March 11, 2025 ⢠52 mins
On this episode, Butternomics host Brandon Butler sits down with powerhouse entrepreneur and media innovator Sherrell Dorsey to break down how she built The Plug into the first Black-owned tech news publication to syndicate with Bloomberg—and why she ultimately decided to sell it. Sherrell shares her approach to securing corporate sponsorships without chasing vanity metrics, the power of a hyper-engaged audience over a massive following, and why climate tech is the next billion-dollar opportunity Black entrepreneurs can’t afford to ignore. If you’ve ever wondered how to build, scale, and exit a media business on your own terms, this episode is packed with hard-won insights you won’t find anywhere else.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My audience is in the biggest audience. Our social media
numbers are the biggest, or what have you. It's like
I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness. Yeah,
I may not have an audience size of like a
million people, right, but the people who are here interact.
Every single email that I was sending, folks were responding back,
(00:22):
and so for me, it's like I can demonstrate like
our engagement is going to be better than someone who
has a large audience and they're just kind of one
of many.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of butter Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, found and CEO of Butter atl And.
Today you got somebody special in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I love I love that. I love to be considered special.
Feel good.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
You are special. You got the one, the only, Miss
Sharill Dorsey Sherill. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I am I'm doing so well. I am so excited
to be here. We like go way back you do,
and to watch how you have evolved Butter and all
of the just representation of atl and beyond has been
amazing to watch. So it's really dope to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, I appreciate that I appreciate. I also appreciate the coast.
I like, let people know I didn't just start doing
this stuff yesterday, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Not this true to this.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We've been around portion and all that kind of stuffs,
big tangs.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I was like, that was a couple of years ago.
Time just flies.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, and pandemic time especially.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, fast forward everything a couple.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Of years right, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes, I always said, I feel like the pandemic like
moved us forward like three or four years. People didn't
realize it because like even when you think about it,
like my mom, you know she didn't She literally would
never get on a zoom call to save her life.
Now she's on a zoom call with her church groups,
her friends too.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
She's like, my friends, we got our little cocktails and
zoom call. But I'm like, oh okay, girl, like faithful.
They've been faithful for years. I'm here for it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Fancy with it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, for those that don't know you are a a journalist,
the author, and investor. You've done a lot of amazing things.
Some people may know you from TP Insights, the plugs.
Something might need you from the other projects. But how's
everything going though?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Things are good and things are really good, you know,
as you know, just being in the media space, especially
as a you know, black founder CEO, especially within the
media landscape. You know, sometimes we're out here fighting for
our lives yep. And so you know, I truly, truly
appreciate all the people who were with me from the beginning,
(02:30):
from the very first newsletter. Just the idea of hey,
black tech and innovation and the innovation economy within the
spaces that we're creating deserve good coverage, deserve more answers
versus just what does it look like to be black
or how does it feel to be black? Right? But
more about like what are you building? Like what how
does this move the future forward?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
What have you?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And so just being able to build up the plug
over a seven year period, be the first black tech
news you know, publication to send decal the Bloomberg terminal,
get licensing deals with business Inside or Wired, all of
the above, vice news like you seem flex and just
a little bit a little bit. And then in twenty
(03:12):
twenty three, you know, we were able to sell to
Impact Alpha, which is an amazing impact investing platform. It's
like a must must you know, subscribe to for all
of the kind of things that I'm doing now, particularly
looking at the climate tech space and who are making
the biggest investments in those spaces and really changing the world,
(03:33):
you know, with finance and capital, and so since then,
it really has just been this kind of journey back
to my sort of original work on how do we
make the planet better? How do we make the planet
great for everyone, but particularly those who are tremendously underserved,
and right now, I mean, we're dealing with a major
(03:54):
climate crisis. So a lot of my work in this
last year since you know, since acquisition, has been hyper
focused on how do we start to create more green jobs,
get people trained up, how do we help entrepreneurs that
are building these jobs like by like focusing on climate
things like green energy or sustainability. How do we get
(04:15):
them to expand and scale right because they're the job creators,
they're going to kind of help move a lot of
that commerce. I also have a column on INC called
Power Up, so I cover women in the climate tech space,
particularly women founders in climate tech. There's so many cool
things that are happening amid all the chaos that's happening
in the world, but it has been such an incredible
(04:37):
road that really started with TP Insights formerly known as
the Plug in which just amazing folks who rocked with
me throughout that entire process of building it up and
getting all of our major wins, Like, I really owe
that to our community, an audience who'd follow the work
for years before we even got any kind of like
national recognition.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, and we didn't mean good. That's all amazing. I
think we're gonnafinitely unpack a lot of that to this conversation.
Let me let me take it back tough, Like, what
was the original insight that helped you start the plug
like in TP Insights.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, honestly, it was accidental quite you know, I just
I was sick and tired of like I worked in tech.
I worked for companies like Uber, Google, Fiber in high school.
I'm from Seattle originally. And yes, there are black people.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I've met all. I've met a couple of.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So and I worked at Microsoft in high school, and
you know, tech was such a tremendous part of my life.
And I was fortunate that all of my mentors were
from all kinds of backgrounds. But I had amazing like
black engineer family members and cousins and friends and you know,
getting like the blacks and Microsoft scholarship. Everything about my experience,
even my cousins who went to Clark and who went
(05:48):
to Morehouse and you know, became you know, software engineers
and engineers and working for like GM and Expedia and
all of these companies. For me, the idea that are
media publication, our business publications weren't talking to black folks
in the tech space about technology, not just like what's new,
what's the latest gadget to purchase? But where is this
(06:11):
technology going? Black media was missing that mark, and mainstream media,
for damn sure wasn't talking to black and brown folks
in this space. And it just got really frustrating because
I'm like, I know all of these talented, amazing people,
like why are they not included in the igey stuff?
Where the future is going and who's building it? Right?
And so so I just started I started like publishing
(06:35):
pieces on a like kind of on a freelance side
thing for like Fast Company, Black Enterprise, you know, really
just pushing folks to say, like, let's ask a different
kind of question. I even like pushed for black media
to be represented at south By Southwest like Stark twenty fourteen.
I just went to south By Southwest and I was like, hey,
the route, Like there's literally no black media down here
(06:58):
talking about what's happening in the roans and the electric
cars and all these kinds of things, Like why are
we not bringing this into the conversations we're having within
our communities. Everything can't just be like political rage bait.
There has to be some information that allows us to
connect to what people are building. So at a certain point,
the stories I was pitching they weren't being received by editors,
(07:22):
and I was like, somebody, just give me a column,
like I want to talk about I'm talking to these
amazing innovators, Like this should be a regular thing, you know.
And so with that, I was like, well, if there's
something that doesn't exist in the world, it's up to
me to create what frustrated doesn't exist, right, So a
little ten dollars domain name, little mailchimp account, you know,
(07:45):
And it was like, all right, I'm off to the races,
and you know, I'm working full time at like a
major tech startup and just sharing my experience at conferences,
really covering you know, black and brown founders as best
as I could and also sharing just some of my
own opinions and insights as well. And as I just
(08:06):
stayed consistent in doing that, getting up at like five
six am to get that done before work, more people
started sharing and it started expanding, and like I had
companies start reaching out like Yo, this is like really dope,
you know, can we sponsor? Can we do X, Y
and Z? And from there I was like, Okay, I
think I think I have something here, you know, and
and let me let me see how far this can go. No.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I mean again, I remember that launch. You know, I
was a big fan. It was definitely a subscriber I remember,
like you know that, and you know, I remember I
used to read The Hustle and all, like all these
kind of different newsletters and news this whole era which
is all that stuff. I mean even with Butter, like
we spun up kind of a Atlanta version of one,
and we learned a lot of stuff, you know, from
the things we saw the people out there doing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, you know, when it came to brands.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Starting to reach out and partnerships, like how did you
kind of figure out the way to like price you know,
your your services and what you all were doing.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know, I just listen. I've worked for companies like
Uber and Google and like being around these folks who
were just like just going there real gully, like this
is what it's worth. You know. It has less to
do with just vanity metrics and has more to do
with the value add Right. So I praised the based
off of value and I'm like, let me see how
much they're gonna give me, right, And I'm just gonna ask, like, Okay,
(09:14):
that's like nothing. I mean you're talking to like large
corporate companies that you know, just do this all the time.
It's like this is kind of chump change for them, right,
But it was very meaningful because it allowed me to start,
you know, bringing in freelancers or what have you. So
for me, I looked at the models, like you said,
like the Hustle and shout out to Adam Ryan who
became a really great mentor for me, who was president
(09:35):
of the Hustle and after they sold, he now runs
work Week. But like it was like I'm gonna help you,
like really build this out. It's all the people who
actually helped you know, the Plug as well. But I
looked at all of these other publications and you know,
tried to find like their rate cards and things like that,
right because because folks used to publish them so you
can kind of see like how much it costs. But
(09:57):
more point, I just was like, I'm gonna just throw
a number out there and see and see what they say,
you know, and see if they say yes.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, you know, whoever blinks first. First you got to
ask yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know, you know, just Uber train me well, because
I would, you know, I would watch my team members
and you know, our general managers would push us to
like just ask for the biggest number and see what
they say and start from there. So I got used
to just like, oh, yeah, this is this is who
we are, this is who we represent. And having your
data down right, you know who you know, who your
readers are, you know what your open rates are, your
(10:25):
click through rates, you know, really knowing the psychographics of
your audience and being able to speak to that and
showing that level of competence of what in what you're building.
