In Search Of The Next Woman of Color–Founded Unicorn With Regina Gwynn

Check Out Regina Gwynn Online!

• Website - Black Women Talk Tech

• Facebook - Black Women Talk Tech Facebook Page

• LinkedIn - Regina Gwynn

• Instagram - @blackwomentalktech

• Twitter - @BWTalkTech

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.

00:00

Doria Lavagnino:

She co-founded Black Women Talk Tech, a membership organization of Black women tech entrepreneurs. Its mission is to identify, support, and encourage Black women to build the next billion dollar businesses and, as we’ve highlighted on SheVentures over and over and over again, women of color have raised only 0.4 – so that’s half a percent of all venture capital out there – and I for one don’t believe it’s a pipeline issue. I’ll be interested to hear what she thinks when I introduce her in a moment. I look forward to hearing her perspective on this. She has also been named as one of the 100 most powerful women by Entrepreneur magazine and a top 10 women in tech by Essence. Regina Gwynn, welcome to SheVentures.

01:08.23

Regina Gwynn:

Thank you so much, appreciate it. How are you?

01:12.21

Doria:

Hey, I’m doing okay. Life happens around me all the time, including my cats deciding to have a fight right now. How are you doing?

01:19.66

Regina:

I am well. It is a busy time: 2022 has started off with a bang and we are excited about so many projects and initiatives that are starting to come to fruition and things that we can start to announce relatively soon.

01:44.88

Doria:

Absolutely, I can’t wait to get into that. I know that you were just at South by Southwest (SXSW). I have never had the pleasure of attending that; I’ve always wanted to. Any takeaways?

01:50.10

Regina:

For sure. It was interesting, especially given this is the first time SXSW was convening post-initial pandemic, shall we say, and it was decidedly more calm even though it was still frenetic and crazy. I think they said there were 50 percent fewer permits given out this year, so definitely the energy was still there and it was a great experience, but you could tell that next year it’ll be back in its full glory. But the conversations and connections and introductions that we had there were phenomenal. We also hosted an event with the Black Ambition Prize. It’s a new program being supported by Pharrell Williams. We hosted an event that ended up being packed, standing room only, people waiting at the door. So, that was definitely a great way to reintroduce ourselves to the community.

03:01.23

Doria:

Oh, that’s fantastic, I’m glad to hear. So now I’m going to move backward a little bit and start with you telling listeners a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, and any early memories that come to mind that shaped you.

03:21.30

Regina:

I am originally from North Carolina, born and raised country girl. I grew up running barefoot, climbing trees, reading books in the trees. My dad was an entrepreneur and his dad was an entrepreneur, so I grew up being exposed to the idea of running a company at a very early age, and I do consider that such a valuable experience and a blessing to be able to have those conversations at our family dinner table. I knew that I wanted to pursue entrepreneurship but had no idea what I was doing, how I was going to do it. I still went through the regular motions of going to college and going to business school and entering corporate America but always had that entrepreneurial itch from a very early age. I sold Avon when I was a kid. 

04:22.60

Doria:

Were you a good saleswoman?

04:34.13

Regina:

I would like to say so. All my teachers bought eyeliner from me and all of the folks at church would buy products from me. I grew out of it because you definitely needed to do a lot in order to make money, but it was definitely my first foray into being the businesswoman that I thought that I was.

04:54.14

Doria:

I’ve never known someone who’s done Avon, so that’s kind of cool. I’ve heard of — what’s the other one that’s so big? 

05:06.77

Regina:

Mary Kay. 

05:14.20

Doria:

Yes that’s right with the pink Cadillac. One of your early interests, it seems, was in apparel. You studied at FIT, which is a very difficult place to get into and as you mentioned you earned your bachelor’s degree and got an MBA in marketing at the Kellogg School at Northwestern, which is also prestigious. What drew you to the fashion, beauty, and apparel world, and also marketing at the same time, and how did you find those industries as a young woman of color?

