James Oliver Jr. is the Founder and CEO of The ParentPreneur Foundation, which empowers Black ParentPreneurs so they can leave a legacy for their beautiful Black children.

Chad talks with James about inspiring, encouraging, and supporting ParentPreneurs to lobby to try to close wealth inequality gaps, shoot their shot and send cold emails, and engage in a community that supports one another.

Parents Making Profits
The ParentPreneur Foundation
Follow The ParentPreneur Foundation on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
Follow James on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Follow thoughtbot on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Become a Sponsor of Giant Robots!

Transcript:

CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is James Oliver Jr., Founder, and CEO of the ParentPreneur Foundation, which empowers Black ParentPreneurs so they can leave a legacy for their beautiful Black children. James, thanks for joining me.

JAMES: I'm super excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me.

CHAD: So I just said, in a nutshell, the tagline for ParentPreneur Foundation. I know it's a community that brings people together, Black ParentPreneurs together. How did you get started and see the need for this, and how did you actually then make it happen?

JAMES: Oh boy, that's a great question with a semi-long answer, so just hang in with me, but I think it's a really compelling story. So back in 2013, (I'm from Brooklyn, New York) at the time, I was living in Northeast Wisconsin. It started in 2011. I was trying to build a startup called WeMontage, which was the world's only website to let you turn your digital images into removable photo wallpaper.

CHAD: If you haven't seen it, by the way, you should look at it. That description that you gave, even though it describes it perfectly, I didn't realize until I went to the website and looked at the pictures exactly what it is and how remarkable of a product it is.

JAMES: Well, I'm delighted that you say that. Thank you so much. And that's part of the reason why [laughter] it failed. I mean, it's still around. And I know we have a bunch of designers in the community. So look, the website still works. The underlying collage editing software is still brilliant, but the UI UX needs a lot of love. It's a bit of a zombie with about $10,000-$15,000 of technical debt floating around over there. [laughs] But the product still works. And we still print, ship them sometimes. And we have tons of repeat customers. It's just one of those things. You build a great product, and they will always come. But the product is still brilliant still today.

So back then, I was a non-technical founder. I was out of money. I cleaned out my savings and living in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't exactly a bastion of technology startups or diversity, even for that matter. And I was fortunate to get into Gener8tor's...I think we were the second cohort. Back then, it was super early. We went to Madison. And right now, Gener8tor is killing it.

But I was out of money. I was thankful to get into their Madison cohort, which was a two-hour drive away. My ex-wife now was pregnant with our twins. The kids were supposed to be born end of March. Gener8tor ended early April. So I was like, okay, this timing works out brilliantly. But a day or two before the program started, I had to deliver, and we had to deliver the twins prematurely. Otherwise, my son would have died.

CHAD: Wow.

JAMES: His blood just started to circulate backwards. It was crazy. So we had to take them out. They weighed two pounds apiece. Every time I tell this story, it gives me agita, man. The accelerator was a two-hour drive each way back and forth to the NICU, waking up at 2:00 a.m. every morning because I couldn't sleep. I cried every day. I had a really talented developer on my team, but he had his personal demons. So he was really unreliable. But he was a brilliant guy. He was so smart, really talented.

But anyway, I got through the accelerator. Right before I was going on stage for demo day, I got a call from this angel that we pitched. We were raising $250,000 at the time, which really, in retrospect, was not nearly enough money. But I got a call. He said, "Hey, we're going to fill your round." I don't know. What does that mean? I don't take anything for granted. [laughs] What do you mean? "We're going to give you $250,000."

And then I just dropped to my knees. I thanked God. And I cried because I had sacrificed so much to get to that point. Thankfully, my daughter came home after six weeks, and my son came home after ten weeks. The kids are doing fine. They drive me crazy, but they're beautiful.

CHAD: [laughs] How old are they now?

JAMES: They just turned 9 in January. So after I launched WeMontage, I hired just a really remarkable technical co-founder and just a great guy. We still have a wonderful relationship. We got in there, and when I started out, I was like, well, I'm going to start a blog. I started a blog, and I was like, one of these days, I'm going to use the content from this blog to write a book.

