January 26, 2022 • 23 mins
In this deep dive, Keenan speaks about building brands to be authentic and relevant to consumers. The value of narrowing down the product benefits your brand has to consumers. Additionally, he shares the best practices your business should adopt to get funded.
Keenan Beasley is a business powerhouse! Before entering the entrepreneur space, Keenan served as Vice President of Marketing at L’Oreal, Associate Director of Reckitt Benckiser, and Brand Manager at Proctor & Gamble.
He currently serves as the CEO of Supply Factory Brands, President of Venture Noire (a non-profit), CEO of Kukua Corp, a global cannabis business and Infinite Looks, a textured hair care company, and is the co-founder of BLKBOX, a creative agency in New York City, whose multinational clients include Samsung and Diageo.
If you ever wanted to poke the brain of a multi-faceted businessman, this is the episode for you.
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Guest IG: @keenanbeasley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up, Money movers. Welcome back. Today's steep dive into
entrepreneurship and our community is brought to you by our
partners at MasterCard, Bridging the wealth Gap together retreat with
ye so Keenan. So you started supply Factory with the
(00:21):
goal of creating all these consumer brands. Tell us about
the brands that you have under there, and I'm really
interested in what it takes to launch a CpG brand. Yeah,
So we have beauty, health and wellness and home care
underneath that portfolio as well as CBD products. So there's
about nine brands in total. Sunday to Sunday is by
(00:43):
far the biggest. Recently just you know announced in Sepphora
and Alta, so very omni channel business. That wow, congratulations. No,
I love that one because that one I called that
my my niece's brand, right, that was that was built
in designed for her, So it has a very special
place in my heart. But but you know, the entire
or infrastructure was was designed because I was thinking about scale,
(01:04):
right I come from, you know, the Procter and Gambles
of the world, the loreals of the world, the recompend
keysers of the world. Those are machines and institutions with
operating models that allow for multiple brands to launch and thrive, right,
And that was something I wanted to do as an entrepreneur.
I said, how can we create these brands in more
authentic and relevant ways, faster and it at a lower cost.
(01:27):
And and that was something where we needed to create
that type of engine. But you know how to build that,
you know, fundamentally startups. It's exactly what we just talked
right in the last bit. You know, you start with
the community you want to serve. You put some information
in front of them to see if they're going to
be receptive to that, and then you go to the product.
And the product is about providing a benefit in a
(01:48):
need space right against an insight, the truth, the motivation, attention.
Now you're just putting a product benefit in front of
that and then trying to give them reasons to believe.
Those reasons to believe look like you know claims where
hey kills germs, right, we see that, but it also
could be validation from you know, a consumer saying, oh
(02:09):
my god, I took this pill right and I lost
all this way right or these things. That's social proof.
All those becomes reasons to believe the benefit that you're
selling and helps to drive that consumer traction. And so
now you're just looking at doing that at scale. And
I would say, you know, from a division standpoint, it
depends on on what consumer product you're looking to go after,
(02:30):
but I would say, you're always gonna need something in
performance marketing, right, how do you sell and what are
the fundamentals of doing that online? How do you then
tackle that from a wholesale meaning do you want to
be in gems or you know, retailers, etcetera. There's that
kind of division. Then you have your supply chain right
your product development because right now, especially during COVID, supply
(02:50):
chain is tough. Yeah, there there's a scarcity of ingredients
and manufacturing globally, consumption habits now of its expanded, so
people are over buying, overproducing goods. So you need to
find ways to to get those ingredients and then just
moving products from especially internationally into the U S. It's
it's not easy now, um, but you need to have
(03:13):
someone focused on that, and then you gotta take care
of your back office. You know, I tell everyone, right,
the thing that hurts a lot of entrepreneurs is is
messing up on taxes, right, governance things, just you know,
your legal work. So you know that's not the what
I call the sexy stuff, but it's critical. You're not
gonna get banked at at a Greenwood or anyone else.
You're not gonna be able to get venture capital. You
(03:34):
can't go through due diligence and you don't have your
you know, quote unquote affairs in order. So um, thank
you for mentioning that, because I think sometimes we gloss
over that, and you know, especially for folks that are
trying to build businesses in the CpG space, it's fun,
it's sexy. You're testing out products, they're sending you samples,
you're asking your friends, but you have to understand that
(03:54):
the business part of it. Making sure that you've registered
your corporation, whether it's an LLC, You've got your your
books correct, like, that's a huge part of you know,
building a correct business. Yeah, I tell folks all the time,
you know, great models get funded, so you know, usually
if if you're struggling to get funding, sometimes you got
to look back at your model and the structure of
(04:16):
what it is and doesn't make sense for everyone, right,
can you say that again, because people talk about how
hard it is to get capital and funding, etcetera. But oftentimes,
like the hard slap is like your model wasn't good,
your finances weren't right, you didn't pass diligence your idea,
you didn't have enough customers, And I think, like that's
really hard information to hear. But say it again for
(04:38):
the folks in the book, getting funding is supposed to
be hard, right, It's not supposed to be easy for anyone.
