0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:15 – All right, welcome to the Hustler’s Guide to Tech
0:00:19 where people who have the passion, the heart,
0:00:22 the desire and the talent to go do it
0:00:26 and make their dreams happen, but just need a connect,
0:00:27 this is a show for you.
0:00:32 And today we are joined by Deshawn,
0:00:37 founder and CEO of Maven, the king of the hair business.
0:00:40 – He ain’t got a hair business.
0:00:42 That’s heavy weight right there.
0:00:42 – Bundle God.
0:00:45 – Yeah, that’s the Bundle God, I like that.
0:00:47 And then we got Sherry here, what’s up Sherry?
0:00:52 – Our hustler who has hustled Deshawn’s platform, Maven.
0:00:53 – That’s definitely.
0:00:56 – And then I’m joined by my co-host, Shakasen Gore.
0:00:57 – What up, though?
0:01:01 – Who, as you frequent listeners know,
0:01:04 came out of the joint, hustled his way selling books
0:01:08 that he wrote himself and published himself out of his car,
0:01:10 and is now best selling author
0:01:15 and big time Hollywood screenwriter.
0:01:16 So let’s go.
0:01:19 – Bundle God, I like that, man, it’s hot, it’s hot.
0:01:19 How you come up with that?
0:01:22 – Somebody said that to me a few weeks ago.
0:01:23 – I like it though.
0:01:24 – It might, maybe it’ll stick.
0:01:25 – I just want to be clear with the audience,
0:01:27 like exactly what a bundle is.
0:01:28 ‘Cause like in the street culture, bundles mean
0:01:29 something totally different,
0:01:31 and I don’t want them to be confused.
0:01:32 – Yeah, I know that.
0:01:34 – I just want to be real clear about, you know,
0:01:35 what a bundle is.
0:01:36 – Bundle God.
0:01:38 – I guess bundle got a whole new meaning.
0:01:39 (laughing)
0:01:42 – So a bundle is a weft of hair,
0:01:45 and what that looks like is if you imagined
0:01:49 a long thick string with hair draping down from it,
0:01:51 that would be a bundle.
0:01:53 – So how many bundles does it take
0:01:55 to do like a full hairstyle?
0:01:57 Like the average.
0:01:58 – Like the big Beyonce hair.
0:02:01 – See, come on, that’s what I was looking for.
0:02:02 – The big joint, right.
0:02:05 – It depends on, you know, how glamorous you want to be.
0:02:07 For a regular install, it’s going to be
0:02:09 probably two to three bundles,
0:02:11 but for a Beyonce install,
0:02:14 it’s probably going to be closer to four or five.
0:02:16 – And then how much do bundles cost per bundle?
0:02:18 Like, yeah, what’s the bundle cost?
0:02:21 – The super, super cheap ones can be like 30 bucks
0:02:24 or 35 bucks for like super cheap,
0:02:28 and then they can go upwards to like $250 a bundle.
0:02:29 – So 30 to $200.
0:02:30 – Yeah, but a Maven bundle.
0:02:35 – I think they’re about 80 bucks a bundle right now.
0:02:36 There’s a lot of lengths.
0:02:37 – It just depends.
0:02:38 – And that changes the price,
0:02:41 but maybe on average 80 or so, you know,
0:02:43 but you’re probably going to, if you buy three bundles,
0:02:47 you’re probably going to walk out of there paying 250.
0:02:49 – So quick question about the bundle.
0:02:50 So I got like four sisters, right?
0:02:53 So I grew up with like a lot of hair conversations
0:02:57 and it’s always popping on social media, you know,
0:02:59 the new styles.
0:02:59 Interestingly enough,
0:03:02 they got this new challenge called the DMX challenge.
0:03:03 And then you see an all the sisters
0:03:05 with all the different hairstyles,
0:03:06 which kind of fly.
0:03:10 So like, what was your entry point into the bundle game, man?
0:03:12 – I mean, you know, okay,
0:03:14 so I never ever would have thought
0:03:18 that I was going to be selling bundles.
0:03:20 I had hairstylists in my family
0:03:23 and I saw them doing hair growing up.
0:03:24 So I understood,
0:03:28 I understood the relationship between stylist, customers,
0:03:30 you know, black women and their hair.
0:03:32 I understood culturally what that was.
0:03:34 I never thought I was going to be a part of it at all.
0:03:38 I ended up on the other side of the bundle game,
0:03:42 which was in China, where they were being manufactured.
0:03:44 And I lived in China for almost two years.
0:03:46 – Now you lived in China to learn the hair game?
0:03:48 – No, no, no, I moved to China.
0:03:51 So I moved to China after college.
0:03:53 I just wanted to travel.
0:03:57 And I had a mentor at the time in college
0:03:59 who she ran the international studies department.
0:04:01 But I was like, oh, three.
0:04:03 This is before everybody was really like,
0:04:05 like China was like in the news, in the news, in the news.
0:04:09 She was like, no, China is about to do something.
0:04:11 Go over there, it might be some opportunities.
0:04:12 – So what college were you coming out of?
0:04:15 – I went to Hampton University, HPCU.
0:04:18 And HPCU is a historically black college university.
0:04:20 And I was a sociology major.
0:04:21 I mean, I never actually thought of myself
0:04:23 as a business person.
0:04:27 I didn’t understand that I was a business person until later.
0:04:29 – Yeah, well, it’s entrepreneur and business person
0:04:30 are two different things.
0:04:34 A businessman could be anybody who like puts on a suit
0:04:36 and goes, works for a company.
0:04:37 And an entrepreneur is somebody
0:04:40 who tries to make something from nothing.
0:04:42 That’s why GZ’s new album is so relevant.
0:04:43 Entrepreneur.
0:04:46 I mean, I always thought of the word business.
0:04:49 Like as a young person, I thought of it as like
0:04:52 this stuffy thing with like a briefcase and a building.
0:04:54 And then I just realized, wait,
0:04:56 I like to create my own vision.
0:04:58 And I like to do things how I want to do them.
0:05:00 And that’s what an entrepreneur is going to do
0:05:01 is just find the resources around them
0:05:04 to do the things the way he or she wants to do them.
0:05:06 So I got to China.
0:05:11 I didn’t know anybody did speak a word of Mandarin
0:05:14 and they stuck me in the school teaching English.
0:05:17 I started playing hangman with them.
0:05:20 So I just found all kinds of ways to get them to talk.
0:05:23 But anyway, when you get to China,
0:05:26 the first thing that hits you is like, oh shit,
0:05:28 every single person here is hustling.
0:05:33 It’s the most hustling, enterprising place on planet earth.
0:05:37 Every single person around you is hustling something.
0:05:42 And China being like the manufacturing center of the world,
0:05:45 everybody was selling some sort of product.
0:05:48 Like everyone had some sort of relationship
0:05:50 to supply chain somewhere.
0:05:53 So interestingly enough, though, the first hustle
0:05:57 that I had when I got to China was not exporting stuff.
0:05:59 It was selling English.
0:06:02 So that’s a great way to really kind of set up
0:06:04 how you make the pivot.
0:06:05 I want to talk a little bit to Sherry,
0:06:07 go and get her perspective of her hustle
0:06:10 and just how you became an entrepreneur.
0:06:11 Like, what was that pathway in?
0:06:12 What did you grow up at?
0:06:14 I actually grew up between Berkeley and Oakland.
0:06:15 OK.
0:06:17 All right, yeah, yeah, that’s my hometown.
0:06:18 Hell, hey.
0:06:21 Yeah, yeah, like, where abouts Berkeley and Oakland?
0:06:23 South Berkeley, South Berkeley.
0:06:25 I was on Russell Street and off Fairview.
0:06:27 OK, yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to Berkeley High.
0:06:28 I went to Berkeley High.
0:06:29 Hey, hello, Jackie.
0:06:31 Hey.
0:06:33 OK.
0:06:35 And then I was in East Oakland.
0:06:36 So that’s where I came from.
0:06:38 I mean, Oakland is a hustling town.
0:06:38 I know they get 40 water up there.
0:06:40 Oh, Oakland most definitely is.
0:06:44 I was born to a mom who she was with my dad,
0:06:46 but then he got caught up in the crack era
0:06:51 and went to jail and dealing with having that addiction
0:06:52 for the rest of his life.
0:06:54 I think still currently even battling cancer right now.
0:06:55 Yeah, man.
0:06:56 It’s bad.
0:06:59 So she was raising four of us by herself.
0:07:05 And so my mom, a single mom with four children, is a hustler.
0:07:07 And I had three older brothers and then me.
0:07:11 And so three black boys in the Bay, she was a hustler.
0:07:13 She had to be.
0:07:15 You got to be up at the school making sure
0:07:17 that they’re not tracking your kid,
0:07:19 that they’re putting them in the right classes.
0:07:22 And she was doing all those things and would do all that,
0:07:25 have a job, and still come home and make dinner.
0:07:28 On top of that, my grandmother, same thing, was a hustler.
0:07:30 But that’s kind of what I was born into,
0:07:33 how I got into cosmetology.
0:07:35 When I was 10 years old, my mom decided
0:07:39 to go to school to become a manicurist.
0:07:42 And the reason why she did this was because it was a way
0:07:44 that she could have a business, but be
0:07:47 able to dictate her own hours and still be able to raise
0:07:48 all her kids.
0:07:49 Yep, yep, yeah.
0:07:51 And so I was going to the school with her
0:07:52 and watching the people do hair.
0:07:54 And I was like, that’s really cool.
0:07:58 And when she did she become a manicurist out of the house
0:07:59 or she had her own chopper?
0:08:03 So she went to school, I helped her study for her test.
0:08:06 She passed actually her licenses on my birthday every year.
0:08:08 She did start doing that over her house.
0:08:11 And then pivoted that, got a business.
0:08:14 Now she’s been doing it for over 20 years.
0:08:18 And now she’s like five stars on Yelp.
0:08:19 She has all these companies coming to her.
0:08:21 She’s like the number one person, I think,
0:08:23 in California for natural nail care.
0:08:25 She decided that she didn’t like acrylic
0:08:27 or the harsh chemicals.
0:08:30 But how I got into doing hair was
0:08:32 I was actually jumping around.
0:08:34 I was in college and I didn’t finish.
0:08:38 And then I got into hotel management on accident.
0:08:39 And I was like 20.
0:08:41 And there was this emergency that happened.
0:08:43 And maybe just being the youngest and having brothers,
0:08:45 I don’t know, I can think really quick on my feet.
0:08:48 And so they saw my skills and how I handled this situation.
0:08:52 So with so much just poise and just like an expert.
0:08:53 And they’re like, so you want to be
0:08:55 an assistant operations manager, you know?
0:08:56 You got this position.
0:08:57 You want to come in.
0:08:59 I was like, what, a salary?
0:09:00 Oh, yeah.
0:09:05 So I got into that, did sales with Comcast.
0:09:07 Then got back into management.
0:09:10 And then I was managing multiple properties.
0:09:14 And it seems like a good job.
0:09:16 But I wasn’t happy.
0:09:18 For the first time in my life, I
0:09:22 found myself starting to deal with some anxiety.
0:09:24 And I had my first little, I don’t know,
0:09:27 was a panic attack or anxiety attack.
0:09:29 And so I went to the doctor and they’re like, oh, yeah.
0:09:31 That was a little anxiety attack, little panic attack.
0:09:33 And I was like, what?
0:09:34 The person I was dating at the time,
0:09:36 keep people around you that love the crap out of you.
0:09:38 Because they sometimes pay more attention to you
0:09:41 than you pay attention to yourself.
0:09:43 And so this person was like, you know,
0:09:45 every time you get off work, you’re talking about,
0:09:48 you caught a YouTube video about some hair or some makeup.
0:09:51 Like, why don’t you look into doing that?
0:09:54 And so I went towards some cosmetology schools.
0:09:57 And I fell in love.
0:10:00 So I gave a notice of like two months out.
0:10:02 And I didn’t know that, like, when you give a notice,
0:10:04 they could be like, actually, in two weeks, you got to go.
0:10:06 And so that’s what happened.
0:10:07 I had planned for two months.
0:10:09 I was like, hey, I could save up some money.
0:10:11 I was a parent at this time, a single mom.
0:10:13 I had a three-year-old.
0:10:16 And I was just like, this is what I’m going to do.
0:10:18 No, two weeks.
0:10:19 And I was out.
0:10:20 And I was like, oh, shoot.
0:10:21 And then since I put in a notice,
0:10:23 you can’t get unemployment.
0:10:29 So it was just, that’s when I think all of my hustle,
0:10:33 entrepreneurship, everything that had me just came out.
0:10:37 Yeah, when you have to, when your back is against the wall,
0:10:39 the things that you didn’t know were in you,
0:10:40 they all come out.
0:10:41 And it did.
0:10:44 I got on welfare, because I had to find a way
0:10:46 to provide for my daughter.
0:10:49 And I moved back in with my mom, which was super uncomfortable.
0:10:51 Because since, like, ’18, I was out.
0:10:54 It was literally, like, being a fish out of water.
0:10:56 When I was in Cosmetology School, people said, oh, you know,
0:10:58 Sherri-Ann, she’s going to be in Hollywood.
0:11:00 Like, we just know we’re going to see her name.
0:11:02 And I think that’s really important.
0:11:03 I think words have so much power.
0:11:07 And a lot of people say it, but I don’t think enough people
0:11:08 really believe it.
0:11:10 And I’ve seen it.
0:11:11 That changed everything.
0:11:13 Literally, I was in Cosmetology School,
0:11:16 went for this award, went for this competition.
0:11:18 And in this competition, it was, they were only
0:11:19 going to pick the top 100 in the country
0:11:21 to go get this advanced training in Vegas.
0:11:25 I worked with these photographers, just
0:11:27 axing around, hey, do you know anybody who were also
0:11:30 in school at the Art Institute?
0:11:32 Didn’t know that these photographers were
0:11:35 on the shortlist, which is, like, the world’s 250
0:11:38 up-and-coming photographers that everyone’s looking at.
0:11:42 So literally, after that, I got published in a vote
0:11:45 while I was in Cosmetology School, five times.
0:11:46 That’s dope.
0:11:48 That’s really great, because I think these are the things
0:11:50 we talk about all the time, right?
0:11:51 Like the belief system.
0:11:54 And a lot of times when it comes to entrepreneurship,
0:11:56 like taking that risk betting on yourself
0:11:59 and really doing it when you’re going against the title,
0:12:00 what you’ve been taught for so long, right?
0:12:03 Just go to school, get the education, get the degree,
0:12:05 get the job, become a business person as opposed
0:12:06 to entrepreneur.
0:12:10 And even your trajectory is just like imagining things.
0:12:12 Because in my life, it was kind of the same thing.
0:12:14 Writing it down is what I want to happen.
0:12:16 And then when it began to manifest.
0:12:21 And so I love just hearing this different perspective, right?
0:12:23 One of the things I was really interested in
0:12:26 is how did you kind of figure the pathway out
0:12:28 in terms of technology?
0:12:30 Because that’s the thing that’s always been interesting to me
0:12:32 is the people who take that leap of faith
0:12:35 versus the people who come from the culture where it’s
0:12:36 the big fear that we talk about.
0:12:37 It’s like, oh, you can’t.
0:12:38 That’s too hard.
0:12:39 It’s too complicated.
0:12:40 It’s too nerdy.
0:12:43 But you didn’t make this look kind of flat, so talk about it.
0:12:45 And on that point, what a lot of people, I think,
0:12:47 don’t understand about that journey
0:12:50 is if you knew what was involved before you started,
0:12:52 you would never have done it.
0:12:55 And everybody who’s ever been through it knows that.