CHAD: Before you move on, so in those early days, you had just gotten into the accelerator. You had this thing you needed to deal with with your family and delivering the twins. And did you ever consider dropping out of the accelerator at that point?

JAMES: I wasn't going to go, but I knew with that decision, WeMontage never would have come to light because I just didn't have the resources to make it happen. But as a family, we decided that I need to go do that and crush that, and so I made that choice. We raised money. In retrospect, we raised just enough money to fail because, look, the software was cute. We were running around pitching angels. It was cute to show look at what we can do, look at what we could do. When we turned the thing on, it was so unsustainable. It was a black box.

And I was on the phone literally with customers holding their hand to get them to place an order, and that was clearly unsustainable. So we made the decision that we need to fix this thing. We need to pull it apart, make it modular, stabilize the code, build on it. And by the time we got done with that, we only had a couple of months' cash left.

And I remember...man, if anybody has never told you this to your face, I promise you it's a hard thing to hear. They were like, "We're not going to throw good money after bad." I'm like, well, damn. Like, thanks. We have our first Today Show appearance coming up here next month. So thank you for that. Thanks. [laughs] Man.

CHAD: So you actually did go on the Today Show.

JAMES: Yeah, we got featured three times on the Today Show. I mean, on my own without a publicist, I got Today Show three times, Good Morning America, Money Magazine, DIY, Martha Stewart, on and on.

CHAD: I'm curious, after making an appearance like that, do your sales go up?

JAMES: They do. They did with the Today Show. So it was funny, like that first appearance, they didn't even put the graphic on the bottom with the name of the business. When Mario mentioned it, he said, "wemontage.com." Man, our freaking website went crazy. It crashed the website. [laughs] But we were kind of already prepared for it to crash. We had a little splash screen up and information. We got it back up in; I don't know, it was less than an hour.

But I spent literally all day getting back to those people. We gave them a coupon code. And we did about $15,000 that month from that one segment, which was great. That was our best month to date. I mean, all total, I've probably done $75,000 to $80,000 in sales from the three times we appeared on The Today Show.

CHAD: That's great. We've had clients, or I've known people who have done appearances like that, and it seems a little bit hit or miss. Sometimes it won't even result in a blip, and other times it's huge. And I'm not sure what the trend is when it matters and when it doesn't.

JAMES: This is the point: we all love these vanity things. We want to get exposure, exposure. So I have a really great relationship with Seth Godin, and he's a big supporter of the work I'm doing at ParentPreneur Foundation. He gives us scholarships to his marketing seminar, and he comes to visit with us sometime. The last time he talked about...he said, "Stop trying to do things to get attention. Spend your time getting your customers to tell their friends about your business." And that's a whole fact.

We love the vanity, but at the end of the day, PR does not necessarily equal cash flow. I had some hits. I got on Good Morning America, and that was not nearly as good as the Today Show. But that was by virtue of the last-minute change that they made in terms of how they were producing the segment. When they introduced my product, they had the camera on somebody else's product. They had people calling me about somebody else's stuff which is like, are you serious? But what are you going to do? You can't control that.

So yeah, those things are good. I will say that having that stuff on the landing page is good for credibility. People feel more comfortable, especially if they can see it. So that stuff matters to a point, but I wouldn't be spending a lot of time. I certainly would not be wasting a penny on a PR professional if I was a founder. I just wouldn't do it. All that stuff I rattled off I did on my own.

CHAD: Awesome. So you started to build a blog. [laughs]

JAMES: Yes. So the intention of that was to use that content to write a book to inspire ParentPreneurs around the world because it's hard being a parent and entrepreneur, especially if you're like early-stage scraping to get some revenue. You can't even talk about product-market fit yet. Can we make some money? [laughs] Can we make a buck?

CHAD: So I've done a few things in my life. Writing books is one of them, and I can't say that it's easy. I don't know how you found it. I was doing it with a traditional publisher the first few times around, and it was pretty difficult. How did you find it?

