Inside Spill's Mission to Decolonize Social Media ft. Lisa Beasely, Kenya Parham

Okaba fan, I cannot be more excited to have this duo on the show. First of all, it's the duo I didn't know I needed in my life. And y'all know of brown ambition. I want to create a space where we can, like sister talk like we're getting around

Y'all have come up together right well, firstly, you know, really grateful to be here with you and have an opportunity to introduce Spill to the BA community, the Brown Ambvision community.

We are conversation connection, culture, community, commerce, an impactful place where we are on a mission to become the de facto place to discuss and discover the things that matter most to us as culture driving communities. We are an emerging social platform that's built to center brown, black, queer communities who have historically driven culture across the Internet, but unfortunately received the line share of hate on other social

We can tag team Lisia, you know when you want to come through.

But we were both at the AFRO Tech conference this past year in November. Where was I.

Okay, I didn't get a chance to meet you, Lisa, but I saw you.

Yeah, I saw you.

Yeah.

Corporate Air was there and I took a It was a girl's trip. It was me and Corporate here and we were both there at the same time.

Gotcha right, that's right.

And so I had quite a few speaking engagements over the course of a couple of days. It was a super packed schedule and we had this spilled leadership team and a couple of our other folks there and we ran into each other at the Black Excellence brunch and the minute that I saw her.

I was like, Okay, I know exactly who this is. I had a little fan girl moment.

I went up to her and as I was speaking to introduce myself, she was like, I know who you are. I haven't seen you over the last couple of days, and I was like, okay.

Yeah, yeah, And I remember thinking, so at the last event that we saw each other at the Black Excellence brunch, so I was there working the event, but also there for myself.

So I'm getting what I want to get done.

But there was only a couple of activations that Lisa myself wanted to go to, because it is true, I do have different personalities from my characters, even though they all come from the same place.

I'm so really to hear your real voice, I gotta tell you, that's such a relief.

I can also do this like Beyonce though, so we have options. Okay, so she's she's a She's at the brunch, but had I had only gone to a couple of other, like auxiliary events put on by different companies, but Spill was always the like one of the companies at the activations that I was going to, So I didn't know, but I went to the Spill activations, And now that I'm thinking about it, the Spill activations appealed to me.

So those are the extra ones that I went to.

Because you know, when you go to these huge conferences, there's so much going on at once, which is why, which is why you have three people at a conference and they not know and so speaking to that while she's doing her thing with the there's a Microsoft Copilot event. She's on a panel and she's just talking that talk I like to hear. It's just very decolonized and there was no centering of ideals.

That I didn't like.

Yeah, and within like the first couple of minutes, so I'm like, hey, girl, huge fan of your work, not just your comedy and your artistry, but also you know, corporate batty to corporate batty, Like, I salute you.

I get it. It makes sense to me.

And I'm just kind of going through the motions and she's like, okay, you know what, I got to let you know right now. I didn't even have to pitch her. She was like, I'm planning this huge stunt. I'm leaving X and we about to do something and I'm joining Spill and.

I want you to know that.

From that moment until when we chily pulled off this really successful big stunt, it was like ten days in time, which wow, I've heard of.

Okay, I'm not trying to be like go out and circle back, y'all. I want I'm.

In the camp of like, will let's all be making pick your fruit off trees?

But I know we can't get it. So this is what I mean in terms of being a corporate baddy. The activation that we pulled off that took ten days would have taken your typical stress G marketing team anywhere

And so here I.

See this high executive in a large platform that I could have a place in, looking at me and talking to me.

That's never happened at other platforms.

So on X I left, it was twenty seven thousand followers and looking across if I if I look across my Internet kingdom, yes, you know, surveying the land of about six hundred and fifty thousand, I'm like, I can do away with that island. So but I also understand very de how my revenue streams as a pertean's platform work and how they also work as leveraging and marketing channels. So I didn't feel like I was losing anything because I was gaining some of my soul.