05:53.81

Regina:

I will tell you another story. So when I was growing up, my favorite cartoon was Jem and the Holograms. So I don’t know if you remember Jem and the Holograms. 

06:06.33

Doria:

I’m showing my age because I watched cartoons in the ’70s, so I don’t know, when was that created?

06:12.82

Regina:

Well so Jem and the Holograms was in the ’80s so it was definitely — I’m showing my age as well — but definitely Jem and the Holograms was about a magical fashion designer who had these superpowers with her earrings that allowed her to turn into this, like I said superhero. So I loved this cartoon. I knew the date and time. You could not tear me away from the television when this cartoon came on every Saturday morning, and that was my first introduction to the idea of fashion. I have always collected every Vogue, every W, every Harper’s Bazaar, every L Magazine. I was a mall rat, I worked at the Gap, and then I worked at Macy’s –– well it wasn’t Macy’s at the time; it was Belk Department Stores, which again is dating and showing where I live, where I’m from. Just the idea of being transported to a different world through clothes was very interesting to me. I loved the creativity, I loved the looks and the feeling that you get when you wear something. When you look good, you feel good. I think that’s all connected between fashion and beauty. When your makeup is great, when your hair is fabulous, when your shoes look good, when your outfit comes together, women are powerful. They feel confident. They feel ready to take on the world, and that was really the impetus behind going into the fashion industry and wanting to really explore the stories that fashion brands tell in order for women to feel this way. So that was also kind of the connection to marketing. I started off at Macy’s, well on the merchandise, so Federated –– wow, again, super old –– but it was the private label side of the business. Started off in product development before moving into marketing, so really getting those core tenets of retail 101. Merchandise assortment, planning, buying all those things help you tell that story even more accurately when you move into the marketing team.

08:52.53

Doria:

What I find really interesting about your background is that you have both practical experience, as you mentioned literally starting from selling at stores and ground up, and you also pursued the education. I know a lot of young women today wonder if education is worth it because of the price tag or if it is better to just go in, maybe get an associate’s degree, maybe a Bachelor’s degree, or maybe not, and just work and get that practical experience. I’m curious as you reflect back on where you are today, what are your thoughts and what advice would you give those young women?

09:51.26

Regina:

It really depends. Given that I lived in North Carolina, I wasn’t close to New York City. Had I lived in the New York City area or maybe been more exposed to the industry more closely being able to have internships when I was in high school, or maybe you know had internships if I was going to college somewhere else and knew that I could get into the industry in a different way, than it might have influenced my need to necessarily go to FIT. But I definitely think that on the back end, my technical background and being able to have a glossary of terms where I know different fabrics, different shapes, different silhouettes, different construction, different ways that that product is made, I definitely think that allows me to be a lot more articulate around, again, telling the story. Can you find that information or can you find that education outside of school? For sure. Find it on YouTube or in this day and age we have so much more access through social media — clearly social media was not around when I went to college.

11:15.35

Doria:

You and me both.

11:16.33

Regina:

Exactly. So I definitely think it really depends on everyone’s ability to network and be scrappy. How bad you want it is really going to determine how you pursue it. There’s lots of different ways to — as my dad used to say, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” You’ve got to be able to find the way that works for you.

11:51.20

Doria:

I love that advice because it is so true that you have to really want it, whatever that means, wherever you’re from, whatever position you find yourself in. I’m not saying that necessarily if you really want it, it’s going to happen. But you do have to really want it because entrepreneurship can be a very grueling journey. So in 2014 you pivoted from fashion to really, I think that I’m guessing was the catalyst to what you are doing today, it was a beauty-tech startup called Tressenoire. Do you want to tell listeners about that pivot?