So let's let's just established that. But then you know,
through that process it is humbling. Right. That's why you
find a lot of entrepreneurs are extremely humble people because
they've put themselves out there and been rejected over and
over again. Right, And so after a while you're like, okay, next,
(05:02):
you know, you're you're just you know, I call it
edit and amplified. Right, You're you're making these tweaks and
you're making it better, and that's part of what has
to happen. But look at your model, because I think
sometimes we get too fixated on the model or excuse me,
on the on the product or the idea and not
the model and how it's going to grow in scale.
And give someone a return. So you know, it looks
(05:24):
that's that's the hard work, but it's it's necessary. It's necessary,
it's necessary, and you really do have to have all
those teas crossed and eyes dotted all the way back
down to you know, your first purchases. It really does
make a difference. Yeah, definitely, absolutely, Okay. I actually I
want to talk about this because I think it is
a really remarkable feat to get your product in chains
(05:47):
like Sapphora and Alta. Can you talk about how you
negotiated those deals and how you got your foot in
the door, because especially for black brands, you know we've
had we've just come out of Black Lives Matter, where
all these big superstores and brands are saying they want
to support black entrepreneurs. So how was that process? I
think the processes is always tough. But again I go
back to the fundamentals, right, because all of this work
(06:09):
that we're talking about is difficult. But again, if you
go into your fundamentals, you're blocking and tackling. That's how
you really set yourself up to win. So when anytime
you're trying to go into retail, I think the big
thing is to understand what the shelf landscape is so
right now, the shelf set in hair care is flooded
with shampoos and conditioners. Everyone has a shampoo and conditioners.
(06:31):
So if you're trying to launch a shampoo and conditioner,
it's gonna be really hard to get into that shelf
because who are you displacing? Are you bigger than them? Right?
Do you have more customers than them? What's your attractability?
Is your margin better? Right? All of these things then
become contentious points that you have to prove. But if
you have something that is a creative to the portfolio,
(06:52):
meaning it is new to the area and enhnce, that's
where Sunday is Sunday is able to win. We focus
on Well, Sunday's wash day, right, that's that black household
washing and every every black woman that I've ever met
and growing up with washes their hair on Sunday. Well,
how do I get you from Sunday to Sunday? Right?
That's where the night the name comes from. So what's
(07:13):
your in between washcare? Well, that's incremental to the show
that now is new news. That's an incremental purchase for
those retailers. So honestly, that positioning has allowed us to
get where retailers are reaching out to us, right because
we're additive to their show. That's a chance for them
to sell one more product versus a swap. Right, So
(07:33):
we're helping to grow the category versus basically trading dollars
within the category. And I hope these I hope folks
are understanding the jewels and gems you're dropping here. This
is visionary thought about how to add value not just
to the retailer, but to the consumers. Like that's that's beautiful. Yeah,
I mean, and look it's it's competition, right. So at
(07:54):
the end of the day, we're entrepreneurs. We're battling out
there on the front lines every day. So we're trying
to find ways to win. That's the that's the work, right,
We're trying to figure out how to win. You can
win by being incremental, you can win by being better,
you can win by being at a at a lower
price point. But ultimately you win by providing new value
(08:14):
to the market that doesn't exist right, right, and a
great product that people want to come back and use
over and over and over again. Absolutely, amen, there, Okay,
so you had your product, you proved to these big,
big box stores that you know people needed by providing
sort of a different strategy and a different product that
was new and innovative. How was it brokering the deals?
(08:38):
The deals are always tough, but there's a pretty good precedent,
you know. For me, I'm fortunate enough where I've been
in consumer products for so long I roughly know where
the margin points are, so you know there there's a
couple of things that you're gonna have to negotiate. One,
what's the discount you're going to give the retail So
is that I've seen all kind of crazy numbers, but
(08:59):
you need to find out what can you afford as
a business? So what are you buying your product for?
What are you selling the product for? What is the
consumer buying it at? Now? What are you willing to
split right in the middle? So that's that's your negotiation point.
The next is payment terms, right, So how are you
handling payment terms? Meaning when you drop off those goods,
(09:20):
when are you going to get money back? Cash Flow?
Cash Flow is always a problem with a startup, right
It's it's how you're managing your money moving forward, because
the last thing you want to do is run out right,
you can't run out of money. That's the that's the
name of the game. So you gotta stay in it.
So you're really trying to look, Okay, what are my
cash reserves? And if they place a huge purchase order,
(09:44):
let's say it's half a million dollars or whatever that
is on your books, how long can you float that
because you're probably gonna have to pay for that product
right up front, so that money's coming out, Now, when
are you going to recoup that? And can your your
financials with in that gap? So that's always a battle.
So you're looking at your your price points in your
(10:05):
whole ecosystem to understand your cash will yep, once you
have those those are the two main points other than
that that's big though, those are big? Are those are
deal breakers? Yeah? Those can sink the ship or yeah, yeah,
that's the game. I mean. Now you're you're into kind
of more you know, minor things. Where am I placed
on shelf? How many units do I have to move
(10:25):
per store per week? But that's your job, right, that's
that's your job now to make sure that consumers are
coming in there finding your products, they want to buy it,
and then they have a great experience when they use it,
so that they want to come back and buy again,
because if they don't come back and buy again, you're
not gonna be on that shelf. Wone. That's right, Okay,
So I have another question because I think oftentimes people
will think the goal is to get into a Sephora
(10:47):
or an altar or this. Have you seen some scenarios
where it actually is probably not beneficial and it doesn't
really help the brand, especially I think from a marketing perspective,
Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I
think I think you want to retailers that have great
alignment with how your brand is position right. If you're
if you're a premium product, it's probably not a good
(11:07):
idea to be in family dollars, right. That wouldn't make
sense when you're selling for you know, thirty cosmetic products.
