Pinky Cole: Thriving with a Hustler Mentality

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That's your girl?

Pinky Cole, founder and CEO of the world famous Sledty Vegan Ato and you're now tuned into She Pivots.

Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with women who have dared to pivot out of one career and into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Today I'm sitting down with a legend who's just getting started, Pinky Coal, founder and CEO of Slutty Vegan. Slutty Vegan

Have you always gone by Pinky since the day that I came out of the womb? I'll tell you a story about that. So my godmother, her name is Yvonne. My father he got sentenced to thirty five years in prison on the day that I was born. So she was in the hospital with my mother and I was super super pink, right, don't X But I was pink, very pink. So she says she is pink. We're gonna call her Pinky. My mother laughed at her, but do

Just the letter you know you've never heard that. Really.

Reason why I did that is because growing up I knew that I was extra special. Because people were so interested in wondering why the hell my name was pinky? Right, So because of that, they were so intrigued by it, and they wanted to get to know me because her name is not normal, like, her name is not similar to what we typically hear on a day to day basis. So growing up, all through my life, I was always

What did you think you were going to be when you grew up?

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to watch Golden Girls, Okay every single day, days of our lives and as the world turns, So I was not watching cartoons. I didn't grow up watching cartoons. So I always had a mature state of mind. So when I was a kid, when everybody was playing with dolls and I wasn't, I said, I'm going to be a star. I'm going to be a billionaire. I used to say it every single day and people would laugh at me, like pinky crazy. But

Like how?

And I realized that I wanted to be more than regular. I saw extraordinary people doing regular things, and one of those biggest examples was my mother. My mother is my favorite person in the world. I love her to death, and she's so talented. But I saw her work at the same company for the last what thirty six years now, and while it's a great company that she works for, I realized that she worked so hard all of her life for someone else. So in my mind, I said, Okay,

So when you asked me.

What did I think I was going to be, I didn't know it was gonna be flipping burgers and shaking fries. However, I knew that I had something to offer the world, and it just took for me to unlock that potential.

And that was slutty begin.

What were those steps did you feel like along the way to unlock the potential? Like, I feel like if you had it in you that you were going to be successful, and you had it in you, it sounds like that you were going to be entrepreneurial to some degree, there must have been some fits and starts.

I always felt like the underdog.

I always felt like the girl in a room that had to overly prove myself. But that was the best thing that could have happened to me, because always having to prove yourself means that you never get comfortable. So throughout the years, I'm always proving myself. But in proving myself, it made me always be on my toes. And because I was always on my toes, it made me realize that, like, okay, I gotta get it, like I got to figure out

And by the way, I feel like their whole model is to take college graduates who are stars.

That's exactly we put it in a classroom.

Who don't necessarily want to be teachers, but then get them the experience and they.

Go on to do incredible things, exactly, and they only want the best. I was the queen of my school, so like how they have homecoming Queen. So I was Miss clark Land University shout out to CiU and that is like Miss America at an HBCU.

Right.

So I was a queen of the school and I'm like, Okay, I don't want to be a teacher. But I was one of the most popular girls on campus, but I could not find a job. So I took the job. My mother was like, just take it. It was in the heart of a recession. They were paying me forty five thousand dollars a year, and I'm like, okay.

Cool, this is a lot of money at the time.

So I went to Houston after graduating, and in five days of being there, I'm like, I.

Can't do this.

And my friend gave me forty dollars and I went to the airport with my dog, Rudy, and while I was at the airport, there was this guy from Southwest. She gave me two hundred and forty dollars to get home. I was dead broke. I didn't have any money. So that's what I did after college.

Not sure if her next move, but knowing it wasn't home or to Texas, she packed her bags and flew to LA without a plan.

Two hundred and fifty dollars, a Duffel bag and a suitcase and thirty resumes that my mom printed out at her job. And I went to LA and in six days I got two jobs, one working for the Census, one working at DSW.

But I had no plan. I just had confidence.