12:33.50

Regina:

Sure. I had finished business school, I’d done a stint in management consulting and then came back into retail, and still just not feeling completely fulfilled. I was doing fairly well but knew I still had this bug of wanting to start my own business. I talked to my business partner, who’s still a very dear and close friend of mine, and we were talking about the pain points around the hair care experience for women of color and how long you have to wait in the hair salon. You’re there literally all day, you don’t get what you want, the stylist is rude, you pay a ton of money. There were just so many different problems. So at the time we were looking at Uber and FreshDirect and Handy, and these were all these new on-demand technologies that were allowing us to make our lives easier. You can push a button and a car comes to you, you can push a button and your groceries come to you, you can push a button and a cleaner comes to you, so why can’t we push a button and a stylist comes to you? That was the impetus behind creating Tressenoire as one of the first on-demand on-location beauty booking platforms designed for women of color. So curating the stylists that were available to travel, curating the types of hairstyles that were available to be booked as opposed to a company called GlamSquad. GlamSquad’s great but they don’t offer the types of hairstyles that are conducive for women of color. That was kind of the start and we put it together and that was, in fact, my pivot into technology and learning so much about building a business and building a technology business and the differences and nuances in that kind of industry versus maybe some other kind of mom-and-pop lifestyle brands.

14:51.39

Doria:

Gotcha. A lot of people listen to this podcast to get lessons from entrepreneurs, and so looking back on Tressenoire, what would you say are a few things that you learned that you would like to share?

15:07.18

Regina:

A few things that I learned is that timing is everything. We were one of the very first to market and sometimes the first move advantage can be a pro and a con. We had a lot of copycats. The ability for other companies to refine, which was great; we love seeing everyone win. I think that we spent a lot of time building and refining and then you become undercapitalized, you run out of money. So there’s definitely a lot of lessons learned in just the timing of looking at the market, looking at the needs, sensing the consumer behavior changing, and really making sure you understand what’s the right product to put out on the market at the right time.

16:03.80

Doria:

That makes so much sense. I was just going to really reiterate that point about waiting too long because I think there’s, at least I know for myself, I’m perfectionist and when I started as an entrepreneur I kept refining, refining, refining, and to your point, whatever you’re doing is capital intensive until you start making money and there has to come a point where you just say, “You know what? I’m just going to put this out as a Beta or whatever and get feedback and see how I can improve it.”

16:40.90

Regina:

For sure. The other advice that I give entrepreneurs is to get started. The best thing you can do is to put a product out there. The first iteration of Tressenoire was terrible. It was a website that was janky. It had our logo in the middle of it and that it had like three boxes that had your first name, last name, email, and phone number or something, and then we would reach out to you to book the rest of the appointment. It was hilarious but at least it was out there. We were able to build our email list and we got a ton of customer feedback and we were able to do a lot with that first MVP that allowed us to be very clear on what we wanted in version one and version two and so on and so forth. So lots of lessons learned and I can talk at nauseum on just the value of a good CTO and a good technical talent, a good technical platform. We were hacked a few times and that definitely killed a lot of momentum for some of the projects that we were working on. There’s a lot, I learned a ton.

18:07.40

Doria:

That is hard and I face that myself. I’m not technical, really, in the sense that I’m not formally educated. I’ve taught myself basic HTML and a little bit of CSS, just enough as I’ve gotten conversant with being an entrepreneur and the digital space so that I don’t feel — well, let me put it this way — when I’m talking to someone about a job, they can’t throw a bunch of tech terms at me and I feel like I don’t know what’s going on, or if I don’t I ask today, whereas before I think I felt a little more self-conscious about it. But it is hard when you don’t have a formal tech background to hire someone who is going to be great. What would you recommend that listeners do if they’re in that position looking for someone?

19:01.54

Regina:

I would recommend getting — I’m not saying everyone should take an in-depth coding class but at minimum Coding for Dummies. Or having some sense of what is a tech stack and why different coding languages are important to know which one to use, and which one not to use, which ones are expensive, which ones are more popular, such that you can find engineers that are familiar with that language versus not. I do think it’s worth it for non-technical founders just to know enough to be dangerous. You don’t have to know everything but you shouldn’t know nothing at all.

