to me about why this is, why this matters
to you and what you teach.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, so, caf Way, we're going through a transition right now.
I don't know. Yes, that's a different converation for a
different day.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But regardless of what happens with Capway tomorrow, next month,
next year, my love for financial inclusion isn't going anywhere.
So still speaking on it, still doing projects around it, consulting,
whatever the case or how it looks, I will forever
have passion for and work to some capacity, even if
(18:43):
it's just speaking about it.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
In financial inclusion, I think we have a huge gap.
We have a huge.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Issue honestly in America but also outside of America. And
so until I know those gaps were filled, which I
don't think will happen anytime soon, not even in our lifetime.
If I'm just being honest, I will always be doing
some form of work in the financial including space.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So that's number one.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
The second thing as far as app it Out and
what I'm doing now, is I'm taking a dive into
the to the AI world. Honestly, not because it's trendy.
I actually try to run from trends for being quite
uns because well three I was like no, NFTs. I
was like you, no, anything that's trendy. I personally try
to turn a completely different, like the complete opposite direction.
(19:30):
The reason that AI for me has been interesting and
why I found myself in AI now is one with
app it Out, which is one of the products under
the AI company Mindful that I started is it's kind
of full circle.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
But I'm just being honest, So.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
App it Out is actually the AI component to it
is actually takes to software and so what I'm pretty
much doing is taking what I did ten years ago,
which was what information I need to put in in
As far as like when my lowers look like this,
I want the app to function like this.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I love like the function like this.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
In the meantime, of course, you have like your squarespace,
your which your dragon drops, But what does it really
mean for someone non technical to be able to put
it in certain information and for artficial intelligence to be
able to turn that into at least a beta version
or NDP version of an app for a website. Because
there's so so many people are non technical, so many
small business owners who can't afford or don't understand how
(20:27):
to outscore. They don't know how to even work a
dragon drop even if there was a case. So how
can I build something that actually changes that in a
world where.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Generals AI can do it?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So that but I was kind of a full circle
product if I'm If I'm being honest, the other parts,
other parts and of the product, shall I say, they
were working one under the parent company of Mindful, which
is AI company. The language model that we're working on
is actually called GABBY and actually what it is the
(21:00):
getting of the stance for the GAB stands for gaps and.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Biases, and so one of the.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Biggest things that we're fighting with anything that we're developing
kind of that core mission, that foundation is what are
we doing what can we do to fight against the
issues that are in artificial intelligence? No matter what people say,
no matter how great it looks from the open a
eyes to all the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
They have a lot of issues people have.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
People sometimes don't know and don't understand that artificial intelligence
is a status scraping. It's a lot of data being
put together and spit out. But if a lot of
the data it's already biased and you put it into
a data set or you put into a language model,
is actually only going to spit out more biased information.
(21:46):
And so for us, it was how do we insert
ourselves into a space.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
AI I mean open ay.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's not going to try to figure out how to
work with the local business owner.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
They might say they do, but they gonna work with
shutter stop.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And it's got stocks like you should have stopped every
time to search for a black.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Personal shutter Stop. It's the same black guy. It is
exact same.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I know him when I see him on something like
that's a black guy for each other.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
But it's not just that, it's it's a it's a it'sn't.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A lot of finance media. It's not one category. There's
a huge issue that it can be solved. It's just
that the big guys play with the big guys, So
how can we fill those gaps.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
How can we come back those biases doing things a
little different?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
And you said something after you kind of trailed off
on cafway. You're like, you know, it's a different conversation
for a different day, and I'm I'm gonna dig one
level deeper. You can go if you want to, I'm
gonna go one level. And so I feel like, you know,
you've been doing it, You've been doing this a long time.
And then there's players that come in and it felt
(22:56):
to me like the you know, the black woman got,
you know, to push to the side while all this
attention went to other places. And I wonder, and not
to throw shade it them. I mean, you got to
take advantage of the opportunities that come, you know, to you.
But the institutions that go support you know, it is
hard enough for black people, it's harder for black women.
(23:17):
And so I wonder what your take is, if you
want to go the level deeper at all, we can
do the conversation for another day today. I wonder what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I think this iss is business like one hundred percent.
I'm not just saying that because politically correct. I think
business is business. To your point, you take advantage of
opportunity at hand. I'm not mad at them for doing that.
