Raising $3M Seed Capital as a WOC Founder (and She’s Just Getting Started!)

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Full Transcript:

Note: This is an original transcript–edited for sense, length, and clarity.  If you have any questions or concerns, please email our host, Doria Lavagnino, at doria@sheventurespodcast.com.

Intro:

Doria Lavagnino: She graduated as an attorney from American University in Washington, D.C., as a privacy lawyer, before joining the 0.03 percent of women of color tech founders who raised venture capital. Today she is co-founder and CEO of Goodfynd, which started from an organic quest to find food trucks before and during the pandemic. Here to tell us about her journey is Sofiat Abdulrazzaq. Welcome to SheVentures!

Sofiat Abdulrazaaq: Thank you so much, I’m excited to be here!

Doria: Thank you for your patience, and for going over your name — which I must say is the most challenging one I have ever come across.

Sofiat: I’m Nigerian, but my first and last names are Arabic, so it happens all the time.

From Legal Student to Entrepreneur

Doria: Let’s start with your work pivot. You obtained your JD. Did you sit for the bar and work as a lawyer before you started your entrepreneurship journey?

Sofiat: I graduated from [American University’s] Washington College of Law. I went to school part-time and worked a full-time job. I was really deep into product space management but wanted to explore law, so I explored privacy law from a technical perspective. 

So I worked at tech companies and looked at those types of privacy implications for products and found that my love was in building products, not assessing products or for privacy concerns, and pivoting into entrepreneurship. So I did spend a brief stint sort of as an intern.

Doria: Like an internship, while you were in law school?

Sofiat: I did summer internships, yes. Then I took on privacy roles at tech companies, which turned into being a product manager. I managed products from a director level so I had staff. Then that led me to entrepreneurship.

I just didn’t like practicing or using my legal skills as much as I did building products that impacted people. I pivoted very early. Within a year.

Doria: That is lucky in many ways, I think. I’m a law school dropout myself. Within five weeks, I realized that it was not my scene. At the same time, I do think law school teaches you how to think a certain way that is useful in the business world.

Sofiat: I don’t think I’d be as great a product manager without my legal career, because I was always thinking about the legal implications to the end user, which made me great at that job. It’s made me an even better CEO — especially in patents because privacy and security are so important. 

I think my legal background and way of thinking sometimes don’t make my staff happy because it sort of slows them down. I point out that there are laws that can be broken if we do one thing versus another. It has definitely made me better at my job in that aspect, and I don’t regret my time there at all. I just think that practicing law can be quite boring.

Doria: I agree with you 100 percent on that, and I’m sorry for any lawyers listening. 

It was 2019 when you and your co-founders were working on a concept that would become Goodfynd. Can you walk us through how that came to be?

Sofiat: Absolutely! My co-founder, Kyle [Miller], was changing careers to UX design, and we would eat at a lot of food trucks. My co-founders and I are all first-generation Americans; Kyle and I are Nigerian, and Lemaire [Stewart] is Jamaican. We eat a lot of very authentic cuisine in our household. We are people of color so we also eat soul food and things like that as part of our African American traditions as well.

We eat at food trucks, and the founders of food trucks are largely diverse individuals because the barrier to entry for owning a restaurant is heavy. We found the experience to be very frustrating. I am a millennial and very impatient, so waiting in line isn’t a thing that I enjoy. I don’t like the small menus or walking up, and something you want to order is no longer available.

I hated it. From start to finish, I thought “If this has to be the experience, then I am not going to be a repeat customer.” I wanted to be a repeat customer, though, because I was eating some of the most amazing food. Kyle had the idea that we could make it easier for the consumer. 

It would be easier to always know where the trucks were parked instead of relying on social media — that may or may not be updated. [Also,] if we could always see what they were offering, what they were out of, and if we could skip the lines all together.

We were new workers who didn’t have a lot of time to spend in line on our lunch breaks, and I wanted to be able to enjoy the meal. We set out to solve the consumer problem and, as we dove deeper, we realized that these entrepreneurs were having complex operations. Their businesses were just as complex as a restaurant or brick-and-mortar retailer, but they had fewer resources and were operating in smaller units. We felt like what we needed to solve is their back operations, so they can be seamless on the front end. That’s how Goodfynd became a business in a box for mobile businesses so that they could handle all of their complex operations really simply. [Then,] their customers and people that make them successful could have the best experience every single time. 

Doria: That’s an incredible story. When I went to download Goodfynd, I noticed there were two apps. Is there one for the consumer and one for the restaurant owners?