But a support may make sense, right, A blooming deals
makes sense because that fits within your your equity. So
I think when you're looking at what retailers, do you
have a natural fit right, and is their customer base
your customer base. If you have that alignment, then it's
(11:31):
probably a good relationship. But if you haven't proven that
your customers are their customers. Like I've seen people going
to Target and nothing happens. All they've done now is
they're sitting on inventory. It's a broken relationship, there's no
cell through, and now you've got a hole in your financials.
So that's when it's probably a bad idea. But if
your brand has has a customer base, has a following, right,
(11:54):
you can handle the cell through the retailer fits within
your equity alignment. Well, now what you're doing is you're
just getting your product in front of more of your customers. Yes,
that's always the goal, right, So I just want to
be I want to make sure my product is easily
accessible for the people who want to buy wherever that is.
It's online, if that's in store, if that's at a
(12:14):
gas station, if that's at a kiosk in the mall,
I don't care, right, I want to make sure if
she wants my product, you can find it, if she
can easily buy it. Absolutely Okay. So I'm so fascinated
by this because I love stories of for in the
big box stores. Let's talk about especially. You've got a
lot of marketing acumen. When you signed your deal with support,
does that mean your product now goes into every support
(12:35):
across the country, or can you select different geographic locations
you can select. I mean that's always a negotiation, right,
So you know, all these retailers, they want to make
sure your product is going to get purchased right by consumers.
They don't want to sit on the inventory either, so
they're gonna test you into it. You'll typically start online,
then they'll move you into a couple of stores, then
(12:55):
you'll start to negotiating and expand your door count, right.
So that's natural journey of every retail kind of relationship
that most brands get into. Okay, I like it. I
like it so from your perspective, and there's my last
question on this. Would you rather me, as an individual
consumer go to Sepphoria and buy your product or buy
it directly from you online? I am happy that you buy.
(13:20):
I am just happy that you buy where wherever it
is because I've covered off on that, right, so I've
made sure that no matter where you buy it is,
it's it's good for my business, right and it's good
for my shareholders. So I'm just always happy and grateful
for her to buy anywhere. Okay, got it? Got it?
Got it, got it? Okay, So let's move on to
(13:40):
your nonprofit. So tell me about venture Noir. Yeah, you know,
venture was like part therapy for me. All Right, I'll
be honest. Once you're you become an entrepreneur and you
go through you know, some exits in and just tough
times in general, it feels very lonely. Um. And I
think something I've always appreciated about to two markets in
particular that I'll call out, one being just Silicon Valley
(14:01):
in general. Right, it's such a community in an ecosystem.
And the second is you know, part of your hometown,
right and where you reside in Atlanta, Georgia. Right, it's
an amazing ecosystem and community. Well, I was an entrepreneur
that was in New York, right, So I mean New
York is just it's hardcore, right, We're we're moving and grooving.
You feel isolated. It's it's the busiest, loneliest city in
(14:22):
the world. I always say, right, you can have a
million people walk by you and never say anything. But
as you're going through this journey, you felt very isolated.
So I said, look, we need to create some level
of community for black entrepreneurs. And I didn't know what
it was gonna be. Honestly, I did a meet up
at my apartment posted on Instagram. I had about seventy
people show up with their favorite drink and we just
(14:43):
talked about the journey of entrepreneurship. What we realize is
how similar we were. But also you have these extremely
you know, on the surface confident folks that are chasing
their dreams, but then have this level of insecurity. They
were feeling like they need something else from someone. And
I said, all right, we need to build a community,
and let's start with there's a there's a knowledge gap
(15:05):
that that sits with some folks, So let's build curriculum. Right,
there is this sense of community that wasn't existing outside
of those kind of two regions that I talked about
a Silicon Valley and in Atlanta, Georgia. Sorry, let's figure
out how we can build community and then capital. Right,
but what's the right capital? So access to capital that's
a big word. Right. There's friends and family loans, there's debt,
(15:28):
there's cd F fives. Right, there's there's government grants, there's
venture capital, there's private equity. Right, you have this world
of capital where everyone was fixated on venture capital and
the business is that we're being talked to me. Weren't
venture capital type business? Oh my gosh, yes, and I
get it. This is where you start to realize that
the little pieces in the in the system that are broken,
(15:50):
but if we identify them, we can fix it. We
can like totally absolutely. And so you know, once once
we went there, you know, I I took venture and
that concept of right, I want to build this you
know three C model, right, curriculum, community, and access to capital.
I took that to some regions where I thought could benefit.