Back, right yeah, and it's nice. I mean you guys are in startup phase, right ken yea? I mean you've been Mischief Growth officer. How's the growing doing? What does that all entail? How do you grow? Can't I can't think of a more intimidating kind of platform to launch when there's so much noise, so many options. My god, thread and Blue Threads and Blue Sky and the meta of it all. I'm like, but to have something like spill in the mix? What has that been like to grow this brand at this time?

You know?

I started off with the team day one, twenty twenty three. At the top of twenty twenty three as the global Vice president for Community and Partnerships.

At the top of this year, I've stepped into being Chief.

Growth Officer, where I'm now responsible for leading all growth revenue.

User lines got promoted.

I love to optimize the complete user journey, maximizing retention, scaling revenue operations, and making sure that our high performing teams are focused on success, and so growth looks a lot like an upward trajectory, but also continuing to double and triple down on what we've always done really well, which is centering the communities, protecting the communities who drive culture forward, and making sure that people have a stafer, more fun, more enjoyable place on the Internet to just

How is it that you like, what actually goes into making this a protected a protected space, like we're an in dangerous b bcs or something the protected lens. If you're black, you're queer, your trands in that community. What are you getting that's different? You've said you protect us, But is it through moderation? Is it like we're going to filter out racism and misogyny and that kind of thing. What actually is happening behind the Wizard's curtain?

Yeah, I appreciate that question.

So, firstly, we have a really robust set of community guidelines that I authored in partnership with some of the top trust in safety professionals who are also black women across in this field. I sat and listened and learned to what was working and what wasn't working on other platforms.

When we authored our rules, and that is kind of the rule book.

By which we have created, you know, governance on Spill, and then we kind of bring our tech into it where we are training one of the first ever large language models in AI for content moderation, so basically culturally

But we also have humans in.

The loop, a talented team of culturally competently trained human beings who are on the clock twenty four to seven three sixty five in shifts to be the human lines of defense to enforce these rules as well. And so that awesome thing happens I was talking about where it's not just about defense, but it's also about the offense.

Yeah, I think I'm in like a bit of a bubble with Brown Ambition because just the audience we attract, I mean, it's us. It just has always felt so safe and our listeners, it's just positivity up and down. And I mean doesn't mean they won't say when they don't like something or question something, but it feels very safe here. And it sounds like Spill also kind of

I mean, we've got groups now, so it'd be great to help.

Great Fition group where okay.

Your listeners and your community can continue to receive updates about what's happening on in the Brown Ambition world.

Yeah, all right, so tell me like Kenya and Aaron, you guys met at this conference. I'm kind of surprised. Should I just called you Aaron? If you bring that wing, if you take that listen the pitch, better stay the pitch. I like the baritone. Uh what was I going anyway? Whatever? I want to start talking in a British accent again, It'll be fine, Aaron.

No, this is the part of my person who joke.

By the way, I'm maliciously I maliciously enjoyed this a little bit, so I'm sorry.

But I'm glad you do. It's like my sons because I named them Rio and Remy, which I'm an idiot, and yeah, it's great. But I like Lisa, even though your name is in like twenty font in front of my face. Christ Almighty Lisa. When you were an Afro tech you were You're also an entrepreneur, right, so like, can you tell us about your corporate journey and how it's been in entrepreneurship land? How are you coping?

Yeah?

Absolutely, A lot of people don't know my story because on purpose, I kind of market myself forward facing with the content because I've been having a lot of fun having a direct access to people who watch my content. Without Hollywood gatekeepers. So grow up, Gary and Diana. I went to perform in arts high school, but I played the clarinet, so I was very shy.

So I wait a second, I also was a clarinet player. Does that mean that we're shy?

Well, I was shy, but I knew I wanted to be like a star and a singer and broad Way.

But I was like, I was.

Clarinet in middle school.

You guys all, this is now a different podcast right now. That's so funny.

Yeah, so I took the that too. It was the only way I was gonna pay for college. So I went to a college in Memphis, Tennessee. I went to lamorna On College, went on a full music scholarship and there, yeah there, so I uh uh did a concentration in classical jazz studies. And from there I knew that I did not want to enter the workforce because I did the responsible thing of Okay, in senior year college, you can get a management position just because you have a

And then I was like, oh no.

