Entrepreneurship Ain’t For Everybody

more important thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead adds is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Were about to take pillow talk to our whole new level. Dead as starts right now. This story takes me back

to two thousand and nine. This is when I was working at Polly Prep. And it's funny because Dave Frederickson just text me three days ago. Dave Frederickson was my first personal client when they came to training and I was at Polly Prep. I was working as um offensive coordinator for the JV football team, and I noticed that a large part of the general population has children who want to play sports at an extremely high level, but don't know what it takes to get to that extremely

high level. So I was like, I was living in Brooklyn at the time, just retired from the NFL. That's a there's this, this has legs for a really good business. Yeah, this is this is a market here for a really good business. And hence I started Elite Prototype Athletics with my brother Brian, and I think it was two thousand nine going into two thousand and ten. We spoke it over fifteen banquets all over the city and we were pretty much soliciting people too and trust us with their

kids development through speed and agility training. And after speaking with I think over four hundred people that winter, we only had one client in the summertime and when most people would have quit, I invested all of my time into this one client. His name was Ramel Ashby his mom was Nisia Bates. I had Ramel for the entire summer, and when he got back to playing pop wanna football that year at the age of twelve, I believe he

scored over forty touchdowns. And then the following winter, we had thirty clients and those thoughty clients, trained them the entire winter, spring, summer, they went back, went to the national championship game for their division. The following year, had over a hundred forty clients in the winter, and then over three hundred clients by the spring, and Elite Prototype Athletics was officially we have mad kids. No we got we got mad killed. And this is the funny part

about this story. As we as we dive into what it took, I'm going to dive into what it took for me and condem to run this business because this became the family business. But I remember when I first came back to Brooklyn Um and I was working at poly Prep, and I started telling people what I wanted to do. All I kept hearing from people was no way that's gonna work. That's all I kept hearing from people.

The only persons persons because there was two people who saw the vision, like I, sohole the vision, what's codeine? And my brother Brian an elite prototype Bathleg was born. Why there's a whole lot of money in this motherfucker. That's the only part of the song I know. And I can't even help you out and be there. There's a whole lot of money and this motherfucker and that's all that matters. There's a whole lot of money. Check

this out. We gotta pay some bills because we're trying to get some more money in this motherfuckers google the lyrics too. Yeah, let's let's let's google the lyrics so we can see. Hopefully it's worth us saying at least the whole course and not doing one part of the course. But we'll be right back after these messages. So we're back. We're back. I ain't google this song. Y'all know, we got we got too much talk about when it comes

to entrepreneurship. Yes, because so many of you we were asking for, like just topic suggestions, things you want us to talk about, things you want to hear about, And many people talked about how did it all start, where did the business start, um becoming entrepreneurs? What was the road like for you guys? So we figured we would just tap in let you all know. Um, so that's

what we're talking about today. And in August study research show that while nationally okay, the number of business owners rose by two percent, black business owners rose by thirty eight percent from pre pandemic numbers. Interesting, right, Even still, black businesses were also the hardest hit early in the pandemic. Both of these facts are due to systemic disparities in entrepreneurship.

The lack of access black owners have to information, opportunities, and funding has both fueled our ingenuity and contributed to our failures simultaneously. Right, In order to change the future, it's up to us to provide the information that we have to help how we can. So here we are, let's start. People always ask me, right, what is the first thing an entrepreneur needs in order to get started?

And I'm gonna say this, and I hope you'll understand what I What I mean when I say this, You need vision, right, like you you have to understand people and socio economics. Right. People think people think that if you just have an idea or conviction, you can be an entrepreneur. That's not the case, because I'm about to say a lot of people have visions of like oh this should work. That should work, but can't actually put

the wheels emotions. Absolutely, you have to have the foresight to see or or no a service or product that people need in abundance in order to be a good entrepreneur. Right. For example, some one maybe doing something at home and say, you know what I could really need, I could really

use right now, and it comes to their mind. But what happens is they say, oh, if I need this, everybody may need this, not understanding socio economics and not understanding if there's that really a need that you have or a need that the world would have, And a lot of people start businesses off of ideas that they

feel they think are good or they need. Realistically, an entrepreneur needs to be able to see the world in its totality right, see something that is in need or high demand, and then create that product at a cost that people can afford it. Give you an example. When I started training in two thousand and ten, um there

was a place called Parisi Speed School. And when I when I was training for the NFL Combine, I was training at Parisi Speed School and I watched a ton of young kids and a ton of professional athletes and high school kids come to Paris Speed School to become faster, because in order to get notice or recognize, you have to be big, strong and fast. You can't control how big you are, but you can control how strong you are, and you can control how fast you run depending on

how you train. So a lot of parents started putting their kids into these programs to develop their athleticism, to put them in contention for scholarships. So when I retired from the NFL and I came back to Brooklyn, I was working at Polly Prep. But simultaneously, my brother and I were mentoring kids back at Brooklyn, and I realized, like, man, a lot of these kids and Polly Prep already have the resources they need to be successful. You know, you

go to a forty dollar a year school. You have access to two coaches who are highly paid, you have access to training staff, you have access to a full weight room. I said, what about the young man who who grows up in East New York, Brownsville, Flatbush, Canarsie, who doesn't have access to any of these things? Because, um, the vast majority of people in Brooklyn go to public schools.