So the first stop was actually in Arkansas, where I've
(16:11):
grown so fond of of Arkansas because of the operational
excellence and what surrounded Walmart. Right, just Walmart has an
institution right in JB. Hunt. Right, You're talking about these
multi billion dollar businesses that have created these infrastructures in
supply chain and built wealth in their family that has
transcended their region. So I said, look, let's let's go
(16:33):
there and see what's going on. I also would be
remiss if I didn't talk about their history racism, right,
that that existed in Arkansas. You know, the Tulsa massacre
gets a lot of attention. But there was the Alaying massacre. Right,
there was a string of massacres that happened around the
country that were traumatic. And I said, all right, let's
go there and let's let's understand that landscape. And and
I think we were really fortunate where you know, the
(16:54):
Walton Family Foundation, right, the makers of Walmart got wind
of what we were doing and wanted to support and
they've been our title sponsor since since our conception. But
I'll say, as a mission, you know, what we're doing
is we're we're taking a small piece of trying to
eradicate income inequality. But what does that mean? Right, We're
talking about improving the well being in the lives of
(17:14):
people of color right through entrepreneurship. And the only way
to do that is to create healthier businesses when I
stand for as a person, Look, I know that black
women are creating more businesses, and black people in general
are creating more at a rapid rate. My problem is
we're not creating jobs. We have a lot of solo
preneurs and what we need is we need those fearless
(17:37):
and courageous entrepreneurs also employ their community. Yeah, and I
think it's about scale. It's about vision and scale, and
you know, I think it's being able to say like, hey,
I've got this business idea, I need to grow up
beyond me. I needed to be bigger and not the
idea of these lifestyle businesses, because that's what we should
be content with. Yeah, look, you want to help out
(17:59):
your community. You want to achieve true economic impact. And
that's what we're focused on, is how do we create
healthier businesses? And that looks like two kpi s Right,
is your revenue per employee growing? But is your payroll
per employee group? Are you able to pay people more?
Because fundamentally, if we're able to do that, guess what happens.
(18:20):
Those people who have great jobs and now this new
black middle class, they can buy homes. If they can
buy homes, they have assets. Guess what that means. Now
they're in the category of wealth creation. That wealth gap
that exists. Well, if you start to build assets, you
start to close the gap. The problem is that we
haven't been creating assets as a community, and that's because
(18:40):
we haven't had the job market right, that's stable enough
and it's supporting us. You know, the rest belt the
industry is gone, right, automotive is gone right, So there's
a lot of industries that we're building, you know, amazing
quality of life for people of color. Well, those industries
have gone, right, Those jobs have left and gone to
China and down in Mexico and a very fous other places.
(19:01):
We have to now bring that back to America, right
and bring that back to our communities. And that's something
I'm extremely passionate about. You can probably here it. I
get all fired, No, we I love it because this
is this is exactly the conversations that we want to
have on Money Moves so that we can educate and
understand and inspire people to realize, like, this is our
time and no one's gonna do it for us, and
we can do it, even having you come on this
(19:22):
podcast and lay down the steps to doing it and say,
you know what, great, it's not good enough that you've
just moved units of your product, Like how many people
are you employing and how do they take that back
to this? This is really about creating generational wealth, absolutely absolutely,
and to me, that's the most selfless thing that you
can do, right, because when you're really building wealth, you're
(19:43):
not going to be here to enjoy it, so you're
building it for future generations. And I think too often
we think of wealth as this like, you know, selfish
and greedy thing for an individual. It's actually the most
selfless thing that you can do. And I'm building a
business for my daughter, right and my daughter's future kids
right that I won't be here for some of those
those generations, and you can't take it With's not selfish.
(20:05):
That's for them, and I think that's what's magical about
entrepreneurship and the work that we're doing, the work that
you've been doing within your family. Thank you. I appreciate that.
And Venture Noir. I love that because I think you
hit on it with those three c's, and I think
that is sort of the key to really taking everything
to the next level. I also want to talk about
one of the two things that I love here is
(20:26):
you're you're sort of got one foot in both sides.
You know, you're really passionate about your nonprofit and giving
back and educated, but at the same time you're about
your coins, and I love how both of those can
exist hand in hand. Can you talk, going back to
the nonprofit piece, about how you formed that nonprofit and
how it really differs in terms of making money not
making money in the structure of that. I think a
(20:48):
lot of people wonder how that works. Yeah, you know,
a nonprofit is the same structure as a for profit business.
You just have different regulatory mandates, right, so instead of
of extracting profits, you may be rolling those over into
the next year. So I think it's a misnomber that
nonprofits don't make money. They still have to be a
sustainable business. It is just for community good, right, So
(21:09):
it is closely aligned to a community impact mission that
the government has approved right and signed off on. So
our mission is about improving black business health. So all
of our activities are very closely structured and mandated to
deliver upon that, and that's what we're doing month over month,
year after year. So I think for me, I had
(21:31):
to really learn to write that a nonprofit is like
a business. Right. You still have to run it, you
have to build a team, you have to find an
identify scale, but you just want to uphold that the
highest thing that you're focused on is the impact that
you're doing from a charitable contribution right to society. And
that's why I love it, and I think that's why
I have both sides of it, because I think both
(21:51):
sides are needed. But if we're looking at improving the
overall well being of the lives of the black community,
well you need both the education, the research of the development,
which are great things to do in a nonprofit right,
the training right in in the ecosystem building. But you
also need to create jobs. You also need to create profits,
right and well, so you need both those things to exist.