0:12:55 Bars.
0:13:00 And so it’s not that bad things don’t happen.
0:13:04 It’s just that once you jump into the water, you’ve got to swim.
0:13:07 I mean, just for me, that was–
0:13:10 I wasn’t a technical founder.
0:13:11 And before I ever linked that with Taylor,
0:13:14 I had to demonstrate that this thing could
0:13:16 work on the internet.
0:13:19 So I used one of those like–
0:13:22 in ’07, it was like the first versions of the Shopify.
0:13:25 This was like something that some Eastern European dudes
0:13:25 had made.
0:13:27 It was called eastwit.com.
0:13:29 You could make some little janky little–
0:13:30 Yeah, Macau Shopify.
0:13:31 Yeah, it wasn’t even–
0:13:33 I didn’t even know what Shopify was,
0:13:34 but I was like, I found this thing.
0:13:37 And it’s like, oh, you can have a store.
0:13:39 And I could just drag and drop and make it myself.
0:13:42 And I just made five of them from five stylists.
0:13:44 And it was completely janky.
0:13:47 But it was the internet version of what
0:13:49 I was doing out the trunk of my car.
0:13:53 And it demonstrated that we could do it on the internet.
0:13:56 And we just needed to do it better and with more stylists
0:13:57 and with more infrastructure.
0:14:01 But if I gave these stylists a tool, they would sell.
0:14:04 I mean, I think probably like spirit-wise,
0:14:07 I’ve always been like an adventurer.
0:14:08 And I came from like–
0:14:11 my family is–
0:14:12 they’re like hippies.
0:14:15 I don’t even have my mom or my dad’s last name.
0:14:17 My mom and my dad–
0:14:19 like my dad, he was like super black power.
0:14:21 And he was like, I don’t want to give you the slave name.
0:14:24 And so my mom took a word from Russian.
0:14:26 And he took a word from Swahili.
0:14:28 And they put them together and made my last name.
0:14:30 And so it’s like my own last name.
0:14:33 And it’s like, you’re going to be your own thing.
0:14:36 And then I was also like in a single parent household.
0:14:39 Like my father also got swept up in the crack era.
0:14:41 He was gone by the time I was five.
0:14:43 My mother was working constantly.
0:14:44 She’s a doctor.
0:14:46 And so she was like doing med school.
0:14:48 I didn’t have a lot of people telling me what to do
0:14:49 and when to do it.
0:14:54 I think when it came to this tech thing,
0:14:57 I had spent all this time in China.
0:15:01 You know, the first hustle I got into over there was like–
0:15:05 or like export hustle was I saw Jordans for sale in China.
0:15:08 And I was like, oh, shit.
0:15:10 They were $20.
0:15:12 Jordans, right?
0:15:15 I talked to some guys out there who were in that game.
0:15:17 I had met some people.
0:15:19 They showed me how to ship them.
0:15:21 They were like these little Chinese shippers
0:15:23 and all the where you go and get them and figure that out.
0:15:26 Next thing you know, I wanted to move bigger things.
0:15:30 And so like I saw containers.
0:15:32 You know, I was driving over this bridge in Hong Kong
0:15:34 and I seen these ships with these huge containers.
0:15:37 I was like, I want to move one of those across the whole world.
0:15:41 Like, and that was sort of my, no real big vision.
0:15:43 Just like, I want to figure out how to do that.
0:15:48 And got into like furniture and shipping stuff.
0:15:52 Eventually, that kind of led me to delivering couches myself
0:15:56 in Miami in old-ass buildings, like walking up steps with shit.
0:15:59 And I was like, this is not the most efficient way
0:16:00 to do all this stuff.
0:16:02 And there’s got to be a better way.
0:16:06 And that was like around ’07.
0:16:08 All this Facebook stuff was like popping up.
0:16:11 And that’s when Silicon Valley got on my radar.
0:16:13 Even though I’m from here, I’m from Oakland.
0:16:19 But I didn’t know that the valley was like right here.
0:16:22 And I started learning, you know, the internet.
0:16:24 And I want to know how to do that stuff.
0:16:26 I’m the sucker if I don’t get in, right?
0:16:28 If I don’t figure out the game.
0:16:31 But I did look at it like it was a whole different culture.
0:16:35 Living in China, like the way I thought about all problems
0:16:38 was as a cultural problem.
0:16:42 I thought about all problems as a matter of how do I communicate
0:16:46 with a group of people who have a different set of codes
0:16:50 and cultures and language in order to get my point across
0:16:54 and to understand what they need to be comfortable here
0:16:57 and for us to cooperate with each other.
0:17:00 And so I looked at Silicon Valley like it was China.
0:17:02 I looked at it like I just got to figure out
0:17:03 how people move out here.
0:17:07 And, you know, the same principles of business
0:17:10 that I was already doing of selling things.
0:17:12 There’s still the same principles of business,
0:17:14 but there’s just a different language around it.
0:17:18 Like you got to learn what the CAC and the LTV are.
0:17:19 You know what I mean?
0:17:20 Before it was just like this is what I buy for.
0:17:22 And this is how much I sell it for.
0:17:23 And then, you know, if they come back,
0:17:26 I’m going to make another $80 and make another $80.
0:17:29 Describing that same thing in the language of the culture
0:17:31 in which you’re now trying to be a part of.
0:17:33 So that’s what I love.
0:17:35 Just hear you say that in that language,
0:17:39 like that’s easily transferable to any culture.
0:17:40 Because when you were talking earlier
0:17:43 about looking at the big shipping containers, right?
0:17:45 And you’re like, I just want to move big things.
0:17:47 I want to move big weight, right?
0:17:48 Same language of the streets.
0:17:51 You know, how do you translate the culture
0:17:52 and translate the language in a way
0:17:54 where people who may feel like, OK,
0:17:57 this is my only route is hustling in the streets
0:17:59 can see another pathway, right?
0:18:01 And like you saw it intuitively, your experience
0:18:03 in China kind of awakens your mind to like,
0:18:06 yo, I just got to get in and figure it out.
0:18:08 I got a lot of game from Oakland,
0:18:12 but I got a lot of hustle from the Chinese.
0:18:17 Like I learned a lot about the ethic of working
0:18:20 from the Chinese.
0:18:22 They don’t have no excuses.
0:18:23 They don’t care.
0:18:24 There’s no excuses.
0:18:28 They like no one feels like they were like entitled to anything.
0:18:30 They’re just like, this is where I’m at
0:18:32 and I got to figure out how to make more.
0:18:35 And they just try to figure out any way they can do that.
0:18:37 That’s so important because that mentality
0:18:40 cuts through so much stuff that people get caught up in.
0:18:42 Culture, yeah.
0:18:44 All right, so Sherri Ann, like how’d you get
0:18:46 on the Maven platform?
0:18:49 Well, back when I was in cosmetology school,
0:18:53 I had a friend and my friend told me about this guy
0:18:55 who she would get hair from
0:18:57 because she was also a hairdresser.
0:18:59 And she was also in school.
0:19:03 So we rode to El Cerrito, California.
0:19:07 We pull up into a parking lot and I’m like, OK, where is he?
0:19:08 She’s like, oh, he’s going to meet me over here.
0:19:11 And I was like, what do you mean, meet you over here?
0:19:14 And this guy, this gentleman, rolls up in his car.
0:19:16 And I think it was like a little Honda or something.
0:19:17 I don’t know, it’s like a little commuter car.
0:19:18 It was a Toyota Corolla.
0:19:21 And he got out his car and he popped his trunk
0:19:23 and he got some hair out.
0:19:25 That’s how it meant to shine.
0:19:29 And so while I was in cosmetology school,
0:19:32 he had launched the Maven platform online.
0:19:35 And at the time he had to wear, if you referred your friend,
0:19:39 if you referred someone and they went ahead
0:19:44 and set up their Maven profile and they got a website,
0:19:48 they got money, they got $150 for you setting it up.
0:19:50 So my friend was like, don’t you want to get this?
0:19:52 I’ll get some money and, you know, they’ll hook you up too.
0:19:53 I was like, cool.
0:19:54 So I started telling people too.
0:19:55 So that’s how he got the word out.
0:20:00 ‘Cause cash incentive to people who don’t have a lot of cash
0:20:00 is amazing.
0:20:03 And I was a student, a struggling student, okay?
0:20:04 And I was like, yes.
0:20:07 And so I got on the platform, started ordering hair.
0:20:11 And from there, I was called in
0:20:15 because I was a local stylist from someone at his office.
0:20:19 And at this point now they have grown
0:20:22 and they actually had an office space now in Oakland,
0:20:24 in downtown Oakland.
0:20:25 They had me come in.
0:20:26 We were doing like some focus groups.
0:20:29 I think at the time we were bringing some stylists in.
0:20:32 My biggest concern at the time,
0:20:34 and even though I had the platform, I was still side eyeing.
0:20:37 I think as hair stylists, we’re very suspicious.
0:20:39 We’re always very suspicious, you know,
0:20:41 especially someone’s trying to give you something.
0:20:43 And that’s the other thing that sold me on it.
0:20:45 It was that we’re going to do all the work.
0:20:47 I am not the technical person, okay?
0:20:49 I’m with my hands, I can do some amazing things.
0:20:51 But you want me to get on a computer, I’m going to freak out.
0:20:54 And so they said, we’ll set you up an entire website.
0:20:56 It’s going to have your name, here’s your link.
0:20:58 You just put it on your Instagram.
0:21:01 And the people are going to buy hair.
0:21:03 So it’s like, you have your own hair,
0:21:06 but you don’t have to worry about the inventory.
0:21:08 You don’t have to worry about the startup costs.
0:21:10 We’re going to do everything.
0:21:12 All you got to do is just tell people to buy from there.
0:21:16 And then we’re going to kick you back 15% off every sale.
0:21:17 I told you how to background the sales.
0:21:18 I was like, that’s not a bad percentage.
0:21:21 And then on top of that,
0:21:25 for every single time you meet this certain sales go,
0:21:28 we’re going to give you $100 and free credit towards hair.
0:21:29 So I was like, so wait,
0:21:31 I could take that $100 and buy the hair,
0:21:33 but then sell it for like whatever I want.
0:21:36 Then the number one thing, cause I’d never heard of this.
0:21:40 They had a 30 day money back guarantee.
0:21:41 – On hair, wow. – On hair!
0:21:43 – Wow, that’s crazy. – What?
0:21:45 Who does that?
0:21:47 I don’t know, I still don’t know.
0:21:49 – Well, the way I looked at it was,
0:21:51 that’s crazy that there is no guarantees
0:21:55 on a product that costs $250. – So much money.
0:21:58 – Like in other communities, that’s not really the norm.
0:22:03 But the way our products have been sold for so long,
0:22:05 the people who have been selling them
0:22:09 have had no incentive to be customer friendly.
0:22:14 Korean owned beauty supply stores supplied 90 plus percent
0:22:17 of all of the black beauty– – So there’s no community
0:22:20 connection between the supplier and the customer.
0:22:23 – You buy it, even if you have a problem,
0:22:26 they go, final sale, says it on the receipt.
0:22:27 And that’s it, and that’s all.
0:22:29 So this was the first time
0:22:32 that I had heard of this type of interaction
0:22:34 and someone like actually being like,
0:22:36 no, we’ll be accountable.
0:22:37 We would just want to make sure you’re happy.
0:22:40 – And that was one of the fundamental things
0:22:44 that I saw also as an innovation here
0:22:47 was not just adding all this technology,
0:22:49 but also the technology can enable me
0:22:52 to provide a customer experience
0:22:57 and customer service level that my customer is not used to.
0:23:02 But to me, it’s just a right, this is just a right.
0:23:04 – So take us through the concept of the business.
0:23:08 – So honestly, it’s really why did I stick with Maven?
0:23:10 Because I started all kinds of things
0:23:12 to just make money and hustle.
0:23:15 Maven became different for me
0:23:18 because it actually had more purpose to it.
0:23:20 To me, I was just like, as an entrepreneur
0:23:22 and as a hustle and I looked at the stylists,
0:23:25 like they are also entrepreneurs
0:23:29 and they’re being blocked out of a category
0:23:32 because there’s no infrastructure for them to get into it.
0:23:35 And the distributors who supply those stores,
0:23:38 who own these brands, they wouldn’t even sell to you
0:23:40 if you went to them and said,
0:23:42 “I wanna carry your brands in my hair salon.”
0:23:47 So all of the black hair salons were devoid of any retail.
0:23:51 You didn’t buy products in the salon.
0:23:53 So all the dollars for all the retail
0:23:56 were flowing out of the community
0:23:59 and the stylists and the salons
0:24:01 weren’t able to capture any of that value.
0:24:05 Which typically in mainstream hair salons,
0:24:08 that can be like 40% of the revenue
0:24:09 that flows through that salon
0:24:11 could be from retail and selling products.
0:24:14 So I didn’t like that.
0:24:19 And then I saw that there could be a technological solution
0:24:23 that leveraged the power that the hairstylists had.
0:24:25 Because what I also saw was these stylists
0:24:27 who got all these customers in here.
0:24:28 – It’s amazing.
0:24:29 – They got a relationship with them.
0:24:32 If I just give them this tool,
0:24:35 maybe they can distribute these products.
0:24:36 And so that’s what I saw.
0:24:40 And then that’s what I kind of set out to build.
0:24:44 I called it Maven because the word Maven,
0:24:49 the word Maven, M-A-V-E-N, it means an expert.
0:24:52 Someone who’s skilled in their craft or an expert.
0:24:55 And that’s the way that I looked at the hairstylists.
0:24:59 That they’re actually at the center
0:25:01 of influencing this entire beauty world.
0:25:03 And the products that people buy
0:25:05 and what styles they get, everything.
0:25:06 They’re at the center of it.
0:25:10 I could build a tool that put them back in the center of it.
0:25:14 – So, you know, Chicago, Indiana, Detroit, you know,
0:25:16 where hair, they had like hair wars
0:25:18 and all those crazy things talking.
0:25:21 They’re really serious about it.
0:25:25 So somebody’s in the salon and they’re like hearing about it.
0:25:29 Like what does it take to transition them from
0:25:31 just the old model that doesn’t really honor them
0:25:32 and to get on a platform?
0:25:35 – It was actually really, really simple.
0:25:37 If you heard about Maven, you could, you know,
0:25:40 come to our website and just put your phone number in there.
0:25:44 Somebody would call you and over the phone,
0:25:46 collect your information and you’d be on the phone
0:25:48 for about 10 minutes.
0:25:50 And by the time you’re off the phone,
0:25:54 you would have a website, fully functional website
0:25:57 for your customers to come to and buy.
0:26:00 And when they bought, that product would ship out
0:26:03 that same day, customer would get it in about two
0:26:07 to three business days and you would get a commission.
0:26:10 So it was actually really, really simple.
0:26:12 And we signed up a lot, a lot of hairstylists.
0:26:13 – Easy sell.
0:26:15 – And is that how it still works now?
0:26:17 What’s been the iterations of it?
0:26:21 – Oh man, over the past three years,
0:26:25 there’s been a flood of cheap hair
0:26:26 that has come from China.
0:26:31 So the old brands that were the Korean brands sold
0:26:32 through the beauty supply stores
0:26:34 that they basically own the whole market,
0:26:37 they bought all their hair from these Chinese manufacturers.
0:26:44 Alibaba came along, which is like the Amazon of China.
0:26:48 And those factories now had a way to get online
0:26:51 and start selling products all over the world
0:26:53 and even direct to consumer.
0:26:55 And so you have both direct to consumer,
0:26:59 factories selling directly from China to customers here.