JAMES: So I self-published that book. And because of the way I approached it, I already had a bunch of content on my blog. It's funny; I was actually out of town. I was in Midland, Texas, because I got flown out there. I was on CNBC's version of Shark Tank, West Texas Investors Club, horrible experience, by the way. I swear if I ever go on another one of those shows, I'm going to bring the drama.

CHAD: [laughs]

JAMES: Piece of advice, for any of you guys listening, if you go on Shark Tank or any of those shows, do not leave it up to the creative people to tell a story about you. This is just me; I'm a little crazy, crazy like a fox. But you give them the story. So this is me and you talking, just the two of us. [laughs] If I go on Shark Tank or something like that, I'm not taking those people's money. They're going to be like, "Oh, well, you're just here clearly for the exposure." I'm like, well, so are you. You're doing it too.

Why should I give you 20% equity in my company for $200,000 or whatever it is? How much time are you actually going to spend helping me build my company? And by the way, the people who came before you from an investment standpoint already took a ton of risk off the table. So why should you get that money? And how many companies are in your portfolio? 50? So, okay, so are you really going to be helping me or nah? Nah? Right. No, I'm good.

CHAD: That'll definitely air. The producers will love that drama.

JAMES: That will air, right? See what I'm saying? And the people watching will be like, "Hell yeah, you tell them. Let me Google that real quick." [laughter]

CHAD: That's funny.

JAMES: But that's just me. But I have no intention of going back on any of those shows again because, at the end of the day, it was a bad experience for me. I only got about $6,000 in sales, but that's because nobody was watching that show. It was canceled. But at the end of the day, if you have a customer acquisition problem which is what we had at WeMontage, those things don't solve your problems. They just don't. Not necessarily. They could; you could get lucky. But it's probably not going to solve your problem.

CHAD: So I'm curious. So you wrote the book, and you focused on the concept of ParentPreneurs, Black ParentPreneurs specifically.

JAMES: No, actually, so the book was just for everybody who's a ParentPreneur. So the book's called The More You Hustle, The Luckier You Get: You CAN Be a Successful ParentPreneur. So Mario Armstrong, who's my guy from the Today Show, wrote the foreword to my book. We're really good friends. And it's on Amazon.

Some people have regarded it as the realest book of entrepreneurship they've ever read. It's unlike anything you ever read. It's the story of my journey, some of those things I just told you, and the up and down the back and forth. It will make you laugh, make you cry, make you wonder. You put it down, come back to it. There are some hard questions that I ask myself, and people read the book. It's a superfast read too.

CHAD: Awesome. At what point did you decide to focus on empowering Black ParentPreneurs?

JAMES: So that's a great question. So after I wrote the book, I had this idea. I said one day I'm going to sell WeMontage. And maybe it will happen. I don't know; if God can intervene, something could happen. Who knows? [laughter] It's just not likely at this point, and that's okay. But I was like, I'm going to sell this business. I'm going to take a million dollars of my own money and start a foundation for parents who are entrepreneurs because it's really freaking hard. It's so hard. Unless you've been there, you have no idea how hard that is. It's really hard.

So then, in early 2020, the whole world falls apart with George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor. I had my own Karen experience here in my backyard. I live in a really nice neighborhood in the suburbs of Atlanta. And I had to call the police on her. After the second experience, I filed a trespass warrant. Then I started looking at all the Federal Reserve wealth inequality data.

And I was like, I'm starting this foundation for Black ParentPreneurs because we need the help the most. We have got to try to close this wealth inequality gap. It's a big problem. I'm doing that. So now to answer your question, prior to that decision, so when I was going to Gener8tor, I met David Cohen and Brad Feld. They just popped up on a Google Meet to meet us. And these guys are co-founders of Techstars, which is one of the preeminent global startup accelerators.

And I just stayed in touch with them through their blogs. I didn't want anything from them. I remember I got an email from Brad a couple years back. And he's a voracious reader. He's a prolific writer. He sent me an email out of the blue. He said, "I just read your book. I effing loved it." [chuckles] He said, "I got to feature it on my blog." I was like, wow, okay, dope. So he did that. And we sold some books, which was great.