Okay, so how many years did you try to kick it in LA before I was there for.

Two and a half years.

I was at school for two years and then I tried to do six months as a green, fresh eted actors student. I ain't had no money, I didn't understand Hollywood. I just knew I was very talented, and that is not how you want to.

Go about that.

So I moved back to Gary and then I started auditioning in Chicago, and that's where I found like this robust theater scene, and that's where.

I found like a career and like where you could.

Get your equity card and have health insurance because you're an artist in Chicago.

And then just started building from there.

It's a great place to like be a producing artist and curate for the city. And then I did about six to ten shows a week for about ten to twelve years.

What kind of shows was this?

Like?

Improv it?

So it ended up with improv. But at the start I was doing.

Musical theater, like original musical theater from playing theater houses in Chicago or like other August Wilson's and the and the Fences and the and I was always a comedic relief in serious.

Plays and then oh we love that, Yeah.

And then I started started doing comedy in Chicago because I found the there was this improv scene growing up. We called it ad living, and I didn't know how serious improv was a new team if they had a show, but I was never into I was never into Saturday Night Live. I was never into the improv as they know it. I was just into black people play all day.

And just skyrocketed through that.

And then that's when I saw like this path of and here's how you get a TV show, and here's how you get in writer's rooms, and here's how you work and how like, and so I sincerely tried.

To do that and it was very hard.

But there is this transition from from acting on stage to TV that does take time because the immediate gratification of having an audience is no longer there when you're on set.

So it was a different mindset that I was shifted into.

So did you try to do TV, Like, were y did you have like pilots.

Or oh absolutely, yeah, so you.

Moved back to LA at a certain point, or you doing that in Chicago? Okay.

I stayed in Chicago because I was one of those people that's like, oh, you don't have to be out there to do this, because they moved slower out there, just traditionally as working meaning California queen.

Oh yeah yeah, and not slow slower like in Chicago. We have a problem.

No, I'm from New York. I mean I live in New York now, but I know they do move slow in Cali.

Yeah, like.

Tuesday, we'd be like, you want to meet, Let's meet Wednesday. But in California it's like, let's meet next Wednesday.

So it's that gives me anxiety just thinking about that. Why not now?

Yeah, So I was like I'm gonna keep my operation here because I started to get guest star roles.

I did a couple of TV shows.

I have a lot of friends in TV, like helping write pilots and pitching pilots, and I was doing the pitch game. But I heard no too many times for the level of talent that I knew that I had, and so I stopped, and so I worked at I was a writer at Cards Against Humanity, And on June twelfth, twenty seventeen, that's when I was decided to become a

But anyway, it's so real. That's so it's it's so real.

And so I took I took those skills and I started a traditional, good old fashion corporate, mid corporate corporate business where I did a inclusion consultant for Fortune five hundred and Fortune one hundred companies and this is where. Yeah, so that was a good that was a good five years of talking to industry agnostic. Industry agnostic is how

Also went through being real.

I went through my whole like there's no audience, this energy is gone, and I just started to play with the audience that I had, and that audience grew. So Corporate Airon is like the fourth character entry pointing to this universe as some people they've already entered into different characters. So before Corporate Airon, LORI Lightfoot ran locally really huge in Chicago.

And that's the mayor, right, you did like an impersonation, yes, remember that one?

Yeah, on my way out of corporate.

I couldn't take it anymore, and so I was like, y'all are not going to stop doing this. So I became them and made that my next character, and then that swelled a portion of my business and I forgot where I was going or what I was being asked. But I think that's kind of a good place.

To be, like, hey, we are and here we are out.

Here because I resonate with so much of it.

I mean a lot of times people, particularly in the last two years, here the work that I'm doing with Spill, and assume if they've never met or seen me before that I just kind of always worked in tech, but this is my first time working in working at SPILL is my first time working in house one hundred percent for another company. Straight out of school, I invested in

Was like.