So I felt confident going in also and saying like,
well I want this.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I think you know. That's something I've kind of
told people in the past too. I think a lot
of times when people are working on you know, businesses
or projects, a lot of times there's scared to ask
for larger amounts because I think sometimes they think about
it from their standpoint, like and I always say, like,
this ain't your money, This is in the same thing
mighty to be totally honest, absolutely, but you know, like
you know, I've told people it's like, you know, you
can't like if you've ever had to put the down
(11:00):
payment on the house, you ever bought a car, like
you understand, like these these numbers get thrown around all
the time. So don't you know, you know, miss an
opportunity because you're scared to ask for a bigger number because
you just haven't experienced that personally, right, Like that's where
you actually grow. And and to your point, like you know,
content needs a business model. So if you want to
bring on you know, people and teams and freelancers and
stuff like that, you got to ask some day of
(11:21):
money so you can actually pay them.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You have to ask for some money. And also I
think that a lot of times we feel like, oh,
you know, my audience isn't the biggest audience. Our social
media numbers are the biggest, or what have you it's
like I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness, right, Like, yeah,
I may not have, you know, an audience size of
like a million people right right out of the gate,
(11:45):
but the people who are here interact. Every single email
that I was sending folks or responding back, people were
sharing their own news and information or a leaked email
or something like that to add into you know, what
the plug was doing. And so for me, it's like
I can demonstrate, like our engagement's gonna be better than
someone who has a large audience and they're just kind
(12:06):
of one of many versus. My goal was to slow
down the news and actually, you do real journalism right,
especially when it came to covering black folks in the
innovation economy. It was like, you're gonna read this story,
you gonna sit, You're gonna sit with me for about
good five ten minutes. We're gonna I'm gonna have you
digest this. So on top of the value that I
added in covering this space in the way no one
(12:29):
else was, it was I want to slow this down
in a world full of noise where everything's like entertainment
focused and like a nice headline here and nice headline there,
like no, like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sit
and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna ramp up our
vocabulary and we're gonna learn these terms, we're gonna click
these links, you know, and we're gonna engage in the
actual conversation. And so I got to use that as
(12:49):
like a lot of the selling you know, point and
proposition of like, hey, I'm not we're not talking about
junk food over here, like we're we're really talking about
them season. The greens got real season, they got clean,
real good, they got washed real good, you know. And
so you're gonna sit here, You're gonna you gonna sit here,
you're gonna eat, right, And so that's what I was
able to sell to our partners and our sponsors and
advertisers and even grant and foundation partners.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'm gonna ask everybody to start putting things in terms
of college rooms because one, that's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But like that's a favorite thing to make quite honestly.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Now, on that journey, you said us around around like
seven years of the plug, like, what was one of
your favorite moments along that journey?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Oh, my gosh, I have so many. I still have them.
I still have people who come up to me and say,
we miss you, or I got an opportunity because we
were featured. There was a handful of times where maybe
in the first couple of months, you know, folks would
say because of you and in best who subscribes to
(14:01):
the Plug reached out to us and we got a check,
we got an investment as a result of being featured
in the Plug, And that was an impact measure that
I had not considered when I started the Plug. Was
that And that's also how we ended up becoming tp
insites because we started to look at our back end
(14:22):
data of who was subscribing and it was investors from
all over and other media reporters who were starting to
source stories and people from us as well, and so
the level of influence we had was just tremendous. But
those are probably the stories that I remember the most,
is folks really like just being grateful to be added
(14:43):
and considered who then that outcome was we got seen
or we got an opportunity as a result of the
journalism that you and your team have done. So yeah,
that probably stands out the most. And us getting our
publication syndicated on the Bloomberg terminal, so for those who
don't know what the terminal is, so you know, there's
like Bloomberg dot com. Right, And also had I had
(15:05):
read Bloomberg by Bloomberg, which was Bloomberg's autobiography that he
wrote himself about himself the other things that he did, right,
and it really made me think about the business model
for the plug. So again, as I told you, I
started off with this newsletter right, kind of as just
like a hobby something I wanted to do, something I
(15:26):
just wanted to contribute and add, you know, to the community,
and then kind of had to morph it into this
business and then eventually make the decision to just go
full throttle. Well I only felt comfortable doing that because
I had a blueprint of the Bloomberg business model. So
Bloomberg didn't start off as a media company. And it
(15:48):
started off as this kind of software service, like early, early,
early software service covering bond markets. Okay, right, so essentially
back in the day, So bloom Bloomberg started off as
a trader on Wall Street. Right, And if you can
consider even like watch all those like wolf Wall Street,
(16:08):
like all those you just see all the people down
there with the papers and stuff. So think about it.
You've got these markets that get open. There's not a
digitized system for tracking what's happening as the market is
fluctuating throughout the day. So Bloomberg in his cast of characters,
are like in the basement taking all this data and
creating a computer program based on this bond market data,
(16:32):
the first to digitize it, right, and so that then
became the Bloomberg Terminal. So taking and place in all
this data that no one else was like putting into
any kind of a system, and then licensing it to
some of the top financial firms. So that's really where
like the billionaire Bloomberg came from, was this particular foundation.
(16:54):
So now you have all the top financial analysts in
the world that have to subscribe to the Bloomberg They
called it the terminal to the Bloomberg terminal, because this
is going to help you do your job. If you're
going to be controlling other people's wealth, you need to
know what's happening, right, You're going to get that in
real time from the Bloomberg Terminal. So from there, then
(17:15):
of course you've got all this business insight and information.
The next thing you do is you launch a media company,
because now you can be a leader in business information.
So when I thought about TP in sites, and I
thought about how we can be the collectors and drivers
of black innovation data. Specifically, we can sell that data
(17:36):
to the financial markets and investors and all these people
who are trying to figure out what's happening with black
folks in business from the startup perspective, not just like
your general government, you know, like who has a small
business and runs a brick and mortar, but actual innovation
in these spaces that no one was collecting data on.
(17:56):
Then we can sell that and that can run and
drive and cover the costs of the media company. So
that was the thinking. So going back to your original question,
one of the proudest moments following folks who said that
they have been impacted by the work. The other problem
moment was getting the email from Bloomberg to have a
conversation about the plug being on the Bloomberg terminal. Because
(18:19):
I started with that model and so it was kind
of like a Okay, I did what I did, what
I said I wanted to do. I accomplished what it
is that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to become the
black Bloomberg. And now they're reaching out to us. Literally
the first black business publication to syndicate on the Bloomberg
terminal where half a million financial analysts around the globe
(18:40):
are reading and digesting and learning about what's happening in
business to advise their clients on where to invest. So
for me, that was like krim delachrome.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And how long was it between you know, you giving
that insight from reading that autobiography to that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Coming up you ask the entrepreneur man, Time doesn't exist,
It all blurs together. My gosh. I want to say
I launched the Plug in twenty sixteen, and I want
to say maybe by twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. I was like,
all right, let's let's really like make this a thing.
And I think I think I read yeah, Bloomberg by Bloomberg,
(19:18):
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I was like, all right,
that's gonna be my goal. And yeah, we started syndicating
twenty twenty. I want to say, Okay, So yeah, it
was like it was levels, but maybe a two year
period after, like I kind of set the goal, and
that also helped me to really focus on how can
(19:39):
we be the best business reporters on Black Business News
because nobody else was you know, now they are because
we set the page right. So yeah, but you know
we're just working, We're just working.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I mean it's interesting too write like to even have
that insight, because media companies are hard, you know, just
from like and figure out like what that right business
model is. And you know you started doing that, it
started going. Then when did the kind of the opportunity
come around to where you decided, Okay, maybe this is
time to sell it and grow it or do something else.
Like what kind of made you start having those thoughts?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, media companies are hard. Black led, black owned, black
centered media companies are even harder. Yeah, advertising dollars, the
industry already was, you know, was taken aback. Buy technology,
buy social media companies, buy search engine companies. Like, all
the ad dollars shifted, right, and so the the feast
(20:35):
of what used to be the ad industry you know,
got became increasingly thin. Right. And then on top of that,
not only are the dollars when you're competing with folks
like the New York Times right, or the Wall Street
Journal or even bet right in terms of like the
vast reach of your of your audience for ad dollars.
(20:58):
If these big players are competing forevers, imagine when you're
like a smaller outfit in a very very niche space, right,
what it's like to coerce advertisers to come in or
and then on top of that, being black in a
space where twenty twenty twenty twenty one, you know, okay,
everybody's spending money with you, right because of the murder
(21:21):
of George Floyd, because of all of these things that
you know are happening in the world, as you know,
relates of course to you know, the way that black
people are treating in society. And then by twenty twenty two,
the conversation is shifting, right, So the dollars, the phone calls,
the emails, they start to slow up. And I had
(21:41):
to really make some really interesting decisions and have really
hard conversations with not just advertisers and funders and investors,
but also with colleagues in the space. Because my biggest
challenge was I've led my team thus far. You know,
I had folks who came to me from like the
(22:03):
Weather Channel, CNN, Forbes just amazing, you know companies, and
you know, being able to like platform them was amazing.
And I'm like, well, if we have to spend the
next three to five years, you know, chasing and trying
to just get to where we are every year and
(22:23):
not seeing tremendous growth or having to do things that
are outside of our wheelhouse, is that responsible for me
as a leader? Is that responsible for me to my
team versus finding a key partner that can help us
expand and do the kind of do more of the
kind of work that we want to do and have
(22:44):
more of the conversations that we want to have instead
of just trying to be independent on our own right.
And so it was it was not a decision that
you make all at one time. You know, you start
to survey the landscape. You start to survey who's spending
where and how, and you know, again, how do we
stay true? How do we still do great work? And
(23:07):
our team was relatively small, so like six to eight
people full time, and then we had freelancers all over
the world and mostly black journalists I think ninety eight
percent like black business journalists, which is also really hard
to find. Yeah, very very difficult to find, and so,
you know, and then and then at some point it
(23:28):
was just like I'm actually ready for something else. Once
we like hit a lot of those milestones, it was like,
all right, this is amazing. I want to go work
on climate, you know, like I want to go like
figure out how we continue to breathe air and water
and make sure like black and brown communities aren't like
left when all these other people go to Mars, right,
(23:50):
we actually have a Liverpool planet. And so it was
just it was just it was it was about time,
you know, it's about time. And some people build for forever.
And what I recognize about myself is that I'm a
zero to one founder. I'm a like, let me build
something that doesn't exist, let me stand it up, let
me resource it, let me put the right people into place,
and then like go to God. Yeah, you know, like
(24:11):
take it to the next thing, and then like I
can move on into all these other things that like
I'm put on Earth to do. And it took me
a while again to kind of get there and to
feel like, all right, I'm going to help my existing
team transition to where their next level is. And in
the meantime, you know, have faith that like my work
did what it was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, I mean that really resonates to me. You talk
about like the whole zero to one versus like the
one end kind of founder, right, because yeah, there are
some people even I feel like that way about certain things.
It's like, look, I'm really good at getting stuff up
and running and getting it to a certain point. But
you got to ask yourself. It's like, all right, do
I was still going to be doing this in five years,
ten years? Like do I see myself as a person
that's going to run and scale this thing for the
(24:51):
next decade?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Or do I want to take it this far?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I've created, it exists now, yeah, let me find somebody
else can kind of take it and run with it. Now.
One thing I kind of wonder about it. We'll definitely
get into this climate stuff next. One thing I wonder
you know, when I went to grad school and I
finished up, I was in shock, is like the way
I kind of put it right, Like I was so
I had so much stuff to do and it was
just so much like it was a NonStop that like
(25:15):
the first day after grad school, I just was kind
of sitting there like, so am I supposed to be
doing something? Like it just felt weird to have extra
time for a little bit. I kind of wonder like
when you exited that business, did you have kind of
a similar experience of situation, Like were you just so
much in it? Like wow, you know what we like,
it's officially sold. It's off now, Yeah, like damn, what
(25:36):
do I do?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Is this a safe space? Like okay, it's a safe space.