But so I reached out to Brad and David. I was like, "Hey, guys, I'm thinking about starting this foundation for ParentPreneurs in general." And they were like, "Yeah, I'm game. We can go back and forth with you about it," and which is amazing at that level those guys would be willing to do that. I appreciated that. And they were both like, "Eh, foundations are hard. It's a constant fundraising grind, blah, blah, blah."

And, look, they're not wrong. [laughs] They're not wrong. But here's the thing, though. For me, telling me something is hard doesn't land with me because I've had to scrap and scrape for every single blade of grass on the field of life. And quite frankly, it's hard being Black sometimes. If I had $1 every time somebody told me that WeMontage would have been successful if I had a white face out there instead of me type thing, it is very frustrating.

So then I got an email from Brad Feld out the blue after George Floyd, which was just a subject that said, "Hey, you're game for a 30-minute Zoom?" There was nothing in the body of the email. And I'm just like, yeah, I could as well want to talk to Brad. He's top of the food chain. He's not just a VC and co-founder of Techstars with a portfolio valuation north of $200 billion. He's also a Limited Partner. LPs are the people who write the checks to the VCs who write the checks to people like me and you guys listening who are entrepreneurs.

So I'm like, hell yeah, I want to talk to you for 30 minutes, Brad Feld. Who doesn't? I just didn't know what it was about. So he said, "I just want to know what two things you're working on addressing racial injustice, inequality I can put my time on or attention on." I'm like, Oh, hell yeah. Chad, I'm like, he has no idea what I just decided.

So we get on to Zoom. And I say, "You know, Brad, you remember that foundation thing I was telling you about?" He was like, "Yeah." I said, "Well, now that's just what Black ParentPreneurs is." He goes, "I'm so glad you did that." And this is the part that knocks me out of my chair every time I say it. He goes, "What would a 12-month operating plan look like? I can throw it up in a Google Doc, and I'll co-create it with you." [laughs]

CHAD: That's great. I mean, it is unfortunate that George Floyd being murdered and these other things have instigated people to want to make change and to get involved in ways that they haven't been able to before. That's super unfortunate, but something's got to wake people up.

JAMES: Well, that will come up because he was like, "Look, I'm this rich, middle-aged white dude. I've been doing things to support Black entrepreneurs in the past," but he's like, "I got to do more. So I'm reaching out to my friends, and I consider you a friend." I was like, wow, like, I knew you liked me a little bit, but I didn't know you liked me like that.

CHAD: [laughs]

JAMES: But he is a friend. I have his phone number. I can call him. He's a friend. Him and David these guys are friends. So I got the 12-month operating plan right back to him. He said, "This is great. What would a six-month plan look like?" I got to write back. And he's like, "Assume three things, one of which is a $50 000 seed grant from my foundation to start the ParentPreneur Foundation." So Brad has given now, I don't know, north of $125,000. He got us into the Techstars Foundation, which has been phenomenal.

My relationship with David has blossomed. I went on the Techstars Give First Podcast with David, and David's a friend as well. I just love those guys and how they move, and they've been super helpful. And so our foundation, at the heart of what we do, you mentioned this at the top, is we have a community of now almost 1,800 Black ParentPreneurs hosted on Mighty Networks, which is phenomenal because it's not on Facebook. That's the thing I love the most about it.

[laughter]

CHAD: I actually have some questions about Mighty Networks on my list. So we don't need to take a tangent in there right now. We can come back to it. I want to ask you about Mighty Networks.

JAMES: Love it. Love it. Love Gina Bianchini. She's the CEO. I actually had her on my LinkedIn live show a couple of months ago.

CHAD: Well, let's do it now then, actually. So as someone who has built software before to put together a company, did you ever consider that for this? And why not? And why use Mighty Networks?

JAMES: To build a community platform?

CHAD: [laughs] It's a very loaded question, James.

JAMES: Yeah, why would I do that? Listen, by the time I got done with my prototype with that; these guys would be like two versions past where they are today, which would be infinitely better than my little stinky MVP, right?

CHAD: Yeah.

JAMES: And these people live, eat, and breathe community. Is Mighty Networks perfect? No, of course not. But they're constantly making improvements. I think I told you at the top I'm actually about to launch a new podcast. I just signed a national podcast distribution deal. So we're launching a podcast on the HubSpot Podcast Network. You guys have heard of HubSpot, right?

