JILLIAN GATES - Salmon Scramble Surprise

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have very special guests, entrepreneur Jillian Gates, owner of her ride in the building. And yes we are not in Los Angeles. We are over here hanging out at eighty five South Studios this week, so you will see a lot of eighty five South.

I love this kitchen so much, isn't it It's so cool? Shout out SA eighty five South for hooking us up.

Yes, I love it so Yeah.

I feel like I.

Can come down to Atlanta anytime now, no sweat, like we coming. We coming, So, Jillian, I'm happy to be here with you. I'm very curious on what you're gonna have me eating today.

It's gonna be good, I promise. What is it so we are going to be preparing. I call it salmon and rice. Salmon over rice. It's very simple. Before I got introduced to the filet salmon, this is the salmon that I grew up on.

Yeah, whenever I see you can meet after being on Eating While Broke.

Can meat can scare you, understood.

I've seen people eat it with no heat. I wonder how they did that.

The only can I eat out of a can prior to eating while broke.

Was tuna, I understood.

I never heard of eating chicken out of a can, salmon out of a can. I eat oysters out of a can. I think I've done that before, you know, but sardines maybe once.

In a while.

It's so good.

But after doing a lot of episodes of eating while broke, can meat scares me.

So what are the ingredients for your dish?

So the ingredients for this dish would be your simple butter of course, your can, say, an egg, and then some bacon.

So bacon is for taste.

Okay, all right? So oh and Rice, I'm and Rice and Rice.

Okay, so go ahead, you can start making this beautiful dish that I'm a.

Little scared to eat. I got faith in you, scared, I promise I. So take me back to do you need a butter knife?

Oh yeah, we got a butter.

Knife over here.

Thank you.

I love how eighty five. So I'll set this up. By the way, I got a shout out some again.

Oh yeah, sure, take me back to what's going on in the land of canned salmon?

So hold on, let me make sure we're all right here.

So in the land of can salmon. So I was introduced to this dish middle school, high school ish. I played three sports in school, and so feeding me as a as a growing teenager can be kind of expensive. And so when I wasn't eating at school and my mom didn't have time, you know, to cook something, you know, a large mirror large meal for us, this was one of our go tos.

She will cook this or either be u.

She would go to Kroger and get one of those little tisstery chickens and we would just tear it down. But yeah, this will be one of those go two meals. It's high in protein. You got your rice for your carbs, you got your egg I mean, and then you got your bacon for taste. So I mean, you can't go wrong just that.

It yeah, a little salt and pepper. Really it's the juice. It's the juice.

And if we had raw bacon, it's the bacon grease that makes it. That's what that's what that's what puts the taste. So you don't really need any seasoning. It's the juice from the can, the juice from the meat, and then the grease from the bacon.

Okay, and then that egg too.

Okay, we go see you gona scrambled egg.

Yeah, it's gonna scramble it, but it's gonna be mixed in with the It's gonna be mixed in with the meat mixture.

I promise it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good. I got you, I got you. I won't let you down.

We gonna see how good it is? All right? Uh So, take so were you single parent household? Two parent household?

So I grew up in a two parent household.

But my dad passed away when I was well. So he died the day after my birthday. He had leukemia, and so that was a very traumatic experience for me.

Kind of grew me up really quick. I had to really grow up.

A lot of people that meet me, they think that I'm a lot older than what I am, because I guess I'm a little wiser for my years. When my dad passed away, I just realized that I needed to be the one to you know, I felt like I didn't need to be like the man of the house or whatever they would say. But because I was the oldest sibling, I felt like I needed to be the most responsible.

How many siblings.

Only have one sibling? So I have a younger brother.

Oh that's not bad. Somebody could beat up on too. Oh yeah, did he outgrow you?

He ended up outlowing me, but after it wasn't until I left to go to college.

So he actually shocked me.

When I came back home. I came back home, he was taller at me. I was like, Wow, I didn't think this was gonna happen.

But I have a baby brother that's taller than me.

Yeah, but key word baby brother. He's like in his thirties now, and I'm like.

He will always be a baby, always be a baby.

What's the age gap?

Three years?

Oh that's not bad. Ye, Like that's like.

Little brother, real little brother for real.

Okay, so you took on helping mama out a little bit more passed.

Yeah.

I actually got my first job in seventh grade. Well, not in seventh grade, might have been in eighth grade. But one of my first jobs was at a fish market. There was a guy that went to our church that opened up a fish market, and my mom started helping out there, and then I started helping out.

He paid under the table.

I want to say that summer after that, I got my first job helping another member at the church.

She had a daycare, So.

I started working with her doing that and she paid me under the table as well. So I like started working in middle school and like was just super focused on like making money in middle school. Yeah, but yeah, that's where that started for me.

Did you grow up in a family with entrepreneurs I didn't.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't have many. I don't have many entrepreneurs, if any, Okay, I'm not.

I'm trying to think about it. I really can't think of any that you didn't.

You didn't cross the path of any on your way growing up.

Nope, okay, I'm not not.

Not not my personal family members.

No, okay.

Yeah.

I used to have a theory that entrepreneurs kind of had to come from some kind of lineage of of entrepreneurship because because the traditional route, which is always cultered.