And what people don't realize is that public schools are overcrowded, the funding is very low, and they don't pay any attention to the athletic program was in public school arts anything. So I was like, you know what, what if I could develop a program that could mentor young men at the time was just young men as I was thinking of because I was thinking about football young men into being collegian athletes. So I started. I trained um Brian and my brother Brian, and I trained a young man

by the name of Dane Frederickson. He was working as a p A at Polly Prep at the time and he was trying to get into Wagner. Now he was trying to get to a school and Wagner had offered him an opportunity, but he had to come in shape. So for the entire fall I trained him like a professional athlete. He ended up losing over thirty pounds. His forty time just dropped dramatically. His two bench press went up dramatically. He end up getting a full scholarship to

Wagner and UM. I remember he thanked my brother and I. He just wrote us a card, right, a card had a hundred dollar bills my brother and I and it was like a token of appreciation, and in that moment, I was like, Boom, I got it. What if I create a program for young men that they can learn how to be bigger, strong, or faster, but I can also help them academically because my brother and I are simultaneously while working with Dave Frederickson was working with a

group of high school juniors and seniors. Then went to Thomas Jefferson Canarsie boys and girls. So in talking to them, I was like, you know, why don't you think you can go to college? These are juniors. Now, Oh well, I never took the S A T or the or the A C T. No, what's your g p A about the seventy You don't even have the prerequisite academics to be considered to be a collegiate athlete, let alone need to be bigger, strong, or fast enough. You need

to focus on that. So that's when I started thinking, how can I build a program that's gonna make sense for these kids financially Because at the time we were planning a wedding, I had just retired from the NFL, I wasn't getting paid a lot from Polly Prep, and I needed to be able to provide for my family. So it started with a litmus tests. My brother and Brian and I paid for all of these kids memberships

to go to the gym. And what we did was we ran a program that I created because I started studying exercise physiology and kinesiology when I was playing football. So I said, let me create a program and see if I can train all of these kids at one time and get them all better. So for those three months, we trained the hell out of these kids. Like we we did. We put them through every single test and every program that I remembered from college to the NFL,

and these kids got way better. And I think the vast majority these kids ended up being old city. UM. I had a couple of kids that got scholarships right away. UM, a couple of kids that end up having to go to Juco but ended up going and playing for school and college. But what that did was show me that

I could create a program that could work. So before I even got into charging people for what I thought had value, I had to figure out if I could create a program, it's money absolutely, Then it was creating a price point that works. This is where being an entrepreneur sometimes people get things lost in translation For example, entrepreneur to most people, means I don't work for nobody. I make my own money, right right, I make my own schedule. I mean I do everything on my own.

I knew for a fact that I needed to understand the business, and I needed to understand the demographic I was getting involved in, and I needed to understand the business structure and corporate structure needed to create a business. So I ended up I started working at Paris Speed School in order to learn how to run this business. So I worked at Paris Speed School for two years. I made ten hour. I made literally no money. It cost me more money to get to stat Noland and

come back than I did making it every week. Bridge told to it was twelve at the time. It was twelve fifty to get there, and I was going to Paris Speed School six days a week. So another thing that entrepreneurs typically need that they don't have is capital. You need capital in order to invest time in yourself to learn the business properly. You don't just jump into any business and try to figure it out. You lose

way more money that way. And what people don't understand is most businesses need up to three years in order to get into black. Getting the black means you actually make money. You spend the first two and a half years investing in the business if it's a good business, and then finally on the third year, you make money. So what you said when they talked about most people

don't have the resource, especially black people. When they're talking about resources or the knowledge, they're really talking about capital because most people who start businesses get capital from generational wealth. I want to start a business. Let me ask my parents, Let me ask my dad. Let me see if he has anybody's who want to invest in this business. Most

black people come into the world with debt. So when you come into the world with debt, who are you going to ask to first get you out of the debt, then invest in your business. So after running this litmus test um, I spoke to a couple of parents and this is where people this is a key component to entrepreneurship.

At that point in two thousand and ten, the price point for personal training was at least fifteen hundred dollars a month, which means if you went to a gym and you had a sports performance trainer, they could charge anywhere from seventy five to one hundred and fifty dollars an hour, and most people needed three sessions, sometimes four

sessions a week. So think about a single mom in Brooklyn, or a mom and dad who live a manor's lifestyle who have to pay up to six hundred dollars a week to get four times a week training four times a month. Now you're looking at six hundred dollars times for two hundred dollars. If you bring it back down to three times a week, now you're looking at four fifty times four hundred, that's eighteen hundred dollars a month.

Most people in Brooklyn didn't have that, So I said, how could I provide a service for people that's a affordable Then he looks at me and he's like, how can I do that? And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, bro, because how are you gonna make this worth it? For? This is the part of entrepreneurship that people also miss. You have to have the foresight to create businesses that don't even exist. That's truly entrepreneurship.