You took advantage of attention, you took advantage of the
right people being the face of it, and it worked
for you.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In that time. Do I agree on the sense of
I agree in the sense.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Of was it a move, a long term move that
actually helped the issues at hand? No, because the issues
at hand is not about just culture. Culture plays a
huge issue, is a huge part of it. But the
issues are so deeply rooted that I think a lot
(24:18):
of people got caught in the height and we missed
the reason that we need to be doing the work
that we're doing.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That part I don't agree with.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Running a fintech company is extremely tough because it's it's
a regulated industry, and so even when I was sitting
back and I was seeing it, it wasn't I was
pissed because they did what they did once Stan took
advantage of a moment.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's business your thing.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I'm knowing from the inside and the other side of
how things operate, that things are being done correctly. Because
there's a lot of red tape, there's regulations. You got
to know how to speech work reggae is completely outdated,
which is how dipus work reggae is dispused.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And it's not just piece.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
The financial world from a regulatory standpoint is so outdated,
it's not. It has not been updated to keep up
with the digital space of today.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
And so I knew that a love that was not
going to work.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And it wasn't the most than a point of me
wishing them bad, Honestly, wasn't. I just think that a
collaborative effort or understand that space are more the roots
of what the issues were everybody could have won versus.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
When we would pitch.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Honestly, after that, it would be either one, you haven't
raised close to amount of month day raised, so you're
so far behind that even if you raise another five.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Ten million, what makes you feel that you can keep
up or out you?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
That was number one, which is wild because they don't
ask that how big of Americas on compete with Chase
or how they but it's just the black ones. Yes,
it's only room for one of y'all. To y'all.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
The second thing that we got a lot of was
from investors when we would when we would go out
of pitch. After all the you know, the hype was all, well,
we were already funded one black fintech. Yeah, and some
said that directly, some did not. And the ones who
didn't say directly, what they said is they didn't say
those exac words, but they said those exec words. And
(26:25):
it was was frustrating theirs because even though we were
too black own fintech companies, we actually didn't.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Outside the fact that we had a debit card, we were
not the same companies. Our goal overall at CAFOE.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Was building a complete ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And that was from B to B B two CE.
Pretty much all of our technology we built in house.
So even though we had vendors that were required by
federal purposes, having a sponsor bank, you can't get around that.
You look on your on your cash up car it
says it had the sponsored bank name.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It's the varia about a matter how big a small
you are.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
As a neo bank challenging bank, covidital bank, you have
to have a sponsored bank. So again some things you
can't get around. But outside of the things that were required,
as far as vendors actually built that in house.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You know, our CTO donere was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The vision from my side, the developing from his side,
The team that we had was absolutely amazing. So you
couldn't really challenge me on certain things because we built it.
You know, it wasn't that as a vendor. We literally
built it in house. We built an entire financial infrastructure
at Capway.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So I think the.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Skills that that we had, the knowledge that we had,
the team that we had who had years of experience,
you have done this for so long, going way deeper
than just surface level of culture was once again plays
a huge role because black and brown had so many issues,
but it was very level and I think that's the flush.
(28:03):
That's where the frustrating piece came for me. That and
once again, investors believe in that investing in one black
fintech means that nobody else would be funded.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And that was where our big issues came in to
be lite honest.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You you at the startup, Survival is oxygen and oxygen
is cash.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
You have to have money.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Fin tech, particularly digital banking, is a capital intensive industry.
It's a capital intensive product. You cannot build a digital
bank with a million dollars two million dollars. You have
to have an influx of cash. So you see people
raise ten million, twenty million. I'm not mad at it
because it takes a lot of money to run fintech companies,
particularly fintech companies like that. But when you can raise
(28:47):
five million, but then you can't raise another five or
ten because everybody says, but this person are to.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Raise s fifty Yeah, yeah, so you can't.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
You know, there's no point of us investing because now
it's bull and boyd.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
They want the game.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
They won the game even if they had less traction
in US, but they won the game because they got
fifty million. And so cash is oxygen and you don't
have oxygen.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Problems are Yeah, you know when you have the vision
where you are now of the benefit of hindsight and
you still in the game because you number one, you're young,
and you've got other I think, other things going on,
and this one's not dead. Like when you look back
at your entrepreneurial journey so far, you know, can you
point to a moment where if you could take it back,
(29:32):
you would do that thing differently, Like there's entrepreneurs out
there who listen and are in the middle of making mistakes.
Just made a mistake about to make a mistake and like,
if you look back, you know, what was one thing
that you did, and you'd be like, man, if I
would have done that differently, the story would be different.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Oh, there's definitely more than one.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I'm not in the middle one now, but so I
have to say for one all, actually I'm gonna give
you two because it's hard for me to give.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
One because I think that and both of them came
with Cathaway, to be quite honest.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
The first one came.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Because when money was flowing in twenty twenty one and
they were just like handing out money.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I called it handed out money. I mean, you know
it is.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We did not raise, and that's for me, the CEO
and I didn't raise because we had money in the bank.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
We were doing fine.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I didn't want to go out and raise on some
crazy valuation and it turned around and killed us.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And hurt us, you know, a year, two years, three years.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
From now, and so I was like, oh, we're fine, likes,
that's not get caught up in the giving away of
money and then we look crazy two years from now. Hindsight,
I still would not have wanted to go out and
raise ten million dollars at a one hundred and fifty
milliar valuation. I just think most people who did that
(31:01):
either end up giving that money back or end up
dying anyway because I think they didn't know how to
probably spend the money, or just there's something crazy happened.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
But I do wish I, as a CEO would have.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Made excision to raise more because I want to be
in fintech put intensive.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Second mistake that I made with Capway is I think
I and I think I know, I held on being
very optimistic a little longer than I should have. We
had a lot of M and A offers throughout throughout
(31:40):
the company. It wasn't at one point in time or another.
Throughout the company we had people say you want to
sell interested in a year see But even when things
start to go, I would say go south or go left.
I was still very optimistic. Things want to turn back
right a much quicker paste than what it did. Part
(32:05):
of being a CEO is been optimistic, though I will
say that, but I think I held on a little
too long and I made some mistakes as a CEO,
which I have no problem with admitting that I made
mistakes at the CEO that although I make these mistakes.