I love how you guys are because I was thinking the same thing.

Uh, the traditional route, I always feel is like you have to kind of see someone kind of in that lane first before becoming one. So is her ride your very first entrepreneur adventure?

It is not.

Okay, so you not only did not experience any entrepreneurs but this isn't your first, It is.

Not my first venture. I've been an entrepreneur.

I would say my first entrepreneur a venture started when I was in high school. Okay, yeah, started selling care and in high school. That was an interesting story. I don't know if my mom knows about this or not, but yeah, so the candy we sold in high school, we actually stole it all.

And stole it from where from Walmart? And you would steal the case packs or the little snicker Bars packs. I just want to make sure you're getting the bulk and are you stealing both candies?

We just put them in our book bag and we just walked up the store. Okay, I'm pretty sure this is news to her.

Okay, so yeah, we just said we as in my partner in crime, not my brother, and so we sold it for a dollar.

It was one hundred profit.

Yeah that's not that's that's not entrepreneurship. That's called hustling.

Yeah yeah, yeah, that's.

Just so you know, I have a firm belief that in business, all parties have to win. Otherwise you just swindles somebody and you are a successful Swindler at eighth grade.

That's good. That's good. That's a good start.

So that was my intro. When I got to college, I cleaned it up a lot. I actually got into designing hat lids, so snapback hats got really popular. I graduated high school around twenty ten, so from twenty ten to about twenty twelve, snapbag hats were super popular and people started designing the lids. There was a brand called Tisa that came out and they just they just decided to charge one hundred and fifty dollars for a regular

So I started doing that.

I think I did it for about ten dollars when it got fabric, would put it on people's hats for them. But that was my first intro into entrepreneurship. And then while I was in college as well, I taught myself how to cut hair. I became a resident assistant, and so because I was a resident assistant, I had access to all of the freshman guys that lived there because we had a co ed dorm and co yes, I was already and a co ed dorm. Half of the building was girls. Half of them are guys, and.

They were all freshman. The dumbest idea ever.

But yeah, I learned how to cut hair and yeah that's uh. I taught myself how to cut hair from watching YouTube videos. So that is that's that's where entrepreneurship. I guess that's where it really started. That's where it really You.

Learned how to cut here from a YouTube video.

Yeah, trial and error and YouTube. Yeah.

Only imagine a guy being so pissed off at you for messing up his hair.

So my brother thanks to him. You know, my brother let me try out on him a few times. But I'm very, very particular, so I was just scared to mess up anyway. So I really, if anything, I would be too scared to fade you crazy.

You wouldn't have a crazy fade.

Guys.

Guys weren't walking away like Yo're going We're going out tonight.

They was like, you know, yeah, it.

Was like a nice little line, and that's who I was. I just did a nice little touch up.

So okay, you so you're entrepreneurs, but really like a gangst the hustler.

I was say at this point, like everything.

I was just yeah, I was interested in getting into Yeah, I was just I was upsessed.

With making money.

Yeah, so yeah, anything that I could do to make money. But while I was in college at the same time, I was a collegiate athlete, so I was on scholarship. So because I was on scholarship, I didn't have the freedom to work like everybody else did in college.

So I had to figure out how.

To make money in between the times I wasn't practicing or playing and so those are the ways that I had to do it. I had to get really friendly with people, just become a become more of a people person so that I could use those connections to get the things that I needed. I think the biggest highlight for me in college would be when I started my clothing line.

Because I played sports up with a nickname.

Somebody gave me a nickname, Beast from when I played volleyball. They said I looked like I played volleyball like Lebron James, so got that nickname.

That was a compliment.

Yeah, I'm no right, you know, I couldn't be mad at that, and so I got that nickname. I had a friend that worked at LYDD, she was a manager. Over Christmas break, I asked her to make me a beanie. She did it came back. I just changed the way that the word beast was spelled, and a few of my teammates wanted it, and so I got them some beanies. And then after that, people were on campus wanted them, and I was like.

Oh, I just struggled again.

Yeah, this might be a thing.

And so that's that's what really jumped started my entrepreneurship career. I Relata even offered to buy the rights to the name from me for like five thousand dollars when I was in college. Nobody knows about that story, but yeah, she offered to buy the rights to my clothing line name Beast when I was in college, and I was like, no, I'm not going to sell it. Yeah, so I didn't

But there's people from my school that still wear it to this day.

Oh wow, Yeah, I think that's super dope.

So so we're industry is kind of backtrack. Where is this hunger for money coming from?

I think it's because of the fact that I did lose my dad young and then me realizing that I didn't come for money, Like I didn't realize that because my mother did such a good job at raising us. She wasn't really someone who like expressed like if we were having money issues in this fand like, she didn't express that to us. So I didn't know how much money my mom made until I happened to look at the faster paperwork she was filling out one time, and I was.

Like, we're surviving off of this salary.

Because I was very aware of how much what numbers were and how much people should be making. I was like, you're raising both of us off of this, and I was like, this is crazy.

So that's where you like, Mama, come on, stop playing. No, you fudging them numbers for financial aid?

She was legit, Yeah, yeah, because that's yeah, because I was.