(22:14):
So I believe that doing good should make money, right,
That's that's the way that we should be functioning. I
love that boom knows a mic drop no, because you're
you're giving. You're giving you everything that I want. Can
you tell us where we can follow you on social media,
where we can find the products and the website. Yep,
So you can go to my Sunday number two Sunday
dot com um and you can buy online, or you
(22:35):
can find us at Saphora dot com or Alta dot
com and in stores near you, you know. Congratulations, Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blogs. Money Moves is an I
(22:56):
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What's up, Money movers. Welcome back. Today's steep dive into
entrepreneurship and our community is brought to you by our
partners at MasterCard, Bridging the wealth Gap together retreat with
ye so Keenan. So you started supply Factory with the
(00:21):
goal of creating all these consumer brands. Tell us about
the brands that you have under there, and I'm really
interested in what it takes to launch a CpG brand. Yeah,
So we have beauty, health and wellness and home care
underneath that portfolio as well as CBD products. So there's
about nine brands in total. Sunday to Sunday is by
(00:43):
far the biggest. Recently just you know announced in Sepphora
and Alta, so very omni channel business. That wow, congratulations. No,
I love that one because that one I called that
my my niece's brand, right, that was that was built
in designed for her, So it has a very special
place in my heart. But but you know, the entire
or infrastructure was was designed because I was thinking about scale,
(01:04):
right I come from, you know, the Procter and Gambles
of the world, the loreals of the world, the recompend
keysers of the world. Those are machines and institutions with
operating models that allow for multiple brands to launch and thrive, right,
And that was something I wanted to do as an entrepreneur.
I said, how can we create these brands in more
authentic and relevant ways, faster and it at a lower cost.
(01:27):
And and that was something where we needed to create
that type of engine. But you know how to build that,
you know, fundamentally startups. It's exactly what we just talked
right in the last bit. You know, you start with
the community you want to serve. You put some information
in front of them to see if they're going to
be receptive to that, and then you go to the product.
And the product is about providing a benefit in a
(01:48):
need space right against an insight, the truth, the motivation, attention.
Now you're just putting a product benefit in front of
that and then trying to give them reasons to believe.
Those reasons to believe look like you know claims where
hey kills germs, right, we see that, but it also
could be validation from you know, a consumer saying, oh
(02:09):
my god, I took this pill right and I lost
all this way right or these things. That's social proof.
All those becomes reasons to believe the benefit that you're
selling and helps to drive that consumer traction. And so
now you're just looking at doing that at scale. And
I would say, you know, from a division standpoint, it
depends on on what consumer product you're looking to go after,
(02:30):
but I would say, you're always gonna need something in
performance marketing, right, how do you sell and what are
the fundamentals of doing that online? How do you then
tackle that from a wholesale meaning do you want to
be in gems or you know, retailers, etcetera. There's that
kind of division. Then you have your supply chain right
your product development because right now, especially during COVID, supply
(02:50):
chain is tough. Yeah, there there's a scarcity of ingredients
and manufacturing globally, consumption habits now of its expanded, so
people are over buying, overproducing goods. So you need to
find ways to to get those ingredients and then just
moving products from especially internationally into the U S. It's
it's not easy now, um, but you need to have
(03:13):
someone focused on that, and then you gotta take care
of your back office. You know, I tell everyone, right,
the thing that hurts a lot of entrepreneurs is is
messing up on taxes, right, governance things, just you know,
your legal work. So you know that's not the what
I call the sexy stuff, but it's critical. You're not
gonna get banked at at a Greenwood or anyone else.
You're not gonna be able to get venture capital. You
(03:34):
can't go through due diligence and you don't have your
you know, quote unquote affairs in order. So um, thank
you for mentioning that, because I think sometimes we gloss
over that, and you know, especially for folks that are
trying to build businesses in the CpG space, it's fun,
it's sexy. You're testing out products, they're sending you samples,
you're asking your friends, but you have to understand that
(03:54):
the business part of it. Making sure that you've registered
your corporation, whether it's an LLC, You've got your your
books correct, like, that's a huge part of you know,
building a correct business. Yeah, I tell folks all the time,
you know, great models get funded, so you know, usually
if if you're struggling to get funding, sometimes you got
to look back at your model and the structure of
(04:16):
what it is and doesn't make sense for everyone, right,
can you say that again, because people talk about how
hard it is to get capital and funding, etcetera. But oftentimes,
like the hard slap is like your model wasn't good,
your finances weren't right, you didn't pass diligence your idea,
you didn't have enough customers, And I think, like that's
really hard information to hear. But say it again for
(04:38):
the folks in the book, getting funding is supposed to
be hard, right, It's not supposed to be easy for anyone.
So let's let's just established that. But then you know,
through that process it is humbling. Right. That's why you
find a lot of entrepreneurs are extremely humble people because
they've put themselves out there and been rejected over and
over again. Right, And so after a while you're like, okay, next,
(05:02):
you know, you're you're just you know, I call it
edit and amplified. Right, You're you're making these tweaks and
you're making it better, and that's part of what has
to happen. But look at your model, because I think
sometimes we get too fixated on the model or excuse me,
on the on the product or the idea and not
the model and how it's going to grow in scale.