You can get an idea from people, you can learn about structure, but this business doesn't exist, so it's on you to figure it out. So I had to create a football training business that was cost effective for most people and still be able to get them better. So I can't just provide a business and not get them better. It has to work. So then I, you know, looked around and watching Paris speech. Scorse, how does Parissy Speed Schools business model work? They were charging people in membership.

Their membership was a hundred and fifty dollars a month, and they were providing speed performance training for kids. So I was like, hey, that's that's cheap hundred fifty a month as opposed to fifteen hundred dollars a month month personal training. So then I said, ah, small group training is one way, but large group training can work, especially for football because football teams are typically anywhere between thirty

two sometimes eighty people on the team. So I was like, I have to create a program that can train football players a lot of football players at one time in a certain time spot to make it make sense for me and for them. So that's two things. I have to create a financial structure that works for the business, but then I have to create a performance training structure that works for them. Because even if even if I

say it's only a hundred and fifty dollars. People want to get the most out of a hundred and fifty dollars. So I'm saying to myself, and this is how I worked. I said, Okay, a hundred and fifty dollars a month, if they train three times a week, that's twelve sessions a month. Hundred and fifty a month. That's a little over ten dollars a session. How many people do I need to have in this session in order to make it make sense for me? The number I came up

with was thirty. How can I train thirty people at one time and get them better? And that's when I started thinking. I was like, this is what entrepreneurship is. I have to create a program that serves two purposes, serves the consumer and serves me as the owner of the business. And that's what I did with Prototype. I'm not gonna give you all all my secrets, but I was able to create a program that served the consumer and served me as the owner without sacrificing the integrity

of what I'm really trying to do. Because the integrity of what I was trying to do was make all of these kids better. That's really and It's funny you mentioned um having the vision right and then knowing what is needed, and then bringing your brother along who also believed in it the way I did. I wasn't training nobody, but I was like, I'll keep the books south whatever you need me to do however you need me to

do it, Um. And it was good because you had someone a partner and your brother who was maybe not as savvy when it came to the mindset of like what can work with with the business in terms of just like UM coming up with the ideas and stuff like that, but he was very good at executing. So when you are starters an entrepreneurs, nice to have somebody on your team who can be the worker b or who can be the one that is now executing the ideas because you can have the ideas and then I

have someone who's good at execution or vice versa. So you brought up a good point. I was really good at creativity, right, I needed someone to be good with administration. That was you that When we did orientations, I was a salesman. I sold the people on what my vision was and what my plan was. While I was selling them my vision, people who wanted to register and sign up, went over, took a dean much like I did in college.

The dean had at her computer, her laptop. She registered everyone in, put them in a computer, made sure they had a schedule, and and then Brian was working out kids on the side a taste of what was gonna happen when they got there. One thing about my brother Brian is he's always on time and he works hard. So when we first started, like I said, we we did all of this marketing. We spoke to hundreds of people.

We have one client. Why is that part of the story important Because most people when they start a business, they expect to see results right away, and when they don't get the results that they expect to see right away, they quit, like they quit. For example, Kadine and I, they're like, oh yeah, started doing videos for the family. This is dope. We were doing videos with the family when no one was watching the same way my brother Brian and I were training people one at a time

when no one was paying. And what happens is the greatest form of marketing is word of mouth and the product itself. You can spend as much money as you want on trying to make people believe these fancy commercials, these these high tech videos. I even watch it today on on Instagram. I see all these trainers they do, all these super videos and all this high tech stuff.

And I continue to watch them, and a lot of their pages don't grow, and a lot of their following don't grow, and then after a while they're no longer doing training anymore. And what I realized that a lot of people lack the mental fortitude to go through the business when it's not at its greatest. But they also lacked the vision to see what people really need. People don't really need the flash. The flash will get them to pay attention, but you need the substance to keep

them there and make them pay. You need don't need the flash. You need the craft too, because think about how many people may take a course in something. For example, I'll use myself makeup artistry. Right. I was working as a makeup artist when the recession hit. I was like, man, I can't sit around and just not do any thing. You were playing in the NFL at the time, so I said, you know what, used to dip and dab and make up a little bit in my pageant days.

Used to do this girl's makeup and that girl's makeup, and then that's usually every makeup artist's journey, Right, They've been doing makeup on their friends and then finally developed something that they kind of have a knact for. So it's like, okay, let me just start doing makeup and let me start charging people. So when I started doing makeup, now I didn't really have the title per se of a makeup artist, but it knew it was something that