So first of all, yeah, grad school, grad school is
is boot camp, it is any ways. So honestly, the
plug had become my identity. You know, you run something
for seven years, you put your heart, your soul, your
(25:57):
entire life is around it, like you are that thing, right,
That's where everyone knows your work from. That's how you
get into every room, into ever, be on every panel
highlighted like that is your body of work. And I
want to say, like the day that we announced like
our last piece, our last publication date, I well, I
(26:22):
turned off my email and I turned off my phone
because I was not ready for the calls and the
you know what have you? And then I went to
the Bahamas and I was like I just need I
need a second to figure out like I was way
too pressed to figure out what was next because my
whole identity, like I wanted to be like, yeah, this
is what I'm starting now, and I wasn't trying. I
(26:45):
wasn't allowing myself to have just the room to breathe
and to just look up and say, wow, that was
a ride. And now like where is life leading me next?
And so I will say a week later, you know,
back from the Bahamas, a pretend refresh, right, because now
I have to come back and respond to all the
(27:06):
messages and every everybody was just amazing. It was amazing.
It was like, man, like you really helped shape my
trajectory and I got into this because of you, or
we got funding me because of this, or just well done,
just beautiful supportive messages. I did not know what to
do with myself, Like I really didn't. I had to
(27:29):
figure out a routine because I wasn't you know, having
all hands on Wenday like I legit had to figure
out like okay, I'll Monday, I'm gonna do this on Tuesday,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Time.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, but the biggest thing was like, well, how do
you like what is your title? Now? Like what do
you do. Like that part was like, oh, snap, I
don't have I'm just here, you know what I'm saying,
and like trying to figure out, like, now how do
I do I tell myself? Oh, like I'm the former
you know, founder CEO of the plug. I Yeah, it was.
It was a very interesting It took me probably about
a solid year to recover from that and to find
(28:02):
my footing and my sense of self and identity and
just myself and not necessarily just what I produce, right,
but also to look at you know, as you know,
like being a founder, being an entrepreneur is one of
the most significant personal and professional development things the experiences
you could ever have. Right. It makes you stronger, more resilient,
(28:23):
It increases your emotional intelligence. You become a stronger leader
if you're trying to be good at what you do. Now,
some people are just straight ass, right, you know, they
don't care. But if you actually have cared about your journey,
you've also come out on the other side as a
very different person, and so you're not just trying to
jump into the next thing like you're trying to find now,
meaning right, you've had some successes, so it's like I'm
(28:45):
trying to find and to do meaningful work next. And
the amount of phone calls that I got to like, oh,
can you come be the CEO of this? Or can
you come do X, Y and Z and you know,
or can you come help us run this fund? And
you know, just things that like sounded good and nice
and prestigious and like a really dope like, oh, now
I'm popping out, like you know, look what I just did.
Now I'm popping out. Things just there were there were
(29:06):
things that like sounded good but just didn't didn't feel
quite right. And it was literally a conversation with my
mom and she just said, it's okay for you to rest.
It's okay for you to just rest for a second.
And she's like, you have far exceed our expectations. You know.
She was like, we know you're gonna do all this
because you know, when I was like, I'm the entrepreneur
(29:27):
and they're like, why don't you get a job, a job,
like get a whole job, you know, and so yeah,
I feel like I feel like it took me a
little while to figure out, now, this is what I
want to be and this is how I want to
build because in the beginning, especially when you're building something
of this magnitude for the first time, like you just
try to survive every single day, So fourteen fifteen hour
(29:50):
days on planes because you had to be you know,
saying yes to everything, yes to everyone, having a hire,
having a fire. After a while, that takes a big
toll on your body, right, So I had to really
take a step back and just say, Okay, the next
thing I build, I want to build it sustainably. I
want to build it in a way that doesn't take
(30:10):
away from my health, it doesn't take away from my family,
and it is done in a way that is smart,
and there's some automations and I'm using all the technology
I'm talking about every single day to run this, right. So, yeah,
it was tough, and I had a lot of really
interesting offers on the table that just didn't feel right.
(30:30):
But then the things that did come through the door
that were just as a result of the relationships built,
the work done and demonstrate just even to this day,
like so much of the things that I have going
on now are just based off of people are like, oh,
we saw that, Like you're rocking that perfect, You're doing
this next thing, Let's go I.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Think definitely resonates with me. I mean, even when I
think about the stuff we've done with Butter, it's like, yeah,
how do you if I did want to do something
like how do you separate yourself from the thing that
everybody kind of knows you about?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And then even just yeah, there's there's it's almost like
a because you spend all day on these things. Again,
this is the part I think people don't like. People
talk about all they sold there was an exit. It's like, yeah,
but that person probably poured so much themselves into that
thing that while yes, they got some money out of it,
and it's not there like now that's a new that's
a void that you have to fill in some way,
shape or form. And so you know, and I've been
(31:28):
there in a similar thing too, where you know, I
used to have another business that I was running and
I didn't do the best job I think. I mean,
it's a very common thing, especially with entrepreneurs, right, Like
you kind of build a team based on who you
have access to, So a lot of times it's your
friends and just people you know. And so I don't
think I did the best job building that team. And
because I know because every time my phone rang, I'd
(31:48):
have a damn anxiety attack.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I'd like, oh God, what what what? What is? What
went wrong? Now?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And you know, I remember I went on vacation and
I had to like literally lock my phone in the
safe because because I was out to the point to
where anytime I even got a notification, I would just
have this feeling of anxiety. And again, think about how
many times your phone goes off over the course of
a day, Like I'm just talking about like generic spam emails,
like you don't even know us, Like I don't even
know what I'm about to look at. And so I
(32:15):
did the kind of the same thing as when I said,
like my next thing I build, I can't do it
like this. It can't be so wrapped up in every
single aspect of it to the point to which, yeah,
like I literally didn't want to even look at my phone.
And I think, again, people don't talk about that side.
They talk about you know, oh it's great and you
do all this stuff. It's like, yeah, but these people
put so much themselves into this thing. You know, my
guy Mady Mighty Water was talking about something on socially
(32:38):
the other day, like, you know, for businesses that fail,
it's like the same thing even if you have success,
but for those businesses that fail, it's like you put
so much of yourself into it and it didn't work outright,
Like give yourself some grace, yes times.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Some time, because you do. You have to recover, you
have to take you have to have those quiet moments,
and some people again they go I do admire people
who go right into the next thing, because I'm like,
I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean I did a
lot of quiet stuff in the background, but you know,
the relationship to what we produce, and I don't know
(33:13):
if it's just like distinctively American that we're like this,
you know, because we're all about production and efficiency and
growth and scale and all those kinds of things. But yeah,
but at the same time, it's like, I'm so glad
that I built that way because if I didn't have
that muscle, I wouldn't know how to now build very
(33:34):
differently because you need that like that. You know, people
talk about pay your dues, but I think it's more
of like building that tough skin and also building the acumen,
like you know, when there's a terrible deal on the table,
you know how much to charge. You now know that
you can't always hire your friends and your cousins, you know,
to be part of the business, and you love them,
but like, no, you can't work for me because you're
(33:55):
not going to You're not what I touched it too,
don't and I don't want to babysit you, right, So
you get to all of that, like, if we didn't
have all that, we wouldn't know how to build what
we're building today, right, and we probably wouldn't know how
to Oh this is true for you, But I was
someone who really had like a temper, right, and so
(34:15):
if I felt a disrespect, I'm popping.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Off about it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I don't let you know. And you can't always do
that in business, right, And so it's also like, how
do you also become a better communicator so that when
something is not right for what you're trying to accomplish,
you can get to where you need to get to
right and turn conversations around, or turn deals around, or
just say Okay, that's not for me, you know, and
(34:39):
keep it pushing, because now I expend all this energy
being upset, right, versus like, all right, so what is
our solution let's get to a solution. And even you know,
if you have to deal with or speak to and
especially coming to the tables as black entrepreneurs and black
women entrepreneurs, like folks will be in rooms talking to
us crazy absolutely a lot of times and just tell
(34:59):
you to your face, we don't think you're worth this much.
We don't we don't value this or what have you?
Or we already spent our black dollars, you know, like
we already spend our our black people budget, you know,
so we're not gonna we're not gonna spend more budget
with more black people. There's only gonna be one. There's
gonna be that one media company that gets our black dollars.
And and it's only the two percent of their overall
(35:20):
marketing budget, right that they're already spending with other people.
And instead of like getting frustrated and cutting people out, what.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
You want to do a lot of time, what you
want to do, right.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You're like, don't play with me, right, don't be over
your planet in my face. But you you learn that
sense of tact and like true leadership of you know
what this situation is, what it is? Right? But I
have to remember the mission I have to remember that, like,
(35:53):
we still got to get to the other side of this.
So how am I gonna make this work? And it
may not be with this particular entity, but I have
to figure out how to make this work and run
because I'm going to get obstacles all the time for
whatever reason and for whatever bias people have.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, and you know it's yeah again, it's funny you
talk about even just leadership.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I was talking to a friend of mine and I'll
just say, like I can tell I've spent a lot
of time, especially for last I'd say maybe four or
five years learning how to be a leader, you know,
and I and I can really tell, you know, even
when I see how certain people interact with their teams,
It's like, yeah, that person has probably never been to
a single leadership training seminar, They've never read a book.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
On it's an executive coach.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
An executive coach, And you know, I can really tell.
And I think like that also is kind of a
little bit of a a secret sauce, right, It's like,
which is again you know that you have to do it,
Like people don't really understand the value of what it
takes to really be a good leader to have, you know,
to be able to give clear directions, to be able
to hold people accountable, and the right kind of way
to be able to communicate. It's just those are things
that I you know, you kind of learned a little
(36:55):
bit through hustle. Yeah, but you know it's again, it's
like you can only hustle so far, like sooner you've
got to actually add a little you know, some frameworks,
some context to how you're doing things. Otherwise you're just
making stuff up and that will definitely stress you out.
But you know you've done that, and then you start
a pivoting So why climate tech? Like do you say
they're gonna leave us and go to Mars?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
So we got to figure out what we're going to
go over here, you know, honestly, and just really quickly
just to the whole point of like, you know, learning
leadership skills. And I think that so much of the
entrepreneurship conversation is focused on money, yeah, right, And I
think that it's kind of been weaponized like, oh, you know,
we're better than you because we are out here trying
to doing it for ourselves. And I think that what
(37:38):
I have realized is if you want to be really good,
if you want to get really good and you want
to build meaningfully, it's not yeah, like, of course we
don't want to give them money, like that's that's a byproduct.