0:27:03 And you’ve got factories just selling supply of hair
0:27:06 to entrepreneurs here who want to start small hair companies.
0:27:11 And so there’s been an explosion of cheap hair here,
0:27:13 which started to threaten our business model
0:27:15 because now prices are like coming down.
0:27:19 And that started to make it harder for our stylist to sell.
0:27:24 So what we did was completely transform our business.
0:27:26 We basically said, okay, if this is the world,
0:27:29 if hair margins are gonna go down,
0:27:31 what do we need to do to survive?
0:27:33 What do we have that no one else has?
0:27:36 And how can we use that to compete and survive?
0:27:39 And so what we did was, again, going back to the power
0:27:41 that was in our community is our hairstylist.
0:27:42 That was the asset.
0:27:44 That’s the thing that Maven had built up
0:27:47 over the past four and a half years.
0:27:49 We partnered with the stylist in a different way
0:27:53 and we bundled the hair and the service together
0:27:55 for one price.
0:27:58 And then we went to stylists and said,
0:28:01 I’m gonna fill your book of business with new clients.
0:28:05 So we shifted the model to customer buys now directly
0:28:06 from Maven.
0:28:09 If they buy from us at the same cost,
0:28:12 they don’t have to pay for service.
0:28:13 They can go put in their zip code,
0:28:17 find any stylist, Maven stylist in their area,
0:28:19 book that stylist and Maven will pay for the service
0:28:24 directly to the stylist, but we work out a special rate
0:28:24 with our stylist.
0:28:26 And so we’re still able to make some money.
0:28:28 It’s a brand new model.
0:28:31 The industry doesn’t even, there is no model for it.
0:28:35 And we’ve delivered like three extra value now to customers.
0:28:37 The stylists now that are on this platform
0:28:40 are now making five times the amount of money
0:28:43 that we used to pay out to stylists.
0:28:46 And now we’re competitive with AliExpress.
0:28:47 They can’t do what we’re doing.
0:28:49 They don’t have the stylist network.
0:28:52 Amazon has a stylist network of black stylists,
0:28:54 you know, across America.
0:28:57 – Now you’re providing a different kind of service.
0:29:00 – Well, what it also does is what we basically said,
0:29:02 there’s this other market here right next to it
0:29:06 that’s three times bigger than even this product.
0:29:10 And we can sell these services, right?
0:29:12 And there’s so much value that needs to be created
0:29:15 on that side and things we can help to fix on that side.
0:29:18 We’re gonna use the product that we’ve been selling
0:29:20 to leverage our way into that side.
0:29:24 But now we can do bookings.
0:29:27 We can do, you know, we can do the credit card processing
0:29:30 for all the transactions that go through there.
0:29:32 We can fill these stylist’s book of business,
0:29:35 like fill their seats with customers.
0:29:37 We can add all the menu of services that they provide,
0:29:39 not just weave services.
0:29:41 That’s, you know, that’s coming next.
0:29:43 – Yeah, I’m just about to ask about that.
0:29:45 Considering I got lots and I’m like, I travel a lot
0:29:47 and so it’s not always easy to get,
0:29:49 like somebody to take care of my hair.
0:29:51 And there’s a phone app that you can use.
0:29:55 – So we actually don’t, we don’t even have a mobile app.
0:29:56 It’s always just been web, web based.
0:29:57 It’s a website.
0:30:02 Everything’s built very for like mobile, friendly, you know?
0:30:05 But also, you know, like with this technology thing,
0:30:09 everyone always thinks they gotta go make a app, right?
0:30:14 Like, like I gotta make it really super technological.
0:30:17 No, like you need just try to find the minimum amount
0:30:20 of technology you need to just solve a very specific problem.
0:30:22 And you don’t have to overdo it.
0:30:25 So there never was a specific reason you needed an app
0:30:28 for this, so we didn’t build one.
0:30:30 I think a lot of people get that, you know, get that wrong.
0:30:32 – And you need to refer people into it
0:30:35 from all kinds of sources that actually technically work better
0:30:37 for you with a, with a web-based service, yeah.
0:30:39 – And apps can have a lot of friction.
0:30:41 – So Sherian, when you made that leap with Maven,
0:30:43 like how did that impact your business?
0:30:46 – Well, I think, I think the first thing for any hustles,
0:30:48 you gotta have the passion behind it, right?
0:30:49 That’s, that’s number one.
0:30:52 When I went in for them to give us a survey
0:30:54 and ask us questions, afterwards Deshaun came in
0:30:58 and just told us about it and told us more about the company
0:31:01 and why he created it and what his vision was.
0:31:04 And at the time, I kind of turned my nose up
0:31:06 and other sellers that were there did too,
0:31:09 because Maven is not a platform
0:31:12 that is only for professional stylists.
0:31:16 Maven is a platform that’s for all stylists.
0:31:20 And as a professional and as someone that took out school loans,
0:31:23 I was like, why do I wanna be on the platform
0:31:26 with other people who didn’t do all the things that I did?
0:31:29 I felt like I should be on a different platform.
0:31:32 And when Deshaun broke down that, you know,
0:31:34 it’s bigger than just being a professional.
0:31:36 This is about giving back to the community.
0:31:39 This is about people who are, you know,
0:31:42 in small cities somewhere in Indiana
0:31:45 and are doing hair in their kitchen.
0:31:47 But mind you, that’s what our grandmothers used to do
0:31:49 was they were doing hair in their kitchen.
0:31:52 And so who are we to put ourselves, you know,
0:31:54 on this platform saying, no, I’m not them
0:31:55 because that’s who I come from.
0:31:57 And so as soon as you put it like that, I was like,
0:32:00 I want to be a part of whatever you’re doing.
0:32:04 And so since then, I’ve worked as a Maven stylist.
0:32:07 I’ve helped with YouTube videos.
0:32:09 I’ve helped with how-tos.
0:32:11 This is something that’ll be rated.
0:32:14 And, you know, they wanna make sure
0:32:16 that the customer is gonna be getting
0:32:20 a quality and consistent service.
0:32:23 But not only just for hair weaving services,
0:32:24 it’ll also be for cut.
0:32:26 It’ll also be for color.
0:32:27 It’ll also be for natural hair.
0:32:30 It still, you know, it gets me a little excited
0:32:32 ’cause I’ll get a text message going,
0:32:34 you just got paid and I’ll be like, what?
0:32:36 Because people just go to your site
0:32:39 and they just can buy, you don’t have to do anything.
0:32:41 – That’s way easier than doing somebody’s hair.
0:32:44 – You just get a notification, ding, you got paid.
0:32:49 And so since then, my trajectory completely took off.
0:32:50 Now I work in Hollywood.
0:32:53 I’ve worked on the last two seasons of HBO and Secure.
0:32:57 I’m working on a new show called “Little Fires Everywhere”
0:32:59 that stars Carrie Washington and Reese Witherspoon.
0:33:03 And every time I get a chance and I need some hair,
0:33:06 I still go back to Maven because the hair is good.
0:33:08 They’re always on top of everything.
0:33:10 And that’s really hard to find,
0:33:11 especially like in a hair company.
0:33:14 And I think it’s, I honestly would have thought before now
0:33:16 that would have been too much to ask for.
0:33:18 It’s also something that’ll be beneficial to me.
0:33:21 ‘Cause again, I don’t want to deal with the technical side,
0:33:25 but it’s so important to have that technical component.
0:33:27 I don’t care if you don’t want to deal with it.
0:33:30 You get with another company that’ll do the work for you
0:33:32 and you’re still able to reap the benefits.
0:33:35 Sometimes some people get caught up in the,
0:33:37 well, how much am I gonna get?
0:33:38 What am I getting back for my service?
0:33:43 The truth is, is that if you are a stylist
0:33:47 and you are not fully booked, then you need to be on it.
0:33:51 I have friends who work in LA and travel
0:33:55 and they have clients that pay a lot of money for hair, right?
0:33:56 To get their hair done.
0:33:59 Yet they’re still taking part-time gigs, you know?
0:34:02 They’re like, oh, but it’s gonna be 30 bucks an hour.
0:34:04 I’m like, why are you going somewhere for 30 bucks an hour
0:34:05 when you can go in a salon?
0:34:07 Are you telling me they’re gonna give you, you know,
0:34:09 anywhere from 100 to 300 bucks for this one client,
0:34:11 it’s only gonna take you two to three hours?
0:34:12 The math’s not working out.
0:34:15 And so we have to change our mindset
0:34:18 because sometimes some of us hustlers,
0:34:20 especially as a cosmetologist,
0:34:23 we’re so used to having to do things
0:34:26 and constantly be having our hands in something
0:34:28 that sometimes we don’t see opportunities
0:34:29 that are right in front of our face.
0:34:31 – So one of the things I was thinking about
0:34:34 was just like, you know, going back to earlier conversation
0:34:37 about how hair, you know, the hair industry itself, you know,
0:34:39 from the mom-and-pops in the house.
0:34:43 So how do people sign up and make payments and get paid?
0:34:46 Like if they don’t have credit cards or debit cards.
0:34:48 – Yeah, that’s a really interesting question
0:34:53 because this was one of the unforeseen challenges
0:34:58 that we had after getting into this business
0:35:03 was the first version of how we paid people was by check.
0:35:08 And we found out very fast
0:35:11 that when we tried to go pay people by PayPal
0:35:14 or pay them, you know, ACH or something,
0:35:18 that like half of the stylists didn’t have bank accounts.
0:35:23 And then that opened up this whole other world of the unbanked.
0:35:25 Some enormous percentage of the population
0:35:27 doesn’t have bank accounts.
0:35:31 So we would send out checks and they’d get lost in the mail
0:35:35 or there’s all over the country,
0:35:36 we would get stylists calling us saying,
0:35:38 “I brought my check into a bank.”
0:35:41 And they wouldn’t let me cash it, right?
0:35:43 And we’re talking like checks like 15 bucks
0:35:44 or something like that,
0:35:47 but they wouldn’t even let them cash a $15 check.
0:35:48 They had to go to a check cashing place,
0:35:50 which they charge, you know,
0:35:53 they charge like 15% or something of the check
0:35:54 or whatever it is.
0:35:56 In the past couple of years,
0:36:01 we created a solution actually in partnership with Green Dot.
0:36:03 So there, the technical infrastructure
0:36:05 for how this payment system works,
0:36:10 but we can now pay to any routing number.
0:36:12 So you don’t have to have a bank account,
0:36:14 but if you have like a prepaid card
0:36:16 and it’s got those 16 digits on it,
0:36:17 we can drop money on that thing
0:36:20 and we can drop it instantaneously.
0:36:23 For the new thing that we have where we sell the hair
0:36:26 and you get free service with it,
0:36:29 Instapay is now triggered through a QR code.
0:36:32 So after you buy the hair and you book your stylus,
0:36:35 we text you a QR code.
0:36:36 When you go into the salon,
0:36:39 the stylus just scans your QR code with her phone
0:36:42 and she’s instantaneously paid to her,
0:36:45 either her bank account or her prepaid card.
0:36:46 – Three things that popped up to me when you were talking
0:36:48 when the importance of being able to serve a community
0:36:51 that is underserved and then quality.
0:36:52 ‘Cause from a husband perspective,
0:36:54 you know, a lot of times you just get what you can
0:36:57 when you’re in that mindset of being easily distracted
0:36:59 and in different directions.
0:37:01 And then the third thing was partnership.
0:37:04 And so like, do you intuitively think of it
0:37:05 from those three lenses
0:37:08 or did it just something that organically shows up
0:37:11 in the way that you do business?
0:37:14 – You know, I had a mentor before.
0:37:17 His name was Mike Bush and he was an executive out here
0:37:20 in Oakland and he gave me some advice one time.
0:37:23 He said, before I had started maybe, and he was like,
0:37:25 “Dishon, you’re not gonna make any money
0:37:29 “until you stop trying to make money
0:37:31 “and think about how you can make other people money.”
0:37:35 And it changed the way I thought about
0:37:37 my relationships with people.
0:37:42 And what you wanna try to do is be valuable to people,
0:37:45 not extract value from people.
0:37:49 If you are valuable to society,
0:37:52 the money flows to where the value is,
0:37:54 where the value creator is.
0:37:57 If the other person doesn’t win, this thing ain’t gonna last.
0:38:00 It ain’t gonna work if we both don’t win.
0:38:02 It won’t be sustainable.
0:38:06 So partnership is always like how I look at it, you know?
0:38:08 And like the new model that we’ve created,
0:38:12 what is the right number so that this works for stylists
0:38:13 and what’s the number that works
0:38:16 so that it works for customers?
0:38:21 And then honestly, the number that we get to keep at Maven
0:38:23 is the last number that I think about.
0:38:26 But it starts with, “Let me make my partner’s money.”
0:38:28 – Well, it’s definitely showing up
0:38:31 in a way that Sherianne expressed it.
0:38:33 – When I was in cosmetology school,
0:38:35 they were like, “Okay, you guys are cosmetologists.
0:38:37 “So you guys get to pick whatever name you want.
0:38:39 “You can have a cosmo name.”
0:38:41 And I was like, “I can be someone else?”
0:38:43 What?
0:38:45 I never thought about that ever in life.
0:38:46 I’ve always been Sherianne.
0:38:49 My name is Sherianne, but I go by Sherianne
0:38:52 and I didn’t know that was my grandmother’s middle name.
0:38:54 I just knew she was Sherianne.
0:38:56 I didn’t know she was Sherianne.
0:38:58 And so it just came out of me.
0:39:01 I don’t even know where it came from
0:39:02 or I thought I don’t.
0:39:04 Went on through cosmetology school,
0:39:06 like I said, back was against the wall,
0:39:07 had to make it happen,
0:39:10 did great by the grace of God.
0:39:13 And I graduated and it was all the tears
0:39:15 because for the first time in life,
0:39:19 I had done something where the most important thing
0:39:20 of all of it was me.
0:39:22 It wasn’t about, when I worked with a company,
0:39:23 it was about always about like,
0:39:25 what you can do for that company?
0:39:26 Can you fit in this box?
0:39:28 You always have to fit in a box.
0:39:29 And for the first time in life,
0:39:32 it was like, I didn’t have to fit in anyone’s box
0:39:33 and I could create my own box.
0:39:35 Maybe it’s not a box, maybe it’s a star shape.
0:39:38 And so what I learned at my graduation
0:39:40 was my mom told me that before my grandma
0:39:42 passed she passed of cancer.
0:39:46 While she had cancer, she didn’t tell any of us.
0:39:49 She went to cosmetology school
0:39:52 and she got her cosmetology license.
0:39:55 She went and took the state board test.
0:39:57 I went back and taught cosmetology school.
0:39:59 It is hard for people to pass that test.
0:40:01 And we got it.
0:40:04 Yes, so we got her cosmetology license
0:40:06 post humorously in the mail.
0:40:08 And that’s how we found out.
0:40:09 – That’s grandma Sherry Ann.
0:40:10 – Sherry Ann.
0:40:12 I think she wanted to be able to have a business
0:40:14 with my mom was her dream.
0:40:18 And so my beauty studio is with my mom.
0:40:19 And I’m Sherry Ann.
0:40:22 And just like my grandma did it through terminal cancer,
0:40:25 you can do whatever you want.
0:40:28 You pick your shape and you live in your truth
0:40:31 and you hustle.
0:40:32 And that’s how we gonna do it.
0:40:34 – Drop the mic, I’m Sherry Ann, salute.
0:40:36 (upbeat music)
0:40:39 (upbeat music)
0:40:42 (sighs)
0:40:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:13 [MUSIC]
0:00:16 >> Welcome, this is the Hustler’s Guide to Tech,
0:00:18 where you don’t need a degree from Harvard,
0:00:22 or Stanford, or STEM education, or none of that.