I could do, right. Um, So I went up to the Mac Cosmetics in Michigan, and I think it was it was the Somerset Mallreset Mall, and Um interviewed through a couple of rounds and was hired as a makeup artist. So working for the company, I now saw an opportunity to say, all right, at least I have a job. I can use my creativity in a way. Didn't really feel like work to me, because I'm like, all right,

you know I'm helping women. Yeah, I'm helping women feel better and look better and you know, feel better about themselves, and you know, I'm selling makeup whatever, not nothing too serious. Um and then saw the opportunity when girls on the side were like, oh, I have this wedding this weekend that I'm doing, and I'm like, oh, doing a wedding this weekend, what does that look like? You know? And a couple of the girls I saw it was kind of tapping in. They said, you know, a wedding, you know,

bride cost this much. You got five, six, seven, eight brides maids, You got mother of the bride, mother of the groom. Before you know it, you have about ten twelve faces that you have to do if you charge, you know, a hundred dollars of face. And I was like a phase, like that's the going rate, you know, back in the day, And to me it just made so much sense. But what happened through my journey with MAC, even though I worked as a manager, was promoted to

assistant manager, a keyholder and all that. I still kept that job because I felt like it kept me in the industry. It kept me abreast of what was happening in the industry. It kept me abreast, and I was able to sharpen my skills as a makeup artist because you weren't just a makeup artists, you are a member of the Impact team. I've learned how to manage of books,

you understood standing products. All of that is part of entrepreneurs So it's about going into the industry and working in different areas of the industry to see how these moving parts work. Right. So being a part of the Impact team did what. It taught me how to be around other artists and how to learn from other artists. Being um, you know, in the stores help me to deal with the customers and see what customers really want,

what they like, what they don't like. Going to training meetings where I can talk about product, what's needed in the industry, what we're missing, what people are looking for. I kind of was in different parts of it. So when time came for me to say, you know what, Candeine, retail hours don't really do well with my schedule and my and my and my mental health right now because I have my husband and my baby at home that I want to have more time for. I want that

autonomy over my time. I was then able to say, all right, I can step back from working there full time as a manager. However, if I step back, let me stay as a freelance artist so I can still have my foot in the industry. By being being able to come back to the stores and work from time to time, so that way I can also just stay in the industry while still serving people outside of the store.

And I say that to say a lot of times you see people will pick up a craft or they'll start a craft, and then all of a sudden they're an expert. And then they're teaching these how to classes and they want to teach people how to do it, and they're having coaching sessions and all that, and they haven't even really fully built themselves up to be the expert in that field, you know. I think that comes from um. There's there's been this stigma for especially millennials.

Gen z ears that in order to be an entrepreneur, you have to figure everything out on your own and you can't work for no one else to learn right, it has to happen immediately for you and I. You worked in Matt Cosmetics, shout out to mac because it taught you a lot about the business in the industry. I worked at Paris spe School under Gary Miller. Gary Miller was a program director for Paresis School for years. Everything I know about the fitness industry and the business

I learned from Gary Miller. The first thing he did was tell me I have to get NASUM certified. That's the National Academy of Sports Medicine. You know, there's a lot of players on that played there's a lot of trainers who are not certified, so they don't understand the industry standard of what it means to be an expert in that field. And a lot of people ask me what's the difference in prototype and all these other people popping up with programs left and right. I said, well,

I I respect the craft of the industry. Right. The industry has standards, and it doesn't matter what type of business you open. There's an industry for that business. And the more you learn about the industry, you can learn about your business and it can help you and and being a part of UM these industry standards or learning for example, Codein going to I remember Codein was And this is just to talk about how Condin and I always work together. When I started my businesses Kadein always

work in administration. When she had interviews for Matt to be on an impact team to do all these other things, I drove her. We discussed these things when she started her business. I talked to her about having contract because this is another thing people understand about businesses. Businesses require contract and liability responsible. A lot of people don't understand that. Well, even think about you when you talk about training everybody.

If there's people walking around they said, they're trainers. How do you know to train somebody appropriately and properly if they have, for example, high blood pressure? Absolutely what to look for for signs of you know they're in distress. Or me as a makeup artist, how do I know what to use with someone's skin if they have an allergy to latex and I can't put lashes on them because the glue has late text in it. Like, there's so many different things that are beyond just thinking about, Oh,

I run my own business. I'm glad you brought that up because being a trainer one of the first things I've learned, and this was and I had trained Dave. I started training kids in the park on football drills and stuff like that. But then when I went to the to get my nassimy come now some certified, they talked about this thing called a park and I was like, what's the part of you? And it's pretty much a questionnaire to make sure that anytime someone is in your hands.

You're responsible for their health and well being. You're responsible for their death if they die while training. These are things that you don't think about when you're training. So you have the par queue. Some of the questions are, have you ever had diabetes? Blood high blood pressure? Have you suffered from a stroke in the last six months. These are questions that most people who have never trained before don't ask. They just said, you're out of shape.

Let's go to the park and you're starting with a mile. Then someone starts running and pass out. You know you don't know CPR when I was not. Some certified we all have to take CPR classes. I'm like, wow, if you don't understand the industry standards of a business, you can't even be considered an expert or run your business safely. No one of my my buddies are starting a training business. First thing I asked them, you have an LLC. What do I need an LLC for. You're gonna train people

and I have an LLC. What if you training someone in the park and they step in the pothole? The city is the city in the park because at the time we never gym and they tear they need they're gonna sue you, bro, how they're gonna suit me. It's in the park. You're the trainer, You're responsible for them.