CHAD: I have, yes.

JAMES: So it's for ParentPreneurs in general, kind of like my book, to empower ParentPreneurs to be the best parent entrepreneur they can possibly be because being a ParentPreneur is hard. And we came upon this opportunity. I saw an article; maybe LinkedIn, I don't remember, talking about HubSpot launched a new podcast network last year. And I told you I got all these PR opportunities. And I got that because I'm not shy about shooting my shot.

A lot of people are too scared to shoot their shot, or they don't know what to do, how to do it. But cold emails I'm really good at sending cold emails. So I sent a cold email to the CMO of HubSpot. He was mentioned in the article. I went on LinkedIn. I scraped his email address using my favorite email scraping tool, GetEmail.io. It works on LinkedIn. You get their email address. I sent him an awesome email. Of course, he didn't follow up right away; well, not, of course, sometimes they do. He didn't follow up right away. I sent a follow-up email. And when I send follow-up emails, I like to give some kind of update.

So in my follow-up email, I wasn't just like, "Hey, did you get my email? Please respond." It wasn't that. It was like some other update. I can't remember what it was, but it was an update following up about my email. He got back, copied somebody on the team. They got back, copied somebody else. They were like, "Do you have a clip or an excerpt of an interview?" And it just so happened we did because we knew we needed to get ready. So we did an interview with Neil Sales-Griffin, who's the Techstar Chicago Managing Director, and so we sent them an excerpt.

They were like, "This is great. Do you have a whole episode?" So we edited that thing down right here that day. It was a Friday, sent it to them. They were like, "Thanks for sending. We'll get back to you by Monday with the decision because, by the way, we have this new program, this emerging podcast voices program. There'll be six to eight podcasts in this program. And we'll listen to this and consider it." So they got back to us Sunday night at 11:00 o'clock. "This is amazing. You guys are pros." I'm like, that's not me. That's really Mario. I have no idea what I'm doing at all.

CHAD: [laughs]

JAMES: But thanks, Mario. "And you guys are stars. You can't teach stars." But I'm like, hey, all right. I've never done a podcast. But hey, glad somebody other than my mama likes me. This is awesome. And they were like, "We want to invite you to be one of the companies in this new cohort with a new podcast," and just a swoop in at the last minute like that all because I shot my shot. So if anybody's out there listening, don't be afraid to shoot your shot, man. It's a mindset. You got to know what to do, how to move. But you've got to first have the mindset like, yo, I am going to shoot my shot.

CHAD: I think as long as you...and you already said this, but you're making it real. Like, when you're following up, you're not just saying, "Hey, did you get my email?" You're finding ways to make it real and authentic. You got to show that you're real and not some bot.

JAMES: Yeah. So I will say in terms of the cold emails, I send them all the time. Cold emails is how I ended up collaborating with Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. We're big partners with them. We're part of this grant project with them with this major Wall Street Bank Foundation they're about to be announcing this year any day now. We got a grant tackling the problem of Black or Brown founders, underestimated founders not getting access to early-stage venture and angel funding.

So we're part of that with my foundation all because I sent a cold email to some guy at Nasdaq. I don't even remember who it was, Western president. Sent him an email, he copied the executive director from Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center. The rest is history. My last round of grants, they co-sponsored the last round of grants. They put in some money. Great relationship with Nasdaq. They got 30 of my people from our community featured in the Nasdaq Tower in Times Square, let that sink in, all because of a cold email.

So if you're going to send a cold email, just a couple of tips off the top of my head. You need to have a compelling subject line. Keep the emojis to a minimum. [laughter] If you can use the person's name in the subject, I think that increases your open rate by like 20%. The email's got to be right to the point. Hey, my name is James Oliver, CEO of ParentPreneur Foundation. Put a link to the ParentPreneur Foundation in that instance. We got funded by Brad Feld, co-founder of Techstars, and put a link to Brad Feld's article. Establish credibility right away and get to the freaking point. Like, what do you want? Make an ask. What do you want? Get right to it. That's it.