0:00:29 All you need is drive ambition and the will to get it done.
0:00:32 In other words, you need to be a hustler.
0:00:33 >> No doubt.
0:00:36 >> And we’re here today with my co-host, Shaka.
0:00:36 >> What up, bro?
0:00:37 >> What’s happening, Shaka?
0:00:39 >> Happy to be here, man, excited.
0:00:41 >> Shaka came straight out the penitentiary,
0:00:43 sold books off the street.
0:00:44 >> Yeah, out the trunk of the car.
0:00:47 >> Oh, the trunk of the car by himself that he published himself,
0:00:49 and now is the New York Times best-selling author.
0:00:53 And we’re here talking to Ram, the CEO of Earn-In,
0:00:57 where you can get paid as soon as you work.
0:01:00 And then we’re here with Vaughn, the hustler,
0:01:03 who’s taking advantage of that and getting his.
0:01:04 So let’s get into it.
0:01:06 >> Let’s get into it, man.
0:01:08 So dope name, I love the name Earn-In.
0:01:11 The first thing that came to my mind was a heavy D,
0:01:13 Money-Earning, Mount Vernon.
0:01:18 That’s the name right there, Earn-In, though, you know?
0:01:19 >> Money-Earning.
0:01:20 >> Yeah, Money-Earning, right?
0:01:22 But that’s like a brilliant concept.
0:01:26 >> Well, why don’t you tell us what Earn-In is and what it does?
0:01:29 >> Yeah, so there’s this problem that people now call the $400 problem,
0:01:31 which is 40% of the country can’t find $400.
0:01:36 And to me, it’s crazy that that happens because it’s locked up in this pay cycle
0:01:38 where we pay people every two weeks.
0:01:40 And so we’re basically holding back their pay,
0:01:42 and then they don’t have our money, so they go to really bad options.
0:01:45 And I came across this when one of my employees at my previous company,
0:01:48 she was going into getting overdraft fees.
0:01:49 And I asked her why she’s getting overdraft fees,
0:01:51 because I thought I was paying everyone well.
0:01:54 The problem she had was that she didn’t mind the next day,
0:01:55 couldn’t wait till Friday.
0:01:57 And so she’d already worked for a few days,
0:02:00 and we owed her money for the work she’d already done,
0:02:02 but I couldn’t get the payroll system to pay her.
0:02:06 So I did a manual workaround and got her the money and did this for a few years.
0:02:07 Then when I left the company, the people who was doing this for a while
0:02:09 didn’t know if I could still do it for them.
0:02:11 And when I was able to do this, their life was so much simpler.
0:02:14 They were paying all their bills on time, no more late fees on bills,
0:02:17 no more overdraft fees, no more payday loans.
0:02:20 >> When I think about it, it seemed like there’s just like a lot of savings there,
0:02:24 like people who don’t get those fees and don’t have to worry about trying to figure out
0:02:28 how to borrow money for other people with ridiculous interest rates.
0:02:32 Especially if you’re from the hood, where you got all these get money now,
0:02:34 but it had these crazy interest rates.
0:02:38 And in terms of money, how much is the savings that we’re looking at annually?
0:02:41 >> So with just overdraft fees alone,
0:02:45 as a country we spend more on overdraft than we do on fresh vegetables.
0:02:47 >> Crazy, yo.
0:02:48 >> Pay money for your money.
0:02:49 >> Pay money for your money.
0:02:51 >> That’s the financial system.
0:02:55 So it’s almost like you’re working to make money to pay yourself to work.
0:02:58 It’s crazy, it’s like a ridiculous cycle, it’s nice.
0:02:59 So Vaughn was good, bro.
0:03:00 >> What’s going on?
0:03:02 >> So what does the application look like on the ground?
0:03:05 Like how do you get out there and make it happen and shake things up?
0:03:08 And really take it to that next level?
0:03:10 >> Well, for me, it happened like this.
0:03:13 I was scrolling through social media, and then this app popped up.
0:03:15 And it just said, get your money today.
0:03:19 And I mean, maybe before I finished reading the sentence, click.
0:03:20 And I had it and it’s downloaded.
0:03:22 And I checked it out.
0:03:27 And then by the time all the information process and it took about maybe like
0:03:31 three to five business days and it started working on my phone.
0:03:36 And I realized what it was, I was like, okay, so it’s tracking when I work.
0:03:39 It’s watching how much I make as I make it.
0:03:47 And then it’s allowing me the day of working to get that money the same day.
0:03:50 And it’s a different feeling, you know?
0:03:52 I told my friend about it.
0:03:54 I was like, yo, you gotta try this out.
0:03:55 And he was like, what is it?
0:03:58 I was like, get your money before Friday.
0:04:02 And then he said, keep it away from me.
0:04:03 And I was like, what do you mean?
0:04:06 I was like, I’ve been using it, it’s cool.
0:04:10 And then his words were, I always remember this, he said, man,
0:04:12 you’re not trepidatious at all, are you?
0:04:17 And I was like, is it me or is it him?
0:04:23 And him is the way a lot of people feel about this type of thing.
0:04:25 Everybody’s looking for the catch.
0:04:26 What’s the thing?
0:04:26 What’s the thing?
0:04:27 What is it?
0:04:30 >> Because Brian, when you took a risk, you’re just like, I’m gonna hit this.
0:04:31 And I’m gonna keep it moving.
0:04:35 And one of the things that Ben and I talk about a lot is how to remove the mental
0:04:41 barriers that allows people to empower themselves and access technology in a way
0:04:45 that really makes them be able to connect with other people but also earn
0:04:47 through their own ability to get out and make things happen.
0:04:50 So to just see the community that’s developing and burn it.
0:04:53 That’s something we talk about a lot about how do you shift culture, you know?
0:04:57 >> Yeah, that thing that you did, it might seem like a small thing, but
0:05:01 to have the ability to go get something and
0:05:06 then start to change your position in life where you can go do the next thing.
0:05:10 Like that’s, and then anybody who knows you benefits from that.
0:05:14 >> Yeah. >> Cuz you’re the breakthrough.
0:05:15 >> Ron, what do you charge?
0:05:17 >> So, we don’t charge anything.
0:05:18 There’s no fees to use the service.
0:05:21 The other area that we’re in right now is where people should be able to get
0:05:24 healthcare even if they don’t have much money.
0:05:27 And I don’t think we should hold these back just because someone doesn’t have
0:05:28 enough money to pay for it.
0:05:32 And so what we said is people can pay us whatever they think is fair.
0:05:34 And so when people are not able to pay them, they don’t pay.
0:05:36 When they are able to pay, they can pay something.
0:05:39 And sometimes people come back and they actually help many people out.
0:05:42 So you have a really strong paid forward culture where people actually come into
0:05:44 the app to help each other out.
0:05:47 >> So in addition to allowing people to access their own capital,
0:05:49 it’s also building a sense of community.
0:05:53 Which most people don’t think about organically when it comes to tech.
0:05:56 It’s like, how do you build community that actually opens it up?
0:06:00 >> Yeah, as far as the community aspect of it, when you actually start using the app,
0:06:05 you have the ability to tip whatever amount you decide to.
0:06:08 And it caps the amount you can tip.
0:06:12 So for example, today was Wednesday and I cashed out $100 for work from work that
0:06:15 day, the app comes up and then it gives you the option and
0:06:17 said, would you like to tip yes or no?
0:06:22 And then another, sort of like an icon or a little animation comes up.
0:06:27 And it shows you, because of your tip, that you were able to pay it forward for
0:06:28 somebody else.
0:06:32 >> So it’s incentivized in a more organic way.
0:06:34 Like kind of like, okay, you see how you help people.
0:06:38 >> Exactly, you know that thing where you go through a toll.
0:06:40 And maybe you have a little bit extra that day.
0:06:42 And so you pay for the two people behind you.
0:06:45 Or you’re getting some donuts in the morning and you’re like, all right,
0:06:47 five bucks for the guy behind me.
0:06:48 It’s sort of like that.
0:06:49 Because when you tip as well,
0:06:53 it tells you based on the amount you tip, how many people you’re assisting.
0:06:57 So if you roll it to $3, the chain will go up to one.
0:07:00 If you roll it to five, maybe it goes up to two people.
0:07:02 If you hit it like at a $9 tip, it goes up to three.
0:07:03 It’s up to you.
0:07:04 You can do whatever you want.
0:07:06 And sometimes I’m like, yeah, I’m good right now.
0:07:08 Boom, get a $9 tip and you help three other people.
0:07:12 >> I think about how most people want to show up in the world.
0:07:15 I think we’re organically helpful people.
0:07:18 And when you can actually see that you really help somebody, that’s pretty cool.
0:07:22 >> Yeah, so one of the other pieces is if someone helps you out,
0:07:23 you can say thank you to them.
0:07:28 And we’ve had over 10 million thank you messages between users.
0:07:30 One of the other things that’s like surprising to me is like,
0:07:32 when I speak with people who are like more from the traditional financial services,
0:07:34 they don’t get why people will help other people out.
0:07:35 >> [LAUGH]
0:07:36 >> Because they’re not trying to help.
0:07:38 >> [LAUGH]
0:07:41 >> You gotta want to help people to understand what that looks like.
0:07:42 >> They’re on the other end.
0:07:44 >> They’re right on the other end of this thing.
0:07:47 So people are helpful in paying it forward.
0:07:49 But why do you think that people want to help each other?
0:07:55 Like what is it about the space of freedom that makes people want to really help each other?
0:07:57 >> So I think people actually help each other out in the real world.
0:07:59 Like offline, that’s what you do is if you’re short of money,
0:08:01 you ask your friends or your cousin for money.
0:08:03 It’s not the way like you’re used to banks working.
0:08:05 Like banks don’t ask customers to help each other out.
0:08:07 But in the real world, people do help each other out.
0:08:10 And we’re basically bringing that into this technology platform and
0:08:11 giving it a lot of scale.
0:08:14 >> Are people pretty consistent with each transaction of tipping?
0:08:16 Or what does that look like?
0:08:19 Is it like every third transaction?
0:08:21 >> Everyone chooses what works for them.
0:08:21 >> Yeah.
0:08:23 >> So it’s different for different people.
0:08:25 The same person can be different at different times.
0:08:26 They’ll be like, how do you have you thought through it?
0:08:28 >> Well, the way I do it is like this.
0:08:33 Depending on how much I’m going to cash out, I know what my ultimate goal is.
0:08:36 So maybe I know this week I’ll cash out twice.
0:08:41 So that means I know that on Tuesday, I may tip $5.
0:08:43 And on Wednesday, I might not tip anything.
0:08:45 Because I know that for the week I cash, it’s $5.
0:08:47 You don’t have to tip every time.
0:08:50 It just depends on what you know you’re going to do and
0:08:52 what you know that you can afford, honestly.
0:08:55 >> As with anything, you have to budget your money, okay?
0:09:00 Because just like as if you in the old system,
0:09:04 you would have to have saved money from an old paycheck to pay for
0:09:06 an upcoming bill.
0:09:11 In this instance, you’re using funds that you would normally expect on Friday.
0:09:14 You’re getting it earlier, so you just budget yourself and
0:09:17 know that you used that money already.
0:09:19 Okay, so it’s just budgeting.
0:09:23 But it’s also allowing you that access to the money in advance so
0:09:28 that you can avoid potential overdraft fees or something comes up with things like that.
0:09:30 So most important is you have to budget your money.
0:09:33 >> Okay, so I just had a question just popped up.
0:09:39 So you’re married, and they’re shared household responsibilities financially.
0:09:41 So how does that work within that context?
0:09:45 Is it like you hit your wife up, like y’all got to take this off to take care of that?
0:09:47 >> Completely did it on my own at first.
0:09:52 Because I knew what the reaction was going to be, so I just did it.
0:09:53 Let me see if this works.
0:09:58 And I didn’t even think it was going to cause any problems.
0:10:01 But I knew what’s saying, hey, there’s this thing, can I check it out?
0:10:02 I knew what was going to happen.
0:10:06 Because that’s what people say, because they can’t believe it.
0:10:06 >> Yeah.
0:10:08 >> So I just went for it on my own.
0:10:13 And then after that, it’s done nothing but assist me.
0:10:21 So it’s worked out, it’s the pay cycles, just there’s gaps in them.
0:10:27 And I don’t think people should be ashamed of running out of your check before Friday
0:10:28 gets there.
0:10:31 I mean, it’s a normal occurrence, it happens often.
0:10:35 And there’s a phrase, I got to wait till Friday.
0:10:36 People say that.
0:10:40 There’s a reason you got to wait till Friday is because you won’t have the money to afford
0:10:41 it today.
0:10:46 And sometimes you miss out on things, and sometimes you incur fees, you end up paying
0:10:51 more money because you had to wait on the money you already earned that you could have
0:10:52 now.
0:10:57 So it’s done nothing but assist us in our household.
0:11:02 And just in terms of access, is it kind of like a limit or how does it work?
0:11:06 >> You get it seven days a week, 24 hours a day, as soon as you hit cash out, the money
0:11:08 is in your account the same second.
0:11:12 So you could be at McDonald’s and you need six bucks, you just take out six bucks and
0:11:13 you put your debit card in.
0:11:14 >> Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:11:15 It’s instant.
0:11:21 >> Have you ran into any consumers who are just like, you know what, I’m too irresponsible.
0:11:25 I need to just unplug because I’m just going to take out all the money and go to the casino
0:11:29 or do whatever reckless.
0:11:31 Has that user experience have occurred?
0:11:36 >> So the user experiences that we hear are mostly on people are using the app to pay
0:11:40 bills, to buy groceries, to buy food, to buy gas.
0:11:43 There’s that struggle to make it to Friday.
0:11:47 And it’s not because you want to go gamble, it’s because you needed to get to work or
0:11:48 you needed to buy food.
0:11:50 And that’s what people are using this for.
0:11:54 >> And can they pay for these things like within the app itself or do they just go to
0:11:56 their debit card and a swipe or something like that?
0:11:58 >> Yeah, it goes into the bank account and they use a debit card to buy.
0:12:02 >> So, Rob, you were talking earlier about healthcare.
0:12:04 What is your vision for the community?
0:12:10 >> So with healthcare, the core problem is that when you get medical bills, they’re
0:12:11 almost always a surprise.
0:12:13 They’re quite large.
0:12:15 And usually when you get them, your income goes down as well.
0:12:19 Like half the personal bankruptcies in the country are because of medical bills.
0:12:20 >> Half.
0:12:21 >> Yes.
0:12:22 >> Wow.
0:12:26 >> So with insurance, like your deductibles, 5,000 or 10,000 bucks, most people don’t
0:12:28 have that sitting in their bank account.
0:12:31 And so even with insurance, healthcare is not affordable.
0:12:33 And so what we’ve done is it’s really simple from the user’s point of view.
0:12:38 They basically take pictures of their bills through the app and give it to us.
0:12:42 And then usually within two days, we’re able to get them a lower amount on their bill,
0:12:46 a payment plan, and then if there is any financial aid, we’ll try to match them up with
0:12:48 financial aid as well.
0:12:51 And so with over 90% of the bills that we’ve got, we’ve been able to get people some kind
0:12:52 of savings.
0:12:56 And we’re looking for places where there’s some kind of unfairness or inequality and
0:13:00 seeing if we can bring a technology solution to make that place be more balanced.
0:13:03 So this is becoming a platform of community-supported products.
0:13:04 >> Yeah.
0:13:05 >> You know, that’s so powerful.