Sofiat: We pride ourselves in being mobile-first and hardware-light. For many reasons, we want to give our owners/operators the hardware tools to run an efficient business. We also are very cognizant of their space and their mobility, so we built that [space] for that mobility, specifically. 

We do it in a lot of different ways but our mobile app is one of the essential ways. One app is for them to run their business and that allows them to sell in person. Then, there’s a consumer app. We [wanted] to facilitate, again, that great customer experience by having a front-facing output for the consumer, as well — to make it easier for them to discover and engage with owners and operators. 

Doria: It makes so much sense. I have two GenZ daughters and one of them, for Christmas, asked for a subscription to either Postmates or UberEats, because she is constantly eating out.

Now, do you service all 50 states or how is that working right now?

Sofiat: Our largest market is in D.C., where we started. Our second largest market is in Atlanta. We have grown to 15, now, which we’re really excited about. [We] plan to be nationwide by the end of the year. 

We focus on our B2B consumers and being [an] amazing solution — giving them the technology they need at an affordable price. [We don’t want to build] something too heavy, with a lot of incumbents [and the customer] just [does] too much. We work at striking that balance for them. As we grow in density and other states, we’ll then apply that to the consumer piece. If you’re a consumer in the D.C. or Atlanta area, you can discover amazing options near you. In our other states, it doesn’t have the discovery; it isn’t as robust as it is in our larger markets where we have a lot of density. We’re building density in those markets and, again, should be nationwide by the end of the year. 

Doria: Come to New York City!

Sofiat: We’re getting there!

Doria: There are so many food tracks in Brooklyn, too. I think this would be so great for Brooklyn, because half the time you see them on one street one day, and then the next day, you have no idea where they are. 

A First Investment for Goodfynd

Doria: In 2019, I believe you received your initial $25,000 investment from Lighthouse Labs.

Sofiat: Yes, you research extremely well! That is correct.

Doria: What did that first $25,000 help you do? Where were you at in your journey, at that point?

Sofiat: Yeah, so we were bootstrapping, never sleeping — although we still don’t sleep much now. I had a full-time job at the college board, Kyle had a full-time job, and Lemaire had a full-time job that he ended up quitting once we got Lighthouse Labs’ funding. We were dropping, not sleeping, and spending a lot of time hands-on with food trucks. 

I have made many meals for my owners and operators — that have been able to use the technology in real life, — just because I wanted to truly make sure that I was meeting their needs. 

We were doing that lots of nights, lots of weekends. It was hard. Lighthouse Labs did two things: 1) It allowed us to have Lemaire be full-time. He had paid off all his debts. He’s just a savvy engine. The $25,000 was enough to have him go full-time. 

[2)] It also gave us a network. To entrepreneurs, that means a network of investors... I didn’t know other founders. I didn’t know investors. I didn’t know what metrics to track. I was very naive. Knowing that I could build a great product – but not knowing how to execute that [was big]. Entrepreneurship is very much an ecosystem. 

I’m forever grateful [for Lighthouse Labs] and [that] they did so without taking any equity.

Doria: That’s incredible. I heard you say that on another podcast. I’m like “Who does that? That’s so amazing!”

Sofiat: Yeah, so I’m a huge advocate of Lighthouse Labs. What people don’t understand about Techstars and others is that the initial investment is $25,000, but they take equity for that. Now, their networks are insane, right? If you can do it, why not? It’s a no-brainer. 

What I found valuable with Lighthouse Labs [was] that we got that same amount of money and a really robust network. That enabled us to understand what entrepreneurship needed to look like for being venture-backed. That put us on a path. Without Lighthouse Labs, I think we would have bootstrapped much longer. I’m not sure we would have attracted the metrics that were necessary to eventually become venture-backed.

Sofiat’s Take on Business Models

Doria:  I’ve seen this happen often, where new entrepreneurs are very B2C focused because they’re thinking about how the problem affects them, but the scalable market is really B2B. Is that anything that you had when you were at Lighthouse Labs or when you were seeking venture capital or did you always know that?

Sofiat: It was before. We didn’t always know it, but we did go out and try to solve the problem for ourselves.… If you can do it outright, it will have the biggest payoff, I believe.

You look at DoorDash and Uber Eats. They charge an insane amount. A lot of what they charge is detrimental to the entrepreneurs that they serve. They’re giving them audiences that they just would not have been able to reach, otherwise. 