And give someone a return. So you know, it looks
(05:24):
that's that's the hard work, but it's it's necessary. It's necessary,
it's necessary, and you really do have to have all
those teas crossed and eyes dotted all the way back
down to you know, your first purchases. It really does
make a difference. Yeah, definitely, absolutely, Okay. I actually I
want to talk about this because I think it is
a really remarkable feat to get your product in chains
(05:47):
like Sapphora and Alta. Can you talk about how you
negotiated those deals and how you got your foot in
the door, because especially for black brands, you know we've
had we've just come out of Black Lives Matter, where
all these big superstores and brands are saying they want
to support black entrepreneurs. So how was that process? I
think the processes is always tough. But again I go
back to the fundamentals, right, because all of this work
(06:09):
that we're talking about is difficult. But again, if you
go into your fundamentals, you're blocking and tackling. That's how
you really set yourself up to win. So when anytime
you're trying to go into retail, I think the big
thing is to understand what the shelf landscape is so
right now, the shelf set in hair care is flooded
with shampoos and conditioners. Everyone has a shampoo and conditioners.
(06:31):
So if you're trying to launch a shampoo and conditioner,
it's gonna be really hard to get into that shelf
because who are you displacing? Are you bigger than them? Right?
Do you have more customers than them? What's your attractability?
Is your margin better? Right? All of these things then
become contentious points that you have to prove. But if
you have something that is a creative to the portfolio,
(06:52):
meaning it is new to the area and enhnce, that's
where Sunday is Sunday is able to win. We focus
on Well, Sunday's wash day, right, that's that black household
washing and every every black woman that I've ever met
and growing up with washes their hair on Sunday. Well,
how do I get you from Sunday to Sunday? Right?
That's where the night the name comes from. So what's
(07:13):
your in between washcare? Well, that's incremental to the show
that now is new news. That's an incremental purchase for
those retailers. So honestly, that positioning has allowed us to
get where retailers are reaching out to us, right because
we're additive to their show. That's a chance for them
to sell one more product versus a swap. Right, So
(07:33):
we're helping to grow the category versus basically trading dollars
within the category. And I hope these I hope folks
are understanding the jewels and gems you're dropping here. This
is visionary thought about how to add value not just
to the retailer, but to the consumers. Like that's that's beautiful. Yeah,
I mean, and look it's it's competition, right. So at
(07:54):
the end of the day, we're entrepreneurs. We're battling out
there on the front lines every day. So we're trying
to find ways to win. That's the that's the work, right,
We're trying to figure out how to win. You can
win by being incremental, you can win by being better,
you can win by being at a at a lower
price point. But ultimately you win by providing new value
(08:14):
to the market that doesn't exist right, right, and a
great product that people want to come back and use
over and over and over again. Absolutely, amen, there, Okay,
so you had your product, you proved to these big,
big box stores that you know people needed by providing
sort of a different strategy and a different product that
was new and innovative. How was it brokering the deals?
(08:38):
The deals are always tough, but there's a pretty good precedent,
you know. For me, I'm fortunate enough where I've been
in consumer products for so long I roughly know where
the margin points are, so you know there there's a
couple of things that you're gonna have to negotiate. One,
what's the discount you're going to give the retail So
is that I've seen all kind of crazy numbers, but
(08:59):
you need to find out what can you afford as
a business? So what are you buying your product for?
What are you selling the product for? What is the
consumer buying it at? Now? What are you willing to
split right in the middle? So that's that's your negotiation point.
The next is payment terms, right, So how are you
handling payment terms? Meaning when you drop off those goods,
(09:20):
when are you going to get money back? Cash Flow?
Cash Flow is always a problem with a startup, right
It's it's how you're managing your money moving forward, because
the last thing you want to do is run out right,
you can't run out of money. That's the that's the
name of the game. So you gotta stay in it.
So you're really trying to look, Okay, what are my
cash reserves? And if they place a huge purchase order,
(09:44):
let's say it's half a million dollars or whatever that
is on your books, how long can you float that
because you're probably gonna have to pay for that product
right up front, so that money's coming out, Now, when
are you going to recoup that? And can your your
financials with in that gap? So that's always a battle.
So you're looking at your your price points in your
(10:05):
whole ecosystem to understand your cash will yep, once you
have those those are the two main points other than
that that's big though, those are big? Are those are
deal breakers? Yeah? Those can sink the ship or yeah, yeah,
that's the game. I mean. Now you're you're into kind
of more you know, minor things. Where am I placed
on shelf? How many units do I have to move
(10:25):
per store per week? But that's your job, right, that's
that's your job now to make sure that consumers are
coming in there finding your products, they want to buy it,
and then they have a great experience when they use it,
so that they want to come back and buy again,
because if they don't come back and buy again, you're
not gonna be on that shelf. Wone. That's right, Okay,
So I have another question because I think oftentimes people
will think the goal is to get into a Sephora
(10:47):
or an altar or this. Have you seen some scenarios
where it actually is probably not beneficial and it doesn't
really help the brand, especially I think from a marketing perspective,
Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I
think I think you want to retailers that have great
alignment with how your brand is position right. If you're
if you're a premium product, it's probably not a good
(11:07):
idea to be in family dollars, right. That wouldn't make
sense when you're selling for you know, thirty cosmetic products.