I was just super impressed. I was like, how have we been maintaining off of this? And so that's when I got super obsessed with like, Okay, when I go to college, I'm a major and something that I know it's gonna set me up as soon as I get to college. I'll be making a certain amount of money as soon as I leave. So that's really why I moved the way I'm moved.

Did you ever find out that your mom was selling stolen candy bars?

You guys are both missing each other in past.

No, so she wasn't.

Wasn't.

I will say she knows how to make a dollar stretch. I will say yes, but she didn't.

She didn't do. No what you ain't gonna go home in the car tonight and find out that she?

If I do, that'll be that'll be a huge shock to me.

You're in a microwave those how else I supposed to cook on? I was just I was, no, you do it?

You do? I was assumed it was microwave wave on paper. Okay, yep.

We learning how people cook bacon nowadays. It's real. It's real interesting bacon.

You can microwave this. This ain't there because I would have cooked.

That urse it's already cooked.

Though.

You gotta do is he didn't know?

Yeah, but I wanted to be a little bit more crispy, so I can a.

Little bit more crispy in the microwave.

Yeah, Christie's gonna get krispy in the microwave.

All right.

I just I'm gonna see if the microwave explodes. I don't cook bacon in the microwave. Please don't blow up. Eighty five, I'm out the studio one shooting.

No, you only need to cook it for like ten fifteen seconds. All right, thank you?

Okay, So, okay, so mom, Mom just knows how to stretch a dollar. She don't she's not necessarily uh robbing and stealing and hustling.

Okay, I forgot the egg. Okay, I can go ahead and put it in there. Okay, Sorry, I helping my mom's helping me out with this guy.

Okay, So we're in this journey. Does her ride into the picture?

So her ride doesn't enter the picture until almost seven years later. I moved to Atlanta twenty oh yeah, right there, okay, yeah, I moved to Atlanta twenty seventeen.

In the hopes of.

There's a utensial things. I don't know what you call those cook weird things.

Oh one of these.

You're one of those people that, like I promise you, someone's got to yell at you for using a.

Fork on oh on the typeware. Yeah, well the my mother is the one that does it. But yeah, I try not to scrape as much as I can.

But but yeah, it's it's already happening now, so it's okay.

It's all good.

So I moved to Atlanta to pursue basketball professional basketball career.

Start driving.

Were in lift at night because it works out best with my work schedule, and I noticed a lot of women at night were telling me that they were canceling rides until they recognized a woman's name my name is Jillian, or they recognized a woman's picture. And so I noticed that this kept happening. I'm an avid podcast listener, and so I was listening to another podcast and they had the founders a Lift on there. And when I found out that it was only two people that started that company.

I got extremely intrigued.

I was like, wait, one of the people that started this company, they have the same degree that I went to school for, so why can I do the same thing? So I was like, I started thinking a lot more and finally decided to make the decision to go to a full Like, okay, so it's called a full Stack Developer boot camp for people that are familiar with that in computer science terms. I just went to s I went to a boot camp to sharpen up my skills

I think it's genius.

And I was like, okay, Bet, I'm gonna call you back. And I called like two other friends and I told them the same thing, and they was like, I think that's really good. It was I really like the name. I was like, okay, Bat, I'm gonna call you back. And then I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna get this done. The next day, I looked up a trademark contract. I'm sorry trademark attorney and actually got the name trademark.

So I got the name trademark before I got that a maid.

Yep, you got the name trademarked for a car ride service.

Yep, for a ride share service.

Okay, so were you were you when you developed this application? Were you able to bite off what Uber and Lyft had already kind of created because I know in tech they kind of you can build because it's more of a sharing industry.

Right, Yep, you are.

So It's so the thing with apps are people think that you can trademark or pattenham. You can't really do that. If you change a lot of code then then it's different. So what you would be looking for it will be a clone app. So that's what I went for. I looked for a company that creates clone apps, and they made a clone app of like Uber or a clone app of Uber. I tested it out, did the demo. I liked what I liked what I saw, asked them some questions about how it was built, how it was maintained.

Did you have to bring on a CTO.

I'm the CTO.

You're the CTO after six months of boot camp?

Yeah, well I got my degree in computer science.

So oh your original degrees computer science? Okay, okay, yep.

My original degrees in computer science. So I'm confident. I was confident that I could.

Okay, so you take on this application. Where are you funding these attorneys and all that stuff from?

So that's coming from my personal savings.

I worked about two to three jobs while I was in Atlanta, and so I just took that money and funded it.

Were you living at home with your mom or were you living on your own?

Living on my own?

But I was living with a roommate, so I was renting out a room, so living expenses was pretty low.

Okay, so you're stacking all your bread, but the bread you're making is from like the liveries.

And stuff like that.

Yeah, So how long How many years of savings did you have to do to get her rights?

Source?

It actually took me. I did it with less than ten thousand dollars. It was like it was less than half of year. It was like half of a year's savings. Okay, yeah, it didn't take me that long to get it.

Okay, so you get you get the money together. You you now have the application. Now as a CTO, are you bringing on some kind of officer to.

Help market because you see, the CTO doesn't.