0:13:09 I was thinking earlier, you know, because I’m, I always think about it, you know, like
0:13:15 what do you teach young people about like money that makes them go one way or the other.
0:13:20 And like my favorite quote on this is compound interest is eighth winner of the world.
0:13:24 He understands that earns it and he doesn’t pays it.
0:13:26 And that’s like an Albert Einstein quote.
0:13:30 But you know, that’s the thing about money that I think so many people don’t understand
0:13:35 is that either you have money and your money wakes up every day, goes to work and makes
0:13:40 you more money to the point where like when you get enough money, you don’t even have
0:13:41 to work.
0:13:43 Your money just goes to work on your behalf.
0:13:47 And then if you’re borrowing money, if you’re getting credit, if you don’t have your check
0:13:52 and you have to go borrow that or put it on the credit card or whatever, then you’re paying
0:13:53 for that.
0:13:57 You’re paying for that other person to not have to go to work.
0:13:59 And you don’t even realize you’re doing that.
0:14:03 And you just fall into this pattern of these financial products that put you on the bad
0:14:06 end of that deal.
0:14:11 And so the thing that, you know, that to me is really exciting is you’re saying, no,
0:14:14 I’m getting my money that I already made.
0:14:15 And now I’ve got money.
0:14:16 And now you have the choice.
0:14:17 You can spend it.
0:14:18 You can invest it.
0:14:19 You can do what you need.
0:14:20 But that’s your money.
0:14:21 Yeah.
0:14:25 No, I think that’s really dope because you hit on a pivotal point, like the culture.
0:14:30 And that’s something we talk about a lot when it just comes to like, how do we shift culture?
0:14:34 And I kind of want to pivot a little bit around just the idea of like what the show is about.
0:14:39 Like how do you really, you know, break through some of these barriers that some people’s
0:14:41 weigh in, especially in a tech space, right?
0:14:43 Tech can be very intimidating.
0:14:48 You know, I walked out of prison nine years ago and I was gone for two decades.
0:14:51 So I didn’t know any of this tech stuff, right?
0:14:52 But there was a curiosity there.
0:14:55 I was like, I really want to learn how the modern world works.
0:15:00 And just from a hustler standpoint, I always thought that, you know, guys that come from
0:15:06 the street or come from the communities where street hustling is the norm don’t always recognize
0:15:09 that those are transferable skills.
0:15:13 And as we’re trying to solve problems and trying to empower people, how do we, you know,
0:15:18 message that in a way where people feel, you know, to your point where it’s not like the
0:15:23 skepticism when you introduce some tech, but where’s this open curiosity and, you know,
0:15:28 allow people to create space where they can come in and like get out and go make it happen.
0:15:32 What do you guys see that connection in terms of like, how do we introduce the culture of
0:15:35 technology and hustle technology to the masses?
0:15:41 If I could come up with an idea, it would just be more visibility, more people knowing
0:15:47 that there’s real people using it and that there isn’t such a reason to be skeptical.
0:15:53 I mean, I guess just generally people are scared of this type of thing because I don’t
0:15:55 know, maybe they’ve heard horror stories before.
0:15:59 But I mean, that’s the only thing I could think of just knowing that more people are
0:16:02 really using these things that are out there to their advantage and not their detriment.
0:16:09 You know, as these are assistance devices and not everything that you see on your phone
0:16:14 is there to scam you or take your money, these are real tools that you have now to your advantage.
0:16:18 I think there’s also like some amount of like skepticism or anything that’s new, whether
0:16:22 it’s like with Lyft and getting into a car with a stranger or Airbnb staying in someone
0:16:23 else’s house.
0:16:27 And long ago with Amazon, like putting your card number into the internet, but like technology
0:16:31 can make things so different that you’re not sure if it’s all right because it’s so different.
0:16:35 Like people look at our product and they say, well, this is too good to be true.
0:16:38 Like they’re used to overdraw fees and they’re like, that’s too bad to be part of your future.
0:16:42 Like this is the way it should have been always, it should have always had access to your pay.
0:16:46 What’s always funny to me is that it’s like people on social media talking shit about
0:16:47 tech.
0:16:49 I’m like, but you’re actually using tech to talk shit, right?
0:16:53 And it’s like if you can make that connection for people to see like we’re already using
0:16:54 tech, right?
0:16:57 No matter you’re not going to, that’s just the reality, right?
0:17:01 So why not using it in a way that actually empowers you and helps you solve problems
0:17:03 and make life a lot more simple?
0:17:06 And so that’s kind of like always the thing I’m thinking about is how do we continue to
0:17:11 push the envelope and shift culture and get people to see like these things aren’t as
0:17:16 intimidated as they make them ought to be and that you can dive in and figure out a way
0:17:21 to, you know, either create the next big thing that make problem solving easier or just,
0:17:23 you know, utilize it to make your life a little bit more simple.
0:17:24 Yeah.
0:17:30 Kind of picking up on what you said, Chaka, like one of the things that is interesting
0:17:37 and really the opportunity I think is you have this old system and we all know all the
0:17:41 things that are wrong and all the things that are unfair about the old system, the old financial
0:17:46 system, the old healthcare system, the old like work hours and structure.
0:17:48 And one thing is you fight the system.
0:17:51 But the other thing is there’s a new system.
0:17:57 And how do we get the guys on the come up onto the new system and just not have to protest
0:17:58 the old system?
0:18:03 Cause like we’ve been protesting that system for a long time and like it hasn’t changed
0:18:04 at all.
0:18:09 When I was getting out, I was just like, okay, I got to just figure this thing out, right?
0:18:13 So I know what I control and I can only deal with the things that I can control, right?
0:18:16 That means I got to get my ass out there and hustle and push down below.
0:18:19 So I literally would sell books to anybody I didn’t care who you was.
0:18:20 And I would do it.
0:18:23 I mean, Jehovah Witness come knocking the door, they want to sell a wash tower, give
0:18:24 away a wash tower.
0:18:25 I want to sell this book.
0:18:26 Let’s swap out.
0:18:31 I mean, for me, it was really just that idea that, you know, I mean, I think enterprise
0:18:35 has always been, you know, a part of the culture, you know, like, there’s that hustler ethic
0:18:36 there to eat those, right?
0:18:38 That culture of figuring it out.
0:18:42 Cause that’s what that hip hop culture emerged out of making something out of nothing.
0:18:43 And that’s what I look at.
0:18:45 That’s how I look at technology, right?
0:18:49 I always ask kids this, I say, okay, you know, if you’re on social media, I’m like, did it
0:18:50 cost you to get on?
0:18:51 And they’re like, no.
0:18:53 I’m like, okay, are they selling you anything personally?
0:18:54 They’re like, no.
0:18:56 I’m like, so how are they making money?
0:18:58 And they’re like, I don’t know.
0:19:03 I’m like, it’s an idea and the idea is to really take things and figure out how to create
0:19:04 value in them.
0:19:09 And if you create the thing, then you create the value and you can figure out how to get
0:19:10 that out.
0:19:13 And I think that culturally, what we really would love is just for people to awaken to
0:19:18 the idea that you can get out and make things happen if you just have that go get a mentality
0:19:20 and really dig into it.
0:19:21 Yeah.
0:19:26 And what got me over the hurdle of it was it’s in the Play Store.
0:19:30 And what I think what my friend meant when he said, boy, you’re not trepidatious at all
0:19:37 was he was sort of stating this, which is, I was telling him, you can get your money
0:19:38 now.
0:19:39 You don’t have to wait till Friday.
0:19:43 And people don’t think that should happen.
0:19:44 You can’t do that.
0:19:47 You can’t get your money before Friday.
0:19:49 Even though you worked today.
0:19:56 That’s not allowed because you, Vaughn, are not capable of handling your money before
0:19:57 Friday.
0:20:00 Your employer can hold it for you because they know what’s best.
0:20:03 You can’t take that now because you’re going to blow it.
0:20:04 So you can’t keep your money now.
0:20:07 You got to wait till Friday because they know better.
0:20:08 So where’s he at now?
0:20:10 Does he still think of things the same way?
0:20:11 He ain’t going around yet.
0:20:12 Yeah.
0:20:13 Here’s a question you should pose to him.
0:20:19 You should ask him if he went to the casino and he won at the slots, won what he wanted
0:20:20 them to pay him.
0:20:21 Exactly.
0:20:22 Right.
0:20:23 And just see how he responds.
0:20:24 Right.
0:20:25 Because that’s the reality, right?
0:20:26 If you go to the casino and you like win, you want that cash right there.
0:20:29 Like, you don’t want to wait because you just, you earned that, right?
0:20:30 Exactly.
0:20:34 And so why would it be any different if you’re working and you’re actually put the hours
0:20:38 in to add value to another company while when you add that value to yourself.
0:20:40 So I think you can turn them around.
0:20:41 Yeah.
0:20:42 You also look at what the businesses do.
0:20:43 You go into a shop.
0:20:44 You pay them at once.
0:20:47 You don’t say I’ll pay you in two weeks because you may be irresponsible if I give you the
0:20:48 money now.
0:20:51 The businesses take their money as soon as they give you something immediately.
0:20:52 Yeah.
0:20:55 But as an individual, you’re not supposed to have it and it’s not like all your bills
0:20:56 show up on payday.
0:20:57 Yeah.
0:20:58 I mean, your bills show up at different times.
0:21:01 You should have your money available when your bills show up.
0:21:04 You’re expected to hold over your money.
0:21:09 You’re not expected to have your money early and then pay for what comes up.
0:21:12 You’re expected to hold it from the week before.
0:21:13 So it’s sort of backwards.
0:21:19 And even like, I mean, why should the bank or why should like the company have your money
0:21:24 and be earning on it when you should could be earning, why are they money earning on
0:21:26 your money that you work for that they owe you?
0:21:28 Like that doesn’t make any sense.
0:21:32 Till about two centuries ago, this whole concept of pay cycles was not there.
0:21:36 Employees were paid every day and it was during the industrial revolution that we started
0:21:38 paying people in batch like this.
0:21:41 As an employee, you’d rather get your money before you work.
0:21:42 Yes.
0:21:44 You’d rather pay you much after you work.
0:21:48 And then it’s kind of interesting that now we have a situation where we’ve all accepted
0:21:50 that companies can pay you after you work.
0:21:54 Just shows you how the balance of power has shifted so much away from the individual.
0:21:58 Now there’s an opportunity for technology to actually make that be more level and balanced.
0:22:02 It really gets down to like, who’s running your life?
0:22:06 One of the reasons we wanted this on the podcast is this is the one where you like, okay, let
0:22:09 me take control of my destiny.
0:22:14 And then as we go forward, what are the opportunities that I have now I’m running my money.
0:22:17 It’s like really it’s about taking control of destiny.
0:22:21 Very common use cases to buy gas and say like, lots of people were not able to get to work
0:22:22 the day before paying.
0:22:25 And sometimes that means they would lose their job if they missed too many days of work.
0:22:30 Now they use the app, they take money, buy gas, they have better attendance, better attendance
0:22:32 means higher paychecks actually.
0:22:34 So we see paychecks go up.
0:22:38 People get to like see the doctor when they have a toothache instead of like waiting for
0:22:41 painting and putting up with the toothache for four days.
0:22:45 People can celebrate their children’s birthdays on the birthday instead of pushing back celebrations
0:22:46 to payday.
0:22:51 I was just thinking about from a generational standpoint, Ron, in terms of like, the people
0:22:57 who are most likely to be impacted are people that’s, you know, maybe 40, 50s, 60s, getting
0:23:01 into that space of close to retirement or whatever the case may be.
0:23:04 And how have they been able to adapt to technology?
0:23:09 Because sometimes older generation can tend to be a little resistant, but how, what are
0:23:14 you guys doing to kind of penetrate that culture and make it more accessible?
0:23:18 So ours, a lot of it spreads from like people talking about it to their friends.
0:23:22 And it feels like the adoption is actually much more in the people who are more like
0:23:27 18 to 35 or 40, they’re probably the ones who are more comfortable using their phone.
0:23:31 And so I think we actually, if you were to look at the people use the app, it does skew
0:23:35 a little bit more younger, maybe the people who are use the system just like the overdraft
0:23:39 fees and all the other fees, they’re like afraid to try something new.
0:23:45 Yesterday was the first time I ordered and took an Uber.
0:23:49 I’ve been in Ubers, but I’ve never had the app on my phone.
0:23:50 My wife did it.
0:23:52 Yesterday was the first time I did it.
0:23:55 There was a little something in my stomach.
0:23:59 Even though I’ve been in Ubers and done it, like, but she’s always handled it, you know,
0:24:02 we go to New York and she’s like, I’m like, you got to do it, but she do it.
0:24:05 But I was like, okay, so I got to do this, I got to be a big boy, I got to do it.
0:24:06 And I did it.
0:24:08 I put it on and I was like, am I going to know how to do this?
0:24:10 And then I was like, everybody’s doing this.
0:24:11 Get with it.
0:24:14 You know, and I just did it and I think people just got to jump in.
0:24:17 I mean, they’re also going to be left out because like saying that sounds crazy.
0:24:18 Yeah.
0:24:24 You know, it was always interesting to me because I personally use Lyft, but when I was thinking
0:24:27 about like people’s resistance even to Lyft, right?
0:24:31 I’m like, how different is that than just calling the taxi cab?
0:24:35 You’re still a stranger still rolling up, you hop in the car and you got to decide whether
0:24:37 you want to get in the car and you feel safe.
0:24:41 So it’s just always interesting about how our brains work when it comes to old models
0:24:43 versus new models.
0:24:47 This is going to kind of explode the myths around the old models and really help people
0:24:53 see the advantage of adopting new models of technology and thinking whether it’s from
0:24:58 an enterprise standpoint or the user standpoint, I think if we accomplish that, then our job
0:24:59 is done.
0:25:04 I also think, you know, I mean, the thing that I really want to do is take that message
0:25:10 directly to the people coming up, trying to make the hustle, trying to get to the next
0:25:15 phase of their life rather than, you know, having to run it through, you know, some third
0:25:20 party filter that’s got like their own agenda, but they like the old world and they don’t
0:25:23 want it to change and all that kind of thing.
0:25:27 So I grew up in Detroit and, you know, it’s a factory town and, you know, when you go
0:25:32 through the communities, you see all these kind of, you know, payday loan places, you
0:25:33 know.
0:25:34 And I hear the conversation.
0:25:36 I know people who literally live check from check.
0:25:41 I grew up with it in my family and, you know, I know it’s always been a driver for me.
0:25:45 Like I never wanted that pressure of living check to check, you know, it’s not healthy.
0:25:49 It’s like physically it’s not healthy, emotionally it’s not healthy and it’s definitely not
0:25:50 healthy spiritually.
0:25:55 And so if you can speak to an audience like that, you know, this is a hard working blue
0:26:00 collar town, people working in factories, they’re doing these long hours and they’re
0:26:01 often behind.
0:26:05 They’re often trying to play catch up because, you know, an emergency happens, you know,
0:26:06 they got to get something fixed.
0:26:08 It’s bad weather out there, right?
0:26:11 The roof goat cave’s in and they’re like, oh man, I ain’t going to be able to do this
0:26:12 to a payday.
0:26:16 You know, you speak directly to those people who are just trying to figure it out.
0:26:22 Like what would you say to convince them that this is an option if they’re, you know, when
0:26:24 an open to exploring it?
0:26:25 Yeah.
0:26:29 I think like, I mean, we talk so much about this being like the line of equal opportunity
0:26:33 and like we kind of put the responsibility on the individual to pull themselves up.
0:26:36 But the way the system is set up, so often the system keeps pushing people down.
0:26:39 Well, I’m telling people that there’s no opportunity.