Broke in a new city and without a job, Pinky hustled and applied to Central Michigan University just to get a refund to make ends meet. It was then an old sorority sister gave her an opportunity to work as a production assistant for six hundred and fifty dollars a week.

So I took the job as a production assistant, and at about two to three months I moved up and I became a producer.

I was really good at it.

And I was in LA and got a call from New York saying that they wanted me to come to New York to work on a TV show. And that's how I ended up in New York started working on a show.

That show was none other than The Maury Show from New York.

I opened up my first restaurant called Pinkies Jamaican, an American restaurant.

I mean, opening a restaurant is a big deal. Were you doing it as your side hustle while being a producer?

The restaurant was the side hustle.

How did you know how to open? I would not begin to know how to open a restaurant if it was my full time job today.

So I went to the school called Google.

Okay, Google and YouTube really hopped me out a lot, which I think a lot of people underestimate those resources. And I had my four to one K saved up, and as a twenty six year old woman, a black woman who did not learn about financial literacy, like you know what I'm saying, I'm doing great. I got a seven hundred almost eight hundred credit score, I got a four to one K.

I'm doing a thing.

And then I opened up my restaurant based on what I learned online.

I didn't know what I was doing then. I still don't know what I'm doing now.

Pinky dove headfirst into the restaurant. Although the school of Google took her far, it was really her family and roots and cooking that carried her through.

I know how to cook it because growing up in a Jamaican household, my grandmother would cook some of that food. My mother is a Rastafarian, so my mother's been a vegetarian all of my life. I've never seen her eat meat. She's never wore makeup, never seen it with air rings, she never shaved. She's just a very natural woman. So I ate when my mother ate, and my grandmother would sneak in and try to give us chicken here and there.

My mother would get mad sometimes, you know.

But I was ninety percent vegetarian growing up, and then in two thousand and seven, I went fully vegetarian. I decided to eliminate all meat and I was only eating fish, and then almost nine years ago, I went completely vegan.

Okay, so you're a producer now on Maury and you have your restaurant.

Is the restaurant successful, well, I was grossing like thirty three thousand dollars a month. I was also making at the time eighty five thousand dollars a year as a producer at the time, which again at that time was a lot of money.

So it wasn't enough of me to leave.

But I eventually left because I couldn't juggle the three because I ended up opening a juice bar right down the street, and I sold juice out the juice bar. So I had the juice bar, the restaurant, and I was a producer. I'm like, I'm an octopus. I have to figure out how to make this make sense. At this time, I was no longer working at the moriy Show because I'm like, okay, bye, I'm going to run my business. You know what I'm saying, Like, I'm going to grow my brain. I believe in my vision.

What happened next was not in Pinky's grand plan to become a billionaire, and in fact forced her to pivot.

I had a grease fire, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I closed up the restund I was about eleven o'clock. I went home and I got a call from I think it was a fire department of police department, but I think it was fire department. And they called me and they told me that the restaurant was on fire, that I need to come down. So I lived about ten blocks from the restaurant. When I came, they had just gotten all the It was very smoky. They just like put the fire out. Windows was busted,

Of my apartment. So there was like a domino effect of all of these things.

But it's such a beautiful feeling to talk about it now, because that was really just God taking those things away from me. I needed that to happen so that I can shift and adjust and do something new. And sometimes we go through difficulties in our personal and professional lives so that we could see a different light. Right, Like the light that I was looking at was dim. The light that I was supposed to be looking at was

How quickly was that mental transition for you to go? I mean, I have to imagine that was a real low point. It was a very low point for me. I was a pageant girl. I'm a sorority girl.

So like anything that I've ever done has turned to go growing up, like I was just always the girl, like that vibrant energy personality. So this was the first time in my life that I've experienced tribulation.

Where it was just like, Okay, this is a moment.

You can either change the course of the circumstance or you can sit and dwell in it and like become a victim of that circumstance.

And I wasn't willing to be a victim.