So that's what I was looking for next, with somebody to sell it. I was looking for a co founder. And so the first person I originally brought on. They they were older than me. They're older, older black women. They they they're their I guess their experience was more so in like the in like lobbying, in like the political field, in politics, and so that's where their experience

So why did you go the co founder route instead of like maybe contract to hire.

So it's easier to uh, when you're when you're a tech company and your app and you're trying to get funding or raise funding, it's easier to get funding if you have a co founder.

So you were trying to raise capital after getting co founders yep, So you were also the CEO okay, so CEO CEO, and then you're looking for a CMO yep, okay, so.

Who are you hitting up?

Are you hitting up angel investors or venture capitalists at this point?

So at first I originally started by like contacting vcs, but then I realized that, like when I decided to start my app, the economy was also shifting. So right before I decided to start my app, vcs were throwing money left and.

Right to anybody with an idea. You got an idea. They think it's good enough, they're gonna give you money.

For it, but your idea it's weird. I don't know how vcs handle this situation, because do you technically have these uber you have lift these platforms, and then you're saying, well, out of this sector, you know, I'm going to carve out this this woman, this woman light. Now I heard that there's a car right service for children, right, but you decide that this organization that you're building is also going to be all female contractors.

All women drivers, no male.

And there was no legality issues in.

That, Nope, because of because of how gig workers or ride share drivers are placed in terms of employment. So they're ten ninety nine independent contractors.

So you could you could technically be discriminative towards them.

I hate to say that word. I'm trying to find a nicer word.

So basically, I can we have the right to choose who we can and who we do and who we don't want to hire as contractors.

We do have the right to choose that.

But that's interesting.

So in your companies based in Atlanta and there's no regulations on whether you can hire Nope, because.

They're if they're if they are labeled ten ninety nine, there are no there are no regulations around that now. So these people that drive for her ride are not W two employees, they are ten ninety nine contractors.

Yeah, they're ten ninety nine.

But I'm surprised that there's no legalities in discrimination on that.

Nope.

There's a guy that already reached out to the EOC courtesy you know, you know, because people are going to do that. But he decided to make up a story and say that we didn't hire him. He never even applied to her ride, but he just made up a story said that I'd said that we don't hire men, and that I, you know, we don't, you know, we don't hire men for our platform.

I end up having to spend about five thousand dollars to fight.

That case, and the EEOC, which is the federal government, found us in no wrongdoing when it comes to discrimination.

So yeah, because your hyper niche is like your I guess your appeal is that you're creating a safe space for women, yep.

And so.

And also there are two other companies that control ninety eight percent of the market in ride share that exists, So it's not like I'm the only ride share company that exists. If I was the only ride share company that existed and then I'm doing what I'm doing, then yes.

There will be an issue.

But because there are more than there are other companies that exist besides me, there's.

Now how do you handle the transgender situation with that?

So we are still working through the details of it, but I've met I've had a couple of meetings so far, because there are some people that I personally know that have transitioned and so they we have well we've already discussed what it is that they're looking for when it comes to just doing gigwork or what is it they expect out of us as a company. And so I've

But how would you how how do you?

I guess, so right now we got to go by the book.

So go a by the book is like what you're born as is what.

Well, what's on your driver's license?

Oh, what's on your drivers license?

What's on your driver's license.

And I mean people have told me like, oh, you can get your drop, you can get your sex changed and different in different states, and all this other stuff. I'm like, well, I believe there's paperwork that's associated with that. I don't think you can just go to the DMV and say hey, i'm a I'm a man now and hey i'm a woman now. Now I can get some

So right now, transgendered is like in that it's you're not fully accepting it yet, but you're trying to figure out when.

We are accepting or people that are fully transitioned. So what we're trying to what we're trying to work out right now is people that are in transition. So the people that haven't gotten to the finish line, the people that haven't gotten to the.

Point transitioned, you can be considered, oh, child, I'm the wrong one to have this conversation. This is this is it's a touchy subject because you know, I believe that we'll make women women. Isn't just a lady and mail parts man. We got that at one time of the month, we give birth and all that stuff.

So it's very tricky. It is tricky, tricky land. Okay, so is your meal done? Serve me up, Serve me up, serve you up. Let's serve you up.

Let's get you right, all right.

Uh So, one of the clips that I had caught online I think someone had DM me, was this clip of you, uh interviewing about the Atlanta Airport trying to get uh your name recognized with the lifts and the ubers and the other ride share companies. Was were you the one leading that or was H Did you have your partner or someone lead.

That both both of us.

I was.

I was the I was definitely spearhead, spearheading the social media campaign aspect of it.

But she was behind the scenes doing all the emailing. I'm not good at doing all of the all of the corporate communication.

She did all that, but I was the person on the ground, like letting everybody know, rallying the troops like, hey, I feel like this is not fair.

I feel like you know, don't y'all think the same thing.

And you know a lot of people online they rallied behind us, and they really helped get that get that that airport signage up because we actually been talking with them about that since j're live last year. So you know, they've been telling us that it was temporary and da Dad this, and that they'll be they'll be doing you know, what they need to do, and that you know, the signs will be changed.

And I'm like, all right, well, I'd have.