They've helped me a lot as a person and as
entrepreneur and as a CEO going to.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
My next adventure.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So yeah, there's probably two biggest ones that I look
back and say I could have done things.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
What's the lesson there? What's the lesson in that last one?
Don't be romantic about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I really don't necessarily have emotions when it comes to business,
especially once you get as a CEO running a startup.
My biggest lesson though is actually came more so came
from the investors who are invested in Capway, and that
was once I got to the point that I was like, hey,
fund raising is not happening. We're gonna have to take
(33:03):
probably take the M and A offer. We're going to
figure something out. And I remember just kind of fighting
through and doing all these due diligence and talking to
different people. And I had investors on my account table
who was literally like, yeah, you do more than half
of people in our portfolio because most of them been
like whatever, big company, move on.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
It's like the.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Fact that you are actually actively from a founder perspective,
like trying to get this thing sold. The fact that
you are a CEO of a founder is like trying
to figure out how to make sure everybody walks away
with something. It's like, most founders don't do that. Most
founders is like, cool, it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
It didn't work.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I didn't want to be that founder. The biggest lesson
though of it all was everybody half of that portfolio
is probably going to fail. Is it a failure? Is
it a lesson holding on to something that is not
going to go anywhere. It's not going to benefit you,
the investors, a team, or anybody else. So it's going
(34:06):
to add a whole bunch of stress. Yeah, that's going.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
To not be pretty for you in the long run.
I said, most of.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
The second twenty twenty three I completely disappeared, And that
was me bouncing back to stress and just thankfully we
had amazing investors who I feel talk to now on
our cap table.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
But that was a stress and that was me learning
hard lessons from camp Way.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, you know, I I believe in people having like
a particular mission for their life. Like you know, my
mission for my life is to create content and opportunities
to help black people realize entrepreneurial success beyond their wildest
dreams and not that you have a statement like that,
but you know, I believe that you're passionate having known
(34:58):
you that you're passionate generational wealth and whatever you do
will be helping black people figure out how they build
generational wealth. Can you talk more about your passion and
what whatever we find she in doing in a year,
two years, five years, she's going to be doing something
to tackle this issue. And so if it is generational,
will just say more about why it's so important to you.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, there's a there's a mean, mean note whatever that's
been floating around on social media, and it says generational
wealth starts with the one risk taker. So if for me,
if there's a mission, there's one thing that everything I
do lies within that, it is showing people honestly, regardless
(35:44):
of raged gender, guographical location, whatever your background, whatever your circumstances,
you can meet that one that makes a difference. Like
for me, that's everything I do kind of lies within that.
So whether that is generational wealth, when you've been the
one that takes your family from.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
One from A to B or A to Z, whether
that is you can.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Come up technical founder and nobody in your family has
ever done tech.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Uh, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Whether it is you leaving your hometown and moving somewhere else,
I don't care if you know what to be an accountant, but.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You took a chance. And when it's so different like
for me, that's it.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Sheena Allen, it's so good to be with you. Goodness
see with her.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Thank you for having.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Me, absolutely absolutely. Black Tech Green Money is a production
of Blavity afro Tech. It's a black effect podcast networking
night Hire Media. It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me
Well Lucas, with the digital production support by Kate McDonald,
say Erg and Kadi McGee. Special thank you to Michael
Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about My Guess and
other tech disruptors. An Innovator's afrotech dot Com. Video version
(36:52):
of this episode will drop to Black Tech Gree Money
on YouTube. Some tap it. Enjoy your Black Tech Dree
money Share. This is somebody get your money. Peace and love,
I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green money.
She and Allen is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, investor, and
creative architect. Her fintech startup, Capway, focuses on creating economic
access and opportunities for all through inclusive financial products and services,
including banking, content, payments, and more. With Capway, she became
(00:24):
the youngest female in the America to own and operate
a digital bank. Today, she's working on AI tools and
other technology to help non technical or early coders create
mobile applications. And so I'm interested in what representation means. So,
you know, typically when we think about representation, we think
(00:45):
about it if I grew up seeing people who looked
like me in successful positions, I see myself as potentially
being successful one day. But in your case, I want
to correlate this to your geography where you grew up
and so coming from a place that had one bank
financial institution, what does that do to the psyche of
people when they grow up and walk around, go to school,
(01:07):
go to work, and don't see any financial centers. What
does that do to you?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You know, it's interesting because you only know what you
know if you if you've never left Terry or you've
never left. That'side of Mississippi. What you see is all
that you know anyway, so it seems normal. It wasn't
until I've left that I was like, Okay, there's more
to life, There's more that this is not.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I would say it's not normal because technically for us,
it was normal.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So I don't say it affects you psychologically if it's
the only thing that.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
You know, it's not until you leave. Social media has
made a difference.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I will say that because now we through the world
for the social media. But once again, when this is
all that you know, it seems normal.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
What was your first technological entrepreneurial endeavor that showed you,
you know what, this is what I'm gonna do with
my life.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Oh well, you know, most people don't know that art
was my first love. It was not technology. So art
was my very first love. I was drawing in paintings
and like in middle school. I made my money in
high school because I used to design shoes. I would
bring me like, it's a white pair of shoes. We
were old, they were I was just fongebob shoes. I
want to hell a kiddy shoes And I would design them.