But a support may make sense, right, A blooming deals
makes sense because that fits within your your equity. So
I think when you're looking at what retailers, do you
have a natural fit right, and is their customer base
your customer base. If you have that alignment, then it's
(11:31):
probably a good relationship. But if you haven't proven that
your customers are their customers. Like I've seen people going
to Target and nothing happens. All they've done now is
they're sitting on inventory. It's a broken relationship, there's no
cell through, and now you've got a hole in your financials.
So that's when it's probably a bad idea. But if
your brand has has a customer base, has a following, right,
(11:54):
you can handle the cell through the retailer fits within
your equity alignment. Well, now what you're doing is you're
just getting your product in front of more of your customers. Yes,
that's always the goal, right, So I just want to
be I want to make sure my product is easily
accessible for the people who want to buy wherever that is.
It's online, if that's in store, if that's at a
(12:14):
gas station, if that's at a kiosk in the mall,
I don't care, right, I want to make sure if
she wants my product, you can find it, if she
can easily buy it. Absolutely Okay. So I'm so fascinated
by this because I love stories of for in the
big box stores. Let's talk about especially. You've got a
lot of marketing acumen. When you signed your deal with support,
does that mean your product now goes into every support
(12:35):
across the country, or can you select different geographic locations
you can select. I mean that's always a negotiation, right,
So you know, all these retailers, they want to make
sure your product is going to get purchased right by consumers.
They don't want to sit on the inventory either, so
they're gonna test you into it. You'll typically start online,
then they'll move you into a couple of stores, then
(12:55):
you'll start to negotiating and expand your door count, right.
So that's natural journey of every retail kind of relationship
that most brands get into. Okay, I like it. I
like it so from your perspective, and there's my last
question on this. Would you rather me, as an individual
consumer go to Sepphoria and buy your product or buy
it directly from you online? I am happy that you buy.
(13:20):
I am just happy that you buy where wherever it
is because I've covered off on that, right, so I've
made sure that no matter where you buy it is,
it's it's good for my business, right and it's good
for my shareholders. So I'm just always happy and grateful
for her to buy anywhere. Okay, got it? Got it?
Got it, got it? Okay, So let's move on to
(13:40):
your nonprofit. So tell me about venture Noir. Yeah, you know,
venture was like part therapy for me. All Right, I'll
be honest. Once you're you become an entrepreneur and you
go through you know, some exits in and just tough
times in general, it feels very lonely. Um. And I
think something I've always appreciated about to two markets in
particular that I'll call out, one being just Silicon Valley
(14:01):
in general. Right, it's such a community in an ecosystem.
And the second is you know, part of your hometown,
right and where you reside in Atlanta, Georgia. Right, it's
an amazing ecosystem and community. Well, I was an entrepreneur
that was in New York, right, So I mean New
York is just it's hardcore, right, We're we're moving and grooving.
You feel isolated. It's it's the busiest, loneliest city in
(14:22):
the world. I always say, right, you can have a
million people walk by you and never say anything. But
as you're going through this journey, you felt very isolated.
So I said, look, we need to create some level
of community for black entrepreneurs. And I didn't know what
it was gonna be. Honestly, I did a meet up
at my apartment posted on Instagram. I had about seventy
people show up with their favorite drink and we just
(14:43):
talked about the journey of entrepreneurship. What we realize is
how similar we were. But also you have these extremely
you know, on the surface confident folks that are chasing
their dreams, but then have this level of insecurity. They
were feeling like they need something else from someone. And
I said, all right, we need to build a community,
and let's start with there's a there's a knowledge gap
(15:05):
that that sits with some folks, So let's build curriculum. Right,
there is this sense of community that wasn't existing outside
of those kind of two regions that I talked about
a Silicon Valley and in Atlanta, Georgia. Sorry, let's figure
out how we can build community and then capital. Right,
but what's the right capital? So access to capital that's
a big word. Right. There's friends and family loans, there's debt,
(15:28):
there's cd F fives. Right, there's there's government grants, there's
venture capital, there's private equity. Right, you have this world
of capital where everyone was fixated on venture capital and
the business is that we're being talked to me. Weren't
venture capital type business? Oh my gosh, yes, and I
get it. This is where you start to realize that
the little pieces in the in the system that are broken,
(15:50):
but if we identify them, we can fix it. We
can like totally absolutely. And so you know, once once
we went there, you know, I I took venture and
that concept of right, I want to build this you
know three C model, right, curriculum, community, and access to capital.
I took that to some regions where I thought could benefit.