Missed the holiday season, which is the busiest time for ride share, and you guys still haven't changed the signage. So I'm gonna need something to happen around you know, I'm gonna go to phase two. Phase two is me getting hiring a group of well, hiring a group of volunteers to call the airport every hour on the hour and ask them, you know.

Hey, where's where's her rode?

I heard there's a new rod Shair app available, but I don't see it anywhere in the airport.

I'm in the airport right now, I don't see it. Where How do I get to rod Shair in section?

Did you guys end up raising the capital that you needed.

So we still trying to raise. So let me be clear, we are still trying to raise. We actually have only done family and friends rounds. We've done a total of about seventy five thousand with that, and then I also.

Doing family and friends. You have some good family and friends.

We did two separate rounds, so we do. Yeah, I do.

I'm not gonna lie. I do have some great family and friends. I appreciate every single person that donates. I'm not donated, but invested.

In her ride.

But yeah, we uh. After the seventy five thousand, We've also won about forty thousand grants, so I'm constantly applying to grant for grants and participating in pitch competitions as well.

Okay, are you able to fully fund your yourself or do you still have to do some kind of side hustling.

I still work, I still work for you still work full time? Wow? Okay, what is the bacon for in this?

So the bacon was I lost my train of thought talking. But this bacon was supposed to be crumbled up and put into.

A piece of bacon. I'm gonna try and make make.

Shift the heck out of your dish.

We need your mama and said, I know.

She over there shaking her head at me.

She like, girl, girl, Let's see. Let's see what can salmon and bacon and rice and what you had me eating here with salt and pepper.

With salt and pepper.

Let's see.

I'm try put sugar on mind, but everybody don't do what I do.

I'm so glad you didn't put sugar on this. I'm losing faith by the second.

I wish. Second, I wish your mama was here, shut out. Look at her, she's stressed.

Out over there.

Hold on, cheers, you got it. Chairs to the grandma praying for us. Should have had her uppears.

Nah, it's it.

Let's see, here we go.

It's good. That's the egg. They really do it. That's crazy. You don't like it. I like it, mom.

Mmmm.

It still tastes fine to me.

Let's try it without the bacon, because I think if it wasn't for this bacon, it would be okay. Yeah, guys, if you if you starving at home and you ain't got nothing to eat, your mama knew how to stretch a dollar.

All right, I'm telling you. Feels you up.

You know I had was it ripped. Michael No Carlos Hayes comedian here had to see like tunea on rice.

See, I feel like tun is such a stronger fish taste.

Look, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm gonna have to have your mom cook this dish because understood, Yeah, just a broke dish.

It's a broke dish. This dish is what like five dollars and confeed the whole family. Yeah, your mom did it? Pass me? All that bacon?

All the bacon. Bacon is where it's at good, But I don't know if I don't know, to me the bacon needs to be Michael waves. Still I've cooked up some mom. I don't like him. I like crispy bacon.

Yeah.

All right.

So you're in the middle of work, in hustling. What is your thoughts? Is there days that you wake up and you're like, I should give up?

Yes?

Yes, how often?

M about one the season?

About once a season, it's starting to feel like I got seasonal depression or something. But usually when whenever we whenever we get hit with a no, I just take it.

I just take it so personal.

It's not it's not anything against I know that we're gonna get told no all the time, but sometimes we have We'll be going on such a high we get hit with like a crazy no that I wasn't expecting, and then it just kind of kills my mood.

But yeah, I would say about once in.

Season I have.

I've been teaching a class. I do this in my free time, which I don't really have free time, but I'm really passionate about entrepreneurship and I teach this course on mindset of entrepreneurs and one of the things I teach is, you know, you count your nose because the more nos you get, the closer you get to it.

Yes.

Yes, and a lot of time in entrepreneurship. I don't know the statistics, but I need to incorporate in my class that the suicide rate on.

The entrepreneurs is actually pretty high.

And you know, you have to be insane to start a business most of the time, and to keep that level of insanity in the world that has bills and peers and shit.

Social media makes it even harder. It's it's hard to.

It's really hard to not not you know, get into that negative space.

I agree.

So, are you reinvesting your checks all the time into the.

Business, Yes, constantly. I currently still live with my mom.

Now I'm still I am trying to save up to buy to get to purchase my own on if they would just relax with the with the home prices.

But yeah, I'm the home prices of the whole home interest rates.

Just the interest rates and prices in general.

But but yeah, I put all my money into her Ride.

It's my baby, Okay.

Yeah, yeah, and you're still in year three. Two, I am me in year three now, yeah, you're in the heart, but you got through the first part.

Yeah, you know, have you thought about reaching out to the ride share of the ride share competitors.

No, because they've been watching me this entire time. The day before the day before the airport dropped our press release last year, Liff actually dropped a press release saying that they were going to be dropping the women plus Connect feature. So what's that that's there? That's their version of her Ride. So basically you can if you're in whatever cities that they're doing it in, you can have you can just put it's like a button that they

So it's not one hundred proof.

It's not one hundred percent like like you're only going to get a woman driver.

Do you feel pressure because you raised a capital from friends and family?

I do this year?