(02:25):
So that was my first love.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
I didn't. I fell into tech in college not wanting
to be there.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm being hunt and honest, I went because my dad
wasn't you forced me to go, But it was very
much a you're astrail as student. Yeah, scholarships go to college.
But I when I technology, it was always art. I
thought I was going to be an artist. That was
gonna be my I wasimate entrepreneur with the sense of art.
(02:54):
But then when I fell into the world technology, I
knew it was no question for me, like that's what
I want to.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Do, like without question. The passion for the fact that my.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
First app didn't do well with I was like, I
want to continue to do this building, build and build
without question.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
For me, that was it.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
What was the first app?
Speaker 3 (03:14):
First app was so crazy enough.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
My first app people think was the receipt app because
that's kind of what I talk about a lot. The
truth is my first app was actually an alcohol party
tale and it was I was at Southern miss I'm
not a party girl.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
By the way, I have two let feets, so you
will not see me in the in any way.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
There was an app called party, so it was mainly
because the USM, everybody was like trying to figure out
college town, what's going on, who's doing what, And it's
a smaller town so it's easier to know. But it
was also like, what if there was an app that
like just not habis a bird and sippy, but like
anywhere you could go to this app and figure out,
like what's going on in this city, especially if you're
(04:00):
not from there. So the first app idea was actually
app called party Tale and.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It actually did pretty well. And then not that was
like maybe my sophomore year of college.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
And then the first app that started, Shena Allen Aps
was my senior year of college, which was the Receipt app.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
The idea the idea was clearly I was ahead of
my time. I did was.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I wanted to make it so that if you go
to any place retail or whatever it said them giving
you your receipt, you actually scan your phone and you
can keep going with your money or receipts just through
digital versus like getting an actual receipt.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
So that was the idea of it.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
I clearly didn't know all that it took to make
that happen, so I kind of did my workarounds of
what I could. But that was the first app per
se that started not take journey, especially as Shanna Allen apps.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, I want to get into She and the Island apps,
you know, because that was something you were bootstrapping, like,
you didn't go out for funding for this first of all?
Why not? Why didn't you pursue funding?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
I didn't. I don't know what the heck I was doing.
I'm gonna say, hey, I aint know.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
I had no clue, so I had how to even
I didn't know the process of how to raise money.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
For being honest, I had no clue.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Like when I started the Journey of Technology, I got
the money from my dad, who I'm treated about the
call back two more times and it was pretty much
a piece fronted me my refundship from school. But as
far as like saying, how do I pitch, how do
I do a pitch deck, what type of investors should
I go after?
Speaker 3 (05:36):
What's a preceed round with a seed ground? I had
no clue.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
That was all foreign to me. What I knew was
just how can I get this app out.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Into the world. I didn't know boofstrepping was I back then?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I couldn't have told you what a preceed round was,
what a seed ground, what a pitch deck was.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
That was all completely foreign to me.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
The part of me not raising was not knowing how
to raise or the proper way to raise. In the
other side was it was more of like I just
wanted this think done, Like what can I do to
get this thing out?
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Now?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
My mind, which probably most of us now, my mind
is very much like am I going to do a
preseed Like what's my old front cost? Do I go
out to like preseed funding? And I got like, my
mind is different now. But back then it wasn't that
I didn't want to raise. I didn't know the proper
way or if I should be raised.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Do you believe that not having outside capital constrained the
growth opportunity or do you think that the value proposition
just wasn't there? Like what was the limiting factor?
Speaker 2 (06:40):
When I look back on it now, I actually think
I missed my mark as far as raising, because when
I say that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
There was a moment, there was a moment in time
for months and months.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Almost of a year when we were doing five thousands,
six thousand dollars a day, if not more, and.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
We're talking about millions, millions.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
And means of downloads doubling when we released it four
and I'm saying wee it was me. It was literally
just me, me and a team that I would outsource
to offshore too. When I tell you we did a
half million downloads in like two and a half three months,
like I one release of Android, I mean the downloads
were coming again, the requests were coming in.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
And I didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
I didn't realize like you're hot, like you got to
go out and like raise or like you gotta take
this thing like to the next level.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
That never runs across my mind and not in that way.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So I do feel like looking back on it, I
feel like I missed.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
I missed the mark.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
And then once I got more, once I spent time
in the Valley, spend time in Austin, I got mentors,
I really.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Learned the game.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I realized I had missed my mark, and so at
that point it's like I'm going to boostrap it, finish bootstrap,
and get what happens happens. I've learned a heck of
a lot from this, but I'm.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Not going to raise for it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So you go to Silicon Valley with I'm sure some
sort of expectations. What were your expectations going to Silicon
Valley and what was the reality living there on the ground.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Honestly, I didn't going to the valley. First off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I went there because I googled where do you go
to start a tech company? And people when I say that,
people think I'm saying as a joke, but like legit,
Like that's why I went, because I didn't know anything
about build a tech company. Versus saying what I what
I expected, I will say what I got there. What
I did not expect. I did not expect not to
(08:43):
see any black people. To be quite honest, that was
a huge shock.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
For me to not see a very small reputation of
people who look like me, a small reputation of representation
of women, a small reputation of people of color.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I was very fascinated by it, though, But you know,
I got to go. I went to like the Google campus,
and one of the first I got to meet was
at a Google meet up, which was like David Sex
was speaking. He had just so, yeahver, we're a billion dollars.