He had no clue. But part of the reason why he had no clue is because most people don't respect the craft of whatever business or industry they're in, so they try to skip steps and end up sucking himself because they either get sued, they don't make no money, or people look at them like a joke. But those are the parts of entrepreneurship people want to skip those are Those are the things you learned in the first two to three years while starting your business to be

able to even say I'm an entrepreneur. And people don't want to hear it, but you need that time. You need to learn from people. There's nothing wrong with, like you said, starting your business, working to build your business while working for someone else. You know, there's nothing wrong. We're having your business starting your business while working for someone else for two reasons. Number one, you need capital and told you I was still freelancing because I was

at least it was guaranteed money every week. Yes, and we had an insurance. So you have insurance, you have a constant paycheck coming in. What that does is that relieve stress. When that relief stress, you're allowed to move a little bit differently and take more chances in your business because you don't have as much stress. Plus, the capital allows you to continuously invest in your business. And the bigger your business gets, the more money it costs

to invest in your business. As we got more children, we needed more T shirts, we needed more shorts, we needed more equipment, we needed more gym time. This costs thousands and thousands of dollars a month. That when you become an entrepreneur, the money comes in and night like I'm making money, but the money also goes out. We just spoke about and I watched you with the same thing. You need to buy more brushes. You need to buy

a bigger kid, more product. When you invested in doing classes, we had to buy studios in the extra car because now we have two different you know, livelihoods. He's one place in one place. I had to travel all these places for weddings and whatnot. You have to hire an assistant. Assistance get paid so and and then you had to pay for your assistant to know the industry standard and

go through these classes. These are the things that people don't understand, don't realize are necessary to have a successful business. So yeah, it's funny my SoundBite. We were joking because I said, you talked about, you know, entrepreneurship, and I said that we need more electricians. That's just the mean that I saw recently. But there was also someone on Instagram, Um,

I forget who it was. I think it was I'm clear trapper, but she had said something like everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, but we need you know, burger flick flippers that you know, Zonald's. We need you know, people who are just gonna be doing basic jobs too. So it's like everybody can't be the entrepreneur. There are some people who just don't have the mindset for it, some people that just don't feel to do that. They're just like, you know, I don't want to be an entrepreneur.

I'm okay working this scientified for Tom Dick or Harry just because like you don't have to necessarily feel because I feel like it's almost like a trend now that people just want to or it just maybe maybe this generation that everybody just has this desire to I don't want to work for nobody. I want to just be my own boss. But not everybody can be a boss because you need the consumers and you need the people

on the back end making your business thrive. But but I do think that there's something to be said about the quote unquote American dream. Right. The American dream is that you work, right, What's what's our our model? Why do we work to build capital? Why do we build capital to make your money work for you? You don't want to have to work for someone your whole life. Ultimately, you want to have time, right. I've said this on the last podcast. If you had to describe wealth in

one word, it's time. Being an entrepreneur gives you time. But what people don't understand is when you're an entrepreneur, you never clock out. So, yes, you have time, you can move, you can do things, but your brain is always working on ways to keep up with the industry trends. You talked about being trendy, Right, Every industry has trends.

So when you think that you're going to create something in the industry that's going to be brand new, right, unless you're unless you're Elon Musk and you created the Tesla, which is one of the first electric cars that are faster than like a Ferrari. There are trends within the industry that can teach you the peaks and valleys of when you're gonna make money when you're gonna lose money.

For example, this is important if you're in fitness. You know that during the summertime, the entire fitness industry goes down to drain. You want to know why people are outside showing off those bodies that they worked for since January one, So the peak years, the peak time for the fitness industry is New Year's so you get you get people high influx of people January one all the

way up until February. Then as they get into the spring, people start to trend downward because you have spring break, people have kids, they lack off. They come right back right before the summer, so that that may that may area you get a hot influx. Then you have a valley again the summer all the way till September. Why the kids are out of school. When the kids are out of school, people travel, they're go on vacation, they're not in the gym training, they're showing off through summer bodies.

Then September comes around the kids are back in school. People say, you know what, I need to get back into the gym because before this holiday season, I had a damage control before the exactly, so you know, September October, you get eight weeks. People come in November, December. People just cries say at the end of the year, they're gonna get whatever body I give because it's cuddle season and it starts. I never realized. But that's my ebb and flow. Guffy during the one in time, it's more

to love. It's just more to love. You know, you hug more body here. But um no, it's important for people to to understand the ebbs and flows of every industry. This way you can prepare your pockets to say, you know what for the summertime and shout out to my boy. Dolo um he Dolo was never do and Dolo so everything. Dolo Dolo so water, he's so bottom man. Jackson asked me one time. I was just like, Yo, Daddy, let me's a serious question. So what what is Dolo water?

And I was like, it's water. He's like, is it like Dolo sweat? Like why would I drink Dolos water? Like where does he get the water from Like, does he just take it from his apartment? I said, bro, I don't know, but he packages it. He sells it Dolo slippers shorts. But you know what, also two people bought into it, Dolo dolo. Oh, I'm glad you surship. People buy into the person, yes, man, you know what I'm saying. They're not always buying into a product person.