19:41.73

Doria:

Last question on this Tressenoire, unless there’s anything you wanted to add. I noticed on Crunchbase you raised two rounds of undisclosed amounts. As a woman of color pitching a really niche idea to, the landscape is slowly changing but is very often, white men. Did you find it difficult or were people receptive to your idea? How was that?

20:26.36

Regina:

Definitely challenging to be sure. Oftentimes you’re pitching to white guys with no hair, let alone the idea of someone who could even understand haircare. Sharing the numbers, starting with the numbers and letting the conversation or letting the pitch go from there I think is really important. But it was, I mean, it was extremely hard. I think how I approached fundraising also, though, was hard. Again, having looked back on it and having learned so much more about the fundraising process, I could have approached it completely differently just in terms of my preparation, my research, the connections, and the process could have been very, very different. A lot of first-time founders do get tripped up in trying to go after every single investor humanly possible versus taking the time to learn about the investor’s investment thesis, understanding what companies are already in their portfolio, and more importantly, thinking about what kind of funding you need. I think everyone instantly runs toward venture, and there’s so many other categories of finance that I wish I would have focused on first. Whether it be loans, whether it be grants, whether it be angel investors, whether it be syndicates. There was so much more out here that I probably would have gone after first before even considering venture knowing how much time it really takes to do a proper fundraising round.

22:15.60

Doria:

That’s great advice and another thing that I have noticed happening, that has happened to me, is when pitching, each VC has his or her own idea, mostly his, of what your product should turn into. And, on occasion, it can be sound advice but more often than not it ends up pushing you in 15 different directions and getting off of your mission — which, if you’ve done your homework and you’ve tested it with your customer base and you know that it’s a need, really that shouldn’t deter a person. But it’s quite hard, to your point, when you’re a first-time founder and you’re being questioned rigorously about everything.

23:13.40

Regina:

Yes, so let me make sure I’m clear. I’m sorry could you repeat the question.

23:22.54

Doria:

There really wasn’t a question. It was more of a statement of that I agree with you and that, additionally, what I have found personally when I have pitched is that VCs have their own idea of your product or service and so they’ll be like, “No, you should have gone this direction” or “You need to do this or capture that market,” and it can be completely paralyzing to a new entrepreneur.

23:55.84

Regina:

Correct because they are seeing so much more in the market than you are. They’re talking to all types of founders all the time, you aren’t doing that. You’re head down focused on your own business and so you would think that there would be some credibility to the investor’s point of view. However, you are still the subject matter expert on your business and being able to say, “You know what I appreciate that feedback, it’s good to know,” and take it as a data point and keep it moving because if you listen to every single investor’s point of view and not your own then you will absolutely run around in circles. But usually there’s also just a key insight that investors probably don’t have as much of an awareness of, again that you do. That’s why you’re doing it, not them.

24:45.20

Doria:

We’re going to now turn to what you’re currently doing. So you are the co-founder of Black Women Talk Tech. I know that you have a really big social following of 80,000 members and I would love to know how your experience as a tech entrepreneur informed that next step?

25:16.67

Regina:

It literally prompted my co-founders and I to create Black Women Talk Tech. We were all working on our businesses, I was working on Tressenoire, and when we met, mind you we did not know each other from Adam, and had just happened to run into each other at an event in New York City and started talking about the challenges that we were having with our businesses, and even though we were working on completely different startups. I’m in beauty, Esosa [Ighodaro] at the time was doing something in social media, and our third co-founder, Lauren [Washington], was working on some sort of analytics tool. Completely different startups had the exact same problems. Same problems with finding technical talent, same problems with raising money, same problems with having the right mentors and advisors to help us navigate this ecosystem, same problems with how to approach fundraising. It was uncanny how similar all of our problems were, which were industry agnostic. We said, “If we are having the same problems maybe other Black women are having similar problems as us.” We tested that by hosting an event in 2017 and the response was overwhelming and that demand and that need has been there ever since.