And I was like, well, I think I need to kind of recalibrate and check on myself a little bit. And I parlayed that into doing cultural consulting from movie TV film studios. So there are so many parallels between, you know, our trajectories in terms of being entrepreneurs, being black women who had to kind of hybrid interface into corporate infrastructures while also running our own business businesses. And

It's a transferable skill set for me.

Cause when when I heard her background, and it's bigger than the consultancy piece. But when you hear the background, entrepreneurs and people who have been in these different worlds know what that looks like really on a day to day level, Okay, like this this you got a thousand, ten ninety nine and W two's when it's time to do taxes, you got like the day to day of it it's just kind of a different lifestyle.

Yeah, and I c I regre lucky.

Ye, what I do, what i've what I've done, and what I think Kid is doing, which is why the likes of us found each other and for and what I hope to inspire people to do is all of these transferable skills that we use for other people, use them for yourself or for what you're trying to build. So I used to be in circle back, follow up, project manager, hell for other companies I do. I'm not saying I'm running. I treat myself like that. I give

But I am using that skill set to build.

Yeah, it's about that energy. I was just writing I'm working on my first book right now, and I was just I literally wrote in writing a chapter that's basically encouraging any woman woman of color in corporate to take your age, subtract it from one hundred, and the larger number is what percentage of time you should be focusing on other skills Like then year nine to five, which may sound like, Okay, I'm twenty two, so I'm really going to spend you know, seventy eight percent of my

Yeah, wait a minute.

I so you can flip it. If you're more conservative, you can say, Okay, I'll spend twenty two percent of

Totally, and thank goodness we did. You know, like again, you know, building community on a social space, a social app was far outside of my purview of what I thought is something that I would be doing.

As a creator. Lisa. Yes, Lisa, I questioned myself even when I said it right, as a creator, Lisa especially and with your partnership and you know, your activation with

I'm so glad we're talking about this, and I'm probably gonna get more specific because of your audience and for you, please dealer, because this is kind of the stuff I nerrid out about that I don't get to talk about because a lot of people, you know, well, we're all just enjoying the content because largely how I view myself as a creator is when I think about, Oh, I didn't think I would be doing this. In my mind, this y'all was gonna be watching me on TV now,

So it's like, Wow, I didn't know that I would have.

A TV like character exist in the world in five d I was thinking small and thought it would just be on a TVA screen. So with that, I want to talk about some numbers because I want to encourage creators who think about these per platform to build their media literacy and just kind of think of mass media in general, because your reach is way further than the analytics that platforms share with you, because the entire Internet

Money, money, money, money, money, money, but you can also barter with large companies.

So from there, I found out that without even including TikTok, I was reaching. I thought I was reaching from what I saw two million people, but they showed me that across the entire Internet, not including TikTok, I was reaching a hundred and fifty million people. And then I had a ninety seven percent approval rating across positive comments. So

Every time I picked on the YouTube and look at the comments, it a.

It cu it could be a it could be a I ain't even gonna make a joke about it. Yeah, the comments are scary. And I went and all the comments was nice, and I was like, I am, I am I working with someone? Did I Did I do some So I was like, I I feel like I'm working with something, but I wanna pull the data. So that's what it led me to see in like the the ninety seven percent approval rating and stuff like that. So I think about why don't focus on certain traditional platforms.

Because sometimes I really.

Like to get very needy, greedy with how I talk about this, because it could seem like, well, girl, you got millions of followers, like it's easy. Oh quite Oh sure a percentage of that will kick back to you some cash. But there are ways that companies use data. There's ways that they use our content that go way outside the platform with the platforms have been provided for us. And so I work from that angle and not from the angle of how many people are watching, how many.

People are clicking, so it's a deeper level, yes, smart. It also helps you keep it in perspective like, oh, I lost four hundred followers or whatever it's like, But that's not the bigger picture here.

That's not the bigger picture.

