Co-Authored by Tiffany Mikell & Kortney Ziegler
Originally Published in ModelViewCulture Q1 2016 Print Quarterly
“F*ck what you heard, God blessin' all the trap [founders]
God blessin' all the trap [founders]..” ~Future, Trap N****s
We aren’t dead.
Our startup isn’t dead.
18 months since initial formation. The vast majority of startups launched during the same period are now gone. It’s a reality that, as co-founders, we don’t take lightly; getting to this point has been one of the most arduous and distressing (yet incredibly fulfilling) experiences of our lives.
We are, however, still alive. And our edtech company, BSMdotCo, is beginning to take off -- with Beta customers and a growing team.
All startup founders know that the odds are against them. That was particularly the case for us as black entrepreneurs. Nonetheless, we are resourceful, imaginative and confident optimists with vision who reject respectability politics full-heartedly. Our bootstrapped journey has included painful rejection, strained personal relationships, periods of maddening isolation, moments of starvation, closed bank accounts, to mention a few challenges -- and strangely -- there’s nothing else we’d rather be doing.
For any founder, it takes an exceptional psychological state of being to thrive. Our resilience has kept our startup afloat, and we know this ingrained vigor is directly related to our background as marginalized creators -- we’ve spent our lifetime fighting for creative space that allows personal authenticity and avoidance of respectability politics. We believe that there is a direct correlation between the gumption and ingenuity required to thrive as a founder and our lived experiences navigating economic and social oppression.
Black American entrepreneurs in particular have an incredible and proven history of launching successful and innovative enterprises in spite of systematic disenfranchisement from mainstream economic structures. Yet even the spaces formed to challenge the exclusion of black and brown entrepreneurs from present-day venture capital investments - those very spaces - both center and encourage the emulation of the white, male, affluent, college-aged, Ivy League-attending founder archetype.
Respectability politics encourages founders who have gained skills or insight from “non-traditional” means to understate the importance of these experiences in their personal stories; we reject this notion, and it’s a huge reason why so much of our startup journey over the last 18 months has had considerable ups and downs in an industry that thrives on multiple forms of anti-blackness. Through it all, we’ve upheld a commitment to bringing our lived experiences to entrepreneurship, despite the potential to alienate some would-be supporters.
What keeps us going?
Every founder must have a source of inspiration that keeps them pushing forward. We found ours in the empowering discourse of trap music -- it, in fact, became our vice. Whenever facing a particularly difficult or stressful work challenge, lyrics from contemporary trap became the affirmations that we shared with each other through emails, texts and virtual playlists (see one of ours at bit.ly/bsmdotco_trap).
Though we weren’t living or working from the harsh realities of the trap, we relate deeply to the lyrics of success, the words of encouragement, and the arrogance of the artists. As Selasi B. says in her Feministing article Explicit Content: A Brief Intro to Trap Feminism, “It’s easy to get caught up in the problematic elements of drug dealing and violence in communities of color, themes that are prevalent in trap music, but there is more than meets the eye.” There is much to be learned from artists who create music in the “trap” genre -- creatively and in business.
This essay is an ode to the trap tracks that have been inspirational during our startup ride from idea to thriving business.
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“Throw that money in the air, watch it fall to the floor
Heard ya ordered up Ciroc, need to order up some more..”
~Future, F*ck Up Some Commas
Our outlook on the entrepreneurial landscape was bursting to the seams with uninformed optimism in early 2014. As independent creators, we had both achieved relative notoriety in our respective areas of work. One of us was an independent scholar, filmmaker, early internet pioneer and the solo founder of a national hackathon series. The other, a software engineer with over 10 years of cross sector experiences, an autodidactic thought leader and a founding member of a successfully exited startup.
We were constantly making our brilliance rain in all of the spaces we moved. Shifting and transforming culture, introducing others to new ideas, connecting others with resources needed to grow. We shared our gifts freely as independent creators while we helped others generate massive amounts of wealth. At our time of meeting, we felt we’d paid our professional dues and it was time to build wealth for ourselves, our families and our communities. During the same time, a national conversation was erupting on the exclusion of entrepreneurs of color from the technology sector. We felt it was a perfect time for us to launch a startup given our backgrounds, developed relationships and proven talent.
We were ready to capitalize like everyone else!
Give no Fucks yeah, We don’t give no fucks yeah..
The F*ck Up Some Commas track makes us laugh when we think about the wasteful spending in the tech industry -- particularly by groups claiming to financially support diversity in entrepreneurship. These groups were making it rain in the form of costly conferences, surface level panels with flown in guests, elaborate catering -- but very rarely offered resources that we found valuable as seed stage entrepreneurs... such as business grants/loans, connections to domain experts and education on topics such as startup valuation or product launch strategies.
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“Errrbody on Instagram looking like they mad rich
But they’re not..
Nobody wanna be lame
~Yo Gotti, Errrybody
The deeper in the entrepreneurial trenches we got, the more we sought out organizations providing resources for early-stage founders of color in the form of social, intellectual and financial capital. What we learned was that the majority of public conversations held on entrepreneurship, particularly with and for aspiring founders of color, were actually recruitment initiatives or PR opportunities for larger companies most often founded, led and run by white men. Those forms of institutional support were patronizing, yet we continued to support them in hopes of building connections with others who were starting tech companies with similar life experiences.
Unfortunately, we also found the space to be crowded with many wearing the founder badge as a means toward industry fame and high-profile employment opportunities -- not wealth building or problem-solving for black and brown communities.