0:26:44 You get like fed that there’s no opportunity as opposed to being fed the opportunities.
0:26:45 Yeah.
0:26:48 And you’re supposed to believe that the system works very well, even though what it’s really
0:26:50 doing is holding you down.
0:26:53 Why does your employer need to actually hold back your paycheck?
0:26:55 How have employers responded to that?
0:26:56 How have companies responded to that?
0:26:59 How have they been like, yo, this is cool?
0:27:02 Or are they like, yo, what are y’all doing with our interest right now?
0:27:06 We’ve been able to make this work as a product that goes directly to consumers.
0:27:09 But businesses have actually started like wanting this.
0:27:11 And there’s a couple of reasons why.
0:27:14 One is their employees are actually less stressed now about money.
0:27:16 Like they’re not thinking about a whole bunch of other things.
0:27:18 Attendance goes up because people can buy gas and come in.
0:27:21 So their workers are actually like more productive.
0:27:24 The other piece too is you’re beginning to see this happen in the market, like Uber’s
0:27:27 paying people more often, Lyft is paying people more often.
0:27:28 You have to stay competitive.
0:27:33 And so we have a lot of companies that now actually tell their employees about us so
0:27:35 that their employees can have the benefits and there’s like no work for the company to
0:27:36 do.
0:27:37 So it’s actually really easy.
0:27:44 Because that is really interesting to me because you’re actually taking the financial
0:27:48 risk and you’re trusting Vaughn.
0:27:51 And so tell us a little bit about like how do you know him?
0:27:53 Why do you trust him?
0:27:56 And why are you able to have a good business doing that?
0:27:59 So what we’re doing is giving him access to his pay for a long time, the entire banking
0:28:00 system.
0:28:01 And it’s still like that.
0:28:05 The entire traditional system doesn’t know whether Vaughn has worked today or not.
0:28:09 And like they wait for two weeks for the paycheck to show up and then they’re like, okay, now
0:28:12 Vaughn is good because that batch process ran in the company.
0:28:15 What we’re using is technology that didn’t exist five years ago.
0:28:19 We’re using the smartphone and things that are in the smartphone to tell if Vaughn is
0:28:21 actually working today or not.
0:28:26 And so knowing that Vaughn has actually worked, we know he’s going to get the paycheck.
0:28:27 And that he’s already on the money.
0:28:30 And if he’s already on the money, then he should have access to it.
0:28:34 But the other, the traditional players don’t know if Vaughn has worked, they’re not used
0:28:36 to that kind of information.
0:28:41 That to me is one of the most powerful things because great businesses are built on great
0:28:42 trust.
0:28:46 And because you can trust your partners, you can do things that people could never do with
0:28:49 a million contracts.
0:28:53 And you know, the fact that you guys don’t have a contract, he didn’t fill out a loan
0:28:54 application.
0:28:55 Yeah.
0:28:58 It’s like quite different from the traditional system where we’ve built this new system where
0:29:00 trust is like inherently a part of it.
0:29:03 Whereas in the old system, it’s like distrust is a part of it, which is why they make you
0:29:05 sign these long terms and conditions.
0:29:09 And every possible outcome is thought through and set up to be in a way that’s advantageous
0:29:10 for the company.
0:29:11 Yeah.
0:29:12 That’s a big thing.
0:29:16 You get people who’ve pushed this kind of generalized idea of like the man or the system
0:29:19 or, you know, things that you can’t trust.
0:29:24 And without running any exploration into those spaces, it doesn’t really foster that type
0:29:29 of relationship dynamic where you’re like, Oh, I trust that this is my best interest.
0:29:34 Even though human behavior, you know, really leads us to think that instinctively, we’re
0:29:37 more trustworthy than we give ourselves credit for.
0:29:42 And I think part of it is like marketing the idea that, you know, technology isn’t just
0:29:43 boogeyman.
0:29:47 It’s really just curious people who have figured out ways to simplify the world and
0:29:53 figure out ways to monetize their ideas and thoughts and in the way that we exchange information.
0:29:54 We’re so excited having you guys.
0:29:56 So this is, this is dope, man.
0:29:57 Yeah.
0:29:58 Super excited.
0:29:59 Appreciate it.
0:30:00 Appreciate it.
0:30:01 Appreciate it too.
0:30:02 Thank you.
0:30:02 Thank you for having me.
0:30:07 Thank you.
0:30:08 Yeah.
0:30:09 Thank you.
0:30:09 Thank you.
0:30:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:02 (upbeat music)
0:00:15 – All right, well thank you all for coming.
0:00:18 Today we’re gonna do an episode of our podcast,
0:00:20 The Hustlers Guide to Tech.
0:00:23 And what the Hustlers Guide to Tech is for,
0:00:27 is if you have the talent, the desire,
0:00:29 and the hustle to do great things,
0:00:32 and are looking for that opportunity to shine,
0:00:34 we’re here to help by introducing you
0:00:38 to the technology platforms that can let you do just that.
0:00:41 And so across from me, I’ve got my co-host Shaka Sengor.
0:00:44 – What up y’all, good morning.
0:00:48 – To my left are Hustler Sherry James.
0:00:50 – Good morning.
0:00:55 – Sherry has gone from teaching kids her whole career,
0:00:59 to using Chris’s platform, who’s a CEO of Wonder School,
0:01:04 to create, run, and most importantly, own her own school.
0:01:08 (audience applauding)
0:01:10 And this is Chris Bennett, the CEO,
0:01:11 the founder CEO of Wonder School.
0:01:12 – Hello everyone.
0:01:14 (audience applauding)
0:01:15 – All right, well let’s get into it.
0:01:17 Chris, tell us about what is Wonder School?
0:01:21 – So I grew up in Miami, Florida.
0:01:24 My family is from Honduras.
0:01:28 And growing up, I grew up in a pretty large family,
0:01:30 one of 31 cousins.
0:01:32 – Wow, that’s a lot of cousins.
0:01:33 – There’s a lot of cousins.
0:01:34 – So when you see somebody you’re just like,
0:01:35 “What up cousins?”
0:01:37 – Yeah, exactly, exactly.
0:01:40 And when I was in third grade,
0:01:43 I was in the gifted program, when I was in high school,
0:01:44 had all of these options for college.
0:01:48 I was the first in my family to go to college,
0:01:50 went to the Wharton School.
0:01:55 Of the 31 cousins, only four of us ended up going to college.
0:01:58 And looking back on my childhood,
0:02:00 there was one really unique thing
0:02:03 about my experience relative to most of my cousins.
0:02:06 I went to one of the best preschools in Miami.
0:02:07 – Wow.
0:02:12 – And when I, looking back on that experience,
0:02:13 I moved to San Francisco
0:02:16 and I realized there’s this huge shortage of childcare.
0:02:17 And I’m hearing this from all over the,
0:02:19 from a number of people.
0:02:22 And thinking about that problem,
0:02:25 I’m thinking, you know, how could we solve that problem?
0:02:27 And I thought back to my sister,
0:02:30 who went to an in-home daycare in our community,
0:02:34 and the woman who started the school
0:02:37 is still running her business today, 35 years later.
0:02:40 I thought, you know, this could solve this problem.
0:02:45 We could create a lot more programs and fill the gap.
0:02:46 And so the idea was,
0:02:49 what if we could help people start
0:02:51 and operate their own child cares out of their homes?
0:02:52 – Yeah, I think it’s something
0:02:56 that we don’t really talk enough about in the country.
0:02:57 It’s about ownership of the things
0:02:59 that serve our community.
0:03:02 Sherry, being an educator and being able to work
0:03:04 with young kids very early on,
0:03:08 what was it about like the idea of ownership
0:03:10 that really resonated with you?
0:03:13 – Well, I didn’t really know how or what to do
0:03:15 to open my own program.
0:03:17 I’ve always worked with someone else.
0:03:20 And so I was trying to figure out what skills
0:03:24 that I had to kind of help myself maintain my life
0:03:26 as normal, as well as maybe be at home
0:03:31 with my son at the time and then I found Wonder School.
0:03:33 So they actually just helped me just kind of organize
0:03:38 all my thoughts and my ideas on a website,
0:03:41 as well as walking myself through the licensing process,
0:03:45 gave me a sounding board to talk to and ask questions to,
0:03:47 helped guide me through the licensing process
0:03:50 ’cause it could be kind of a little bit overwhelming
0:03:54 with all the applications and then you have all of the
0:03:57 licensing requirements that you need to go through
0:04:01 and then you have to have your inspections
0:04:02 and things of that sort.
0:04:04 So having someone to talk to throughout that process
0:04:09 was really great, also setting up my actual environment
0:04:11 because that’s also something that was really important
0:04:13 to me, how do I turn my home into a school?
0:04:16 So that was something that I also had to do.
0:04:17 – Right, right.
0:04:20 And how, like, what age kids do you have?
0:04:24 – Currently, my youngest is, well, what’s four months
0:04:25 and my oldest is four.
0:04:27 You have to make sure that your home is safe
0:04:29 and I try to allocate two rooms,
0:04:33 as well as my outdoor place space for this program.
0:04:35 So then that way, my kids feel comfortable.
0:04:37 I was also, my family feels comfortable
0:04:41 and they also have their own personal rooms as well.
0:04:43 So we have a family room set up as well as a backyard
0:04:46 to have a bonus room outside of my house as well.
0:04:48 – One of the things I love hearing
0:04:49 is that you keep saying my kids,
0:04:52 ’cause I got a little confused when I’m like zero and four.
0:04:53 I’m like, okay, what about the other kids?
0:04:56 But as a parent, I have a seven-year-old son
0:04:58 and it’s really important for me to know
0:05:01 that any space that I bring my son into,
0:05:02 that he’s loved, that he’s welcomed,
0:05:04 that he’s healthy, that he’s whole.
0:05:06 So hearing you just refer to the kids
0:05:08 in that manner is really exciting.
0:05:10 One of the things Ben and I were just discussing
0:05:12 was like, how do you market things
0:05:14 and how do people learn information?
0:05:16 – If I was just on Facebook one night,
0:05:18 just kind of scrolling through my feed
0:05:20 and watching, that’s kind of my entertainment.
0:05:23 And I came across and it was Chris
0:05:25 and I was asking for, if you’re interested
0:05:29 in opening your own program to contact them.
0:05:32 And then you had to fill out a little bio or interest page
0:05:34 and then you also had to take a picture.
0:05:36 But your space did not have to be set up.
0:05:37 That was a great thing about it
0:05:39 ’cause my space was not quite set up yet.
0:05:42 It was just a family room at the time.
0:05:44 And then they got back to me
0:05:45 and they walked me through the process.
0:05:47 – Yeah, and Chris, how do you like help people
0:05:50 like Sherry market her program
0:05:52 so that they can expand and get more students?
0:05:54 – There are a number of ways.
0:05:59 So most, a lot of parents sort of congregate
0:06:01 and they congregate online and offline.
0:06:04 So they’ll congregate in a lot of parent groups
0:06:07 and a lot of like mom groups on Facebook.
0:06:09 And so we work with all of our directors
0:06:12 to promote their businesses in those areas.
0:06:16 And then we do a lot of marketing through ads
0:06:19 and through a lot of events.
0:06:20 – One of the reasons for the podcast
0:06:23 is really to make technology more accessible to people,
0:06:26 especially people who don’t come through
0:06:28 like the more what they interpret
0:06:30 as a stereotypical nerdy spaces, right?
0:06:33 And there’s something really appealing
0:06:35 about being able to reach parents
0:06:38 and connect with parents who most people may not think
0:06:39 would jump into the business model.
0:06:42 So how has that experience been,
0:06:45 you know, seeing people who are really interested in
0:06:47 that may not come through the normal pipeline?
0:06:50 – From a parent standpoint or from a director standpoint?
0:06:51 – From a parent standpoint.
0:06:54 – Yeah, I mean, what we find is that
0:06:57 a lot of the parents we work with is their first child
0:06:59 and parents who have their first child
0:07:03 are very, very nervous and protective.
0:07:04 – Protective, yeah.
0:07:06 – Of their child.
0:07:07 – By the eighth kid, it’s like–
0:07:09 – By the eighth kid, it’s like, just take the kid.
0:07:11 (laughing)
0:07:14 And so one of the things we think a lot about
0:07:19 is making that experience feel comforting for the parent
0:07:21 as they’re going through the process.
0:07:23 One thing we like to do is make sure
0:07:25 they see a lot of schools so they can get a sense
0:07:27 of the different types of programs
0:07:29 that they can choose from.
0:07:31 And then once they find a program,
0:07:33 we actually don’t stop there.
0:07:35 Like it’s really common for a child to cry
0:07:37 on their first day of school
0:07:39 or maybe even their first week of school.
0:07:42 And parents get really nervous.
0:07:43 They get really freaked out
0:07:45 and they think that something is wrong.
0:07:48 And we essentially coach parents through that experience.
0:07:51 And then the idea is, how do we help that parent
0:07:54 become a better parent and work with the director
0:07:56 so that they can ensure that their child
0:07:57 gets developed the right way?
0:07:58 – That’s a funny story.
0:08:00 When I was a kid, my mom told me this story.
0:08:03 She dropped me off at preschool and I started crying
0:08:06 and the school is like, just leave them here.
0:08:07 He’ll be fine. – Exactly.
0:08:09 – And she comes back three hours later
0:08:11 and she said, I was still crying
0:08:12 and soaking wet from tears.
0:08:14 (all laughing)
0:08:19 I was a bad kid, but usually most of them are better.
0:08:21 Sherry, one thing is a lot of parents
0:08:24 have trouble affording a preschool program,
0:08:26 but you’ve been able to help them with that.
0:08:27 Tell us how you did that.
0:08:29 – Well, one thing that I’ve implemented in my program
0:08:31 is I accept subsidies.
0:08:33 So what subsidies are, basically,
0:08:36 there’s different programs on the county you live in
0:08:39 that help parents afford child care.
0:08:41 So I try to make sure I have room in my program
0:08:42 for those children as well.
0:08:44 – How did you learn how to accept subsidies
0:08:45 and do that kind of work?
0:08:47 – Well, that was something that was really important to me.
0:08:49 I wanted to offer a high quality program
0:08:53 in an area that maybe normally doesn’t offer certain things.
0:08:55 I want to have a play base.
0:08:57 I wanted to have an outdoor program.
0:08:59 It’s really important, I think, for kids to play outside
0:09:01 and have that outdoor experience.
0:09:03 We have a garden and mice program,
0:09:05 so we have a lot of hands-on activities
0:09:07 within seeing the food grow and how to plant.
0:09:08 – Oh, that’s great.
0:09:11 – And then walking them through that process as well,
0:09:12 teaching them where our food comes from.
0:09:15 – Jen, so how did you start out?
0:09:17 Like, what was this background in early childhood education
0:09:18 that you had?
0:09:21 And then just for yourself with your kids.
0:09:24 I mean, your other kids that were your kids.
0:09:25 Like, how did you think about that?
0:09:27 – So I did a traditional path.
0:09:30 I went to school all through college.
0:09:34 I always worked in an example of education or administration.
0:09:36 As I worked my way up through the ranks,
0:09:38 I automatically went through administration
0:09:41 and instead of working somehow in social work.
0:09:43 Then I was doing social work for over 10 years,
0:09:46 working with the homeless downtown in Los Angeles.
0:09:49 And also working with children and families
0:09:51 of intellectually disabled individuals,
0:09:54 doing casework as well as social work in that environment.
0:09:59 And then I also did some behavioral type positions.
0:10:01 And so I wanted to kind of link all of my skills
0:10:03 into one platform.