26:51.11

Doria:

That’s incredible when that happens, it comes to fruition and kudos to you for recognizing it, and it’s interesting how life also puts you in that position of being among other founders and seeing that industry agnostic element. It made it pretty clear that there was an opportunity to be addressed. One of the things that really bothers me a great deal is the 0.4 percent of venture capital that goes to women of color founders, and I have heard both sides of the argument. I’ve heard, “Well we are looking for them but we just don’t see companies with visions that are big enough.’” I don’t believe that. I have, myself, met so many women of color with so many amazing ideas. So I’m just curious what your thoughts are on the issue.

27:56.47

Regina:

There’s definitely not a pipeline issue. There is a process and a pattern recognition issue where investors are oftentimes more comfortable in investing in what they believe is a “surer” bet. So, yes, we’re always taking risks but it’s about taking the most educated, most calculated risk as possible. Herein lies the problem because all businesses fail. Only one in every three businesses are still in operation five years later. There is no magic formula that says that a white guy is going to automatically be more successful than a Black woman. But for whatever reason that is part of the influence or the weight that investors give founders to assess whether or not they’re venture backable, to assess whether or not they’re going to be worthy of investment. This literally flies in the face of the data. Startups founded by diverse teams outperform mainstream startups in terms of valuation and in terms of profitability over the long run. It’s interesting how we assume that, “This is a white guy in a hoodie from Stanford or Harvard and he needs a million dollars,” versus the startups that are clearly doing the work, building the valuation and building the profitability, and are doing it with literally $2. I’m hopeful that we see the tide starting to turn. We also see more diverse fund managers and we see more diversity within VC in and of itself that they’re able to find the deals and support founders that they know are onto something, that they’re able to translate these untapped markets and be able to highlight the fact that these are strong venture backable opportunities. There’s lots of movement within the ecosystem as a whole from the investor side and the founder side that makes me excited about where we’re going.

30:48.58

Doria:

Me too and I wanted to just give a shout out. Last week I had the sisters from QuickHire, Angela and Deborah, and they are women of color. Their parents immigrated to America from Ghana and they were able to raise $1.4 million. They live in the Midwest, which is also a very underfunded area, if you’re not on either coast it’s quite difficult, and they went through Techstars so they decided to try an accelerator and that worked out well for them. And what I love about them, their work ethic, their modesty, but their round was also oversubscribed so they were actually in a position where they could choose some of the VCs that they wanted to work with, which is really how it should be.

31:50.36

Regina:

Great! Love that story. Love the fact that, to your point, the Midwest is definitely challenging to raise in comparison to the coasts. There’s also a lot of investment and a lot of interest in the Midwest that’s starting to grow. It’s exciting to hear that these young ladies are working on this startup, and I think that anything and everything in the workforce-development future-of-work type of industry where we’re in the midst of the Great Resignation right now. So when I go back to timing, it’s a beautiful thing to see products and services and be able to address some of these pain points. Especially at a time in which more and more companies are going to need to find the right hires and be able to do it quickly.

32:51.60

Doria:

Me too and I’m very cognizant of the fact that, while I’m pointing to them as an example, and they are an amazing example, I know for every one of them looking at the statistics there are 99.5 percent of women of color who are not getting venture capital funding. My question then, going back to Black Women Talk Tech, what do you offer to members that helps them along in this journey?

33:24.50

Regina:

Our big focus is education, amplification, and access to funding. Through education we have our annual conference, so it’s actually coming up in June. It’s June 15, 16, 17 in Brooklyn, New York. It’s called Roadmap to Billions. 

33:45.12

Doria:

Wow, maybe I’m gonna pop in. I’m in Brooklyn.