CHAD: And then when you don't hear back, and you should follow up?

JAMES: Oh yeah. You absolutely got to follow up. I'll follow up a couple of times. I know Mario is like, "I just keep following up till they tell me to stop." [laughter] He's gangsta like that. I'll follow up three or four times. But after that, I know when people are pestering me. At that point, you're pestering. I'm not interested. If I was interested, I would have responded, so knock it off.

But I also respect the hustle when people are coming to me with something that's legit. And I will respond because I am them sometimes too. I'm like, "Hey, thanks for reaching out. I really appreciate it. I'm just not interested," or "I'm not interested now. Ping me back in six months."

CHAD: As someone who gets cold emails, I do the same thing when it's a legitimate...and you can tell. You can tell the ones where they're just blanket sending the same thing to a bunch of people. And you can tell when it's someone legitimately sending you a cold email.

JAMES: Because if you mention something about what they do specifically and how that's relevant to your email or your ask, that increases your chances of getting a response. Hell, I sent a cold email to Mark Cuban, bro.

CHAD: Awesome.

JAMES: He said yes. I interviewed him on my blog. I don't write on my blog anymore. But he got right back to me, and I interviewed him on my blog. He was great.

CHAD: So I don't know if everyone does this. Like you said, even if it's not a fit for me or I can't do it right now or whatever, if it's a legitimate thing, I will almost always actually respond to it eventually.

Mid-roll Ad

I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals.

We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other.

Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U.

JAMES: So, if I may, I just want to talk a little bit about the impact in the ParentPreneur Foundation.

CHAD: Yes.

JAMES: Because we have 1,800 people now. This current round of grants makes $95,000 in the last 19 months since we launched. We do micro-grants of $1,000 apiece. I think I just tweeted this morning that it just seems like people look down their nose at a $1,000 grant. And I'm like; clearly, these people are not or never have been a super hustling, early-stage entrepreneur and definitely not one of those with kids. So $95,000, again, keep in mind, I don't know anything about a foundation, a non-profit. I've never done it before. I've never started a community, but I don't care; it doesn't matter. [laughs] You know what I'm saying?

In this instance, there's a tremendous founder-market fit because I am them. And that shines through brilliantly in all the things that we do. And the thing that I'm most thankful for that we've done in the community is we've paid for 320 mental therapy sessions for our community members. And that's important because historically, mental health is stigmatized in the Black community. And there's this belief of epigenetics, which is basically you can pass trauma down through your DNA to your descendants. And if that's true, Black folks got a lot of trauma, and we need to get it worked out. And when we do it in our community, people jump right on it.

So I'm so proud of those guys that they take it very seriously. And that's really legacy, and that's impact because we're creating a legacy of mental wealth for the people in our community that influences how they show up for themselves, for their businesses, for their partners and spouse, for their children, all of which impacts how their children show up in the world. So it matters a lot.

CHAD: I think the therapy sessions are a great example of when you have an authentic, unique community, something is going to come out of that which is so specific to that community. The impact of that is huge but also, where did that idea come from? Was that you? You said, "Hey, this is a need we have to do this"?

JAMES: Yes.

CHAD: Did it come from the community itself?

JAMES: No. And see, this is why I'm talking about the founder-market fit. I don't know all the things that my people need, which is why a lot of times I ask them, "What do you want? What do you need?" But a lot of things I already know they need before they even need them because I've been where a lot of those guys are, and some of them ain't been there yet. I already know what you're going to be looking at in six months, bro. You need to pay attention a little bit. So right from the beginning, we use betterhelp.com. We created a BetterHelp account. And it's so easy.

We use Typeform. Typeform is another partner of ours. They've given us lots of free codes, and VideoAsk is a new Typeform company. We use that for our application process, which is just brilliant. I keep getting compliments about how amazingly seamless and elegant our application process is for the grants using VideoAsk. But we use Typeform and first come, first serve. It fills up, and then I just get the email addresses, and I just drop them right into Betterhelp's account. And they reach out to people in the community, and they get them set up. It's so easy.

CHAD: That's great. What happens in the community? Is part of the value of the community just support from each other?