But it really is about studying like actual business or
you have to be a student of business and student
of people. That's the biggest thing. You have to be
(38:00):
able to navigate around egos and personalities and culture in
order to get really good at what you do. Because
if you can read and study people, you can sell,
you can market, you can build, you can analyze, you
can be in any room on the planet and be
able to do really solid business. But if you're wrapped
(38:21):
up in your own ego about like just making money,
like I'm sorry, Like I think that's just shitty entrepreneurship
at the end of the day. But yeah, climate, how
do we get there? I told you I'm from Seattle,
So Seattle is a very hippie, dippy place, right, It's
like absolutely. When I came to Atlanta, was in birken
Sox all the time, right, And we had an environmental
(38:45):
education when I was very very young. The environment and
care for the environment was embedded in our curriculum, so
coming to the other side of the country and learning
that basic things were not taught was very foreign. We
were very much one with nature. There's always a hike
camp interest. While on camp today we had to learn
(39:07):
about the plants and which ones will save you or
which ones you can eat, and what banana slugs are.
Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, very very much, very
much so like hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, all those things.
So grew up with a tremendous left for the environment.
And then as I was, you know, building and growing
(39:27):
the Plug, we did try to cover as many tech
centered environmental businesses, black owned businesses as much as possible
who were dealing with things like water or energy or
like pulling carbon out of the air and turning it
into protein and like really dope shit like that. They
don't get as much shine because it's sometimes gonna be
(39:50):
a little bit harder to grasp exactly what they're doing.
And so even before I made a decision to sell,
I was building out a climate vertical for the Plug.
Oh okay, And I think that was my attempt to
try to start working on what I really wanted to do.
And at some point like it was just it was
(40:11):
just really hard to recruit a black business journalist that
was focused on environment or had some kind of a
scientific writer background. Super challenging. So this pivot is more about, now,
how do we use all this innovation and build things
that we actually need. Because we don't need more delivery apps,
(40:33):
we don't need that, and we don't need any more
things that are going to waste away in the ocean
or go into a landfill. But what do our people?
What are people going to need? Water, clean air, right
ways to eat, and all of these things are being
threatened in our environment now. And then when we think
(40:55):
about all these natural disasters, who are the folks that
impacted the most? Right to look like me and you?
But the lack of focus on creating tools that are
going to support our liveli than in the future. And
I always always say this, and hopefully I think listeners
and viewers really get this. I think black and brown innovators,
(41:17):
if y'all want to build something today, go into the
climate tech space. There's just wide open opportunity and the
category is almost endless. This country is going to have
to modernize the grid. This country is going to have
to work on energy and dependence, you know, and we
know that this new administration is like trying to pull
back a couple of things. But they're going to be
(41:39):
heavily investing in geothermal technologies. There's going to be some
more investments in renewable energy. There's lots of opportunities and
even if you want to build in the space, you
could become an ev charging station technician. You've got Camille
Arry and Yvette Ellis, two black women out of Compton
who built up Charger Help, which trains will community to
college degree which trains people how to fix electric vehicle
(42:03):
charging stations. Series a black women found a company straight
out of content. Like when I tell you that this
is a billion dollar company and folks are getting trained
and started off making thirty five dollars an hour fixing
the charging stations that we're going to need to power
all of our electric cars. Like that is significant and
important to the way that this world is moving and
(42:25):
also the opportunities that are going to be given as
things like artificial intelligence are changing and transitioning. But all
of that to TLDR is there's so much opportunity here.
There's so much opportunity for us to build there's going
to be so much wealth created as a result of
what's the very major in immediate issues in climate. And
(42:49):
I just I didn't see or I don't see enough
of us in the tech and startup spaces in the
ecosystems that we're a part of talking about this a mass, Right.
I felt like so many of the conversations and even
the pitches that we would get at the plug, I'm like,
I don't care about this. I legit would just delete
people's emails like this is stupid, This is stupid. Literally,
(43:11):
the world is dying quite literally, like our kids don't
have access to healthy food. Like, solve that for me.
Tell me, you're you're putting a you know, a one
of those container Yeah, you know one of those Yeah,
a container grocery store or something, or a hydroponic farm
that you're you know that you have in a container
store that like is on the corner, you know, where
(43:32):
there's a food desert and you're growing fresh fruits and
vegetables Like that to me is dope, Like I don't
I don't care about this other stuff y'all do, right,
And so I'm a little biased on that end, but
there's so much opportunity and and I think as as
as folks that look like us, we've got to be
in the space on all levels.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Where specifically are you most interested that in that space?
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Oh my gosh, definitely food. I think that you know,
this move towards more sustainable agriculture and how we grow
food and how we distribute food, it's gonna be really fascinating.
I think Julia Collins sold her regenerative Snacks Black Women
to Patagonia two years ago. Prior to that, she had
a company or the company now was called Forward Health,
(44:28):
and I think it was Moonshot Snacks, So y'all got
to look it up. Amazing, amazing, very low key, but
like one of the dopest black women founders on the planet.
Prior to that company, she had a robot beizza delivery company.
So when I tell you, like there's true genius out here,
like in this space, there absolutely is. So yeah. So
(44:49):
definitely on the food scene, I think water is so
significant and so important even when we think about it
becoming commodity and people now or some investors now like
finding ways to privatize public water, Like I don't think
we understand how dystopian this really is that when people
(45:11):
get control of our water supply and now you got
to buy a bottle of water for fifty bucks. Right,
we saw what's happened in Flint that still has not
been resolved contamination issues. Verunna Technology is another black owned
company that does analysis on water for municipalities, again building
(45:31):
another billion dollar company. The infrastructure the United States has
not been updated or changed or replaced in over fifty years.
So we're talking old water pipes, all those kinds of
special landlands.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
We got clay pipes in the ground. That's why. That's
why floods every time in rain.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
It's gonna say because I had to replace mine at
my house because I was like, these are from nineteen
twenty two, and I need some new I need some
updated technology. So I think just the basic things that
like we need to survive as human beings really fascinate me.
In green energy, I love in green architecture. There's you know,
these these new building styles like passive houses or net
(46:10):
zero houses. So your house essentially generates all of its
own electricity, right, So it's beyond solar panels, it's everything
in your house is regenerative. And so think about a
world where there's like very few utility bills, right and
in your home is also not harming the planet. And
we saw just even in you know, in La with
(46:32):
all the fires and just people who have lost their
homes been insane. And now you know, there's a couple
of houses that are standing that were specifically built and
designed to withstand environmental disasters, right, Like, there's amazing stories
on this, and of course these people are like like
literally my house, all my neighbors are gone, but like
(46:53):
their house is still standing just by nature of how
it was designed from an environmental perspective. And so I
as you can see, like I'm fascinated by all of
this because there's no one right answer and there's no
one right space. So you can really pick something to
study and to learn about and to see where your
skills may fit to help build and grow those industries
(47:13):
and distribute them in equitable ways, particularly to our communities.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I think, you know, that's interesting, Like, and I think
a lot of times too, just because maybe maybe in
our communities we don't use a lot of those products,
so we think it's a little bit more further off
than it is, you know, but like a you know,
it's going to get affected.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Everybody's going to be affected.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I remember at I was at south By Southwestern one
the year and I went to this really interesting panel.
It was called President twenty fifty, and what they were
talking about was they said, you know there are groups that,
hypothetically speaking, they could engineer a president. They said, because
what we can do is we can forecast out that
what the issue is going to be in twenty fifty,
Like we know that water, access to water is going
(47:52):
to be an issue. We know we know that accessity
sing is going to be an issue. So what if
you know, some group, some illuminati group with a bunch
of money decided, you know what, we're going to produce
the president. So what we're going to do is we're
gonna make sure that, you know, when this kid is
growing up, we got pictures of him with the lemonades,
the picture of her with the lemonade stand. And then
we're gonna make sure when they go to college that
(48:12):
they're they're taking classes on you know, access to clean
water and like environmental stuff like that. And we're gonna
basically engineer this person so that when it's time for
them to run, you can look at all because all
their history is going to be documented, Like they've got
this whole documentation said this person was pretty much born
to be president because look at what they've done. But again,
like if we already know what the issues are going
to be, and to your point, we know who's going
(48:33):
to get affected by it first. And so yeah, we
have to make sure that our communities understand this stuff
because I'm telling you, my parents going to Stolle the mountain,
it's a food desert. If they want to drive and
get a salad, they got to drive, you know, thirty minutes.
Now they want to get some Jamaican food, some wings
or some liquor. Oh, that's right around the corner, but
like an actual sit down restaurant. Yeah, you're back in
(48:55):
Atlantic sublimitive wings while you out here, you know what
I'm saying. But yeah, access to this stuff is really important.
So it's something we definitely need to, you know, start
getting ahead of what's next for you, Like, are you
gonna build something in that space? Are you gonna build
another you know, let you can you give us any insights?
Is that still in the works right now?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
A lot of things in stealth mode are happening right now,
and I've got some amazing partners, and so y'all will
see the work being done. I haven't decided when we'll
get out of stealth mode just yet. Right now, we're
just focusing on doing the work. And I think maybe
in a couple of years of fun that's gonna particularly
invest in climate tech. But you know, right now, my
(49:34):
goal is to amplify the voices of the black and
brown vcs that are in this space, the founders that
are in this space, and just really help to do
more storytelling because a lot of times, you know, not
everyone really cares about this stuff, right, But I bet
you care about your utility bills being lowered, right, Like,
that's a conversation we can have, right And when we
(49:56):
talk about money, and we talk about, Okay, you can
get this job. You can get this job that happens
to be a green job, but oh, it's gonna pay
you a great living wage. It's gonna be able to
afford you to buy maybe one of these passive houses
that are being newly built in these new communities. Right
I think actually Atlanta is there's like a whole new
like cottage community that's like very equal friendly or something
(50:17):
like that's starting to pop up. So those are like
the relevant conversations to have versus just oh, like wind turbines,
like no one, no one wants to talk about that,
you know what I'm saying, Like me limit wings, like
don't want to talk about wind turbines. So yeah, so
so you know, there's there's still some stealth mode things,
and but I'm working with some incredible people and partners
(50:39):
and yeah soon come okay.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Well sharill before we get out of here. I know
you're in stealth mode. But how can people find you,
support you the stuff you're working on?
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Yeah, absolutely definitely go to my website Charrelle Dorsey dot com.
Actually do a newsletter once a month that's called Regenerative.
And so for those who are not like all into
this green space, I just try to like share opportunities
to connect everything from business opportunities to just like what's
going on? What does that mean for you personally? So
just ways to learn, you know, very very basically, and
(51:09):
then just LinkedIn Instagram threads. We're not on X anymore,
you know, we boycotting X, but yeah, I'm all over
the internet all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Okay, well, chill, this is great, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Thank you so much for pulling up. I'm gonna go
figure out me something can start up in climent tech.
You got me inspired out here, but I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for pulling up. And that's the pod.
Y'all we out.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You've been listening to button Nomics and I'm your host,
Brandon Butler. Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show.
