Some Girl

DRAPER UNIVERSITY CHANGED MY LIFE

7/13/2017

Wow, it's been a few years since I completed Draper University and I can't believe it. My entire life has changed and for the better.

Before I attended Draper University, I had a pretty successful career as a commercial and music video director, but I just wasn't satisfied. I couldn't figure out how to use the influence that I had, working with major label artists, to help improve people's lives directly and that was something that I knew that I was extremely passionate about. Now the strange thing is, I always had projects that had motivating messages in them, but I wanted to impact change on a deeper level.

Through a series of extremely unforeseen events, I was sick and hospitalized. Not knowing if I would actually make it out to see another day, I decided to make some life changing decisions. After reflecting heavily, I went into some deep self-talk. I thought to myself, “If I were to die today, would I be happy with what I’ve accomplished?” The answer to that was a no. Although I had been successful in my professional career. There was a huge void in my personal life. I wanted to create an app, that allowed people to improve their personal intimate relationships. A friend recommended that I check out Draper University.

When I got to Draper, I was clueless about starting a business, but I had two things: passion and hustle. I was one of six working female music video directors at the time, so I knew that if I could break down those barriers within the film industry, I would be able to break into entrepreneurship.

When I first conceptualized the company that I wanted to build, it had everything to do with relationship advice. I was struggling in that department and I found that a lot of other people were too. I felt like there were a ton of apps, putting people together, but nothing keeping them together. While I started working on that idea, things took a bit of a turn.

A week before I arrived at DU, a very close friend of mine committed suicide. The devastation behind the event changed the direction of my narrative quite a bit and I started focusing on mental health. When all was said and done, I had a product going in different directions because I didn't want to give up the relationship component.

I went through the program as a complete beginner in entrepreneurship and learned so much during my journey. Fast forward to the end of the program. With a lot of diligence, I ended up getting an investment from Tim Draper, the founder of Draper University and that sent my head spinning. I think a lot of that had to do with my drive and passion because what you will understand is, in the beginning, an investor is hedging his bet on the entrepreneur, not the product.

There was stuff that I had to learn extremely fast. I had a pretty solid looking prototype that I wheeled out three days before pitch day, (thank goodness for my background as a creative), and I now had an outside investment in my company. I had to learn how to incorporate the company, get a trademark, and market to the customer base, which I knew existed. There was a bulk of influencers trying to address the problems that I was trying to solve on a very fragmented level and they had millions of followers looking for answers.

Tim lent me his lawyer to get all of the legal out the way and then it was time to get to work. Eventually, I settled on my platform being a preventative measure, a one stop shop where you can go to deal with all areas of personal growth: relationships, fitness, wellness, and finances, kind of like what Tony Robbins does, but for Millennials in a cool unique way. Sidenote: Tony Robbins is my idol and I had the pleasure of attending one of his seminars thanks to one of Draper's speakers, Gina Kloes.

I spent the next year working at Draper University as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence, which subsequently came with the opportunity to be on a reality show called, “Startup U” on ABC Family. In addition to that, I focused on building and testing my product.

At one point, I had a pretty solid platform called 7AM, which had close to 1,000 users in the first couple of months and was growing and generating revenue daily. After a bit of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that because of Draper, I now had the foundation for starting a company but, I still wanted a deeper understanding of actually running a company, so I decided to join another media tech company to find out the inner workings.

Well, that decision led to so much more than I could have imagined. I am now the Tech Editor for Black Enterprise. I fly all over the world and I get to share the stories of other executives, founders and investors in my community, which may not otherwise have been told. The ironic part about this is, the relationship with BE was fostered when Tim and I spoke on a panel at their first annual Tech ConneXt conference when I founded 7AM. Who knew I would be working for them two years later.

You never know where opportunities will lead you. It is my understanding that Fall Applications are out now. If you are interested, apply. Don’t have tunnel vision and don’t be afraid to take the leap. You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.