So I was very fascinated by the things I got
to see there. With the expectation I didn't necessarily have
an expectation going there of then to learn, but it
(09:22):
was a culture shock for me, to.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Be quite honest.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, before I want to ask you something about that specifically,
but I want to go back to She and Alan
apps one more time. You know, there was this quote
I found where you said the company was doing really well,
over ten thousand dollars some days, millions of downloads total,
and we did well in revenue. But I made the decision,
even as the business was growing and investors became interested,
that this wasn't going to be my home run. I
(09:46):
knew this wasn't going to be my unicorn, but it
would be my greatest lesson. Say more about that, because
when people find something that is working at any level,
it's hard to be like, you know what that's but
there's something else and not even have that something else
operational or profitable or realize yet. So tell me give
(10:09):
me the thinking.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Yeah, well, kind of, like I said, I felt like
I had missed my mark.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
When Dublin Pickxlet were doing millions of downloads. Those apps
also were being used by before social media influence, that
were being used by celebrities are people that had huge
followings and.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
I got ready to go into at the time, which
was the sixth.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
App under an Allen house brand, and I remember the
investors all of Hamilton being one crazy enough kind of
being like, you know, what you're doing is amazing, You've
done it by itself, like are you going to raise money?
And because I did feel like I had missed that
mark of being our peak, I guess you would say bootstrapping,
(11:02):
what I learned is that I only have to answer
to me, and so why when I say it's my
greatest lesson? I learned you gotta you gotta hit when
strike when when the fire is high hot.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
I did learn how to pitch.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
One of my mentors and often taught me very well
how to pitch, how not to pitch what I was
doing wrong bootstrapping, once again, you answer to yourself. Once
you raise money, every check you take your baby becomes
less of your baby. And people don't realize that. But
when you bootstrap, you on one hundred percent. So the
decisions come down to you when you raise money. The
(11:39):
decisions we raise money and we have a team.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
A real team. Those decisions you made is very heavy.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You got stakeholders, and that's just want ten x one
hundred ext their money back. Decisions that you make determined
if your team is gonna eat next month and money.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
It's real heavy.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
So I learned from bootstrapping the mistakes I made feel
only on me, and so I took that as a
lesson going into my next venture, which was b cback.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
But I learned a heck of a lot by boostracking.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
So let's talk about those apps. Where you were it
was sheena, you know, outsourcing offshore. You know, this is
some of the work you did. You did all the
ui ux work. You were doing the flow charts to respects,
the testing, and you're a non technical founder. How did
you do that? How did you find those partners, those
(12:33):
people offshore? How did you go from idea to actually
having something tangible?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, the University of Google is powerful.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, the design piece was kind of natural to me
because clearly designers. Yeah, so that that part became very natural. So,
and I had the idea in my head even from
the very first app to even to the apps I
do today.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I know what I want the apps to look like.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
So anything that you've ever seen me do, cafe website,
cafe app, any app, understand apps.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Any app I've ever been.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
A part of, at least the initial designs were done
by me, because it's my vision of how I wanted
to look, how I wanted to operate, what I want
to use to see, how what I want what I
want to use to experience. So the very first part
of like drawing it out, was pretty just normal for me.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
The second piece that comes along with that, though, is
kind of came after, but was a.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Little bit more difficult, especially early on, was I had
to learn that if I draw a screen one and
it has four buttons, I got to figure out where
each of those buttons are going to go. And I
got to be able to really explain that to the developer,
because developers are just there to develop, they're not there
to do anything else. So understanding that piece, the more
information I gave the more the easier I made it
(13:57):
for me and I made it for the developer. And
then because I also didn't have a lot of money,
it was like the availables, like, I'll do the back.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
En now you give me the design to give me
all the information. I'll call this back in with the testing,
the QA deployment that.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Will be on you so also I had I pretty
much learned because I have a choice what to learn,
and so I took that experience from the first one
and I just keep it going through all the.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Rest of Yeah. So and then I want to get
to cawwoays. So you know, coming on a visit back home,
I want you to tell this story of you know,
you you go back to Terry and you see people
still cashing their checks at Kroger or whatever grocery store
or whatever and so, and that's eye opening. I imagine, like, yo,
(14:44):
I didn't you said before, like you know, you don't
realize it when you're in it, like you don't know
nothing different. But then when you left you come back,
you like, hold on, I grew up in this and
this is still happening.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yep. Well capway in itself. You know.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
The the name is self sense for a new web
of doing capital that was that was a whole point,
that was a whole goal.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
When I did it.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
I was living in Austin at the time, and I
would come back home quite often, and it was to
your point where you asked the first time, that is
when for me it was like there's so much more
more to the world. And technology can give us access
in a way that I think none of us quite
realize it. And so the beginning of Cathway it was
(15:30):
me pretty much taking my professional experience of technology or
in the take space, in my personal experience of growing
up in a town with one bank, in a in
a state that it's number one for unbanked and under
bank residents per capital of any other state in America.
It was taking my personal experience and combining my professional experience.