I almost they almost got me, but I wasn't willing to stay a victim of that circumstance, so to lose the thing that you live in and breathe in every single day, and you've created a pattern for yourself and then you lose it and then you go broke.

At the same time, it was very difficult, but.

Then she had the stroke of luck. She needed a job in La back on Oprah's network own as a casting director for the show Eanla fixed my life.

When they offered me the job, it was a no brainer. I said yes, I moved to La as a casting director.

Did you feel like you had failed because you had tried the restaurant and then couldn't revive it?

I feel like I failed.

But what revived my feeling of failure and not feeling like a failure is when I got the opportunity to work on the show. And the best thing about working on the show that I was working on is it was a show about therapy right and helping people like

It was just a win win for me.

So I didn't even have enough time to really think, because once I started working, I was helping people unlock their trauma while healing mine.

Were you thinking that you would get back into restaurants? That this was just no? No, you was done.

I was done because I realized in that moment when I lost the restaurant, a lot of people that I thought would be there for me were not. And I also realized that some people just don't have the capacity to be there for you like you need to.

And that's okay, it's life.

While on hiatus, brian La fixed my life. She did what she did best. She hustled. I'm not prideful.

So I started doing door Dash and like grub hub, right, so I was delivering food for mind you, I was making money. So I was delivering for door Dash and one day I found.

This facility that was a shared kitchen.

And it had like six different restaurants but it was just delivery only.

So I'm like, damn, that's a really cool idea.

So registered that and then the job was like okay, Pinky, we need you to go to Atlanta to be on the ground with the shelf in just about three months.

That's it.

I picked up all of my bags and I put it in a storage right And that was four years ago in July. And then I moved temporarily to Atlanta. And when I moved to Atlanta, that's when I came up with Slutty Vegan.

And the rest is history.

From Sludy Vegan, what started as a food truck is now a multi million dollar brand with billion dollar dreams in our business.

Reformerlitionize the cuisine of Veganism down South.

Welcome.

I love the name of your restaurant, Floody Vegans, Slutty Vegan.

Her name is Pinky Cold, Pinky s Imagination.

Thank you so much.

Hello.

If you have not gotten Slutterfied, come on down. We are here at Sellaberria is trying to.

Get you slutterfied.

We promise you it's working your way. But let me tell you something spiritual that happened to me. So about four weeks before I came up with Sluddy Vegan, I said, I'm gonna start running every day, five miles a day. I'm gonna read a book to day don't ask me why, crazy right, And I can't even believe I did.

It, but I did it, and I lost a lot of weight.

I was reading all types of books like I just got super smart, real fast.

I don't know what I was preparing for.

That's what I know.

Like, I realize now the moment that you tap into your purpose, something really really big happens, whether it's really good or whether it's really bad. Something happens before you unlock that key to your purpose. And what happened for me is I started running. It was like I was training for the Olympics. Floody Vegan is the Olympics that I've been training for, and I opened Fludy Vegan in the share kitchen.

So it's just digital first.

But I was basically mimicking what I saw when I was working door Dash and full circle moment again. Now I'm the chief restaurant advisor for DoorDash.

Between door Dash and her clever use of social media, Slutty Vegan began to gather a dedicated following.

It got so crazy people started ordering their food on Instagram. They would DM me their order and pick up their food. So I realized that I'm like Okay, I got something here. So the first week was like four, the second week was like fifty, and then after that it was like they were coming in by the hundreds the facility and shout out to PREP like PREP is in Atlanta. But they told me like, ah, you gotta go, like you

At this point, it was just Pinky, four employees and three volunteers just trying to keep up with demand.

But then I got the food truck and built this food truck culture and really made a thing of food trucks.

I just want to brag about my business a little bit.

In the last four years, I have been able to open up seven locations. I have four food trucks. I opened up a sister concept called bar Vegan in Atlanta, and we were voted one of the top bar restaurants in the city. I did a partnership with se Madten and we sold out in forty eight hours.

Signed a deal with Simon and Schuster.