We have nothing against those who want to be in and a part of the startup scene without actually starting companies (in fact joining or supporting a startup is our recommendation to anyone not prepared to give their entire life to one particular venture for several years). We did, however, find the “fad” of entrepreneurship distracting from the conversations we wanted to see taking place publicly on the strategies needed to build sustainable companies. It became difficult to discern who was actually credible and invested in creating environments most conducive for thriving Black entrepreneurs in tech, and who was just talking.
“Know a lot of nobodies but won’t say nobody name
Nobody snatchin my chain, true skreet n*gga I ain’t in nobody lane”
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“I want them dead presidents
I wanna pull up, head spin
Get it, get fly, I got six jobs, I don't get tired”
~Kevin Gates, I Don’t Get Tired
A lot of what inspires us about trap music is the running theme of wearing multiple hats and undertaking long hours of work to ensure success. Early in our founder's journey, we both dedicated long hard hours to the sometimes complicated but most times mundane and iterative process of launching a startup. The initial excitement of company building allowed us to push through 16 plus hour days, 7 days a week.
Between our team of two, no one had more or less work than the other, however our roles weren’t defined, causing confusion and bolstered tension between us. Though things were getting done, not having defined jobs as cofounders began to affect our productivity as our resources were being misguided. We began to realize that in order to sustain ourselves and not die, we’d have to adopt better work habits, including setting clear and defined roles. Our advice for any team of two or more, is define your roles early.
Change management can also become a nightmare in a startup’s infancy. Collective decisions we made initially about core business pillars such as branding, product design and target customers were shifting daily based on market response to our early product offering. It became critical to both establish the values that we as individuals were firm on, as well as give each other the space and trust to make autonomous decisions that would move our shared vision forward at a competitive speed. Tools and processes that allowed the communication of changes across the team in real-time without distracting from individual goals were huge for us.
We all have 6 jobs as founders. And we can’t get tired.
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“Where your ass was at dog, when I was on my come-up??
The reason I’m here today cause I ain’t never gave up”
~Future, Where Ya At
A brief word on professional isolation and loneliness: Most of your friends and family won’t get it -- your journey as a founder. This was true for our experience as well. Not all of the people in our life understand why we work from home or why we work odd hours at all. To avoid potential resentment of loved ones, our advice is to get a core group of supporters who do understand the entrepreneur lifestyle. Well-meaning mentors will only crush your spirit by sending you job leads, and though there will be times when it feels like no one in your world believes in you or your vision, find your customers and keep going.
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“Watch out lil bih...
You getting mad???
I’m getting rich.”
~2Chainz, Watch Out
There is a damaging and psychologically pervasive expectation that the labor and creative work produced by founders of color can not or should not be offered at competitive market rate. We were consistently asked to provide custom work or offer discounted licenses to our software under the guise of socially driven partnerships that would later offer product exposure and awareness. We were so desperate for a “big win”, we were particularly vulnerable against abusive customers and draining business relationships. After multiple instances of having our time and intellectual property compromised, our collective team morale was fragile.
A pivotal moment for us as cofounders was when we realized that as black entrepreneurs, our social capital would not serve us in the ways previously expected. It became clear that the viability of our startup could only be maintained with periods of time where we stonewalled outside noise and distractions completely. We realized that we would never land the big licensing contracts we were seeking if we continued to give so much away for free.
We started saying no to freelance work, speaking engagements and consulting requests we previously believed worthwhile, also becoming firm and confident with our product pricing. We then laser focused our energy and efforts on the product features, customer segments and human resources that would have the greatest long-term value for our company.
Last month, we saw a 164% increase in revenue.
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“Now remember, fore we made this song, nobody said pipe it up
Next thing we dropping, we gon’ f*ck em up, have everybody screaming pipe it up”
Migos, Pipe It Up
Our message to marginalized founders is that exclusion from “mainstream” resources does not diminish your talent or the need to bring needed innovations to the market. Bring your full authentic self to your entrepreneurial journey. Through our work and existence, we challenge ideals - making others uncomfortable often but that’s what makes us special.
Business is cutthroat. Don’t let it change your character. Do protect yourself and don’t be afraid to walk away from individuals not aligned with your values -- no matter how much money you think is at stake. Keep moving forward and let your clap-back be an amazing product with undeniable revenue streams.
We also urge increased financial support for non-conforming creators of color in particular. Our life experiences have prepared us for this. We see things that don’t yet exist but should -- and then we make those things come to life.
We continue to grind. And we won’t die.
Citations:
B, Sesali. "Explicit Content - A Brief Intro on Trap Feminism." Web log post. Feministing. Web. <http://feministing.com/2014/01/08/explicit-content-a-brief-intro-to-trap-feminism/>.
Future. “Trap N****s.” DS2. Epic Records, 2015
Yo Gotti. “Errrbody.” Errrbody. Epic Records, 2014.
Gates, Kevin. “I Don’t Get Tired.” Luca Brasi 2: Gangsta Grillz. 2014
Future. “F*ck Up Some Commas.” DS2. Epic Records, 2015
Future, Drake. “Where Ya At.” DS2. Epic Records, 2015
2 Chainz. “Watch out.” Watch Out. Def Jam Recordings, 2015.
Migos. “Pipe It Up.” Pipe It Up. Quality Control Music, 2015
Playlist URL: http://bit.ly/bsmdotco_trap