Send us an email today at hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Casey Pegram, with marketing support from Queen and Nikki. Music
provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that
subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure
(51:59):
to fallollow us on all our social platforms at butter
dot a t L. Listen to better Nomics on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
My audience is in the biggest audience. Our social media
numbers are the biggest, or what have you. It's like
I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness. Yeah,
I may not have an audience size of like a
million people, right, but the people who are here interact.
Every single email that I was sending, folks were responding back,
(00:22):
and so for me, it's like I can demonstrate like
our engagement is going to be better than someone who
has a large audience and they're just kind of one
of many.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of butter Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, found and CEO of Butter atl And.
Today you got somebody special in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I love I love that. I love to be considered special.
Feel good.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
You are special. You got the one, the only, Miss
Sharill Dorsey Sherill. How are you doing today?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I am I'm doing so well. I am so excited
to be here. We like go way back you do,
and to watch how you have evolved Butter and all
of the just representation of atl and beyond has been
amazing to watch. So it's really dope to be here
with you.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Well, I appreciate that I appreciate. I also appreciate the coast.
I like, let people know I didn't just start doing
this stuff yesterday, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Not this true to this.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
We've been around portion and all that kind of stuffs,
big tangs.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I was like, that was a couple of years ago.
Time just flies.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, yeah, and pandemic time especially.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, fast forward everything a couple.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Of years right, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Yes, I always said, I feel like the pandemic like
moved us forward like three or four years. People didn't
realize it because like even when you think about it,
like my mom, you know she didn't She literally would
never get on a zoom call to save her life.
Now she's on a zoom call with her church groups,
her friends too.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
She's like, my friends, we got our little cocktails and
zoom call. But I'm like, oh okay, girl, like faithful.
They've been faithful for years. I'm here for it.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Fancy with it.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Well, for those that don't know you are a a journalist,
the author, and investor. You've done a lot of amazing things.
Some people may know you from TP Insights, the plugs.
Something might need you from the other projects. But how's
everything going though?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Things are good and things are really good, you know,
as you know, just being in the media space, especially
as a you know, black founder CEO, especially within the
media landscape. You know, sometimes we're out here fighting for
our lives yep. And so you know, I truly, truly
appreciate all the people who were with me from the beginning,
(02:30):
from the very first newsletter. Just the idea of hey,
black tech and innovation and the innovation economy within the
spaces that we're creating deserve good coverage, deserve more answers
versus just what does it look like to be black
or how does it feel to be black? Right? But
more about like what are you building? Like what how
does this move the future forward?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
What have you?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
And so just being able to build up the plug
over a seven year period, be the first black tech
news you know, publication to send decal the Bloomberg terminal,
get licensing deals with business Inside or Wired, all of
the above, vice news like you seem flex and just
a little bit a little bit. And then in twenty
(03:12):
twenty three, you know, we were able to sell to
Impact Alpha, which is an amazing impact investing platform. It's
like a must must you know, subscribe to for all
of the kind of things that I'm doing now, particularly
looking at the climate tech space and who are making
the biggest investments in those spaces and really changing the world,
(03:33):
you know, with finance and capital, and so since then,
it really has just been this kind of journey back
to my sort of original work on how do we
make the planet better? How do we make the planet
great for everyone, but particularly those who are tremendously underserved,
and right now, I mean, we're dealing with a major
(03:54):
climate crisis. So a lot of my work in this
last year since you know, since acquisition, has been hyper
focused on how do we start to create more green jobs,
get people trained up, how do we help entrepreneurs that
are building these jobs like by like focusing on climate
things like green energy or sustainability. How do we get
(04:15):
them to expand and scale right because they're the job creators,
they're going to kind of help move a lot of
that commerce. I also have a column on INC called
Power Up, so I cover women in the climate tech space,
particularly women founders in climate tech. There's so many cool
things that are happening amid all the chaos that's happening
in the world, but it has been such an incredible
(04:37):
road that really started with TP Insights formerly known as
the Plug in which just amazing folks who rocked with
me throughout that entire process of building it up and
getting all of our major wins, Like, I really owe
that to our community, an audience who'd follow the work
for years before we even got any kind of like
national recognition.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Yeah, and we didn't mean good. That's all amazing. I
think we're gonnafinitely unpack a lot of that to this conversation.
Let me let me take it back tough, Like, what
was the original insight that helped you start the plug
like in TP Insights.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, honestly, it was accidental quite you know, I just
I was sick and tired of like I worked in tech.
I worked for companies like Uber, Google, Fiber in high school.
I'm from Seattle originally. And yes, there are black people.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I've met all. I've met a couple of.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
So and I worked at Microsoft in high school, and
you know, tech was such a tremendous part of my life.
And I was fortunate that all of my mentors were
from all kinds of backgrounds. But I had amazing like
black engineer family members and cousins and friends and you know,
getting like the blacks and Microsoft scholarship. Everything about my experience,
even my cousins who went to Clark and who went
(05:48):
to Morehouse and you know, became you know, software engineers
and engineers and working for like GM and Expedia and
all of these companies. For me, the idea that are
media publication, our business publications weren't talking to black folks
in the tech space about technology, not just like what's new,
what's the latest gadget to purchase? But where is this
(06:11):
technology going? Black media was missing that mark, and mainstream media,
for damn sure wasn't talking to black and brown folks
in this space. And it just got really frustrating because
I'm like, I know all of these talented, amazing people,
like why are they not included in the igey stuff?
Where the future is going and who's building it? Right?
And so so I just started I started like publishing
(06:35):
pieces on a like kind of on a freelance side
thing for like Fast Company, Black Enterprise, you know, really
just pushing folks to say, like, let's ask a different
kind of question. I even like pushed for black media
to be represented at south By Southwest like Stark twenty fourteen.
I just went to south By Southwest and I was like, hey,
the route, Like there's literally no black media down here
(06:58):
talking about what's happening in the roans and the electric
cars and all these kinds of things, Like why are
we not bringing this into the conversations we're having within
our communities. Everything can't just be like political rage bait.
There has to be some information that allows us to
connect to what people are building. So at a certain point,
the stories I was pitching they weren't being received by editors,
(07:22):
and I was like, somebody, just give me a column,
like I want to talk about I'm talking to these
amazing innovators, Like this should be a regular thing, you know.
And so with that, I was like, well, if there's
something that doesn't exist in the world, it's up to
me to create what frustrated doesn't exist, right, So a
little ten dollars domain name, little mailchimp account, you know,
(07:45):
And it was like, all right, I'm off to the races,
and you know, I'm working full time at like a
major tech startup and just sharing my experience at conferences,
really covering you know, black and brown founders as best
as I could and also sharing just some of my
own opinions and insights as well. And as I just
(08:06):
stayed consistent in doing that, getting up at like five
six am to get that done before work, more people
started sharing and it started expanding, and like I had
companies start reaching out like Yo, this is like really dope,
you know, can we sponsor? Can we do X, Y
and Z? And from there I was like, Okay, I
think I think I have something here, you know, and
and let me let me see how far this can go. No.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
I mean again, I remember that launch. You know, I
was a big fan. It was definitely a subscriber I remember,
like you know that, and you know, I remember I
used to read The Hustle and all, like all these
kind of different newsletters and news this whole era which
is all that stuff. I mean even with Butter, like
we spun up kind of a Atlanta version of one,
and we learned a lot of stuff, you know, from
the things we saw the people out there doing.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, you know, when it came to brands.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Starting to reach out and partnerships, like how did you
kind of figure out the way to like price you know,
your your services and what you all were doing.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know, I just listen. I've worked for companies like
Uber and Google and like being around these folks who
were just like just going there real gully, like this
is what it's worth. You know. It has less to
do with just vanity metrics and has more to do
with the value add Right. So I praised the based
off of value and I'm like, let me see how
much they're gonna give me, right, And I'm just gonna ask, like, Okay,
(09:14):
that's like nothing. I mean you're talking to like large
corporate companies that you know, just do this all the time.
It's like this is kind of chump change for them, right,
But it was very meaningful because it allowed me to start,
you know, bringing in freelancers or what have you. So
for me, I looked at the models, like you said,
like the Hustle and shout out to Adam Ryan who
became a really great mentor for me, who was president
(09:35):
of the Hustle and after they sold, he now runs
work Week. But like it was like I'm gonna help you,
like really build this out. It's all the people who
actually helped you know, the Plug as well. But I
looked at all of these other publications and you know,
tried to find like their rate cards and things like that,
right because because folks used to publish them so you
can kind of see like how much it costs. But
(09:57):
more point, I just was like, I'm gonna just throw
a number out there and see and see what they say,
you know, and see if they say yes.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, you know, whoever blinks first. First you got to
ask yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
You know, you know, just Uber train me well, because
I would, you know, I would watch my team members
and you know, our general managers would push us to
like just ask for the biggest number and see what
they say and start from there. So I got used
to just like, oh, yeah, this is this is who
we are, this is who we represent. And having your
data down right, you know who you know, who your
readers are, you know what your open rates are, your
(10:25):
click through rates, you know, really knowing the psychographics of
your audience and being able to speak to that and
showing that level of competence of what in what you're building.
So I felt confident going in also and saying like,
well I want this.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, I think you know. That's something I've kind of
told people in the past too. I think a lot
of times when people are working on you know, businesses
or projects, a lot of times there's scared to ask
for larger amounts because I think sometimes they think about
it from their standpoint, like and I always say, like,
this ain't your money, This is in the same thing
mighty to be totally honest, absolutely, but you know, like
you know, I've told people it's like, you know, you
can't like if you've ever had to put the down
(11:00):
payment on the house, you ever bought a car, like
you understand, like these these numbers get thrown around all
the time. So don't you know, you know, miss an
opportunity because you're scared to ask for a bigger number because
you just haven't experienced that personally, right, Like that's where
you actually grow. And and to your point, like you know,
content needs a business model. So if you want to
bring on you know, people and teams and freelancers and
stuff like that, you got to ask some day of
(11:21):
money so you can actually pay them.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
You have to ask for some money. And also I
think that a lot of times we feel like, oh,
you know, my audience isn't the biggest audience. Our social
media numbers are the biggest, or what have you it's
like I try to hyper focus on value and distinctiveness, right, Like, yeah,
I may not have, you know, an audience size of
like a million people right right out of the gate,
(11:45):
but the people who are here interact. Every single email
that I was sending folks or responding back, people were
sharing their own news and information or a leaked email
or something like that to add into you know, what
the plug was doing. And so for me, it's like
I can demonstrate, like our engagement's gonna be better than
someone who has a large audience and they're just kind
(12:06):
of one of many versus. My goal was to slow
down the news and actually, you do real journalism right,
especially when it came to covering black folks in the
innovation economy. It was like, you're gonna read this story,
you gonna sit, You're gonna sit with me for about
good five ten minutes. We're gonna I'm gonna have you
digest this. So on top of the value that I
added in covering this space in the way no one
(12:29):
else was, it was I want to slow this down
in a world full of noise where everything's like entertainment
focused and like a nice headline here and nice headline there,
like no, like we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna sit
and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna ramp up our
vocabulary and we're gonna learn these terms, we're gonna click
these links, you know, and we're gonna engage in the
actual conversation. And so I got to use that as
(12:49):
like a lot of the selling you know, point and
proposition of like, hey, I'm not we're not talking about
junk food over here, like we're we're really talking about
them season. The greens got real season, they got clean,
real good, they got washed real good, you know. And
so you're gonna sit here, You're gonna you gonna sit here,
you're gonna eat, right, And so that's what I was
able to sell to our partners and our sponsors and
advertisers and even grant and foundation partners.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I'm gonna ask everybody to start putting things in terms
of college rooms because one, that's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
But like that's a favorite thing to make quite honestly.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Now, on that journey, you said us around around like
seven years of the plug, like, what was one of
your favorite moments along that journey?