People buying into the way someone makes them feel absolutely, you know, like I just think he just literally comes to minus that like just being around him, just his energy. He's always he's always positive, like it seems like he never had to day. That's what people are buying anatwing particularly I know in the training industry, but sometimes too even just with makeup ARTI street, you sit down and

you vibe with somebody, they have great energy. I think about the people who I have, you know, that are on my staff or my payroll, that I always employed to do whatever tasks. It's because I enjoy having that person around and I see the value in their expertise in whatever field. That is. Anybody who you see on our team, you know that we just love having these people around. You want to know why the people become

the brand. Jay Z just he was on Instagram and I just saw I mean, and he was like, man, funk Nike and he said, not not funk Nike personally, but like Nike, like the people who create, who are wearing the Nikes become the brand, right, Like Michael Jordan's made Nike what Nike is. Before Michael Jordan's stepped into Nikes,

everyone was wearing Adidas, they were wearing Pumas. Those are like the big brand names, rebok with the big brand names, and like the eighties, Michael Jordan comes in there and turns Nike into this powerhouse and now you know he has his own Jordan brand. But Nike has become this global brand based off of Michael Jordan's because people become

the brand. The culture is the brand. And when you when you understand that, like you said, and you understand that people buy into you, you start to recognize your power and then you recognize, you know what in this industry, I'm going to recognize trends, but I'm not gonna try to be trendy. I want to know why when you try to become trendy, trendy things die. So if you're following trends, it's gonna die. You have to become the

brand that people buy into. The same way he said when he was trying to get into music, Everyone's saying, O, Columbia, Columbia, Columbia, this record, this company. So they created rock when we Rockefeller Records was now Rockefell and Records is rock Nation, and Rock Nation. Rockefeller is the brand and it's the people. So I'm glad you brought that point up because people have to understand the power of the brand is the person.

You represent the brand every time you go out and make an interaction with someone or make a transaction with someone. So understand that as an entrepreneur, you represent your brand with everything you do. Absolutely absolutely Alright, some fun facts to leave y'all went before we get into another break and come back with listen. Letters of black business owners are women? Cool of black business owners use their own

cash to start their own venture. That was us um thirty thirty seven point nine percent of black business owners say that they are discouraged from applying for loans. That was me, I UM quick story. I applied for loans early on and did not get approved. Here's a crazy part my white counterparts with less capital, with less business acumen, with less references, got to prove for business loans when I didn't, So I had to use my own capital,

and I also used other black capital. A young man by the name of Marcel Learning invested twenty five thousand in Elite Prototype Athletics to help us rebuild the gym in two thousand and fourteen, and we moved from Aviator Sports Complex to pac Plex and was able to build out our program and extend from servicing four hundreds over a thousand athletes a year. And if it wasn't for Marcelle, I don't think we've been able to do that. So

shout out to marcelf Learning for investing. Black man work for Cushman and Wake started his own business, and he gave me all the knowledge I needed to move forward. So that's not as good to Lincoln network with people, you know, we gotta we gotta be each other's support system and not be afraid to ask for help when you need it. But this, this with Marcel did not happen like this, right. I didn't go to myself like yo, man,

let me get twenty five thousand. I got a business idea, I already had a successful business that was making money. I still then proof of concept right there, had proof of concept, but I still wrote out a full ten page business plan and presented it to Marcel and said, this is what I would like to do. This is what I would like to do moving forward. If you were able to invest this, it would allow me to

generate this amount of returns for you. He invested in the business, got his money back, and then got a percentage of the business through perpetuity as the business existed until I eventually sold the business. Exactly. So it's not just like going to your homeboy who you don't have a little cash, like that idea which we get now because from just like I got a business idea, and then when you ask him for a business plan, they getting upset, like or you said, you know, send your

business plan to my manager. They're like, oh, you're sending me to your manager. It's like, well, if you have a business idea, you should have a business plan that my financial advisor and my manager can look over and say this may be worth the while. If not, keep it moving, Like it's no disrespect, but you just want me to give you money so you can figure things out, not doing that, not doing And New York has the

greatest number of black owned businesses in the country. I'm not surprised to hear that, because New York, what do we do. We're gonna hustle, baby, We're gonna find a way, all right now, let's hustle our ads into some breaks so we can make some money. I'm talking about entrepreneurship. And we'll be back with listener letters after this listener letter time. Let's jump into the listening. Okay, Hey, I love when people say hey, codemium and vow it's codeine.

I am. But I love that you're thorough. Um. Hey, Cadean, first and foremost congratulations and all your success thus far. And Baby Dakota, thank you. As I start writing this letter, I'm trying to understand why it took me so long to write to you guys in the first place. Well, we're here now. I've been following you guys since two thousand and seventeen and fell in love with your way of life. I love the transparency you guys give throughout

your videos and podcasts. Thanks this. As a millennial myself, I catch myself screaming at my phone when listening to you guys talks because you talk so much truth. Thank you for being such an inspiration to me. Three years ago, I found my purpose in helping others to understand their own self worth. I am in the process of becoming a self love life coach. I've been consistent with posting, speaking everything into existence, and disciplining myself to not give up.