Yeah, why just due to the terms of the invest I really want to start generating more revenue so that they can actually have a dividend payout. But it's more so just pressure that I'm putting on myself so that we can start making more money.

As far as people adopting the platform, what are your numbers looking like?

Are you able to.

Say, oh, yeah, I can say we have about almost twenty thousand people on the platform. In terms of the customer side, I have about almost forty thousand people that have downloaded the app from just they just have it on their phone. We have about two hundred and fifty drivers and we have completed over three thousand trips since we have.

Been on money. Good thank you.

So how are you spearheading growing that?

So?

Growth is my main focus is the airport. So the airport actually receives about forty six thousand rideshare requests a week. That's why we're so gun ho on them, putting our name up on the signage because I want to capture at least ten percent of that. If we capture at least ten percent of that, we'll be pulling in close to a million in a year. Okay, yeah, a million net. And that's that's us paying our drivers eighty percent. That's on an eighty twenty split.

Okay. Is there any other things you can do to partner with the airport too?

Partnering Well, outside of just the permit that we have, there's nothing we can advertise inside the airport, but it's too expensive to do that. We are also focused on getting a lot of MoU agreements with just different organizations around Atlanta. So the first nonprofit that we partnered up with is Common Courtesy. They schedule rise your rides for senior citizens and so senior citizen calls their line and then they.

Book the ride for them. Yeah, at like a way cheaper cost.

And so partnering up with nonprofit organizations, organizations that deal with women, people, that shelter women, children, kids where I'm really interested in getting in the school system. I have this great idea where I want to utilize the substitute teachers convert them into drivers so that students can get to and from school properly without having to wait all day for their.

Parents to come.

Basically like have it part of the after school program. And yeah, so those are my three main sectors right now. And then nightlife as well, trying to infiltrate the ninth life scene.

Okay, and then what other jobs are you working outside of the application.

You're talking about just all out of her ride for you? What do I do? So?

I do it support. So I'm a state employee, but I do it support. It's very simple. I just reset passwords all day. I'm actually held two of those jobs. Last year, I had two full time jobs. I'm probably I'm trying to get another one. I'm not gonna lie to you just because we need to. I just want to make sure that we're good for the next few months. But yeah, that's what I do. I do very simple it support work.

On the money side, are your rides competitive to a certain degree to lift in the uber and those guys.

Yeah, so we we only charge about I charged about eighty something since per mile in like sixteenth cent a minute. It's around it's a little bit over a dollar a mile when you add it up. It's a lot cheaper than Uber and Lyft and we don't. So whenever you if you ever search for us the ride, that ride price is gonna always be that ride price. What do

Now do when Uber and Lyft do that, does that mean that the driver makes more money or just Uber.

And Lyft make more money?

Uber and Lyft make more money?

Okay, So on your application, your drivers are they making more or yeah.

So they're making eighty percent of the fair the average driver on Uber and Lyft is and keeping about forty percent.

Yep, shit, that needs to be your advertising.

Yeah shit, you could be making forty percent, you could be making eighty percent.

Shoot, but I guess.

Uber and Lyft has more demand than we do on the customer side. So like when you turn on the when you turn on the app as an Uber Lyft driver, it in about probably thirty seconds you'll get a ding saying somebody wants to ride for us.

It's not like that.

Have you now ever been in a position where you get a customer ask for a ride? This is this is real deep, but and and none of your drivers are available, and you'd be like, forget it, I'll put all.

My driver hat.

Yeah I've done that. Yeah. Yeah, I was saying, my mom, what are shaking head? Yeah.

The only reason I'm not doing it right now is because my car. I'm having car troubles. And it's probably like for the best that I'm even having car troubles right now because my team doesn't even want me driving. Like I was a driver. I was legitimate, I was a driver. I was one of the main ones.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good that you got out of that seat. Now. Do you have mentors?

I have one that just just started on with me. He's a technical architect and he has been helping me understand like the code for real, understand the structure and the organization of how my app is set up so that I can be just a better CTO and a better system admin for my for my company. So that's

Nah.

It's a couple of people that I look up to and then I pay attention to and I study.

But yeah, I think mentorship is crucial.

I think it is crucial.

It's crucial.

I'm just trying to let my mentor find me.

It doesn't know, there's no such thing as a mentor, oh for real, So that's my mentor.

I've mentored so many people in my life. It's crazy because my garage.

Literally it has become the home to some of my mentees a couple of times or of stories. But all my mentees have surpassed me, I think, all of them, which I'm very, very very proud of. And then my mentors they weren't necessarily in the same field or line of work, which I think is really important because when you get them in a different field, in a different line,

I was really really bothered by it.

But now I have like a nine hundred fight though, you know, but it took, you know, having mentors in areas of my life that could be like, Yo, don't forget to do this.

And you're gonna oversee this.

You're gonna spend too much time on this and pivot here or stop crying and like pick up the phone and try something different.

So mentorship is.

Very you know, if you're gonna be the entrepreneur, you're gonna need to seek them out.

I stalked on mine.

I literally stalked them, like, Yo, you're gonna take my calls, You're gonna come to lunch for me. You're going to see what I'm about. You're gonna see what I'm doing, and you're gonna be my mentor.