I have a cookbook, I graced the cover of Essence magazine, Quick Service Restaurant Magazine, a whole bunch of to trade publications like I have been consistently in the media for the last four years. I've been fortunate enough to grow a business that's irresistible.

People want to be a part.

Of my brand.

They want to wear the merch, they want to say that they are affiliated with the brand. They're willing to stand in line for our Do you know these people were standing in line for at least four hours at my grand opening. Let's flood the internet and show people with black excellence looks like. Let's show people what a looks like when you can come from home beginnings and create opportunities for other people.

Let's show people that this will be a.

Billion dollar brand but the help of the people came in and support it.

On a counter of three, we don't want to.

Cut this rope, and we want to open the doors to the world famous Brooklyn Vocational.

One flooding.

Money.

So I'm sitting back and I'm like, damn, one day, my children and their children and your children are going to be reading about the story of Slutty Vegan. How this organization was able to build an ecosystem by helping people reimagine food and provide them safe spaces to build generational wealth for themselves.

This is going to be a book.

You're going to learn about American history, then you're going to learn about Sludy Vegan history. So what we're building is historic, is monumental, and people want to be a part of that history.

So how did you think about your business growth? Like, at what point did you become profitable and then feel comfortable or were you profitable before you expanded with brick and mortar.

I'll be honest, for the first two years, I didn't know nothing about business. I'm telling the truth. I just had a business that was making a lot of money, and I had a good accountant and a good attorney. Like I just had really good people that were really really smart, smarter than me.

And then I had to learn about business in a new way.

I knew basic business, but like now you're having conversations about equity and safe notes and like making sure like returns and like all the things that truth sophisticated business people know.

I didn't know at first, so I had to learn.

It along the way. So yes, I was profitable in the very beginning.

Remarkably, Pinky's success was not hindered by the pandemic. Over the past four years, she has expanded her business to multiple businesses, using the pandemic as momentum.

Well, I'm working on Slutty Vegan documentary right now and it's called Slutified, and it's about the meteorocre rise of Slutty Vegan in the midst of a pandemic. Like you said, we've grown tremendously in the pandemic. I've opened several locations. So while the world was falling apart on this side, Slutty Vegan was putting the pieces back together on this side, and we were opening locations. And it's unfortunate because there were many businesses that can't say the same thing. So

Know what I mean. So it's just a beautiful feeling. How have you been handling that? Mentally? The massive growth, the influx of you know, becoming the entrepreneur on the business side, having to learn how to raise money, create equity, all of that, and at the same time, while having the two fastest children in family growth I've ever seen, Like I thought my kids were close together.

Believe I've been in the kitchen twice.

But it has not been easy. I gotta be honest.

But I'm a warrior, right and if you know anything about being a warrior, like you are relentless and you don't stop. So I had to start treating my household like a business. So while business is good on this side, and it's growing, and I'm building a team and I'm hiring people that are smarter than me, and I have a great wingman, my president.

His name is Jason.

So on the family side, what I realized is is I had to treat my household like a business because if I didn't, I was going to lose my mind. And you're a mother, so you're a mother with kids that are close in age. So now I have help. I have hired help because there's no way that I can build this billion dollar brand without people supporting me and being a village to my children, people that I trust especially, and I make sure that I make time

So today I run my business from the outside.

Now I have hired people that are just as smart as me, if not smarter than me, to help me grow my company. But it is not easy. I work around the clock. But what is easy is the fact that it's my dream. So this does not feel like work because.

I really love what I do.

I really love the fact that people love something that I created. Little old me, a girl from around the way from East Baltimore, who has Jamaican parents, a father who did twenty two years in prison, and a mother who has always worked all my life and lived the middle class life like the world loves something that I came up with in my brain. So that's what keeps me going as a hard get It's hall right, but it's worth it.

I feel like you're articulating what a lot of I think women, and particularly women entrepreneurs, are trying to figure out which is your best and highest use and making sure that you're preserving your time, your energy, your bandwidth, your passion for your best and highest use.