0:10:07 I was trying to figure out a way to service my community,
0:10:10 utilize the skills I have as well as open my own business.
0:10:14 So initially, my target was to create an environment
0:10:16 for children with special needs.
0:10:17 I wanted to take all the children
0:10:19 that the other program did not want.
0:10:20 – Right, right.
0:10:22 – I wanted to link them into my program.
0:10:24 That was my initial idea of how I thought
0:10:25 I would work everything out.
0:10:26 – Yeah, that’s a lot of work.
0:10:28 That’s the highest degree of difficulty
0:10:30 we have in special needs. – Definitely, definitely.
0:10:33 But it takes like, you know, if you have a love for that,
0:10:34 then it doesn’t feel so bad.
0:10:36 It doesn’t feel like so stressful.
0:10:41 You know, I actually prefer those children sometimes
0:10:42 because the thing about it is people always think
0:10:44 that those children who have the special needs
0:10:46 are gonna be the one to be the most challenging.
0:10:49 No, no, no, it’s those ones who think they know everything
0:10:52 and they’re the one to give you all the problems.
0:10:55 You know, the children who have intellectual disabilities,
0:10:59 they don’t come into it thinking that they know everything.
0:11:00 They come into it thinking that you’re probably
0:11:01 gonna automatically reject them
0:11:04 and all their behaviors already off top.
0:11:05 – And you know, when you were doing the social work,
0:11:07 were there things that you took away
0:11:10 from the programs that you used to route kids into
0:11:13 that you should and should not do with your own business?
0:11:14 – Definitely.
0:11:16 We do an interview when you come into my program.
0:11:17 You do a tour and you do an interview.
0:11:20 You’re interviewing me, I’m also interviewing you.
0:11:22 – And are you interviewing the parents or the kids?
0:11:24 – Both, both.
0:11:27 I try to, I prefer if the parents bring the child,
0:11:30 of course, we can bring them into the space they can play.
0:11:32 I usually try to do it during the hours
0:11:34 where we have an activity going on
0:11:36 or we have a rare outside play
0:11:38 and so ’cause children learn through play.
0:11:41 So you get the chance to learn a lot about the child
0:11:44 and the parent by letting the child just simply just play.
0:11:45 Some parents have a really hard time
0:11:47 letting their kids just play and just go.
0:11:48 It’s really interesting to watch.
0:11:52 – Chris, one of the things that’s really been exciting
0:11:57 for me being a father and understanding
0:12:01 like what children need from men and the importance of that.
0:12:04 So when I found out about your work, I was excited
0:12:07 ’cause I’m like, okay, and it’s a cool young brother
0:12:09 and he’s being thoughtful about children
0:12:12 and really creating space for them to be nourished
0:12:15 and raised in a healthy and whole environment
0:12:19 and ownership, like what does that look like for you?
0:12:21 Like in terms of like, who are the entrepreneurs?
0:12:25 – Yeah, so the makeup of the entrepreneurs is all women.
0:12:30 We have hundreds of programs on our platform.
0:12:32 – It’s a good thing we’re at Essence.
0:12:33 (laughing)
0:12:34 – It’s true.
0:12:37 There’s only one guy who runs a Wonder School
0:12:38 and it’s very personal for me.
0:12:43 My mom was an entrepreneur and I saw her start businesses.
0:12:45 A number of them didn’t work out
0:12:48 but some of them did and I got to work really closely
0:12:51 with her to build the companies that she was working on.
0:12:53 And so it feels very familiar for me
0:12:55 to empower women on the platform
0:12:57 to start these businesses and grow them.
0:12:59 – What do you look for in an entrepreneur?
0:13:02 Because not everybody is kind of cut out
0:13:06 to run a super high quality early education program.
0:13:09 So what do you screen for?
0:13:11 – So there’s a couple of key things.
0:13:13 One, you have to love children like that.
0:13:15 That’s like a must.
0:13:16 And so if we meet someone who’s like,
0:13:19 “Hey, I just want to make a quick buck
0:13:22 “but I’m not really that interested in the children aspect.”
0:13:24 Probably not the right fit.
0:13:26 – My preschool has a lot.
0:13:27 – Right, right, right.
0:13:28 Not the right fit.
0:13:31 The other thing is grit.
0:13:33 Like starting one of these businesses
0:13:35 and getting it up and running,
0:13:37 especially when we go to a new market
0:13:40 where we don’t necessarily have a presence there.
0:13:43 We have to partner really closely with the director
0:13:45 to actually make their business successful.
0:13:50 And you need to have grit to get through the early months
0:13:52 of getting your program up and running.
0:13:55 And then once you get the parents in the program,
0:13:58 continually running your business.
0:14:02 It’s really rewarding but there’s ups and downs as well.
0:14:04 And so we’re looking for individuals
0:14:07 who are ready for that experience.
0:14:09 – Sherry, what would you say to somebody
0:14:13 who’s looking to take that leap from nine to five,
0:14:14 working for somebody else
0:14:17 to really establish their own business?
0:14:19 What would be your words of wisdom?
0:14:21 – Honestly, I would just tell them
0:14:22 that their heart is leading them down this path
0:14:25 of entrepreneurship and go for it.
0:14:27 But just know that it’s not gonna be easy.
0:14:30 You’re definitely gonna have those challenging moments
0:14:33 and times if you’re gonna have your highs and your lows.
0:14:35 But if you’re willing to stay the course
0:14:38 and keep your eye on the prize, then you’ll get through it.
0:14:39 You know, there’s every obstacle.
0:14:42 I always say like too much is given, much is required.
0:14:45 There’s been plenty of times where I had to call Chris here.
0:14:47 (laughing)
0:14:49 When I was concerned about my enrollment numbers
0:14:51 and I’m like, “Chris, I’ve been open for over four months.
0:14:54 “I’m not full yet,” you know.
0:14:56 And you have to know your environment.
0:14:57 It takes some time to learn that.
0:14:59 It takes time to learn your business.
0:15:01 You know, I’ve been open almost three years now
0:15:03 and still I’m learning.
0:15:05 I’m always changing my program.
0:15:08 I’m always adapting it to the clients that I have
0:15:11 and the children that I have and I’m servicing.
0:15:15 – Yeah, one of the things that really inspired us
0:15:17 is removing some of the mental barriers
0:15:18 that stand in the way.
0:15:19 It can be intimidating, right?
0:15:21 If you don’t come from technology
0:15:23 and what would you say to somebody that’s saying,
0:15:25 you know, I really wanna get involved
0:15:27 but I’m a little bit intimidated by the platform.
0:15:29 Like, what are some things
0:15:31 that makes that more accessible to people?
0:15:32 – I would say the only question that’s done
0:15:34 is, is it one that you didn’t answer.
0:15:36 ‘Cause the thing about it is you just don’t know.
0:15:38 Then don’t ever assume anything either.
0:15:39 And if you don’t know,
0:15:40 I’m always asking my students questions.
0:15:41 I’m always asking my parents questions.
0:15:42 Is this working for you?
0:15:44 If it’s not working for you,
0:15:46 how can we both make this work?
0:15:48 You have to be able to adapt and change to your environment
0:15:50 because every day is so different.
0:15:53 You know, one week we might be doing yogurt all week.
0:15:55 Everybody’s eating yogurt just fine
0:15:56 but next week everyone hates yogurt.
0:15:58 So you have to come up with something else for them to eat.
0:15:59 – Yeah.
0:16:00 – Just something new to learn.
0:16:02 So as long as you’re not willing to,
0:16:04 as long as you’re willing to open your mind,
0:16:06 open your thoughts and keep challenging yourself,
0:16:08 you’ll get through it.
0:16:09 – Cool, cool.
0:16:11 As we’re on this journey of really learning
0:16:13 and understanding like the background part
0:16:16 of building up these type of businesses, these platforms,
0:16:20 one of the things that really stands out to me is like,
0:16:26 you’re a young brother in this tech space.
0:16:29 It’s one of the conversations that’s not talked about enough.
0:16:31 Like what are some things that we can be doing
0:16:33 to not only celebrate and lift that up,
0:16:36 especially given we’re at essence 25th anniversary,
0:16:38 but to make that part of just a normal conversation,
0:16:40 where people walk in the room,
0:16:42 is the expectation is that it’s okay
0:16:45 to run these tech-based businesses
0:16:47 and really to utilize them in a way
0:16:50 that helps the rest of the community see
0:16:52 where they can add value at.
0:16:54 – Yeah, that’s a great question.
0:16:59 Being a black man who’s an entrepreneur in San Francisco
0:17:00 is pretty rare.
0:17:02 (all laughing)
0:17:04 – That’s an actual unicorn.
0:17:06 (all laughing)
0:17:10 I think a lot of it, I’m really fortunate for my upbringing,
0:17:15 where I saw a lot of people in my family start businesses
0:17:20 and my uncle runs a very successful hospital in Honduras,
0:17:25 my another uncle runs a import-export business in Miami,
0:17:27 my dad ran a grocery store,
0:17:32 my mom ran a perfume business and is a tax preparer.
0:17:36 I saw a lot of people in my family sort of choose
0:17:38 to go their own way.
0:17:41 I didn’t know that people went to college to get a job.
0:17:43 I thought you went to college to learn
0:17:45 so you could go eventually start your own company,
0:17:46 that’s why I went.
0:17:51 And so I think that one of the key things
0:17:57 to increase the exposure of black individuals
0:18:02 in technology, one of the things is expose people
0:18:05 to entrepreneurship really early.
0:18:06 And I think that’s what’s really cool.
0:18:08 All of the women that are starting businesses
0:18:10 on Wonder School are entrepreneurs
0:18:13 and they’re exposing not only their children to it,
0:18:15 but the communities that they’re serving
0:18:18 to entrepreneurship and the joys of it.
0:18:20 – I come from a history of entrepreneurship too,
0:18:21 it’s a little bit different.
0:18:21 – It’s a little different.
0:18:23 – Noir’s differences.
0:18:25 But what I learned in that culture
0:18:27 is that there are transferable skills.
0:18:30 – As we think about how tech is removing barriers
0:18:33 to entry, what would you say to somebody
0:18:35 who doesn’t come from that traditional path,
0:18:36 that doesn’t come from a college
0:18:39 or doesn’t come from a family background
0:18:40 and just say, you know what,
0:18:42 I need to figure out how to take ownership of my life,
0:18:44 ownership of my destiny.
0:18:48 I want to venture off into entrepreneur leadership.
0:18:51 What do you say to those people who come from that culture
0:18:53 where they have these transferable skills
0:18:55 but may not feel like they have access?
0:18:56 – It’s interesting you say that
0:18:59 because I try to teach the kids from very small
0:19:01 to take ownership in their decisions, right?
0:19:03 So I try to tell my kids all the time,
0:19:05 you have good choices and you have bad choices.
0:19:08 And there’s consequences for every choice you make, right?
0:19:09 So at the same time to make,
0:19:12 I would say, mixing smart, sexy, right?
0:19:12 So you have to let them know like,
0:19:14 oh my gosh, you make such a positive choice
0:19:18 in making this decision and go in this direction, right?
0:19:19 Or if they come up with their own idea,
0:19:23 they’re making every idea, giving them empowerment,
0:19:25 telling them what a great job that they’re doing.
0:19:30 From small, I think it starts at a very young age.
0:19:31 You can see the difference in the children
0:19:35 who get chest eyes for making mistakes.
0:19:37 So you make a mistake, it’s okay.
0:19:39 Okay, so let’s get back up, let’s figure this out
0:19:41 and let’s go another direction.
0:19:43 You cannot, you can’t dwell on that.
0:19:45 They don’t believe in chest, I think, kids
0:19:47 for making mistakes ’cause that’s what they’re doing,
0:19:48 raw learning and growing, right?
0:19:51 Even when Mr. Cherry makes mistakes,
0:19:54 I take ownership on that ’cause the kids will correct you,
0:19:57 they do and they let me know if I get off schedule,
0:20:00 they’ll let me know, oh my gosh, well you forgot to do
0:20:01 and it’s okay.
0:20:05 My youngest biological child is four years old
0:20:08 and my oldest is 13, so I’ve taught my daughter,
0:20:10 my oldest, she will tell you off the back,
0:20:13 like she knows that there’s opportunities past
0:20:16 just going to college and she can own her own business,
0:20:17 that there’s opportunities there.
0:20:20 I believe that I’ve embodied that for her
0:20:22 as well as just helped mold her ideas
0:20:24 and thought to let her know that she can control
0:20:26 her own destiny and that.
0:20:28 – I’m so happy you brought that into the conversation.
0:20:30 I think one of the intimidating factors
0:20:32 about venturing off into entrepreneurship
0:20:35 is nobody wants to fail, nobody wants to mess up
0:20:38 and make any small failure, right?
0:20:40 – I had a nine to five job.
0:20:43 So I had a pension, I had all those different things
0:20:47 that you’re supposed to have, I was a new homeowner.
0:20:50 So to step out on faith and start my own business,
0:20:52 my family was like, are you crazy?
0:20:54 Like, what is wrong with you?
0:20:56 Like you have a degree, like you have a job,
0:20:57 you’re working for like the state,
0:20:59 why would you want to do that?
0:21:00 And for me, it was more so like,
0:21:03 I just wanted to take control of my own destiny.
0:21:05 (audience applauding)
0:21:07 I really just wanted to take control of my own life
0:21:10 and decide like, what my future will look like.
0:21:11 You know, I wanted to get up every day
0:21:14 and feel like my work is actually making a difference
0:21:17 directly and it wasn’t just about the reports,
0:21:19 it wasn’t just about the numbers and someone else’s numbers
0:21:21 and making someone else money.
0:21:25 It was about, you know, how could I manage my own household?
0:21:29 I just wanted to be able to make it, let me make it,
0:21:31 and make the minimum income.
0:21:33 But it’s so funny now, it’s like,
0:21:36 through entrepreneurship, I’ve surpassed all that.
0:21:37 – Yeah, yeah.
0:21:39 – Yeah, I think on a broader level,
0:21:43 that’s so much the key to everything
0:21:47 because as you can move from a model of,
0:21:51 I’ve got a boss, now I’m vulnerable to the boss.
0:21:56 And you know, I’m often, because of that, I end up in debt.
0:22:00 And then you move to, no, I’m an owner and I have equity.
0:22:03 And so that’s how you kind of create a whole other world.
0:22:08 And it’s interesting that it starts in preschool
0:22:11 with owning your own decisions
0:22:13 and not being afraid to make a mistake
0:22:14 and not being negative with kids,
0:22:18 which is a, you know, that’s a cultural thing,
0:22:21 which, you know, it starts right there to change.
0:22:23 If you want to get to a culture of ownership,
0:22:25 you got to make the kids owner.
0:22:27 And if they’re going to be owners,
0:22:28 then they can’t be penalized.
0:22:30 That’s an amazing insight.
0:22:34 – Yeah, so speaking of that, that culture of fear.
0:22:36 So how do you combat that when you’re dealing with parents
0:22:40 and you’re just like, oh, I have to send them back home.
0:22:42 I’ve been a mentor for a long time.
0:22:44 And one of the biggest battles
0:22:47 that I’ve ever had the father’s known that these children
0:22:50 who, you know, who I’ve been entrusted with,
0:22:51 they’re going home to families
0:22:55 who don’t have the same belief system about ownership,
0:22:57 about failure, about not punishment,
0:23:00 but really helping people to understand and navigate that.
0:23:03 So you’re working with these young precious minds,
0:23:06 but you’re competing with what’s happening in the household.
0:23:07 How does that show up?
0:23:09 Whether it’s in your curriculum
0:23:11 or just your engagement with the parents.
0:23:13 And like, what does that look like across the board?