I will hashtag until I'm blue in the face. I tag people, including you both, to help promote myself. My problem is, how do you promote what people can't see? How do you promote internal understanding of self without selling a physical item or humor? Mhmm, consistency, This is the truth. Um. I've been making videos of my family for years before y'all found us, and at the time, I never used the hashtag. I never tagged anyone. I didn't use any

celebrities to try to share my stuff. It was super early in social media to where I think it was two thousand and sixteen when we finally caught Instagram kind of when I guess when we caught on, I guess it wasn't basic around has been around, but um, realistically, there's there's no this is what you do to catch it. Even when you go to a firm and you pay a firm to create buzz for you, there's no guarantee that a video is going to go viral, which we tried. Yes,

we did try. I tried before before I started creating videos for myself. In two thousand and fourteen, I hired a firm to help me create post more consistently because I wanted At the time, I wasn't as engaged on social media, and what I heard was if you post every day, you post consistently, you get more engagement, which is true. So I hired a firm. Um it costs a lot of money. They created post, but it was generic standard post that they just took off the Internet.

Means that they took and created captions and they just posted it on my Twitter and my Instagram. And although my engagement went up initially because I was posting more, the type of engagement never went up because it wasn't my voice. It wasn't me. It wasn't until I started focusing solely on what my voice was going to be and stopped focusing on trying to go viral that I actually went viral, because at the time, going viral wasn't

even really a thing. We didn't know what that was until the videos started to get millions of views and then being shared. The good thing about recording videos prior to going viral was that once I did finally go viral, I had a catalog of videos similar to the ones that people found that that went similar to the one that people found that went viral. So when they found my profile, they now had a whole catalog of years of content that they could go over and share, and

then my pages continued to grow from there. So you can't. Um, there's no quick fix to hard work and dedication and consistency and living in your truth because people tend to share things that they can relate to. And it's also a thing where you need to consider the fact that you're going to find your audience and your true audience by putting out your true work right, So you can't will a certain audience to find or appreciate what you

post or relate to it. Um. Ultimately, you're going to have your niche of people that will support and follow you because that's what they're looking for. Usually people on social media are looking for something, right, what do we go to social social media for Are you going to social media to make purchases? Are you looking for the latest trend? Are you looking to laugh at something? Are you're looking for a pick me up? Like? There are different reasons why people engage on social media and to

what extent are you looking for the latest gossip? Like? There's so many different things, so your audience will naturally find you if you're continuing to put out organic work. Um, and I don't think you necessarily need to change anything, because then it will be hard to keep up with. It's like trying to keep on trend with something thing that can ever be changing. And you're right, Um, the algorithm tends to put people in front of the type

of people who are looking for that content. So, for example, I like to look for motivational wisdom quotes. So if you're a self helped life coach, Um, there's a good chance that if you constantly put out the same content and people are sharing it, you'll end up on someone else's page who's looking for the same thing without even trying, because the algorithm does that to keep people engaged to

the app. It's important for people to know that they they make money by us staying on the app and constantly scrolling so they will constantly put like minded people in front of you, so that you continuously continuously stay on the app the hope that helps us keep at it. Number two, Hi Caneen and devout much love to you and your family. Thank you so much. My fiance and I have been together for four and a half years. We are too madly in love millennials in our thirties

who still date and have fun. That's what's suck. However, our communication around business hasn't always been the best. We just up one year of a couple of therapy and November and we are now trying to communicate with each other on our own. My issue is that even though I asked him to help me plan our future, he is not proactive at life building together. He seems strictly focused on his side business and online movie blog, and his nine to five jobs was nine to five jobs.

How do I get my fiance to bring more than his share of bills to the table, bring more than his share of bills to the table? How do I get him to be the partner that talks business and it's proactive in planning our future with me? Side note I've already tried sharing my ideas asking him his long term goals, but they are met with either hesitation or brevity. I run an airbnb business and he runs an international online movie blog. Something is going over my head. Help

m hm. So the first thing I say is we as individuals have to learn to respect other people's processes. Right, Like we mentioned before, until we know the full context of the story, which we don't have because we only have her version, It's hard to get a full idea

of what's happening. Right because if you would have asked me what my ideas what business were, and how Codein was involved early on in our marriage, you would have heard me say, Codeine is nowhere near and nowhere near as involved or interested in the things that I'm interested in. But I had to learn through life that her process is different. I tend to think of an idea and go full steam ahead of it and try to figure things out on my way. Coadan is more of a Okay,

that's your idea. Let me take a couple of days to think. Then I'm gonna plan, write some notes, replan, and then figure out exactly how I'm gonna attack it. To me, it seemed like that's wasting time and procrastinating to her, that's how her process is. So sometimes in business, especially when you know you're new. I mean, you guys said they've been together five years. We were together thirteen years,