(15:53):
That is how why Cathoway came to be from the
very beginning. It was a struggle from the very beginning
as far as pitching get raising money, mainly because.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Investors invest in what they know.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
First off, we talk about the lack of money that
goes to black women. That's a stat in itself, which
is a whole podcast. There comes the stats of black
women and then women. And then you're talking about a
space so that I'm going in as a black woman
with a country accent talking about fintech, unmased, under bank.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
First off, s fin tech is.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Not it's dominly a male dominated industry within a segment
of the of the tech space.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
So finances of is a male dominated industry.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
So if I just spent tech this, it's finance too,
and tech is also male dominated. A lot of people
just didn't get it. They just absolutely did not get
what the heck I was talking about. I'm like, hey,
I can if you would like to, we can drive
to Mississippi right now, and I can take you through
the Delta Mississippi. We can drive for thirty minutes. You're
not gonna steal a bank. I can show you can
(17:00):
keep money in the house right now. You know that's
the reality, and that's not the reality of Justsissippi.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
But I can give you. I can show you that.
I can tell you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
But I had investments asking me to not make up
the word unbanked, and that's who felt like this was
more of a third world country problem, Like we did
not have this problem in America. So my experience, my
love of home, my experience of home, my experience in
my community, the lack of it definitely would lead to Capway.
(17:30):
But I would tell you that it is by far.
I feel like anything I do after Capway should be
a breeze man that startup. It's so many different ways
brought me.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Yeah, So when you have the kind of background that
you have where you've done all of these different things,
these different apps ideas, and you've been able to get
them out into the world without necessarily even being technical yourself.
That lends pretty well to being able to teach other
people how to do it. So talk to me about
what you're doing today with apping out and all these
other things and you're speaking and you know, writing, and
(18:06):
talk to me about why this is, why this matters
to you and what you teach.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, so, caf Way, we're going through a transition right now.
I don't know. Yes, that's a different converation for a
different day.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But regardless of what happens with Capway tomorrow, next month,
next year, my love for financial inclusion isn't going anywhere.
So still speaking on it, still doing projects around it, consulting,
whatever the case or how it looks, I will forever
have passion for and work to some capacity, even if
(18:43):
it's just speaking about it.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
In financial inclusion, I think we have a huge gap.
We have a huge.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Issue honestly in America but also outside of America. And
so until I know those gaps were filled, which I
don't think will happen anytime soon, not even in our lifetime.
If I'm just being honest, I will always be doing
some form of work in the financial including space.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
So that's number one.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
The second thing as far as app it Out and
what I'm doing now, is I'm taking a dive into
the to the AI world. Honestly, not because it's trendy.
I actually try to run from trends for being quite
uns because well three I was like no, NFTs. I
was like you, no, anything that's trendy. I personally try
to turn a completely different, like the complete opposite direction.
(19:30):
The reason that AI for me has been interesting and
why I found myself in AI now is one with
app it Out, which is one of the products under
the AI company Mindful that I started is it's kind
of full circle.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
But I'm just being honest, So.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
App it Out is actually the AI component to it
is actually takes to software and so what I'm pretty
much doing is taking what I did ten years ago,
which was what information I need to put in in
As far as like when my lowers look like this,
I want the app to function like this.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I love like the function like this.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
In the meantime, of course, you have like your squarespace,
your which your dragon drops, But what does it really
mean for someone non technical to be able to put
it in certain information and for artficial intelligence to be
able to turn that into at least a beta version
or NDP version of an app for a website. Because
there's so so many people are non technical, so many
small business owners who can't afford or don't understand how
(20:27):
to outscore. They don't know how to even work a
dragon drop even if there was a case. So how
can I build something that actually changes that in a
world where.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Generals AI can do it?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
So that but I was kind of a full circle
product if I'm If I'm being honest, the other parts,
other parts and of the product, shall I say, they
were working one under the parent company of Mindful, which
is AI company. The language model that we're working on
is actually called GABBY and actually what it is the
(21:00):
getting of the stance for the GAB stands for gaps and.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Biases, and so one of the.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Biggest things that we're fighting with anything that we're developing
kind of that core mission, that foundation is what are
we doing what can we do to fight against the
issues that are in artificial intelligence? No matter what people say,
no matter how great it looks from the open a
eyes to all the rest of them.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
They have a lot of issues people have.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
People sometimes don't know and don't understand that artificial intelligence
is a status scraping. It's a lot of data being
put together and spit out. But if a lot of
the data it's already biased and you put it into
a data set or you put into a language model,
is actually only going to spit out more biased information.
(21:46):
And so for us, it was how do we insert
ourselves into a space.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
AI I mean open ay.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
It's not going to try to figure out how to
work with the local business owner.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
They might say they do, but they gonna work with
shutter stop.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
And it's got stocks like you should have stopped every
time to search for a black.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Personal shutter Stop. It's the same black guy. It is
exact same.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I know him when I see him on something like
that's a black guy for each other.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
But it's not just that, it's it's a it's a it'sn't.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
A lot of finance media. It's not one category. There's
a huge issue that it can be solved. It's just
that the big guys play with the big guys, So
how can we fill those gaps.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
How can we come back those biases doing things a
little different?
Speaker 1 (22:36):
And you said something after you kind of trailed off
on cafway. You're like, you know, it's a different conversation
for a different day, and I'm I'm gonna dig one
level deeper. You can go if you want to, I'm
gonna go one level. And so I feel like, you know,
you've been doing it, You've been doing this a long time.