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Oh, my gosh, I have so many. I still have them.
I still have people who come up to me and say,
we miss you, or I got an opportunity because we
were featured. There was a handful of times where maybe
in the first couple of months, you know, folks would
say because of you and in best who subscribes to
(14:01):
the Plug reached out to us and we got a check,
we got an investment as a result of being featured
in the Plug, And that was an impact measure that
I had not considered when I started the Plug. Was
that And that's also how we ended up becoming tp
insites because we started to look at our back end
(14:22):
data of who was subscribing and it was investors from
all over and other media reporters who were starting to
source stories and people from us as well, and so
the level of influence we had was just tremendous. But
those are probably the stories that I remember the most,
is folks really like just being grateful to be added
(14:43):
and considered who then that outcome was we got seen
or we got an opportunity as a result of the
journalism that you and your team have done. So yeah,
that probably stands out the most. And us getting our
publication syndicated on the Bloomberg terminal, so for those who
don't know what the terminal is, so you know, there's
like Bloomberg dot com. Right, And also had I had
(15:05):
read Bloomberg by Bloomberg, which was Bloomberg's autobiography that he
wrote himself about himself the other things that he did, right,
and it really made me think about the business model
for the plug. So again, as I told you, I
started off with this newsletter right, kind of as just
like a hobby something I wanted to do, something I
(15:26):
just wanted to contribute and add, you know, to the community,
and then kind of had to morph it into this
business and then eventually make the decision to just go
full throttle. Well I only felt comfortable doing that because
I had a blueprint of the Bloomberg business model. So
Bloomberg didn't start off as a media company. And it
(15:48):
started off as this kind of software service, like early, early,
early software service covering bond markets. Okay, right, so essentially
back in the day, So bloom Bloomberg started off as
a trader on Wall Street. Right, And if you can
consider even like watch all those like wolf Wall Street,
(16:08):
like all those you just see all the people down
there with the papers and stuff. So think about it.
You've got these markets that get open. There's not a
digitized system for tracking what's happening as the market is
fluctuating throughout the day. So Bloomberg in his cast of characters,
are like in the basement taking all this data and
creating a computer program based on this bond market data,
(16:32):
the first to digitize it, right, and so that then
became the Bloomberg Terminal. So taking and place in all
this data that no one else was like putting into
any kind of a system, and then licensing it to
some of the top financial firms. So that's really where
like the billionaire Bloomberg came from, was this particular foundation.
(16:54):
So now you have all the top financial analysts in
the world that have to subscribe to the Bloomberg They
called it the terminal to the Bloomberg terminal, because this
is going to help you do your job. If you're
going to be controlling other people's wealth, you need to
know what's happening, right, You're going to get that in
real time from the Bloomberg Terminal. So from there, then
(17:15):
of course you've got all this business insight and information.
The next thing you do is you launch a media company,
because now you can be a leader in business information.
So when I thought about TP in sites, and I
thought about how we can be the collectors and drivers
of black innovation data. Specifically, we can sell that data
(17:36):
to the financial markets and investors and all these people
who are trying to figure out what's happening with black
folks in business from the startup perspective, not just like
your general government, you know, like who has a small
business and runs a brick and mortar, but actual innovation
in these spaces that no one was collecting data on.
(17:56):
Then we can sell that and that can run and
drive and cover the costs of the media company. So
that was the thinking. So going back to your original question,
one of the proudest moments following folks who said that
they have been impacted by the work. The other problem
moment was getting the email from Bloomberg to have a
conversation about the plug being on the Bloomberg terminal. Because
(18:19):
I started with that model and so it was kind
of like a Okay, I did what I did, what
I said I wanted to do. I accomplished what it
is that I wanted to accomplish. I wanted to become the
black Bloomberg. And now they're reaching out to us. Literally
the first black business publication to syndicate on the Bloomberg
terminal where half a million financial analysts around the globe
(18:40):
are reading and digesting and learning about what's happening in
business to advise their clients on where to invest. So
for me, that was like krim delachrome.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And how long was it between you know, you giving
that insight from reading that autobiography to that opportunity.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
Coming up you ask the entrepreneur man, Time doesn't exist,
It all blurs together. My gosh. I want to say
I launched the Plug in twenty sixteen, and I want
to say maybe by twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen. I was like,
all right, let's let's really like make this a thing.
And I think I think I read yeah, Bloomberg by Bloomberg,
(19:18):
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I was like, all right,
that's gonna be my goal. And yeah, we started syndicating
twenty twenty. I want to say, Okay, So yeah, it
was like it was levels, but maybe a two year
period after, like I kind of set the goal, and
that also helped me to really focus on how can
(19:39):
we be the best business reporters on Black Business News
because nobody else was you know, now they are because
we set the page right. So yeah, but you know
we're just working, We're just working.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
I mean it's interesting too write like to even have
that insight, because media companies are hard, you know, just
from like and figure out like what that right business
model is. And you know you started doing that, it
started going. Then when did the kind of the opportunity
come around to where you decided, Okay, maybe this is
time to sell it and grow it or do something else.
Like what kind of made you start having those thoughts?
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Yeah, media companies are hard. Black led, black owned, black
centered media companies are even harder. Yeah, advertising dollars, the
industry already was, you know, was taken aback. Buy technology,
buy social media companies, buy search engine companies. Like, all
the ad dollars shifted, right, and so the the feast
(20:35):
of what used to be the ad industry you know,
got became increasingly thin. Right. And then on top of that,
not only are the dollars when you're competing with folks
like the New York Times right, or the Wall Street
Journal or even bet right in terms of like the
vast reach of your of your audience for ad dollars.
(20:58):
If these big players are competing forevers, imagine when you're
like a smaller outfit in a very very niche space, right,
what it's like to coerce advertisers to come in or
and then on top of that, being black in a
space where twenty twenty twenty twenty one, you know, okay,
everybody's spending money with you, right because of the murder
(21:21):
of George Floyd, because of all of these things that
you know are happening in the world, as you know,
relates of course to you know, the way that black
people are treating in society. And then by twenty twenty two,
the conversation is shifting, right, So the dollars, the phone calls,
the emails, they start to slow up. And I had
(21:41):
to really make some really interesting decisions and have really
hard conversations with not just advertisers and funders and investors,
but also with colleagues in the space. Because my biggest
challenge was I've led my team thus far. You know,
I had folks who came to me from like the
(22:03):
Weather Channel, CNN, Forbes just amazing, you know companies, and
you know, being able to like platform them was amazing.
And I'm like, well, if we have to spend the
next three to five years, you know, chasing and trying
to just get to where we are every year and
(22:23):
not seeing tremendous growth or having to do things that
are outside of our wheelhouse, is that responsible for me
as a leader? Is that responsible for me to my
team versus finding a key partner that can help us
expand and do the kind of do more of the
kind of work that we want to do and have
(22:44):
more of the conversations that we want to have instead
of just trying to be independent on our own right.
And so it was it was not a decision that
you make all at one time. You know, you start
to survey the landscape. You start to survey who's spending
where and how, and you know, again, how do we
stay true? How do we still do great work? And
(23:07):
our team was relatively small, so like six to eight
people full time, and then we had freelancers all over
the world and mostly black journalists I think ninety eight
percent like black business journalists, which is also really hard
to find. Yeah, very very difficult to find, and so,
you know, and then and then at some point it
(23:28):
was just like I'm actually ready for something else. Once
we like hit a lot of those milestones, it was like,
all right, this is amazing. I want to go work
on climate, you know, like I want to go like
figure out how we continue to breathe air and water
and make sure like black and brown communities aren't like
left when all these other people go to Mars, right,
(23:50):
we actually have a Liverpool planet. And so it was
just it was just it was it was about time,
you know, it's about time. And some people build for forever.
And what I recognize about myself is that I'm a
zero to one founder. I'm a like, let me build
something that doesn't exist, let me stand it up, let
me resource it, let me put the right people into place,
and then like go to God. Yeah, you know, like
(24:11):
take it to the next thing, and then like I
can move on into all these other things that like
I'm put on Earth to do. And it took me
a while again to kind of get there and to
feel like, all right, I'm going to help my existing
team transition to where their next level is. And in
the meantime, you know, have faith that like my work
did what it was supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah, I mean that really resonates to me. You talk
about like the whole zero to one versus like the
one end kind of founder, right, because yeah, there are
some people even I feel like that way about certain things.
It's like, look, I'm really good at getting stuff up
and running and getting it to a certain point. But
you got to ask yourself. It's like, all right, do
I was still going to be doing this in five years,
ten years? Like do I see myself as a person
that's going to run and scale this thing for the
(24:51):
next decade?
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Or do I want to take it this far?
Speaker 2 (24:54):
I've created, it exists now, yeah, let me find somebody
else can kind of take it and run with it. Now.
One thing I kind of wonder about it. We'll definitely
get into this climate stuff next. One thing I wonder
you know, when I went to grad school and I
finished up, I was in shock, is like the way
I kind of put it right, Like I was so
I had so much stuff to do and it was
just so much like it was a NonStop that like
(25:15):
the first day after grad school, I just was kind
of sitting there like, so am I supposed to be
doing something? Like it just felt weird to have extra
time for a little bit. I kind of wonder like
when you exited that business, did you have kind of
a similar experience of situation, Like were you just so
much in it? Like wow, you know what we like,
it's officially sold. It's off now, Yeah, like damn, what
(25:36):
do I do?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Is this a safe space? Like okay, it's a safe space.
So first of all, yeah, grad school, grad school is
is boot camp, it is any ways. So honestly, the
plug had become my identity. You know, you run something
for seven years, you put your heart, your soul, your
(25:57):
entire life is around it, like you are that thing, right,
That's where everyone knows your work from. That's how you
get into every room, into ever, be on every panel
highlighted like that is your body of work. And I
want to say, like the day that we announced like
our last piece, our last publication date, I well, I
(26:22):
turned off my email and I turned off my phone
because I was not ready for the calls and the
you know what have you? And then I went to
the Bahamas and I was like I just need I
need a second to figure out like I was way
too pressed to figure out what was next because my
whole identity, like I wanted to be like, yeah, this
is what I'm starting now, and I wasn't trying. I
(26:45):
wasn't allowing myself to have just the room to breathe
and to just look up and say, wow, that was
a ride. And now like where is life leading me next?