We just spoke about GenZs and millennials, who are lazy. They’re not impatient; it’s the convenience, the proximity. The “we want it now and we want to enjoy our lives in the meantime. We don’t want to stop our lives to get something we need.” This will continue – and the consumers drive that ethos. There’s a lot of power if you can correct the problem to see the people. “We’re fickle, so we like DoorDash today, but we like Uber Eats tomorrow.” Then, “we find out that they have inventory pricing and say we don’t want to do third parties, only.”

Doria: “We’re going to cancel them.”

Sofiat: Now, cancel culture — all of these things. It’s not scalable if you don’t strike the perfect balance. . I believe if you really end up becoming a B2B company and you’re doing well enough, you can, then, give exceptional B2C experiences and allow the B2C to catch up. 

We realized early on that it wasn’t going to be cost-effective for us to just get this app in the hands of every consumer who loves food trucks — there are millions of us all over the world. It would be so expensive to do that, right? What we needed to do is to make sure that the business is supported. 

That’s another thing I think that we realized when we were solving for ourselves — what it really was, was that we wanted to support the repeat customers. There was no easy way to do that. Deep down, it wasn’t a consumer need. It was a need to help them more and to be more efficient, so that they could be better for us, right?

Doria: Yeah, totally makes sense. I was wondering that, when I was thinking of your business model. Because you’ll have so many food trucks that need different types of foods, different services, [and] because you’ll represent them kind of in-bulk that there will be better pricing for them in the long run. Is that part of the business idea?

Sofiat: That’s a huge part of the business idea. One of the things that I love about vertical integration technology is this switch of the act. 

Having our focus on mobile vendors, of all types, is that they’re the loudest voice; there’s no shortage of great technology. I think a lot of times, people are always looking at, “Well, how do you beat out this person versus that person versus that person?” I beat them out by not being obsessed with what they do. There’s great technology out there, already, but my vertical is not the loudest voice. What does that mean? These companies will continue to build features and products that are way up, above and beyond, what their needs are — while continuing to price up and package. That means [that] if I want this little small thing, I have to buy the $100 package. It doesn’t make sense to me, because I just need this one thing — I don’t need this full set of services for this larger organization. 

Vertical integration is allowing people to do it in payments. Another aspect I really love is one segment being the voice. We build everything that they say they need and nothing else. That’s powerful because when they say they need something, I can spend it out in a week or two. Whereas, a bigger company might not be on that roadmap for seven or eight months, because they need a larger amount of their ecosystem to want something for it to make sense for them from a profitability standpoint. 

Doria: You’re so much more nimble, yes.

Sofiat: To your point, that also allows me to reflect [on] that price point because I’m not building an overweight technology. I’m building something that’s just right; it’s not too light, it’s not too heavy, it’s just right — like a Goldilocks situation. That’s what our company does. We’re able to give them the best prices now. We hope that as we continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger, we can continue to keep those prices low. In our goal, I even lower that so they can continue to keep more and more. Our vendors right now make 250 percent more on average than they do on income platforms — which is powerful for us. We’re hoping to get it to 400 or 500 percent. That’s our goal by 2024. We look to do that by, again, continuing to build thoughtful technology that alleviates their pain points of having to buy heavier-weight incumbent products. Thus, allowing them to keep more of their margin. That will help them be more successful to scale if they want a quick service business [or] a restaurant. I don’t care what their goals are; my only goal is to make mobile vendors millionaires and to make this a valuable path for anybody who is seeking to have entrepreneurship. The best jobs — as you know by having a successful podcast — [are the ones with] the ability to do what you love and to control your own destiny. You just can’t do that without the proper tools. It’s about the impact.

Sofiat’s Next Moves with Goodfynd

Doria: One of the things that you say is, I can’t remember exactly how you phrased it, but it led me to believe that you are going to expand past just food trucks to [other] kinds of businesses that are mobile.

Sofiat: Yeah, it’s so interesting because our thought process, in the beginning, was that food owners and operators have these complex businesses that needed to be managed on the back end. Seamlessly and simply, we were right about that. Then, we started urging them and that got other mobile vendors reaching out to us, saying “We also have this mobile-first business that is also participating in overweight technology and we think yours would be better.” Now, we’re thinking about our product more holistically in that mobile owners and operators have different ways that they do business. [It’s] very similar to food owners and operators. Now, there are differences and there are compliances. Right now, we’re focused on our core audience being food trucks. We will continue to want to get that right, 100 percent. 