JAMES: Well, that's a big part of it. So that's a great question. So one of the things in the Seth Godin marketing seminar is he talks about tension and why it's important in marketing and how it drives change and drives people to action. And the assignment around tension I couldn't think of like what the tension was for the ParentPreneur Foundation.

But when he came to meet with us, and we were talking about it, he said, "If I'm on an airplane and we're sky jumping, and they're like, 'Well let's jump out,' and it's a perfectly good airplane," the tension for him is what if the parachute doesn't open? And the answer is like, "Well, don't worry. We have a backup chute for you." Okay, banzai, let's go. [laughs]

But for the ParentPreneur Foundation, the tension is what if we fail on this rocky road? What if we fail in our journey to leave a legacy for our beautiful, Black children? He said, "It doesn't matter because we have each other's backs on this rocky road." So I'm like, yes, that's exactly right. We have each other's backs. And I'm telling you, man, I see it. A lot of stuff is taking place; I have no idea. But I hear about it from time to time, just organically. People are collaborating. It's just amazing, man. It's just great.

So yeah, I know it's lonely being an entrepreneur, a lot of different challenges, unique challenges of being a Black entrepreneur. And it's just great to have a safe space for that. We do a lot of different things. We paid for virtual assistants. We paid for when kids were being virtual schooled. We paid for some virtual tutors for some of the children.

Social capital is another thing that I talk about a lot. We pay for people to improve their LinkedIn profiles and understand how to move properly on LinkedIn and build and increase their social capital, which to me is as problematic as a dearth of financial capital because, without social capital, you can't even imagine what's possible. And it was Albert Einstein who said that imagination is more important than knowledge. And it's just so true. So we're doing all the things.

CHAD: So, do you have a sense of what the split is between moms and dads in the community?

JAMES: Yeah, just off the top of my head, I think it's around 75-25 moms and dads, and that's interesting. Women like to build community, men we don't. We're like the king of the jungle. We're all okay by ourselves. [laughs] We don't want to build community. But, man, women love to build community, and they hold down our community in a big way, and I'm just so thankful for them.

CHAD: So you started in 2020. One thing that I've seen, and I think it makes your timing good, is that a lot of people either had change forced on them because of the pandemic, and they lost their jobs. Or they felt like they needed to make a change. And a lot of people faced with that decided to do something on their own and make something happen. So there has been a surge in entrepreneurship from my...

And another thing there's been a surge in is people going to coding bootcamps feeling like yeah, I lost my job, or I no longer want to do this job that I can no longer do remotely. I want to make a change in my life and learn to code. Does that resonate with you as something you've seen in terms of people who have never been entrepreneurs before who had it forced on them or making a conscious choice to do it, joining the community?

JAMES: Yeah, absolutely. To a certain extent, at the beginning of COVID, when everybody was freaking out, because I understand that within every crisis exists an opportunity, I was looking for that opportunity. I was like, all right, where's the opportunity here? I was asking the questions. And then, I had a chance coffee meeting with some acquaintances and told them my intention of starting the foundation one of these days. And they were like, well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you do it now? And I thought that was like the answer to my question. And I was like, oh damn, like, yeah, what am I waiting for? Let's do it now.

So yeah, a lot of people are moving towards entrepreneurship. I think a quick Google search will bear that out. I don't know to what extent, but I know it's a lot. The application for new businesses are increasing over the last few years. So yeah, I get it. People kind of hate their corporate jobs. They hate going to the office. I get it. My goal in life is to never have to wear a suit and tie again. [laughs]

CHAD: Even when you go on Good Morning America.

JAMES: I might wear a suit, but I'm not wearing a tie. Knock it off. [laughs]

CHAD: Well, I'm sure everything you mentioned that you've been fundraising all this stuff costs money. Does the majority of your funding come from bigger donors? I know that you have a link to donate, and I encourage people to do that. But how much time do you have to spend fundraising? What is the donor mix? And how can people help?

JAMES: It's just weird. We get in our own heads. I used to say, man, I kind of suck at fundraising, but I don't. We raised almost $300,000 since I started this thing with no experience. That's not somebody who sucks at fundraising, right?