I think the best part about this is having creators like Lisa and the thousands others that are on the platform helped to inform that development from the ground up. So we're building with that in mind and considering that. You know, it's a really important problem to solve, and you know, we've been talking with creators on the ground, We've been talking with creator agencies right try this. You know,

I mean, you know, data has has been released from you know, multiple reports.

I think Bloomberg reported that the creator economy is going to be you know, a trillion dollars in just a few years, set to set to.

Trip billion dollars for who though, well, the well.

The creator the creator economy at hole, right, and.

We already know that like advertisers, and we know that advertisers spend one hundred and fifty six billion dollars to reach our communities, right, and you know, amongst our communities, we are the trusted voices.

So if we think about what creators are.

Doing to aid and assist in that kind of in exchange, you know, why not link arms, link arms with our clarinets.

You know, my little fifty four cent checks from Meta crack me up every time they hit my anymo, like, why are you sending me an invoice? I'm gonna get a ten ninety nine for four dollars from Metta.

I work from the philosophy of like people first.

So if I'm getting fifty four cents from Meta doing it this way, well I'll try to get one hundred dollars trying it this way. And if it doesn't work, guess what creators are added nothing to lose point with their own businesses to try to switch it up and try it new tactics. And by that I mean investing in the idea of going back to the advertisers. There they will come directly to you because you have the eyeballs.

And that's that's kind of like the decide and difference between it.

What was your learning curve, like Arin, Like did you have a mentor to help?

Like what what?

What was your learning curve? And then like moving into the next level where maybe TV, Hollywood will come calling, but you also have this your own business. You know, you ha, you can show up. I'm sure you got paid a pretty penny to show up at Eefrotech as Aaron, you know, as corporate Arin. And that is a level of professional resis millions that I think is wonderful even for a creative person who maybe has aspirations to be

Well, for me, the learning curve was actually in the reverse where I knew more than I I had to learn myself. So because I kept in my the consulting that idea was, I was telling CEOs what to do.

So I was the mentor. I was the kind of.

Shining light for some people. So growing and confidence of that is the learning curve.

Right.

You didn't just yeah, come up with corporate Aaron in college. Yeah, you did have that career first.

Destroying, destroying the gas light of my innate experience and authentic intelligence is the hard work that I had to do to destroy my imposter syndrome.

And then the gap I feel some times is the.

Gap of knowledge that I need to provide for other people in terms of I tell people like, this is it, Like as an artist, a lot of people are just not realizing, like, oh, we're in the TV show. We're a part of the TV show. And if I look at her IMDb, she was on TV screens. She is on TV screens. Does she is in that world already? So there is no world for me to go to.

This is just this is it?

And so I'm kind of existing in the gratefulness of being able to enjoy my own.

Ebs and flows as an artist and entrepreneur.

And the largest gap that I had to overcome was the gap that not that I didn't need any guidance or any help. There's a I think people who operate at a certain executive level understand that there's a myriad of like friends influences what you read, what you eat,

I felt like I wasn't worthy. So I had to really get over myself.

Yeah, but it's okay to stand on your own and not have like a corporate brand to like legitimize rall. Yeah, I've definitely been there.

I have been there, and it's a longer road sometimes and sometimes it's just a choice. So for me, I value creative control, which is why whatever show of Mind that ends up on TV, I have to do it, which means I have to finance it, which is a different road as opposed to pitching.

It to this network who will give me a team. Then I'll have to share, and then it becomes down and that.

And there is also still places where projects like that can exist and be still if fully contained and go great. But when you're innovating in a space that people are not familiar with, they're still gonna want to try to what you're doing.

Is to go there, right. So that's the part where I like to be like, no, this is it.

This is art too.

I get it. It's the Yeah, No, I get it. It's a circle. I want to take a quick pivot into wrapping up the show.

So what we do.

I know, Keny, you said you're a longtime listener, so you know we do brown Boost Brown Break. Lisa, that's maybe your first time hearing that. So at the end of the show, we like to kind of highlight either

Okay, big brown Boost, Big brown Boost. So spill right.