And then there's players that come in and it felt
(22:56):
to me like the you know, the black woman got,
you know, to push to the side while all this
attention went to other places. And I wonder, and not
to throw shade it them. I mean, you got to
take advantage of the opportunities that come, you know, to you.
But the institutions that go support you know, it is
hard enough for black people, it's harder for black women.
(23:17):
And so I wonder what your take is, if you
want to go the level deeper at all, we can
do the conversation for another day today. I wonder what
your thoughts are.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
I think this iss is business like one hundred percent.
I'm not just saying that because politically correct. I think
business is business. To your point, you take advantage of
opportunity at hand. I'm not mad at them for doing that.
You took advantage of attention, you took advantage of the
right people being the face of it, and it worked
for you.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In that time. Do I agree on the sense of
I agree in the sense.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Of was it a move, a long term move that
actually helped the issues at hand? No, because the issues
at hand is not about just culture. Culture plays a
huge issue, is a huge part of it. But the
issues are so deeply rooted that I think a lot
(24:18):
of people got caught in the height and we missed
the reason that we need to be doing the work
that we're doing.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That part I don't agree with.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Running a fintech company is extremely tough because it's it's
a regulated industry, and so even when I was sitting
back and I was seeing it, it wasn't I was
pissed because they did what they did once Stan took
advantage of a moment.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
It's business your thing.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I'm knowing from the inside and the other side of
how things operate, that things are being done correctly. Because
there's a lot of red tape, there's regulations. You got
to know how to speech work reggae is completely outdated,
which is how dipus work reggae is dispused.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
And it's not just piece.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
The financial world from a regulatory standpoint is so outdated,
it's not. It has not been updated to keep up
with the digital space of today.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
And so I knew that a love that was not
going to work.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And it wasn't the most than a point of me
wishing them bad, Honestly, wasn't. I just think that a
collaborative effort or understand that space are more the roots
of what the issues were everybody could have won versus.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
When we would pitch.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Honestly, after that, it would be either one, you haven't
raised close to amount of month day raised, so you're
so far behind that even if you raise another five.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Ten million, what makes you feel that you can keep
up or out you?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
That was number one, which is wild because they don't
ask that how big of Americas on compete with Chase
or how they but it's just the black ones. Yes,
it's only room for one of y'all. To y'all.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
The second thing that we got a lot of was
from investors when we would when we would go out
of pitch. After all the you know, the hype was all, well,
we were already funded one black fintech. Yeah, and some
said that directly, some did not. And the ones who
didn't say directly, what they said is they didn't say
those exac words, but they said those exec words. And
(26:25):
it was was frustrating theirs because even though we were
too black own fintech companies, we actually didn't.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Do the same thing.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Outside the fact that we had a debit card, we were
not the same companies. Our goal overall at CAFOE.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Was building a complete ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
And that was from B to B B two CE.
Pretty much all of our technology we built in house.
So even though we had vendors that were required by
federal purposes, having a sponsor bank, you can't get around that.
You look on your on your cash up car it
says it had the sponsored bank name.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
It's the varia about a matter how big a small
you are.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
As a neo bank challenging bank, covidital bank, you have
to have a sponsored bank. So again some things you
can't get around. But outside of the things that were required,
as far as vendors actually built that in house.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
You know, our CTO donere was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
The vision from my side, the developing from his side,
The team that we had was absolutely amazing. So you
couldn't really challenge me on certain things because we built it.
You know, it wasn't that as a vendor. We literally
built it in house. We built an entire financial infrastructure
at Capway.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So I think the.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Skills that that we had, the knowledge that we had,
the team that we had who had years of experience,
you have done this for so long, going way deeper
than just surface level of culture was once again plays
a huge role because black and brown had so many issues,
but it was very level and I think that's the flush.
(28:03):
That's where the frustrating piece came for me. That and
once again, investors believe in that investing in one black
fintech means that nobody else would be funded.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
And that was where our big issues came in to
be lite honest.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You you at the startup, Survival is oxygen and oxygen
is cash.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
You have to have money.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Fin tech, particularly digital banking, is a capital intensive industry.
It's a capital intensive product. You cannot build a digital
bank with a million dollars two million dollars. You have
to have an influx of cash. So you see people
raise ten million, twenty million. I'm not mad at it
because it takes a lot of money to run fintech companies,
particularly fintech companies like that. But when you can raise
(28:47):
five million, but then you can't raise another five or
ten because everybody says, but this person are to.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Raise s fifty Yeah, yeah, so you can't.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
You know, there's no point of us investing because now
it's bull and boyd.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
They want the game.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
They won the game even if they had less traction
in US, but they won the game because they got
fifty million. And so cash is oxygen and you don't
have oxygen.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Problems are Yeah, you know when you have the vision
where you are now of the benefit of hindsight and
you still in the game because you number one, you're young,
and you've got other I think, other things going on,
and this one's not dead. Like when you look back
at your entrepreneurial journey so far, you know, can you
point to a moment where if you could take it back,
(29:32):
you would do that thing differently, Like there's entrepreneurs out
there who listen and are in the middle of making mistakes.