Okay, yeah, I don't. I don't.

It's almost like asking someone out on a date. It's like, you're gonna be my mentor. I've been studying you for a while. You're amazing, and uh, these are some areas that I probably.

Need your help with.

And I mean a lot of my mentors like when I was younger. So I use that for my benefit.

See, I was coming from the sport.

I'm such a sports focused person that I'm thinking like, okay, like they should be like a recruiter, like how recruits recruit.

I love asking mentors to be your mentor because once you get them to agree, it's like you can call their cell at anytime, you could send them a text at any time. My mentees could call me anytime, anywhere, any place, text, call, whatever, And I'm gonna be like, yo, I gotta take the call.

I gotta because I.

Signed up for this commitment and I'm honored because I want to see them succeed.

Right, You're like, they gotta succeed, you're rooting for them.

But I love it. I'm that's my I can sign up. I'm not the easiest though, because everyone ever, all my mentees complain about me at some point.

To no, I like, I enjoy I come from My coaches are very rough, not rough, but very very hard on me. So I like I need that. I need someone.

That's like, yeah, read this, dude doesn't mind cutting me out.

Yeah, they don't want to tell me what they put on their credit cards. They don't want to tell me none of that.

But okay, so where do you see your future landing?

I see my future being an acquisition.

Land you know already acquisition.

Yeah, you always have to think of an exit. When you have a tech company, you should always be thinking exit. I would love to be acquired. I don't want to just sell and just you know, do whatever I want to do. I still want to be involved, but I would love an acquisition. That would that would be That would be super dope.

Have you heard of other companies in your space that got venture capital where they were hyper niche in a in a realm that was like really absorbed, not VC, not.

Big VC money. I've done my research on some.

There have been some that have gotten like six figure, six figure investments, but then they pivoted and went to something else. I'm the only one that is taking it this far in terms of getting inside of like an airport and then also getting signage up there with the airport, like there was nobody. No one was out here doing that, not before we came.

Now, you guys came during the pandemic or after, so you didn't think about riding the whole black waves.

No, the reason why, well, actually did. That's how we went viral first because of COVID, everything shut down. We focused on social media promotion. I'm heavy on Twitter.

Love Twitter.

My former co founder was also heavy on Twitter, which is why I recruited her. She was very good at social media because covid had everybody on social media. People used to play a lot of games on Twitter with all this other stuff. Different trendy little things was going trendy every other day. The one particular one that made us go viral was people were doing pictures of themselves. They were posting pictures of themselves as the owner of whatever is their brand was, and then they posted a

And do you think colorism?

But now this was during the pandemic, right, this is around the black Lives matter movement.

Yeah, black lives matter.

But when it comes to optics, people see when they think of when they see, okay, when they hear a rides share company or all women's rides share company, who would be the face of that? If you took a picture of me versus who my co founder was at the time, you would assume it was her, not me that created the idea. Why because she's just the she

It worked.

I knew it was gonna work. I didn't feel any way about it though. I just knew it was gonna work.

I just think that's interesting.

That says a lot in social engineering.

But it says a lot because you said something that's very interesting. You said that people wouldn't assume that a girl that looks like you could create this application, but a girl that looks the opposite of you could create the application.

The reception was way different.

And sometimes I go back and look at it, just just to just do my studies.

Just look.

I go back and look at that post, and I go through the comments that people were more receptive of her creating the idea versus me in terms of just comments. So whenever whenever I go viral and people find out I'm the founder, the reaction from men is a lot harsher versus the reaction when they found out she.

Was the founder from men or from women.

From men and women really, but mainly men.

Man. What were they saying just mainly like.

Things like uh uh just basically I mean just really trying to just attack like my sexuality or just my just the way I look. So they'll just be like, oh, women don't hit on women and all this other stuff like, yeah, but that's not why I created this app. Like the fact that you would assume that I created the app to hit on women. It's crazy, but they would.

Say that from her You're you're not straight, yeah, okay, but you are straight?

No, no, no, I'm not straight.

You're not straight.

Yeah, but you know, it's just is what it is.

So okay, yeah, I see. So then in this whole line, do.

You feel like, see, yeah, you're weaving a nice little web because now you are not straight, but then you have an app, and then you have the transgenders.

So this is a tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky waters.

Okay, yeah, okay, but hm, so have you thought about getting out of Atlanta.

Yeah, I'm originally from Athens, Georgia. So I actually want to try a smaller market, like a college town, smaller market, just to see how it plays out there. I would love to go to Houston. I would love to go to Seattle, Washington. I would love to go to US Tampa, Tampa, Florida. I think we would do well there. There's so many different places I'd rather go. I mean, not not rather go, but I want to be at but we have to be able to scale Atlanta properly first before we go anywhere else.

How close are you to quitting your jobs just to do full time?

Ooh, I just got in trouble today at work. Not even gonna lie to you. I was.

Just because as the business of her Ride has been getting a lot more busy, it's been taking me away from my job. How close am I I want to be six months away?

I'm giving myself six months.

Yeah, yeah, I think it should probably be less than that. If you really want to grow this business, I think it should be too. Yeah. So what is your job giving you that your company can.