and I still ain't no ship about codeine. So figuring five years may seem like a lot you because you're existing in that five years. But you still have a long time to learn this person. But if you, guys continue to talk about your processes and how you few business strategy and life building, you'll learn what the processes and you'll learn to work together. And she says that he's strictly focused on his side business. Is this side business and his nine to five what he enjoys doing

right now? That might just be where he finds his happiness and where he's content working in that space. I mean, you talk about life building together and you know, um, what does that look like for him? You know, you guys just maybe on two different time frames of what life building looks like, he might feel like, well, in this season of where I Am, this is what I'm doing, I'm doing my nine and I enjoy doing this online

movie blog. You enjoy doing your Airbnb and whatever else you have going on, So you kind of might just have to let him work through his own process of this is where he is now, and maybe having the discussion about a year term goal, then having like a three year goal and then a five year girl like we do, UM that has worked for us in the past, where we kind of say and at least in the next five years we would like to accomplish X, Y Z,

and kind of like making a checklist. It's kind of like a mental vision board for us of what we foresee happening for us in the future. So I feel like you should just continue to have the conversation. Like anything else, um when it comes to relationships, just keep the conversations going and don't necessarily discredit or discourage what he has going on now because you may not see the value in it. Clearly he sees some value in it and it's be bringing him at least some sort

of joy and I'm hoping it's lucrative financially for you guys. Yeah, I think I think we all have to get used to ridding ourselves with this egocentric view of life, Like if someone is not trying to do life the way I'm doing it is wrong, and I think we all as individuals tend to do that until you find a life partner and you watch them go through life and you say, thing, this person is super successful doing something that I never would have done. I got a first

row seat of watching you do that. You got a first row seat of watching me do that. So I empower all of you couples to take time to continue to express to each other what your issues, maybe in real time, but also give each other grace to figure it out. Sounds good to me? All Right, y'all write us in email us flood flood flood that box because we want to hear more about what you have going on.

And it's not just listening letters. If there's a particular topic that you'll have in mind that we haven't spoke about yet, or something that we have covered and maybe you want to follow up, to be sure to email us at dead s Advice at gmail dot com. We want to hear from you. That is D E A D A S S A D V I C E at gmail dot dot com. Alright, moment of truth time. What are we talking about today? Black entrepreneurship for what it takes to start and run a successful business. I

feel like you devour. We're able to break down in the beginning of the show a lot of what um steps you took to start a prototype? Um. I spoke about my transition from working retail makeup to doing my own thing and having my own little makeup business. So what's your little that you want to leave these folks with today? Well, this is my moment of truth. It's gonna be the five key things you need to start a business. Actually, Trumple made a list, but I grew

with all five of these things on here right. Number one, choose your business idea. Make sure you choose a business idea that is in high demand. Make sure that it is a product or service that people need all the time. That's number one. Number two. Write a business plan. Okay, don't get offended when you're trying to ask people to help you with your business and they ask you to write a business plan. Put all of your ideas on paper. And a business plan typically has a barrier of entry,

the full business and an exit strategy. So when you're writing a full business plan, make sure you know everything it takes to get started in this business. Make sure you write out how long you plan the business. On last thing, what the return is going to be return on investment that's called r O Y. And also the exit strategy, how and when you plan on selling the business, because all businesses don't last forever. Number three register your business.

This is important. LLC S Corp see corp in the trust. Make sure you register your business legally so that you can pay taxes and also get tax breaks. The good thing about having a business is that you get tax breaks. I read a book called uh Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He said, rich dad makes money, spends money, pays taxes. Poor dad makes money, pays taxes, spends money, which means you end up paying more money in taxes when you spend it. Afterwards, you have to register your business so

this way you can protect yourself and your business. Number four get certified as a minority business owner if you are a minority. Also if you are a woman a woman, get registered as a minority woman business owner. There are tons of way for Number five to find funding for your business if you get certified as a minority or

a woman business owner. And it's important to find financing for your business because it costs money to make money, so If you think you're going to start a business from scratch and figure it out and it's not going to cost you anything, you are sadly mistaken because what will happen is, even if you do make money in the very beginning, you're going to utilize all of that money to put back into business to make more money.

So try to get financing for your business first. This way you don't automatically have to start in the red. So those are my moments of truth. Hope you can take away from those moments of truths that ain't no moments left it moments left for your girl. I guess what I was gonna say. The one thing I had to say, just kind of sum it all up, was

just do the work. Do the work. If this is something that means something to you and you want to have that wealth, which means time equating to autonomy over your time, to be able to move freely because you have a business that's running. Also, just knowing that it's not going to be a thing where you can clock out, because a lot of entrepreneurship has seven cycle of work. Just do the work, do the due diligence. If you have a craft that you are trying to um make

a business and you want to make it lucrative. Continue to work on that craft. Continue to be a student to that craft so that way you can make the

experience for those who do patron your business a rich experience. Okay, that is on that and be sure to follow us on social media dead as the Podcast and I'm Cadine, I am and I am Devout And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review, and subscribe and share to share this episode and all the episodes with your friends that they think you think can benefit

from them. You know, sharing is hearing. Dead As dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Noorapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the Podcast and never miss a Thing