We've been talking about it this entire time. Visual conversation app place to discuss and discover culture. We're the first social app to put spades on the platform. Right, We've got live tea parties which are like our goal live feature. We call our folks on platforms billionaires trying to lean into.

The ideology that's okay of value.

We come from a culture and create culture of value.

You can express yourself by adding text to image and gifts and videos and share your quotes and comments on your spills.

It's fantastic, right.

We are actually launching our first ever crowd round, So big, big, big brown boost there.

Okay, crowdfunding like a so we could own a little piece of Spill.

Yeah, So this crowd round is a unique opportunity for the community to own a piece of the commonversation, own a piece of a social platform that has been building and centering our communities from the beginning, alongside with the vcs that have also invested in us. So that's, you know, a rare opportunity that doesn't normally happen in our communities.

Is it live now or is it going live at a certain time.

When your listeners hear this, it will be live.

So okay, all right, Spill dot com slash invest we got it. We'll put it in the show notes for your BA fan.

Thank you so much.

All right, Lisa, I'll do brown Boost.

Because I'm okay.

So I'm excited because I'm gonna launch some content specifically and exclusively for Spill.

So I didn't know this was gonna be my problems. But I'm excited.

Because if I think about like company updates, I really don't have nobody to give company updates too. So this is like a this is a serious company at leasta the experience core update. I am moving some of my what I call analog things I do in the real world,

Like I'm a big creator on the Internet and.

I haven't pitched two other platforms, but they also haven't reached out.

To me, and I feel like being at this level that I am, I'm.

Very excited to share and I keep just knowledge that I have because I don't have anything to do with it. I'm practicing it, and I just kind of want to share what I know and I only feel safe doing it at a place that has community.

Got it's like spill.

Yeah, that's facts. That's amazing, And I mean that's a big like part of our ethos at Brown Ambition too is like no gatekeeping. Just that's why I ask deep questions, you know, like how much do you make? And where where do you get your money from? And how do you diversify income streams? And what's your list look like? Yeah, because that's what's happening behind the scenes, So like why not why try to pretend I share?

I share all of that negotiating with brands, pitch deck like everything.

Oh nice, Okay, I gotta have you back to talk about negotiating because that's my jam and the negotiating click.

Me taking part in a trend that started in twenty twenty three on platform when we first launched, which is still university. So I know other platforms have been credited with, you know, educating.

Not Hillman Talk said, y'all were first. Noteing's first still university, okay.

In twenty twenty three, and it has a robust set of classes and educators who in real life who are coming to platform to share their knowledge and resources, and you know, classes ranged from you.

Know university level level curriculum to like contend one on one, you know, like.

You know it's it's a game that is Yeah, okay, girl, I'm not gonna up front. I need to learn how to play space.

Well, you can learn how to play spades on spill. We've got a practice mode. No angry uncles to flip the table and cush you out when you mess up.

Okay, you can try being a biracial baddy in a family where you don't know how to play spades and you just like try to fade into the background at every gathering.

Listen, you can, you.

Too can learn how to play spades. And when you sharpen your skills, girl, tag me in. We can take we can run these tables together.

Is it like a group game? I really don't know anything about it.

It's a group. It's communal. It is a space where people.

Exchange, you know, ideas, and you can do live video and live audio while you're playing spades as well communicating with folks.

Lisa is a great spades player too.

I love playing spades.

Okay, I can't wait. I'm very competitive, so I can't wait to suck it up in there and play and talk my ship. But I can't talk my shit yet because I don't know. But we don't worry. When I get it there, I'll be I'll be shit talking.

I should do a space ship Talk and tea party where a lesson on once you get your SPAE skills.

Here's there's because I talk my ship very well and like the banter. I love the bad babes like I can go back and forth. If I can't like insult you, then like really all be friends. You know what I mean? So right, if I don't like a really good like a like a dagger kind of insult, that's like did she kill her? I don't know, Like that's my love language. Ah, that's amazing, okay, ken Ye. So everyone's got to check out Spill University, the ogs no shade to Heilman Talk University.

This is fun.