A consistent check every two weeks without me having.

To But but are you taking that money and putting it in the company?

Are you? Or are you spending that money on something else? No?

I take that money and well, outside of paying my bills, it goes back into the company.

Okay, Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like every business I've ever had to do, I've had to just.

Jump off the porch I've been.

I've been telling my co founder that that I feel like it's time for me to get to that point because I don't want her.

She's not leaving her job. She has a great job. But for me, I feel like I could do more if I do leave my job. The the thing is how I'm going to make the money that I was making at my job. How I'm going to replace that. I could replace it by just driving a while.

Yeah, eating while I broke, I could go back to Yeah, you could see salmon and rice.

Yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I probably only ate as much as I did because I'm starting.

I would rate this eating while broke.

I would say it's like a three. But I feel like if your mama came up here and made it, it would taste better. I gotta hate a little bit on it. M. But your journey is definitely interesting.

Uh. Is there any bit of advice you would share with anybody else? M M.

Yeah.

If you are someone who is thinking about just hopping into entrepreneurship, period, I would say, keep your day job. Keep your day job until you figure out how to properly scale your business, because a lot of people they'll hop they'll just they'll quit their great job to start, you know, making a waste beads or making candles or something like that. And then realize that that's not what

That's funny. I would give the polar opposite.

I know, I get that all the time, because if you're going in with a backup plan, you're not going into to succeed. Some of the stuff like in entrepreneurship is like you gotta pivot. But if you're not, if your back isn't against the wall, sometimes you can't fight as hard and you can't see everything because you have so much comfort in your corner.

That's true.

So it's it can be a double edged sword.

True, that's true.

You know that that comfort zone is very dangerous.

I agree, but yeah, yeah, you're right, because it's.

Nothing teaches you how to scale a company faster than struggle in struggle struggle, I promise you can get rid of those day jobs. You're gonna figure out how to scale that business real quick. Sometimes the backup plant is really a bad plan. So either you're all in or you're all not. It's interesting, You're in an interesting space.

Uh.

I've I've seen other people do similar things in like they borrow the code or they take on someone else's code and hypernt shit.

Uh So I thought what you were doing is very interesting.

Approaching the airports fighting for that interesting, you know.

But I definitely think Quinn in the day job is essential.

She wants me to quit. That's all my plans, It's all my It's definitely on my calendar for this year.

It sounds crazy.

I know it is because I just got put on full time with a good benefit.

So it sounds definitely sounds crazy.

It sounds crazy. It's the way to do it though.

That's the only way to go up, man, you gotta start from the bottom. But anyways, everyone can keep up with her ride. Yes, I guess where you go into your app store apples?

Yes, so that's the first thing I want you all to do, Yes, app store or Android, And it's her ride with one R so H R I D E. You can download us on both platforms and it's the light purple app.

But men can be men can ride as customers. So if you want to use the platform, you can ride, bro.

That's how you should advertise it too, what you talk about.

So every type of man gets in the car, he could be in the car with a lady.

If you guy, it could go it could go left.

But you know what I'm saying.

But yeah that I don't.

I don't market and or advertised to men, just because it's just kind of like one of those things like we're like tampons, like guys know about them, but y'all don't really know about them, like that type of.

Thing, like market customers.

Yeah, my goal is women. Now, anybody can use it just for legal purposes, but we don't market to men. But if a guy finds out about her ride, then yeah, not like a creed.

Yeah what you say, I mean, I'm just no, that's what I'm thinking. Like if I was a man, I'd be like, wait, so every time I got out of this app, I get picked up by a female.

Not bad at all, not bad, you know, you know it's funny. Marketing is funny. I see, I see.

The goal is to to to to protect women.

But at the same time, I don't know. If I was a brother, yeah, I'd be like this, maybe the app.

To be on you know, then you get you get women drivers that need money.

I don't know this. Look I'm thinking terrible. I'm a terrible person. I'm I'm marketing.

Now, give me more ideas, more security.

Like all the minute, eighty five sons will be now being picked up by her writers.

Right looking up, yar all shaking head. Yep, they downloaded the app.

And the pre book. If you do just booking events, you know what I'm saying.

That the pricing don't change. You saving money and it's not too hard to impress a girl that is doing that for a living.

All of this I'm trying to.

Give her like a ten dollar tip. No, it's what dollar tip? I don't know this is Are you guys laughing at me?

Just take not a dating app. By the way, don't please don't think.

That this is going app.

It will not be.

There's like three new downloads today. It's like this is the only you.

Will not find your wife on her ride. You will not find her. You never know.

Shoot, if I was her rider and I said, you're gonna see your men numbers go up.

I know they are. Yeah.

Are your male are they? Are they the leader who's the lead customer?

Women of our rides are women. Yeah.

We rarely take men. Men don't know, They really don't know. Half of them don't even think it's for them. But I'm gonna keep it like that.

Well, I'm gonna tell you right now this there's gonna be men all over. Where's all right again? To my city? Were gonna have to add another feature?

They are.

They're gonna add the tender the tender rides. There you go.

They're gonna have to do something, all right, y'all.

Thank you guys for checking out another episode of Eating While.

Peace.

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