We notice these similarities that our product already works for and with a few secret sauce tweaks, we can service them well on the same platform. It will expand out to the mobile business in general because that’s just the mobile nature of owning something. It provides complexities that you just don’t have to break. To be honest, you have to build a mobile-first technology; you can’t add it. I think people think a lot about it. That needs to be your customer, that needs to be the person that you’re thinking about, and you need to think about it clearly and simply. You can’t just re-package and put a marketing stamp on something that is built for institutional brick-and-mortar. You have the budget to market right. 

Doria: I was going to say, I think consumers, too, are getting increasingly savvy about marketing and that sort of thing. If you’re authentic in your messaging, I think that’s the best way to go.

Sofiat: 100 percent. It’s like everybody should do what they do well. If you build for brick-and-mortar, then continue to do that and build thoughtful technology for them; keep a bit sticky and reduce churn. If you’re building for mobile, then do that right. 

We’re just focused on doing it well and looking at how they move, how they conduct business, and bringing them value in every aspect. I’m really, truly wrapping the technology around their needs. I think that has to be the company’s ethos from the start — to do it right — and that’s what we’re doing. 

Being an “Impact First Executive”

Doria: That is fantastic. You appeared in August in Ebony. You describe yourself as an “impact first executive.” You’ve also alluded to the fact that a lot of food truck owners are immigrants, first-generation like yourself. What do you mean exactly when you say “I am an ‘impact first executive.’” What does that look like for you?

Sofiat: Yeah, honestly — and my board members won’t get mad at me when I say this— but I think I think first about how my technology is going to impact my user positively. How is it going to increase their visibility? How is it going to increase its profitability? How is it going to move the needle for them to help them grow in scale?

I don’t feel like S&B markets, which are majorly Black, brown immigrants, and women, get the type of love and support that they need. These businesses fail at a lesser rate. It’s insane, though, because the return on investment is so high. —Like, why wouldn’t you invest in these businesses? They need the right technology and the right support because they’re outperforming. Women businesses, minority businesses — we outperform every single time, but we’re not getting that investment.

When I built this platform, it was about the impact. I’m looking at people that look like me and remind me of my father, aunts, my uncles. My father was an entrepreneur; he owned several businesses throughout my life. Looking at that, a lot failed because he didn’t have the right technology. He didn’t have the right services; things were too expensive and they were too overweight. He couldn’t ever find the right solution at the right time. I’m focused on that impact. 

When I say my dream is for every person that joins Goodfynd as a platform, that they go from being a company that can make six to seven,  I’m focused on that. That’s what I care about. I’m building technology in that way, now. Will that mean that those returns will come back to the company so I don’t have to sacrifice it? Absolutely. Investing in me is not just about the impact. What it is is the record.

Doria: I’m happy that statement made your board and you got that in there. 

Sofiat: When I build, I’m building for impact. I’m building things that I know will be sticky for my user. I’m not building landgrabs or grabbing whatever is hot or flashy. I’m doing what the data tells me is right — not what somebody says is right because they saw it in another company. I’m like, “Okay, I can do that. I can implement it.” I’m impacted first. I just care about my users, and I’m going to continue to care about them as long as Goodfynd exists. That’s what we’re here to do, without sacrificing returns.  

Making Room for Women and People of Color

Doria: I think that that’s amazing. It wouldn’t be SheVentures if I didn’t talk a little bit about venture capital and women of color. As you know, the statistics for women of color are paltry. It’s just awful. It’s 0.035 percent of venture cap [that goes] to women of color tech founders. For women overall, it’s not much better: 2.3 percent. 

What has your experience been as a woman of color raising capital?

Sofiat: It’s been hard, to say the least. It’s disheartening, and I think that’s the softest way I can say it. It’s been hard and it’s been disheartening. At the same time, I’ve always been a person in a career of people that don’t look like me — whether it’s been a lawyer or a product manager. When I started my career in banking, I [was] always the only Black woman in the room, sometimes the only woman in the room, sometimes the only person of color; I was one of one of one. It’s always been that way. 

My father said [something] to me when I was younger, that “there are no excuses in this life. You are who you are.” I didn’t choose to be a Black woman, being a Black woman chose me or rather my parents chose me. I can’t go into the world looking at that as a disadvantage. I have to go into every room and I have to make space, make a way for myself and believe in myself that I belong to be there. My dad used to say, “Sofiat, you belong.” I’m so glad that — not only my dad, my mother too — my family told me that I belonged early on [at a young age], because going into rooms, I believed that. 