CHAD: Yeah.

JAMES: But in my mind, we should have a million dollars in the bank so I can hire an executive director, and we can ramp up the programs that we know, or I can scale this thing up and do some other things. I have some other things I want to do. I want to do a startup studio. I'm trying to partner with Techstars right now. With Techstars, I'm already talking to the right people. I want to do a pre-accelerator program with them for Black ParentPreneurs and putting like $20,000 in people's pockets. That's going to cost money. We need a sponsor for that.

But to answer your question, you can visit parentpreneurfoundation.org click donate. And $25 a month it all helps. It all adds up. We have things that we have to do to keep the platforms going and tools and resources that we use to keep it all going. The big chunks have come from people like Brad Feld and David Cohen. And Fred Wilson even donated $10,000 one-time but yeah, we need more. I'm just biding my time. And the work we're doing matters so much. It's making a big impact. We are literally helping people raise money and get their businesses off the ground.

And one woman who just went through the Techstars Founder Catalyst Program with JPMorgan Chase here in Atlanta she went because I introduced them on my show. And she got in, and she just raised $250,000. And then she just told me she got a commitment for another half a million dollars. And this other woman she got a $250,000 grant from Wells Fargo because of our relationship with Nasdaq. And another guy got a term sheet for half a million dollars because of the introductions we're making.

So we're literally out here building capacity for the members of our community in so many ways. I'm thankful. I'm honored. I'm humbled to be in this position to do this work. But this is purpose work for me. This is my purpose, and I'm thankful to have found it. It's like Mark Twain says, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you figure out why." I encourage people to go figure out why.

CHAD: And if you are Black ParentPreneur hearing what we're talking about and saying, "Yeah, now I know about this. This is for me." You also go to parentpreneurfoundation.org and sign up there.

JAMES: Yes, sir. Click the join community button. Absolutely.

CHAD: Well, James, thanks for stopping by and sharing with me and all the listeners. I really appreciate it, and I wish you and everything that you're doing all the best.

JAMES: Yes. And, Chad, thanks for reaching out, man. Look at you; you're on your hustle. It wasn't you that reached out to me. There was somebody else.

CHAD: It was, yeah. Another member of my team.

JAMES: How'd you find me, man?

CHAD: I think she's very good at LinkedIn, and you're good at LinkedIn and so --

JAMES: [laughter] Well, I got a big [inaudible 36:11] show them the receipts, man. Show them the impact because that's what you got to do.

CHAD: Are there other places where if folks want to get in touch with you or follow along with you? Where are the other places they can do that?

JAMES: Yeah, they can do that on IG. We're parentpreneurfoundation on IG. I'm not super active there, but we're there. You can follow me on Twitter. I talk a lot on Twitter. I don't think anybody's listening, but I talk a lot on Twitter.

CHAD: [laughs]

JAMES: That thing doesn't come on until you actually earn those blue checkmark thingies, I swear. Because I will say something I think is really profound, and it's crickets. And I see somebody with a blue checkmark say the exact same thing, and I'm like, okay, I see how it is, but whatevs. [laughs] So I'm on Twitter @jamesoliverjr, jamesoliver-J-R. Follow me on Twitter. That'd be awesome. Shoot me a tweet. Tell me you heard about us, heard about me on The Giant Robots Show here. I would love to connect, engage, and build and learn with your audience. So thanks.

CHAD: Awesome. And for all of you listeners, you can subscribe to the show and find notes for this episode along with an entire transcript of the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments for me, email me at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @cpytel.

This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success.

Special Guest: James Oliver Jr..

Sponsored By:

AgencyU: AgencyU is a membership-based program where Chad Pytel works one on one with a small group of Agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. You'll do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. You'll start with goal setting, advice, and problem solving based on Chad's experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As you progress as a group, you all get to know each other more and many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and referring work to each other. Whether you’re struggling to grow your agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in his 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, Chad has seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and would be happy to work with you too. Learn more and sign up at thoughtbot.com/agencyu

Support Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Why do we need to use sunscreen?

But Why: A Podcast for Curious Kids

Intro

The AI-powered Podcast Player