0:23:15 – It’s all about building trust,
0:23:16 building a relationship.
0:23:18 So from the very beginning, you know,
0:23:19 I have to teach my parents
0:23:21 so they have to be able to trust me.
0:23:23 I would let them know if you don’t trust me,
0:23:26 then maybe it’s not the right place for you.
0:23:28 – So you’re teaching the parents as well, which is…
0:23:31 – Yes, I always say I’m teaching my parents
0:23:34 sometimes first, then I’m teaching my students.
0:23:35 You know, you teach people how to treat you
0:23:37 at the end of the day.
0:23:40 So I think that a lot of times with my parents,
0:23:41 if they have any questions or concerns,
0:23:42 I let them know.
0:23:44 They can call me a thousand and one times today.
0:23:46 They can text me a thousand and one times today.
0:23:48 Doesn’t mean I’m gonna answer every single text,
0:23:51 but just know that I will respond to you.
0:23:53 Through the platform, we have an app now
0:23:55 that we can communicate with our parents.
0:23:55 – Oh, that’s great.
0:23:57 – So we can let them parents know
0:23:59 what’s going on throughout the day.
0:24:00 Even before that,
0:24:02 I think that I just message my parents,
0:24:04 letting them know how their students are doing,
0:24:05 letting them know that they’re having
0:24:07 a really stressful morning
0:24:08 and that they’ve been crying for over two hours.
0:24:10 Like that’s something that I would have implemented
0:24:11 in that situation.
0:24:12 – They’re having a bend.
0:24:13 They’re having a bend.
0:24:16 – They’re making me right out of the preschool.
0:24:18 – I wouldn’t have let you cry for two, three hours.
0:24:20 I wouldn’t have, we’ve had to figure something out.
0:24:24 But those are different things that I do
0:24:27 to try to make sure that my parents feel comfortable
0:24:28 and my students feel comfortable.
0:24:29 But it’s really interesting.
0:24:32 It’s once my students come into my household,
0:24:35 my biologic kids get jealous.
0:24:38 And sometimes my students are more comfortable
0:24:40 without my kids there.
0:24:42 So like during the summertime, for example,
0:24:44 our space is combined.
0:24:49 So it’s interesting when my infants are looking at my kids,
0:24:52 like, why are you trying to take my attention away from,
0:24:53 for me, you know what?
0:24:55 But I think you have to make everyone comfortable.
0:24:57 That’s where it boils down to.
0:25:00 Building a rapport and being honest.
0:25:02 Even when things are not going good.
0:25:03 You have to be honest with them.
0:25:04 – Yeah.
0:25:07 You know, we talk a lot about education system
0:25:11 in general in America and how some of the structural things
0:25:14 sets up, you know, people in poverty
0:25:18 and people of color for failure of a very high magnitude.
0:25:20 So when you hear any success stories,
0:25:21 like how does that feel to know
0:25:24 that you’re countering that narrative?
0:25:25 – It’s very motivating.
0:25:27 I want to keep building.
0:25:28 When I hear these stories,
0:25:31 I want to make sure that we’re doing right
0:25:33 by the directors who are on the platform
0:25:36 and the parents on the platform, but I just won’t.
0:25:38 Like this insatiable desire of more.
0:25:40 Like, how can we make this bigger?
0:25:45 – And as an entrepreneur, how do you think about that?
0:25:47 You know, I want to grow the platform.
0:25:52 I want every child to have access to this opportunity
0:25:57 with keeping the program really high quality.
0:26:00 Because it seems like that’s a real tension.
0:26:02 Because not everybody can do this.
0:26:04 Like, how do you make sure that every teacher,
0:26:07 every director is of that quality
0:26:09 while reaching the whole world?
0:26:12 – So Sherry was one of the early directors
0:26:13 on the Wonder School platform.
0:26:15 So her and I worked actually really closely
0:26:17 to build her school.
0:26:20 And so I know very intimately
0:26:23 all of the different challenges and opportunities
0:26:26 I’d go into creating a high quality program
0:26:30 and finding a director who can create a high quality program.
0:26:33 And when we were raising our series A,
0:26:37 Jeff Jordan introduced me to Brian Chesky at Airbnb.
0:26:39 And Brian, you know, and I got on a call
0:26:42 and he’s like, look, all right,
0:26:45 you’ve, you’re raising this round, congratulations.
0:26:48 You’ve been able to figure out how to get here.
0:26:52 And now your job is to build the company
0:26:56 that can take this idea and make it larger.
0:27:01 And a lot of that goes into focusing on the people
0:27:03 that you bring on and bring into the company
0:27:07 and how you work with those people to build out the idea.
0:27:12 And so what I really focus on is hiring the right people,
0:27:17 training them the right way and spending a lot of time
0:27:19 working with folks inside of the company
0:27:21 to understand the vision.
0:27:24 So we have an education team that works with anyone
0:27:27 who’s starting a program on the platform.
0:27:28 We inspect their home.
0:27:31 We work, we make sure that they have the right motivation
0:27:33 to start a program.
0:27:36 And then we help them craft their environment.
0:27:39 So that’s like setting up the different learning areas
0:27:42 of the program and working with the director
0:27:45 to make sure that they’re crafting their environment
0:27:46 the right way.
0:27:48 And then we work with directors
0:27:50 to make sure that they’re growing their business
0:27:53 not only from an economic standpoint,
0:27:55 but also from a quality standpoint.
0:27:58 So when I started the company, just for some background,
0:28:00 I’m like, look, I have this experience starting
0:28:02 technology companies and I’m really
0:28:05 passionate about this problem, but I’m not an educator.
0:28:10 And so our fifth hire is a woman named Mia Pritz,
0:28:13 who has a really extensive background
0:28:16 in early childhood education.
0:28:20 And she worked at a company called CCLC.
0:28:23 And they created Google Daycare.
0:28:25 And they created Daycares at Pixar
0:28:29 and a number of these big technology companies
0:28:33 that have very demanding parents to expect
0:28:35 like the highest of quality.
0:28:39 And the idea is, how can we take a lot of those ideas
0:28:43 and infuse it into the community of directors
0:28:44 that we work with?
0:28:48 And so building a team of really experienced educators
0:28:51 who not only have been preschool teachers,
0:28:53 but a lot of the directors we work with actually
0:28:56 have run their own in-home programs as well,
0:29:00 or have trained individuals to start their own in-home
0:29:01 programs.
0:29:04 And so is that something you foresee in the future?
0:29:08 Is training other entrepreneurs to really run
0:29:10 the programs and set up homes?
0:29:14 And then a delicate balance between just family life
0:29:16 and running a preschool–
0:29:19 All the above, all the above.
0:29:23 Before we even had the app, we also used Slack at the time.
0:29:26 A lot of the directors were pulled together on this one app.
0:29:28 And if you want to vent, you can think about something,
0:29:30 if you have a question about licensing,
0:29:33 or you have a question about how to deal with a difficult sleeper,
0:29:37 a napper, a difficult parent.
0:29:40 Then we would kind of brainstorm.
0:29:43 It’s interesting, some of the original directors
0:29:46 that we first started out with, we kind of would pull together
0:29:50 and visit each other’s programs and give each other ideas.
0:29:53 One of the first directors that I met,
0:29:55 she had a one-bedroom apartment at the time.
0:29:59 And I was like, how is she doing this out of a one-bedroom?
0:30:01 And she was already licensed.
0:30:04 So she invited me and my son for a play date or two,
0:30:05 and we went to her program.
0:30:09 And I saw she pretty much made something out of nothing
0:30:11 you would have never even thought.
0:30:13 And she was doing pretty well for herself,
0:30:17 so well that she ended up opening up another program.
0:30:20 And so she moved into another house.
0:30:23 She lived with a four-to-better house after that.
0:30:29 And so I was like, wow, she’s doing more with less than I have.
0:30:33 So it really kind of made me reframe my thinking
0:30:34 and working with what I already had.
0:30:36 I thought that I needed to do so much work.
0:30:38 That was one of the barriers that I had.
0:30:41 I wanted things to look perfect before I opened.
0:30:43 And then I saw what she was doing.
0:30:46 I was like, you know what, I can work with this.
0:30:47 You know she has five programs now.
0:30:50 And I heard, I heard.
0:30:52 She started a one-bedroom.
0:30:54 And now she has five different homes,
0:30:56 or she’s running different programs today.
0:30:57 How does that work?
0:31:00 Like as a day care, is she setting them up
0:31:01 with other people who are home owners?
0:31:05 I believe she meets people within her own community.
0:31:08 And she just helps them walk them through the process.
0:31:10 Yeah, and talking about expansion,
0:31:13 so what regions is Warner School in?
0:31:15 Is it West Coast, East Coast?
0:31:17 Yeah, so we’re in four cities now.
0:31:21 We’re in Denver, New York, San Francisco, and LA.
0:31:24 And when we started, we thought we could just go
0:31:26 national really quickly.
0:31:28 But what we found is that we needed teams
0:31:30 in the different cities to support our directors
0:31:32 and support the communities.
0:31:35 And so we’re taking a much more of a city-by-city approach now.
0:31:36 OK, good.
0:31:38 I’m definitely going to advocate for Detroit,
0:31:39 because that’s where I’m from.
0:31:41 Push hard, it gets all in the way.
0:31:43 Got to get that make that happen.
0:31:45 So no, that’s exciting to hear.
0:31:46 And you’re in LA.
0:31:48 Yeah, I was one of the first LA schools.
0:31:50 So now I currently live in LA as well.
0:31:55 And the cost of living can be astronomical.
0:31:57 So how do you balance that out as an entrepreneur
0:32:01 saying I’m a venture of knowing that the cost of living
0:32:04 in LA is kind of crazy and you’re betting on yourself?
0:32:07 Like, how did you break through that?
0:32:11 Well, I have three little people that were depending on me.
0:32:12 And plus two.
0:32:16 So I had to get myself together.
0:32:18 At the end of the day, it’s one of those things
0:32:20 where once you start your process out,
0:32:22 you have to be practical with yourself.
0:32:26 So there was definitely some clients in the beginning
0:32:29 that I probably wouldn’t have normally accepted now.
0:32:31 But at the same time, when you first started out–
0:32:32 Why wouldn’t you accept them?
0:32:33 Like, what was up?
0:32:35 Challenging behaviors.
0:32:37 Challenging behaviors from not only the child,
0:32:38 but from the parent.
0:32:39 Oh, OK, from the parent.
0:32:42 The parents sometimes have challenging behaviors.
0:32:44 And working through that, I always
0:32:47 say all money is not good money, you know?
0:32:49 Just because people will say, oh, I’ll pay you.
0:32:52 Yeah, we work Friday night.
0:32:54 You have to set healthy boundaries.
0:32:56 I used to say yes to everything.
0:32:57 I would say, oh, can I come private?
0:32:58 It’s like, OK.
0:33:02 And then one night I had a child to 9.45 at night.
0:33:04 And the kid was there at 6.45 in the morning.
0:33:07 So I’m like, what time do you come?
0:33:08 Or I’m going to come.
0:33:09 And she’s like, I’m not sure.
0:33:11 I’m in route, you know, LA traffic.
0:33:13 So I mean, but at the end of the day,
0:33:17 like, I mean, affording your rent is going to be a challenge.
0:33:21 So you know, you kind of gauge that based upon how much–
0:33:23 how much– how many children you need to take based upon that
0:33:24 alone.
0:33:27 But it’s a great way to supplement your income,
0:33:30 especially if you’re already doing something on the side.
0:33:33 Or if you don’t have anything going on on the side, why not?
0:33:35 If you don’t have–
0:33:38 200 is better than zero, right?
0:33:38 Absolutely.
0:33:40 You have to start somewhere.
0:33:42 But one thing I learned about licensing at this point,
0:33:45 though, as long as you have less than four children,
0:33:46 you’re OK.
0:33:47 You know, you can probably start off
0:33:50 watching just one child, right, and see how that works out.
0:33:52 And then as you’re working your way through the licensing
0:33:56 process, that’s perfectly legal to do one or two children.
0:34:00 But once you have four plus, you definitely need to be licensed.
0:34:03 Yeah, one of the things we do with a lot of our directors
0:34:05 is we look at how much their rent is,
0:34:07 how much they want to earn.
0:34:10 And then we help them think about how much to charge
0:34:13 to make sure that they cover the cost of being
0:34:14 able to operate the business.
0:34:16 So one of the things that popped out to me is, like,
0:34:18 fair is not an option, right?
0:34:21 I have a saying, there’s no plan B, it’s plan me.
0:34:25 We’ll make it happen, figure it out, no matter what’s popping.
0:34:27 But this is actually a question for Bing.
0:34:32 Do you think entrepreneurs are born or made?
0:34:35 Yeah, no, I think–
0:34:37 look, I think it’s mostly made because nobody
0:34:39 knows how to do it.
0:34:44 I’ve never met a natural who comes in and does everything
0:34:45 right.
0:34:48 Everybody comes in and does everything wrong.
0:34:50 And then it’s a matter of will.
0:34:55 And what is true is you can’t do it
0:34:59 if you don’t have the will and you need unbreakable will.
0:35:03 But will encourage are things you develop.
0:35:05 You’re not necessarily born courageous or, like,
0:35:06 with extreme will.
0:35:09 That’s something that you can build in yourself.
0:35:12 Really what it takes more than anything
0:35:15 is you have the courage to not listen to the people that go,
0:35:17 wow, that’s the stupidest thing in the world.
0:35:21 Do you have the courage to deal with, like, I could fail,
0:35:23 and those people are all going to be right?
0:35:24 And how am I going to feel then?
0:35:27 Like, all those kinds of things are always
0:35:29 at you as an entrepreneur.
0:35:31 But nobody knows how to do it.
0:35:33 Chris and I, on the right over, we’re talking about, like,
0:35:35 yeah, I don’t know a single entrepreneur that’s
0:35:37 done a good job at executive hiring.
0:35:38 Like, who knows how to do that?
0:35:40 That’s not like, your mom doesn’t teach you,
0:35:43 this is how you hire a CFO.
0:35:45 It’s a real thing.
0:35:46 So what are your thoughts on this here?
0:35:48 I kind of have a different perspective on that,
0:35:51 because I believe that there’s certain children that I
0:35:54 see in my program every day that just have a will.
0:35:55 Yeah.
0:35:55 Yeah.
0:35:56 Just a will.
0:35:58 Like, they just naturally are just go-getters.
0:35:59 Yeah.
0:36:00 You know, then there’s some kids you
0:36:03 have to constantly push, and you’d be there chilly to the whole
0:36:04 way through, you know?
0:36:06 But you can’t teach that.
0:36:07 Leaders and followers.
0:36:08 Yeah.
0:36:08 Yeah.
0:36:10 Chris was an experienced man.
0:36:11 I agree with both of you.
0:36:14 I think a lot of this starts at a really young age.
0:36:15 You know, there’s a lot of studies
0:36:20 that prove that grit, persistence, a number of these things
0:36:22 are learned at a really, really young age
0:36:25 and can be fostered in preschool.
0:36:27 Developing those skills early on
0:36:29 are really important to being an entrepreneur.
0:36:33 But then once you actually start that company,
0:36:35 there’s so much failure and so much learning
0:36:38 that you have to go through to be able to be successful.
0:36:40 And so I think a lot of–
0:36:42 it’s in you, but it’s also– you have
0:36:43 to learn a lot along the way.
0:36:44 All right.
0:36:44 Great.
0:36:47 Well, I would love to thank our guests, Chris and Sherry,
0:36:49 for a wonderful conversation.
0:36:51 And thank you, Essence.
0:36:54 Happy 25th anniversary.
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