It’s been hard and disheartening. Every investor I talk to — even though I know there’s only a 0.05 percent chance that they’re going to believe in me — I believe that I’m worthy to [them]. I believe that the technology is worthy. I know my background, my experience, and my ability.  

We build everything in-house; we don’t outsource anything. That type of talent is rare, and I know that. I say this is my superpower — executing is my superpower, building is my superpower, and believing in myself is my darn superpower. 

I get a lot of “no’s” and that hurts, but I believe in myself. I believe in what we’re building and I just keep going. That’s the type of tenacity and “stick-to-it-ness” that’s necessary for women, of women of color especially. If we don’t have that,  it’s just going to make it harder for us to keep going. We need more of us to keep going so that we can change the climate. 

Doria: Yes, I think you’ve answered my next question which was: Why do you think you’ve been successful when many women of color are not, for whatever reason? Do some people attribute this to a pipeline issue? I personally don’t subscribe to that, but I’m curious what your thoughts are on that, as well.

Sofiat: I mean we talked about this a little bit earlier with Lighthouse Labs. They gave me my first opening into the VC mindset. My first opportunity that landed was, actually, Alida, which is just like this random “you fill out a form” for investors.  They fill out the form, they do a matching, and that’s how we got our first investment from the Artemis Fund. They had such a belief in our company that helped us get to where we are now, alongside other ventures and GFP and others. 

A part of it was a pipeline problem. I think if you go into it thinking, “It’s just a pipeline problem,” then you’re going to fall victim to not going, not continuing to move forward at all. You want to be like “Well, I’m failing because I don’t have a pipeline.” So, I love the fact that you don’t subscribe to that because I don’t subscribe to that, either. 

The facts are the facts. You’re a woman. That’s a fact. You don’t have a pipeline. That’s a fact. Okay, so what are you going to do? How are you going to push forward? This is why everybody’s pass to venture capital — especially for, I believe, women and people of color — look completely different from what’s written about in all of the magazines. We, in order to get the funding, have done something differently.

I’ve gotten a million “no’s,” probably more than the average founder, especially with the type of technology that I’ve built, because it’s super advanced. You, usually, don’t see it without having $10 and $20 million in funding. We had to be scrappy, I know that. At the end of the day, it doesn’t make my job easier. I just have to keep going and subscribing to all these different things that just make you feel defeated before you can even go “this is not helpful, it’s not right.” So, acknowledge it but get your butt up and keep going, because it’s worth it. The more of us that get our butt up and keep going, despite the “no’s,” we’re gonna get opportunities, and when we exit, we can change the game. 

I hope to be a VC one day. I hope to exit and be able to give back support to the people that look like me and give them the same opportunities that people that don’t look like me have, because they’ve earned it. People forget that it’s not “Venture capital doesn’t support women.” There are not many women in venture capital. 

Doria: It’s like 11 percent or something, yeah?

Sofiat: Exactly, and so people are giving opportunities to people that resemble them because they understand them. They understand their pathways. We have to be more in that space so that we can do the same thing. It’s like, “You’re a woman, I understand exactly what you’re going through. I understand what it’s like to be married, have a kid, run a company, and do all that stuff. All that makes you great. Let me give you these dollars because I know that you’re going to kill it, because if I was in your position, I would kill it, too.” It’s just about “stick-to-it-ness” and believing that and not subscribing to things that will make you feel defeated.

Doria: And you’ve raised more than $3 million, at this point, is that right?

Sofiat: Yeah, slightly over $3 million.

Doria: Are you guys still majority owners?

Sofiat: Currently, but that is going to change drastically coming up, because of the times that we’re in right now. It’s unfortunate because I definitely think some of the sacrifices are what founders are having to make in this climate. This is just the climate; you can never anticipate it. There are ones that’ll end up having an equity position that’s not as desirable, as it would be.

Doria: At the same time, though, I am always reminded of things like “Would you rather own 1 percent of Microsoft versus 50 percent of nothing?”

Sofiat: Exactly, and that’s what it’s like at the end of the day. This is, again, another piece of me — being an impact-first investor. It’s not about being the richest Black woman in the world. That’s not my goal, although it’d be awesome. My goal is to just help people be successful. I know that can be by providing them with technology that I simply don’t believe is out there for them in the way that I can build it. That’s my something. To own 20 percent of that something versus 70 percent of that something doesn’t matter more.  You’ve got to do your part and then you can be smarter on the next adventure or the next opportunity. 