For me, what I'm doing is not about money. It has never been about money. Because I start my company to make money, money will come to me. What I realize is the two most important things for me is time and energy. I value my time and anytime I make use of my time, it has to be intentional. I only do things that make my energy feel good. So time and energy are very very important to me because if I manage my time properly, then my energy is good. If I give my time to the wrong energy,

No, I'm not doing that.

This is my table. You want to sit with me, Let's go listen. We all have choices in life, right, So why would I choose to surround myself with a toxic negative energy? So if they're an don't feel right, then it bothers me and I can't sit with it and it messes up my whole day and I'm not focused. I got to be around people that are going to charge my battery, that are going to keep me all green. If you sucking me dry and I see the little

I want to talk about your financial and philanthropic model that you've grown with the business.

I saw an unofficial foundation business way before Slutty began, And how I got there is my mother. A Jamaican woman is a type of the woman who will help anybody right. She will take the clothes off her back to help somebody else. So growing up, I used to be upset because my mother helped everybody, and as a kid, I didn't understand it. But as adult, I realized that I literally became my mother. So it brings me joy to help people because I just my heart can't take

What do you stand for?

What do you believe?

In those are the businesses that people want to support, but I wanted to specifically give opportunity to other people to make money, to learn about financial literacy, and to provide a safe space to build community.

Can you describe some of the initiatives that you've done. I love them so much. The way that you think about financial literacy and building generational wealth alongside with building your business is really unlike anything I've ever seen, So tell us more about the initiatives.

Thank you.

So. We paid the rents to college students so that they can graduate.

Thirty college students.

I've partner with Steve Harvey and the Margie Harvey Foundation to provide lights for families. Every black man in Atlanta that makes thirty thousand dollars less has access to a program that myself and my fiance created through the foundation with Prudential to provide life insurance for them that we pay for that they don't have to pay for. I partner with the Department of Juvenile Justice to provide opportunities to second chances to work as slutty vegan. I've donated

And flows of businesses. This is the place where you vent.

This is the place where you can cry and learn about business and get resources and hear from a person that has scaled and grown a business. But we've done a lot through the foundation, and this is only the beginning.

You also had the opening the ll seeds.

Yes, I became the commencement speaker for Clark Atlanta University as the youngest commencement speaker, which was a big deal. Right when I did this speech, there were eight hundred and twenty four students I believe who graduated, and I partner with Varrobank to provide all of those graduates with ll seeds. So what that meant is, if you were graduating from Clark Atlanding Universe, you have access to a

It felt so good to be able to provide these cs.

And I'm praying that out of the at least seven sixty or however much it was, they'll be at least one hundred people that build billion dollar companies and they can come back compare it forward.

So where do you want to take it? Both on the philanthropic side and on the business side.

There are no limits. You know.

People used to tell me when I was growing up, the sky is the limit, Pinky, the sky is not the limit. There's so much above what the sky can offer. When I think about my success and where I want to go in my career. Metaphorically speaking, the oven is on broil starts from zero to burial twenty two fifty to three point fifty to now we're moving past four fifty and we're going into burial.

So that means that.

The oven is hot, we are cooking, and we're going to continue to cook until the food is ready.

Floody Vegan is not a restaurant.

We just so happen to have restaurants and places where people can go. In fellowship, we are building a movement, and that movement consists of movies, scripted series, restaurants, obviously, partnerships, collaborations. On the philanthropic side, providing scholarships and opportunities and resources. There is so much potential to grow this business beyond what any I could imagine. I'm just going burial all the way and I'm cooking till it's chrispy.

Pinky, thank you so much for joining us. It has been so incredible to learn from you today. Thank you, Thank you. From producer to restaurant owner to franchise owner and philanthropist, Pinky has turned every opportunity to pivot into a success. Slutty Vegan is rapidly growing and might soon be in a city near you. She just opened up her Brooklyn location in the fall of twenty twenty two, and plans to open ten more locations by the end

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