Magic happens. Love gushes over. Excitement begins.
In the last three weeks, I made the decision to take time away from the day-to-day drill at the office to participate in the Opportunity Nation Summit and FOCUS100 conferences in D.C. and NY, respectively. I am already seeing a super high return on my investment of time.
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Opportunity Nation, the brainchild of Mark Edwards, is a bipartisan, cross-sector national campaign made up of more than 250 non-profits, businesses, educational institutions, faith-based organizations, community organizations, and individuals all working together to expand economic opportunity and close the opportunity gap in America. At the Summit, I got excited by Arianna Huffington pushing me to build a business that was greater than myself and Angela Glover Blackwell of PolicyLink telling me of the urgency at which we must find systematic solutions to a skills gap. As a company founder, I was challenged by a call to action to invest time and capital into building a pipeline of skilled workers – the ones that I hire now and the ones that are still 16-years old.
Leaving the Summit, I loved feeling part of shared plan of attack around one central idea - “we all do better when we all do better,” touted by Paul Whetstone.
Two weeks later, I attended the FOCUS100 Symposium and Pitch Booth Camp, the culmination of Kathryn Finney’s vision to gather thought-leaders in the entrepreneurial community to support and spotlight top entrepreneurs and innovators. FOCUS100 is an inaugural initiative of digitalUNdivided, which develops programs, projects and forward thinking initiatives that bridge the digital divide.
Going into this conference, I pondered two question: Are we missing the opportunity to build scalable businesses when those who hold the purse strings fail to really see merit in the ideas of founders who do not look the same way as they do? Are we trapped by our own ideals of pattern recognition? More importantly, what do we do about it.
Well, I chose to attend and speak at the conference – that was step one.
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Participants (entrepreneurs, investors, media representatives, and family and friends of participants) flocked from around the country, including several from Chicago, to partake in the inaugural event. On October 6th alone, #FOCUS100 had 11.5 million Twitter impressions and reached 1.8 million Twitter accounts over the 2 day event. What better social klout than the smartest, humblest, and accomplished people giving back to, and learning from, the community?
The discussions went beyond raising capital and finding a technical cofounder, to include taking care of your health, defying the myth of super-woman, maintaining balanced relationships, defining personal success, and keeping faith to weather the hard days. Additionally, participants had 2 one-hour mentor sessions with experts in their fields, who offered unparalleled support of our businesses. The cap the night, the networking reception filled with relaxed tones of Beyonce and Marvin Gaye in the background, usher real conversations and set the tone for solidifying real relationships established over the two days.
The icing on the cake of this magical conference was that the Honorable Mayor Corey Booker dropped powerful advice during his keynote speech. I’ve summarized my “Top 10” takeaways below:
10. Access to capital is the biggest barrier affecting black women entrepreneurs.
9. Good leaders borrow. Great leaders steal [ideas and best practices].
8. We are all light and energy, and doing things that increase our amount of light will make us all grow; our elders represent light that has stood the test of time – cater to those shining lights.
7. If you want things that people don’t have, you got to do things that other people aren’t willing to do.
6. Find successful people and emulate their actions.
5. Centrality of purpose will keep you focused.
4. #WayWire is one solution to the dumbing down of our democratic conversation.
3. You learn life’s greatest lessons when you fail greatly.
2. When you don’t have a representation of an entrepreneur that looks like you, you become the entrepreneur that others will look to.
1. I may not be smarter than you, but I will out-work you any day of the week.
The vibe was different. The people were different. Everything about this conference was different. It was the difference that created real opportunity. At the sold-out and intimate FOCUS100, I believe we stepped closer to closing the opportunity gap.
At first, I thought about Opportunity Nation and FOCUS100 as two isolated events, each with its own agenda and purpose. As I dug deeper, I realized, however, that FOCUS100 is the embodiment of closing the opportunity gap in the land of entrepreneurship, and more broadly, in this country, including that for black women entrepreneurs.
I am grateful to be a witness of how #OpportunityNation kisses #FOCUS100, and I love this Smarteys entrepreneurial journey that I’m on.