A lot of people who I know, end up owning only 10 to 15 percent of their company, anyway. I’m more than one; I’m not a solo founder. The equity is all between me and the founders.

Doria: A lot of entrepreneurs like to have training wheels for ventures, you know?  Then, they learn the things that they will do differently next time. 

Sofiat: Exactly, and everything is a lesson. I’m so much smarter now than I was a month ago. I’m smarter than I was a year or two years ago. 

I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful to the investors that we have. They have been a dream. We wouldn’t be where we are if they didn’t take a chance. They continue to take a chance and they understand what this has the opportunity of being. I respect their input and their value. Their value means that they own more of the company as we continue to grow, and I own less and that’s what it means to be venture-backed. Right now, we still own the majority. We’ll own it as long as we can.

Sofiat’s Advice for Entrepreneurship

Doria: I love how you roll with the punches. It makes sense.

Last question before you let our listeners know where they can find out more about you and your company: If you had three tips that you wish someone had given you regarding entrepreneurship, what would they be? What would you like to tell our listeners, who might be embarking or might be in the middle of their journey?

Sofiat: My first tip would be to be authentic. I wish somebody told me that the saving grace of raising venture capital, in particular, is being yourself. You’re going to get a ton of “no’s.” People are going to say the thing that I get all the time: “I really love you as a founder, but we’re going to pass for now to see more traction.” I’m like, “Do you see the fact that this technology is better than [anything else?]” So hearing that could be defeating. “We like you” or “We love you but not enough to invest,” when at a certain stage, it’s supposed to be all about people. I think if I didn’t have a deep self-love and a deep sense of authenticity — like what you see is what you get — I would be devastated. I’d cry every night, I’d hate myself every night, I’d hate my journey, and I probably would give up. So, having a deep sense of self is so important. It doesn’t matter if an investor said “No, Sofiat,” I would still be okay. 

I like being likable, I like being coachable. I appreciate that, but I have a deep sense of self. That’s advice #1. Be authentic in everything that you do, because that’s going to help you sleep at night. You deserve to love you. You deserve to feel good about you. That’s #1.

#2 is don’t let anybody speak for you.

Doria: That is a big one. 

Sofiat: So when you’re in a room, people will tell you “Well, x, y, and z, and this is how this happens, this is how that happens.” You need to be able to say, “I understand, but in this market, this is what the data says.” You need to be able to run those numbers like nobody’s business. 

The fact of the matter is, investors have experience. They’ve seen a million different businesses do things in a million different ways. They have exceptional and educated insights. That’s a fact, but you’re the only expert in a room, in your business, and your market — because that’s all you do. You spend all of your time doing that. When you show up to these meetings, you need to be that voice. You need to be that. Sometimes, it means somebody will tell you something and it’s like “Well, that’s correct in this vertical, but in this one, it operates blah blah blah blah blah.” I’m like “Let me spend a moment showing you that I know what I’m doing. I know my stuff. I know my numbers.” I’m willing to be challenged on that knowledge. I am an expert, even in those challenges. I have a POV that is valuable. I truly believe that knowing that allows investors to say, “Man, this is a person I can trust with my money.” That’s #2.

#3 would be to have the right people around you at all times. There is a right person and there is a wrong person. Whatever that means for you is different. I truly suggest when you decide that you want to do something, you look and see who has done it before and who can help you get there. Have valuable people around you. Those are people that give advice. Those are people that become your network, your pipeline. If you have the wrong people around you, it is very detrimental to you and your business. 

So, authenticity, knowing your numbers back and forth, and having the right people around you are the three keys that I wish somebody told me. If you have that mindset, you’re going to kill it. If you don’t,  you will quickly learn it along the way.

Doria: I love it. I think it’s so right on. Now that we’re wrapping up, I want to thank you for coming on. Where can audience members find out more about you and your company?

Sofiat: Yes, I’m on LinkedIn. If you ever want to connect with me personally, I’m happy to talk to any founder — specifically female founders and founders of color. I really love to give my time to people who are struggling and need help, so LinkedIn and DM me. I will schedule a Zoom meeting every single time. 

Then, if you ever want to find out about Goodfynd, which I hope you do, we are at Goodfynd on all platforms. 

Doria: Oh, I love it. I can’t wait to see what you guys do in 2023. Thank you so much for coming on SheVentures!

Sofiat: Thank you so much for having me. Congratulations on the podcast’s success! I’m so happy to see it shine!

Doria: Thank you!

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