If you have specific questions, feel free to tweet me: @Sequoiab

Sequoia

EVENT: RECESS TOUR W/ LIL DICKY AND BJ THE CHICAGO KID

4/21/2016

Judges: Juan Suarez (Southwest Airlines), Tom Szaky (Terracycle) Blair Brandt (Next Step Realty), Me, Ty Danco (Techstars)

Earlier this week, I flew to Boston to judge the Recess Ideas + Music Festival. Recess is an interesting concept. It brings musicians and entrepreneurs together to pitch, followed by an incredible concert when all is said and done.

When I got to Boston, I was dropped into the middle of the Boston marathon... noooooo!! There were so many people, it was unbelievable. I got picked up from the airport an hour behind schedule and basically had two hours to get to my hotel, get dressed and arrive at the event... ON TIME - I hate being late and in this case, the show would have definitely gone on. At some point, it dawned on me that we were going nowhere fast so, I decided to start my makeup application in the car. 50 minutes later, I arrive at my hotel. After dodging traffic barriers and going in the opposite direction for 20 of those minutes, I now had an hour to spare.

My driver from one of those disruptive taxi services, which will remain nameless due to the details to follow, was supposed to drop me off and be on his way, as he had reached his final destination as per our pre determined booking. As I was getting out of the car, I pleaded with him not to leave. I'll pay you cash to wait, so he obliged. I ran into the hotel, checked in, got dressed in rapid speed, never have you seen such, and went back outside with a little doubt in my mind that he may have bounced because of his concern for legality and being paid under the table BUT, he was there when I arrived. Whhheeeww!!! Onward!

Or not. The traffic was barely moving. The House of Blues was literally 10 mins away. We were edging around 7:20 at this point, we left at 6:30ish, still with several blocks to go. I deeply contemplated walking, but I was also banking on Jesus taking the wheel and getting me there on time. I was suppose to be there between 7:00pm and 7:30pm. When I arrived it was 7:36, and the line was around the corner. Daaammmnnnnn!!!!

Now, I must be honest. I use to be totally in the loop when I was knee deep in directing music videos, but I had no idea who these two artists were but apparently the rest of Boston did. It was PACKED!!

Lil' Dicky during the show performance

BJ The Chicago Kid

I was met downstairs and whisked away by Emily, who works for Recess, being the last to arrive. They were minutes away from hitting the stage.

After catching the last of the debrief, we were introduced by the host and it was showtime!

Check out the live feed on Recess' Facebook page for pitches, performances and goodies from the show. Congrats to team Xperii from Boston College who took the win! This was not surprising considering they had a guy on their team who started his PHD at MIT when he was 16 years old. Like whhheerreee?

All fun times! S/O to Draper University for sending me out to be apart of this extravaganza.

BIZ TIPS: STANDING OUT FROM THE COMPETITION

4/04/2016

Ok, so I got this dress at H&M. They had a million of them. So, what makes me different than the next woman who buys it and puts it on? Well, for starters, I paired it with a BCBG confetti bag and some Versace shades. Now, I have a completely different look and feel.

The same thing happens with business. There is no original idea, it's how you "dress it up", that makes it original. What makes my company, 7AM different from Masterclass.com? We both deal with celebrities who teach courses, but, I have a different target customer than they do. They are after people who are interested in skill share, where as we are after people who are interested in improving their personal lives. It doesn't make either right or wrong, it just makes them different.

When starting a company, figure out how to differentiate yourself from the competition. If there are already five pillow companies who do custom embroidery, the world probably doesn't need another pillow company that sells custom embroidered pillows however, the world may want a pillow company that focuses on pillows that showcase 3D pop-up designs. What is your unique value proposition and competitive advantage?

So now that that's out of the way, how do you know customers ever want your new, edgy product to begin with? First, you want to create a hypothesis. Based on your hypothesis, you have made the assumption that they do. Next, you want to find your target customer - your community or tribe that resonates with your idea, and validate your product. Literally, build your concept around them. If they are excited about it, using it and paying for it, you have struck gold. This is called finding, Product-Market-Fit and don't fret, this usually takes a bit of time.

Recap: you will always find that there are competitors in the market. If you don't, BE AFRAID. BE VERY, VERY AFRAID. Normally that means, that for one reason or another, no one is interested in your product. Once you understand your competitive landscape, figure out what you are doing differently and run with it 120%.