So the first stop was actually in Arkansas, where I've
(16:11):
grown so fond of of Arkansas because of the operational
excellence and what surrounded Walmart. Right, just Walmart has an
institution right in JB. Hunt. Right, You're talking about these
multi billion dollar businesses that have created these infrastructures in
supply chain and built wealth in their family that has
transcended their region. So I said, look, let's let's go
(16:33):
there and see what's going on. I also would be
remiss if I didn't talk about their history racism, right,
that that existed in Arkansas. You know, the Tulsa massacre
gets a lot of attention. But there was the Alaying massacre. Right,
there was a string of massacres that happened around the
country that were traumatic. And I said, all right, let's
go there and let's let's understand that landscape. And and
I think we were really fortunate where you know, the
(16:54):
Walton Family Foundation, right, the makers of Walmart got wind
of what we were doing and wanted to support and
they've been our title sponsor since since our conception. But
I'll say, as a mission, you know, what we're doing
is we're we're taking a small piece of trying to
eradicate income inequality. But what does that mean? Right, We're
talking about improving the well being in the lives of
(17:14):
people of color right through entrepreneurship. And the only way
to do that is to create healthier businesses when I
stand for as a person, Look, I know that black
women are creating more businesses, and black people in general
are creating more at a rapid rate. My problem is
we're not creating jobs. We have a lot of solo
preneurs and what we need is we need those fearless
(17:37):
and courageous entrepreneurs also employ their community. Yeah, and I
think it's about scale. It's about vision and scale, and
you know, I think it's being able to say like, hey,
I've got this business idea, I need to grow up
beyond me. I needed to be bigger and not the
idea of these lifestyle businesses, because that's what we should
be content with. Yeah, look, you want to help out
(17:59):
your community. You want to achieve true economic impact. And
that's what we're focused on, is how do we create
healthier businesses? And that looks like two kpi s Right,
is your revenue per employee growing? But is your payroll
per employee group? Are you able to pay people more?
Because fundamentally, if we're able to do that, guess what happens.
(18:20):
Those people who have great jobs and now this new
black middle class, they can buy homes. If they can
buy homes, they have assets. Guess what that means. Now
they're in the category of wealth creation. That wealth gap
that exists. Well, if you start to build assets, you
start to close the gap. The problem is that we
haven't been creating assets as a community, and that's because
(18:40):
we haven't had the job market right, that's stable enough
and it's supporting us. You know, the rest belt the
industry is gone, right, automotive is gone right, So there's
a lot of industries that we're building, you know, amazing
quality of life for people of color. Well, those industries
have gone, right, Those jobs have left and gone to
China and down in Mexico and a very fous other places.
(19:01):
We have to now bring that back to America, right
and bring that back to our communities. And that's something
I'm extremely passionate about. You can probably here it. I
get all fired, No, we I love it because this
is this is exactly the conversations that we want to
have on Money Moves so that we can educate and
understand and inspire people to realize, like, this is our
time and no one's gonna do it for us, and
we can do it, even having you come on this
(19:22):
podcast and lay down the steps to doing it and say,
you know what, great, it's not good enough that you've
just moved units of your product, Like how many people
are you employing and how do they take that back
to this? This is really about creating generational wealth, absolutely absolutely,
and to me, that's the most selfless thing that you
can do, right, because when you're really building wealth, you're
(19:43):
not going to be here to enjoy it, so you're
building it for future generations. And I think too often
we think of wealth as this like, you know, selfish
and greedy thing for an individual. It's actually the most
selfless thing that you can do. And I'm building a
business for my daughter, right and my daughter's future kids
right that I won't be here for some of those
those generations, and you can't take it With's not selfish.
(20:05):
That's for them, and I think that's what's magical about
entrepreneurship and the work that we're doing, the work that
you've been doing within your family. Thank you. I appreciate that.
And Venture Noir. I love that because I think you
hit on it with those three c's, and I think
that is sort of the key to really taking everything
to the next level. I also want to talk about
one of the two things that I love here is
(20:26):
you're you're sort of got one foot in both sides.
You know, you're really passionate about your nonprofit and giving
back and educated, but at the same time you're about
your coins, and I love how both of those can
exist hand in hand. Can you talk, going back to
the nonprofit piece, about how you formed that nonprofit and
how it really differs in terms of making money not
making money in the structure of that. I think a
(20:48):
lot of people wonder how that works. Yeah, you know,
a nonprofit is the same structure as a for profit business.
You just have different regulatory mandates, right, so instead of
of extracting profits, you may be rolling those over into
the next year. So I think it's a misnomber that
nonprofits don't make money. They still have to be a
sustainable business. It is just for community good, right, So
(21:09):
it is closely aligned to a community impact mission that
the government has approved right and signed off on. So
our mission is about improving black business health. So all
of our activities are very closely structured and mandated to
deliver upon that, and that's what we're doing month over month,
year after year. So I think for me, I had
(21:31):
to really learn to write that a nonprofit is like
a business. Right. You still have to run it, you
have to build a team, you have to find an
identify scale, but you just want to uphold that the
highest thing that you're focused on is the impact that
you're doing from a charitable contribution right to society. And
that's why I love it, and I think that's why
I have both sides of it, because I think both
(21:51):
sides are needed. But if we're looking at improving the
overall well being of the lives of the black community,
well you need both the education, the research of the development,
which are great things to do in a nonprofit right,
the training right in in the ecosystem building. But you
also need to create jobs. You also need to create profits,
right and well, so you need both those things to exist.
(22:14):
So I believe that doing good should make money, right,
That's that's the way that we should be functioning. I
love that boom knows a mic drop no, because you're
you're giving. You're giving you everything that I want. Can
you tell us where we can follow you on social media,
where we can find the products and the website. Yep,
So you can go to my Sunday number two Sunday
dot com um and you can buy online, or you
(22:35):
can find us at Saphora dot com or Alta dot
com and in stores near you, you know. Congratulations, Thank
you so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If
you want more or a recap of this episode, please
go to the Bank Greenwood dot com and check out
the Money Moves podcast blogs. Money Moves is an I
(22:56):
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