Just made a mistake about to make a mistake and like,
if you look back, you know, what was one thing
that you did, and you'd be like, man, if I
would have done that differently, the story would be different.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Oh, there's definitely more than one.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I'm not in the middle one now, but so I
have to say for one all, actually I'm gonna give
you two because it's hard for me to give.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
One because I think that and both of them came
with Cathaway, to be quite honest.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
The first one came.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Because when money was flowing in twenty twenty one and
they were just like handing out money.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I called it handed out money. I mean, you know
it is.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
We did not raise, and that's for me, the CEO
and I didn't raise because we had money in the bank.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
We were doing fine.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
I didn't want to go out and raise on some
crazy valuation and it turned around and killed us.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
And hurt us, you know, a year, two years, three years.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
From now, and so I was like, oh, we're fine, likes,
that's not get caught up in the giving away of
money and then we look crazy two years from now. Hindsight,
I still would not have wanted to go out and
raise ten million dollars at a one hundred and fifty
milliar valuation. I just think most people who did that
(31:01):
either end up giving that money back or end up
dying anyway because I think they didn't know how to
probably spend the money, or just there's something crazy happened.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
But I do wish I, as a CEO would have.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Made excision to raise more because I want to be
in fintech put intensive.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Second mistake that I made with Capway is I think
I and I think I know, I held on being
very optimistic a little longer than I should have. We
had a lot of M and A offers throughout throughout
(31:40):
the company. It wasn't at one point in time or another.
Throughout the company we had people say you want to
sell interested in a year see But even when things
start to go, I would say go south or go left.
I was still very optimistic. Things want to turn back
right a much quicker paste than what it did. Part
(32:05):
of being a CEO is been optimistic, though I will
say that, but I think I held on a little
too long and I made some mistakes as a CEO,
which I have no problem with admitting that I made
mistakes at the CEO that although I make these mistakes.
They've helped me a lot as a person and as
entrepreneur and as a CEO going to.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
My next adventure.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So yeah, there's probably two biggest ones that I look
back and say I could have done things.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
What's the lesson there? What's the lesson in that last one?
Don't be romantic about.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
I really don't necessarily have emotions when it comes to business,
especially once you get as a CEO running a startup.
My biggest lesson though is actually came more so came
from the investors who are invested in Capway, and that
was once I got to the point that I was like, hey,
fund raising is not happening. We're gonna have to take
(33:03):
probably take the M and A offer. We're going to
figure something out. And I remember just kind of fighting
through and doing all these due diligence and talking to
different people. And I had investors on my account table
who was literally like, yeah, you do more than half
of people in our portfolio because most of them been
like whatever, big company, move on.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
It's like the.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Fact that you are actually actively from a founder perspective,
like trying to get this thing sold. The fact that
you are a CEO of a founder is like trying
to figure out how to make sure everybody walks away
with something. It's like, most founders don't do that. Most
founders is like, cool, it didn't work.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
It didn't work.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I didn't want to be that founder. The biggest lesson
though of it all was everybody half of that portfolio
is probably going to fail. Is it a failure? Is
it a lesson holding on to something that is not
going to go anywhere. It's not going to benefit you,
the investors, a team, or anybody else. So it's going
(34:06):
to add a whole bunch of stress. Yeah, that's going.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
To not be pretty for you in the long run.
I said, most of.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
The second twenty twenty three I completely disappeared, And that
was me bouncing back to stress and just thankfully we
had amazing investors who I feel talk to now on
our cap table.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
But that was a stress and that was me learning
hard lessons from camp Way.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, you know, I I believe in people having like
a particular mission for their life. Like you know, my
mission for my life is to create content and opportunities
to help black people realize entrepreneurial success beyond their wildest
dreams and not that you have a statement like that,
but you know, I believe that you're passionate having known
(34:58):
you that you're passionate generational wealth and whatever you do
will be helping black people figure out how they build
generational wealth. Can you talk more about your passion and
what whatever we find she in doing in a year,
two years, five years, she's going to be doing something
to tackle this issue. And so if it is generational,
will just say more about why it's so important to you.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
Yeah, there's a there's a mean, mean note whatever that's
been floating around on social media, and it says generational
wealth starts with the one risk taker. So if for me,
if there's a mission, there's one thing that everything I
do lies within that, it is showing people honestly, regardless
(35:44):
of raged gender, guographical location, whatever your background, whatever your circumstances,
you can meet that one that makes a difference. Like
for me, that's everything I do kind of lies within that.
So whether that is generational wealth, when you've been the
one that takes your family from.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
One from A to B or A to Z, whether
that is you can.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Come up technical founder and nobody in your family has
ever done tech.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Uh, that's great.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Whether it is you leaving your hometown and moving somewhere else,
I don't care if you know what to be an accountant, but.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
You took a chance. And when it's so different like
for me, that's it.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Sheena Allen, it's so good to be with you. Goodness
see with her.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
Thank you for having.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Me, absolutely absolutely. Black Tech Green Money is a production
of Blavity afro Tech. It's a black effect podcast networking
night Hire Media. It's produced by Morgan Debonne and me
Well Lucas, with the digital production support by Kate McDonald,
say Erg and Kadi McGee. Special thank you to Michael
Davis and Love Beach. Learn more about My Guess and
other tech disruptors. An Innovator's afrotech dot Com. Video version
(36:52):
of this episode will drop to Black Tech Gree Money
on YouTube. Some tap it. Enjoy your Black Tech Dree
money Share. This is somebody get your money. Peace and love,
Host
Will Lucas
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