And so I will say a week later, you know,
back from the Bahamas, a pretend refresh, right, because now
I have to come back and respond to all the
(27:06):
messages and every everybody was just amazing. It was amazing.
It was like, man, like you really helped shape my
trajectory and I got into this because of you, or
we got funding me because of this, or just well done,
just beautiful supportive messages. I did not know what to
do with myself, Like I really didn't. I had to
(27:29):
figure out a routine because I wasn't you know, having
all hands on Wenday like I legit had to figure
out like okay, I'll Monday, I'm gonna do this on Tuesday,
you know.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Time.
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, but the biggest thing was like, well, how do
you like what is your title? Now? Like what do
you do. Like that part was like, oh, snap, I
don't have I'm just here, you know what I'm saying,
and like trying to figure out, like, now how do
I do I tell myself? Oh, like I'm the former
you know, founder CEO of the plug. I Yeah, it was.
It was a very interesting It took me probably about
a solid year to recover from that and to find
(28:02):
my footing and my sense of self and identity and
just myself and not necessarily just what I produce, right,
but also to look at you know, as you know,
like being a founder, being an entrepreneur is one of
the most significant personal and professional development things the experiences
you could ever have. Right. It makes you stronger, more resilient,
(28:23):
It increases your emotional intelligence. You become a stronger leader
if you're trying to be good at what you do. Now,
some people are just straight ass, right, you know, they
don't care. But if you actually have cared about your journey,
you've also come out on the other side as a
very different person, and so you're not just trying to
jump into the next thing like you're trying to find now,
meaning right, you've had some successes, so it's like I'm
(28:45):
trying to find and to do meaningful work next. And
the amount of phone calls that I got to like, oh,
can you come be the CEO of this? Or can
you come do X, Y and Z and you know,
or can you come help us run this fund? And
you know, just things that like sounded good and nice
and prestigious and like a really dope like, oh, now
I'm popping out, like you know, look what I just did.
Now I'm popping out. Things just there were there were
(29:06):
things that like sounded good but just didn't didn't feel
quite right. And it was literally a conversation with my
mom and she just said, it's okay for you to rest.
It's okay for you to just rest for a second.
And she's like, you have far exceed our expectations. You know.
She was like, we know you're gonna do all this
because you know, when I was like, I'm the entrepreneur
(29:27):
and they're like, why don't you get a job, a job,
like get a whole job, you know, and so yeah,
I feel like I feel like it took me a
little while to figure out, now, this is what I
want to be and this is how I want to
build because in the beginning, especially when you're building something
of this magnitude for the first time, like you just
try to survive every single day, So fourteen fifteen hour
(29:50):
days on planes because you had to be you know,
saying yes to everything, yes to everyone, having a hire,
having a fire. After a while, that takes a big
toll on your body, right, So I had to really
take a step back and just say, Okay, the next
thing I build, I want to build it sustainably. I
want to build it in a way that doesn't take
(30:10):
away from my health, it doesn't take away from my family,
and it is done in a way that is smart,
and there's some automations and I'm using all the technology
I'm talking about every single day to run this, right. So, yeah,
it was tough, and I had a lot of really
interesting offers on the table that just didn't feel right.
(30:30):
But then the things that did come through the door
that were just as a result of the relationships built,
the work done and demonstrate just even to this day,
like so much of the things that I have going
on now are just based off of people are like, oh,
we saw that, Like you're rocking that perfect, You're doing
this next thing, Let's go I.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Think definitely resonates with me. I mean, even when I
think about the stuff we've done with Butter, it's like, yeah,
how do you if I did want to do something
like how do you separate yourself from the thing that
everybody kind of knows you about?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
And then even just yeah, there's there's it's almost like
a because you spend all day on these things. Again,
this is the part I think people don't like. People
talk about all they sold there was an exit. It's like, yeah,
but that person probably poured so much themselves into that
thing that while yes, they got some money out of it,
and it's not there like now that's a new that's
a void that you have to fill in some way,
shape or form. And so you know, and I've been
(31:28):
there in a similar thing too, where you know, I
used to have another business that I was running and
I didn't do the best job I think. I mean,
it's a very common thing, especially with entrepreneurs, right, Like
you kind of build a team based on who you
have access to, So a lot of times it's your
friends and just people you know. And so I don't
think I did the best job building that team. And
because I know because every time my phone rang, I'd
(31:48):
have a damn anxiety attack.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I'd like, oh God, what what what? What is? What
went wrong? Now?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And you know, I remember I went on vacation and
I had to like literally lock my phone in the
safe because because I was out to the point to
where anytime I even got a notification, I would just
have this feeling of anxiety. And again, think about how
many times your phone goes off over the course of
a day, Like I'm just talking about like generic spam emails,
like you don't even know us, Like I don't even
know what I'm about to look at. And so I
(32:15):
did the kind of the same thing as when I said,
like my next thing I build, I can't do it
like this. It can't be so wrapped up in every
single aspect of it to the point to which, yeah,
like I literally didn't want to even look at my phone.
And I think, again, people don't talk about that side.
They talk about you know, oh it's great and you
do all this stuff. It's like, yeah, but these people
put so much themselves into this thing. You know, my
guy Mady Mighty Water was talking about something on socially
(32:38):
the other day, like, you know, for businesses that fail,
it's like the same thing even if you have success,
but for those businesses that fail, it's like you put
so much of yourself into it and it didn't work outright,
Like give yourself some grace, yes times.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
Some time, because you do. You have to recover, you
have to take you have to have those quiet moments,
and some people again they go I do admire people
who go right into the next thing, because I'm like,
I couldn't do it. Yeah, I mean I did a
lot of quiet stuff in the background, but you know,
the relationship to what we produce, and I don't know
(33:13):
if it's just like distinctively American that we're like this,
you know, because we're all about production and efficiency and
growth and scale and all those kinds of things. But yeah,
but at the same time, it's like, I'm so glad
that I built that way because if I didn't have
that muscle, I wouldn't know how to now build very
(33:34):
differently because you need that like that. You know, people
talk about pay your dues, but I think it's more
of like building that tough skin and also building the acumen,
like you know, when there's a terrible deal on the table,
you know how much to charge. You now know that
you can't always hire your friends and your cousins, you know,
to be part of the business, and you love them,
but like, no, you can't work for me because you're
(33:55):
not going to You're not what I touched it too,
don't and I don't want to babysit you, right, So
you get to all of that, like, if we didn't
have all that, we wouldn't know how to build what
we're building today, right, and we probably wouldn't know how
to Oh this is true for you, But I was
someone who really had like a temper, right, and so
(34:15):
if I felt a disrespect, I'm popping.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Off about it.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I don't let you know. And you can't always do
that in business, right, And so it's also like, how
do you also become a better communicator so that when
something is not right for what you're trying to accomplish,
you can get to where you need to get to
right and turn conversations around, or turn deals around, or
just say Okay, that's not for me, you know, and
(34:39):
keep it pushing, because now I expend all this energy
being upset, right, versus like, all right, so what is
our solution let's get to a solution. And even you know,
if you have to deal with or speak to and
especially coming to the tables as black entrepreneurs and black
women entrepreneurs, like folks will be in rooms talking to
us crazy absolutely a lot of times and just tell
(34:59):
you to your face, we don't think you're worth this much.
We don't we don't value this or what have you?
Or we already spent our black dollars, you know, like
we already spend our our black people budget, you know,
so we're not gonna we're not gonna spend more budget
with more black people. There's only gonna be one. There's
gonna be that one media company that gets our black dollars.
And and it's only the two percent of their overall
(35:20):
marketing budget, right that they're already spending with other people.
And instead of like getting frustrated and cutting people out, what.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
You want to do a lot of time, what you
want to do, right.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
You're like, don't play with me, right, don't be over
your planet in my face. But you you learn that
sense of tact and like true leadership of you know
what this situation is, what it is? Right? But I
have to remember the mission I have to remember that, like,
(35:53):
we still got to get to the other side of this.
So how am I gonna make this work? And it
may not be with this particular entity, but I have
to figure out how to make this work and run
because I'm going to get obstacles all the time for
whatever reason and for whatever bias people have.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, and you know it's yeah again, it's funny you
talk about even just leadership.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I was talking to a friend of mine and I'll
just say, like I can tell I've spent a lot
of time, especially for last I'd say maybe four or
five years learning how to be a leader, you know,
and I and I can really tell, you know, even
when I see how certain people interact with their teams,
It's like, yeah, that person has probably never been to
a single leadership training seminar, They've never read a book.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
On it's an executive coach.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
An executive coach, And you know, I can really tell.
And I think like that also is kind of a
little bit of a a secret sauce, right, It's like,
which is again you know that you have to do it,
Like people don't really understand the value of what it
takes to really be a good leader to have, you know,
to be able to give clear directions, to be able
to hold people accountable, and the right kind of way
to be able to communicate. It's just those are things
that I you know, you kind of learned a little
(36:55):
bit through hustle. Yeah, but you know it's again, it's
like you can only hustle so far, like sooner you've
got to actually add a little you know, some frameworks,
some context to how you're doing things. Otherwise you're just
making stuff up and that will definitely stress you out.
But you know you've done that, and then you start
a pivoting So why climate tech? Like do you say
they're gonna leave us and go to Mars?
Speaker 1 (37:16):
So we got to figure out what we're going to
go over here, you know, honestly, and just really quickly
just to the whole point of like, you know, learning
leadership skills. And I think that so much of the
entrepreneurship conversation is focused on money, yeah, right, And I
think that it's kind of been weaponized like, oh, you know,
we're better than you because we are out here trying
to doing it for ourselves. And I think that what
(37:38):
I have realized is if you want to be really good,
if you want to get really good and you want
to build meaningfully, it's not yeah, like, of course we
don't want to give them money, like that's that's a byproduct.
But it really is about studying like actual business or
you have to be a student of business and student
of people. That's the biggest thing. You have to be
(38:00):
able to navigate around egos and personalities and culture in
order to get really good at what you do. Because
if you can read and study people, you can sell,
you can market, you can build, you can analyze, you
can be in any room on the planet and be
able to do really solid business. But if you're wrapped
(38:21):
up in your own ego about like just making money,
like I'm sorry, Like I think that's just shitty entrepreneurship
at the end of the day. But yeah, climate, how
do we get there? I told you I'm from Seattle,
So Seattle is a very hippie, dippy place, right, It's
like absolutely. When I came to Atlanta, was in birken
Sox all the time, right, And we had an environmental
(38:45):
education when I was very very young. The environment and
care for the environment was embedded in our curriculum, so
coming to the other side of the country and learning
that basic things were not taught was very foreign. We
were very much one with nature. There's always a hike
camp interest. While on camp today we had to learn
(39:07):
about the plants and which ones will save you or
which ones you can eat, and what banana slugs are.
Yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, very very much, very
much so like hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, all those things.
So grew up with a tremendous left for the environment.
And then as I was, you know, building and growing
(39:27):
the Plug, we did try to cover as many tech
centered environmental businesses, black owned businesses as much as possible
who were dealing with things like water or energy or
like pulling carbon out of the air and turning it
into protein and like really dope shit like that. They
don't get as much shine because it's sometimes gonna be
(39:50):
a little bit harder to grasp exactly what they're doing.
And so even before I made a decision to sell,
I was building out a climate vertical for the Plug.
Oh okay, And I think that was my attempt to
try to start working on what I really wanted to do.
And at some point like it was just it was
(40:11):
just really hard to recruit a black business journalist that
was focused on environment or had some kind of a
scientific writer background. Super challenging. So this pivot is more about, now,
how do we use all this innovation and build things
that we actually need. Because we don't need more delivery apps,
(40:33):
we don't need that, and we don't need any more
things that are going to waste away in the ocean
or go into a landfill. But what do our people?
What are people going to need? Water, clean air, right
ways to eat, and all of these things are being
threatened in our environment now. And then when we think
(40:55):
about all these natural disasters, who are the folks that
impacted the most? Right to look like me and you?
But the lack of focus on creating tools that are
going to support our liveli than in the future. And
I always always say this, and hopefully I think listeners
and viewers really get this. I think black and brown innovators,
(41:17):
if y'all want to build something today, go into the
climate tech space. There's just wide open opportunity and the
category is almost endless. This country is going to have
to modernize the grid. This country is going to have
to work on energy and dependence, you know, and we
know that this new administration is like trying to pull
back a couple of things. But they're going to be
(41:39):
heavily investing in geothermal technologies. There's going to be some
more investments in renewable energy. There's lots of opportunities and
even if you want to build in the space, you
could become an ev charging station technician. You've got Camille
Arry and Yvette Ellis, two black women out of Compton
who built up Charger Help, which trains will community to
college degree which trains people how to fix electric vehicle
(42:03):
charging stations. Series a black women found a company straight
out of content. Like when I tell you that this
is a billion dollar company and folks are getting trained
and started off making thirty five dollars an hour fixing
the charging stations that we're going to need to power
all of our electric cars. Like that is significant and
important to the way that this world is moving and
(42:25):
also the opportunities that are going to be given as
things like artificial intelligence are changing and transitioning. But all
of that to TLDR is there's so much opportunity here.
There's so much opportunity for us to build there's going
to be so much wealth created as a result of
what's the very major in immediate issues in climate. And
(42:49):
I just I didn't see or I don't see enough
of us in the tech and startup spaces in the
ecosystems that we're a part of talking about this a mass, Right.
I felt like so many of the conversations and even
the pitches that we would get at the plug, I'm like,
I don't care about this. I legit would just delete
people's emails like this is stupid, This is stupid. Literally,
(43:11):
the world is dying quite literally, like our kids don't
have access to healthy food. Like, solve that for me.
Tell me, you're you're putting a you know, a one
of those container Yeah, you know one of those Yeah,
a container grocery store or something, or a hydroponic farm
that you're you know that you have in a container
store that like is on the corner, you know, where
(43:32):
there's a food desert and you're growing fresh fruits and
vegetables Like that to me is dope, Like I don't
I don't care about this other stuff y'all do, right,
And so I'm a little biased on that end, but
there's so much opportunity and and I think as as
as folks that look like us, we've got to be
in the space on all levels.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
Where specifically are you most interested that in that space?
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Oh my gosh, definitely food. I think that you know,
this move towards more sustainable agriculture and how we grow
food and how we distribute food, it's gonna be really fascinating.
I think Julia Collins sold her regenerative Snacks Black Women
to Patagonia two years ago. Prior to that, she had
a company or the company now was called Forward Health,
(44:28):
and I think it was Moonshot Snacks, So y'all got
to look it up. Amazing, amazing, very low key, but
like one of the dopest black women founders on the planet.
Prior to that company, she had a robot beizza delivery company.
So when I tell you, like there's true genius out here,
like in this space, there absolutely is. So yeah. So
(44:49):
definitely on the food scene, I think water is so
significant and so important even when we think about it
becoming commodity and people now or some investors now like
finding ways to privatize public water, Like I don't think
we understand how dystopian this really is that when people
(45:11):
get control of our water supply and now you got
to buy a bottle of water for fifty bucks. Right,
we saw what's happened in Flint that still has not
been resolved contamination issues. Verunna Technology is another black owned
company that does analysis on water for municipalities, again building
(45:31):
another billion dollar company. The infrastructure the United States has
not been updated or changed or replaced in over fifty years.
So we're talking old water pipes, all those kinds of
special landlands.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
We got clay pipes in the ground. That's why. That's
why floods every time in rain.
Speaker 1 (45:47):
It's gonna say because I had to replace mine at
my house because I was like, these are from nineteen
twenty two, and I need some new I need some
updated technology. So I think just the basic things that
like we need to survive as human beings really fascinate me.
In green energy, I love in green architecture. There's you know,
these these new building styles like passive houses or net
(46:10):
zero houses. So your house essentially generates all of its
own electricity, right, So it's beyond solar panels, it's everything
in your house is regenerative. And so think about a
world where there's like very few utility bills, right and
in your home is also not harming the planet. And
we saw just even in you know, in La with
(46:32):
all the fires and just people who have lost their
homes been insane. And now you know, there's a couple
of houses that are standing that were specifically built and
designed to withstand environmental disasters, right, Like, there's amazing stories
on this, and of course these people are like like
literally my house, all my neighbors are gone, but like
(46:53):
their house is still standing just by nature of how
it was designed from an environmental perspective. And so I
as you can see, like I'm fascinated by all of
this because there's no one right answer and there's no
one right space. So you can really pick something to
study and to learn about and to see where your
skills may fit to help build and grow those industries
(47:13):
and distribute them in equitable ways, particularly to our communities.
Speaker 2 (47:18):
I think, you know, that's interesting, Like, and I think
a lot of times too, just because maybe maybe in
our communities we don't use a lot of those products,
so we think it's a little bit more further off
than it is, you know, but like a you know,
it's going to get affected.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Everybody's going to be affected.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
I remember at I was at south By Southwestern one
the year and I went to this really interesting panel.
It was called President twenty fifty, and what they were
talking about was they said, you know there are groups that,
hypothetically speaking, they could engineer a president. They said, because
what we can do is we can forecast out that
what the issue is going to be in twenty fifty,
Like we know that water, access to water is going
(47:52):
to be an issue. We know we know that accessity
sing is going to be an issue. So what if
you know, some group, some illuminati group with a bunch
of money decided, you know what, we're going to produce
the president. So what we're going to do is we're
gonna make sure that, you know, when this kid is
growing up, we got pictures of him with the lemonades,
the picture of her with the lemonade stand. And then
we're gonna make sure when they go to college that
(48:12):
they're they're taking classes on you know, access to clean
water and like environmental stuff like that. And we're gonna
basically engineer this person so that when it's time for
them to run, you can look at all because all
their history is going to be documented, Like they've got
this whole documentation said this person was pretty much born
to be president because look at what they've done. But again,
like if we already know what the issues are going
to be, and to your point, we know who's going
(48:33):
to get affected by it first. And so yeah, we
have to make sure that our communities understand this stuff
because I'm telling you, my parents going to Stolle the mountain,
it's a food desert. If they want to drive and
get a salad, they got to drive, you know, thirty minutes.
Now they want to get some Jamaican food, some wings
or some liquor. Oh, that's right around the corner, but
like an actual sit down restaurant. Yeah, you're back in
(48:55):
Atlantic sublimitive wings while you out here, you know what
I'm saying. But yeah, access to this stuff is really important.
So it's something we definitely need to, you know, start
getting ahead of what's next for you, Like, are you
gonna build something in that space? Are you gonna build
another you know, let you can you give us any insights?
Is that still in the works right now?
Speaker 1 (49:12):
A lot of things in stealth mode are happening right now,
and I've got some amazing partners, and so y'all will
see the work being done. I haven't decided when we'll
get out of stealth mode just yet. Right now, we're
just focusing on doing the work. And I think maybe
in a couple of years of fun that's gonna particularly
invest in climate tech. But you know, right now, my
(49:34):
goal is to amplify the voices of the black and
brown vcs that are in this space, the founders that
are in this space, and just really help to do
more storytelling because a lot of times, you know, not
everyone really cares about this stuff, right, But I bet
you care about your utility bills being lowered, right, Like,
that's a conversation we can have, right And when we
(49:56):
talk about money, and we talk about, Okay, you can
get this job. You can get this job that happens
to be a green job, but oh, it's gonna pay
you a great living wage. It's gonna be able to
afford you to buy maybe one of these passive houses
that are being newly built in these new communities. Right
I think actually Atlanta is there's like a whole new
like cottage community that's like very equal friendly or something
(50:17):
like that's starting to pop up. So those are like
the relevant conversations to have versus just oh, like wind turbines,
like no one, no one wants to talk about that,
you know what I'm saying, Like me limit wings, like
don't want to talk about wind turbines. So yeah, so
so you know, there's there's still some stealth mode things,
and but I'm working with some incredible people and partners
(50:39):
and yeah soon come okay.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Well sharill before we get out of here. I know
you're in stealth mode. But how can people find you,
support you the stuff you're working on?
Speaker 1 (50:48):
Yeah, absolutely definitely go to my website Charrelle Dorsey dot com.
Actually do a newsletter once a month that's called Regenerative.
And so for those who are not like all into
this green space, I just try to like share opportunities
to connect everything from business opportunities to just like what's
going on? What does that mean for you personally? So
just ways to learn, you know, very very basically, and
(51:09):
then just LinkedIn Instagram threads. We're not on X anymore,
you know, we boycotting X, but yeah, I'm all over
the internet all the time.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Okay, well, chill, this is great, so good to see you.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Thank you so much for pulling up. I'm gonna go
figure out me something can start up in climent tech.
You got me inspired out here, but I appreciate it.
Thank you so much for pulling up. And that's the pod.
Y'all we out.
Speaker 1 (51:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You've been listening to button Nomics and I'm your host,
Brandon Butler. Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show.
Send us an email today at hello at butteronomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Casey Pegram, with marketing support from Queen and Nikki. Music
provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that
subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure
(51:59):
to fallollow us on all our social platforms at butter
dot a t L. Listen to better Nomics on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
Host
Brandon Butler
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