33:58.10

Regina:

Please do. We will be at Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 15, 16, and 17. We will be digging in. This is about educational workshops. Get your laptops out. You’re going to learn as opposed to some conferences, which are more inspirational. And yes, we will have those inspirational moments but the goal is for you to learn something, for you to come away with an idea, or a concept, or strategy that can be applicable to your business tomorrow or next week. We’ve been hosting this conference for the past five years, this is our sixth annual conference coming up in June. This has spawned additional content. So back in February we hosted our Face of a Founder Summit and that was an online event where we really just did the double click on finance and fundraising. At Roadmap to Billions, you’re going to learn about everything: technology, product, marketing, operations, finance. You’ll learn about crypto. We’re going to just talk about everything. Whereas in February we just talked about the money. It’s the most important part of your business and so we just spent a day talking about forecasting, tax benefits, alternative fundraising methods, the journey of a founder, connecting with investors, networking.

So these educational opportunities are things that we like to offer year-round. We went from just having our conference once a year to having our conference along with the Face of a Founder Summit, as I just mentioned. We have a digital platform now that allows you to check out the replays of our content, allows you to engage with the community, as well as a job board. We have Black Students Talk Tech, which is an HBCU initiative of exposing students to entrepreneurship and technology at an earlier age, and Black Men Talk Tech. So we’re really just focused on educating and amplifying the stories across the community and reminding people that we need to normalize the idea that a founder can look like and come from anywhere. We want to normalize the idea of a Black woman getting on stage and talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep tech, healthcare tech, fintech, and education tech. This is why we design these events to make sure that that visual and that that experience drives home.

36:35.85

Doria:

About the site itself, which I’ve been on, is there a subscription offering or is all the content free? How does that work?

36:49.54

Regina:

The membership platform is a paid product. So you can sign up for a monthly membership or pay annually. I’m pretty sure it’s $29 a month, don’t quote me. But it will allow you early access to early bird tickets for the conference. You get access to all the replays, which is super valuable, for the whole year and later on this year we will start to host private events. Private Ask Me Anything and private conversations on the membership platform alone.

37:33.97

Doria:

So in other words, someone who might be an expert in marketing will have the opportunity to speak to your members and they will learn about that aspect of whatever she or he is presenting –– I guess it’d be “she” in this instance.

37:51.75

Regina:

You got it.

38:12.88

Doria:

The conference is coming up in June. What is the pricing of that?

38:29.81

Regina:

For your 2.5-day conference, the general admission ticket price is only $399. So you can get 2.5 days of content. You have access to our pitch competition where you can apply to compete for $25,000 in cash. You will also have an opportunity to experience our crypto corner. We’ll have a beauty lounge. We’ll have a wellness event. You’ll get to meet some of the most premier technologists, engineers, and investors in the country, and that’s all for the lovely low price of $399. Our VIP ticket is $599.

39:14.41

Doria:

What does that include?

39:20.85

Regina:

So the VIP ticket includes access to our private investor reception, which is invite only. That will happen on the evening of June 16. Then you’ll also get access to that online membership platform that I mentioned for the year.

39:36.42

Doria:

That is exciting. Will it be like most conferences that I’ve attended where you also have people who want to have a booth, for example? Is it that kind of a conference where people can also walk through or is it completely educational?

40:04.74

Regina:

Yes, we will have an expo area where our partners will be set up but booths are focused on business products. So if you have job seekers that are looking for jobs or wanting to do some sort of recruiting. We will not have recruiting in person, we will have a recruiting element online. For those that are job seekers or wanting to to work in tech or to get in tech from a professional perspective, we will be offering custom content online. So the booths that are in person will be for let’s say Asana or Intuit or QuickBooks or Microsoft. These are businesses who want your business and want to be able to share all the products and services that are available to power your startup.

41:00.80

Doria:

Nice and there could be some really sweet deals and also learning about products that you may not have necessarily even known about.

41:09.23

Regina:

Absolutely. We have an amazing business development team. They are out here as we speak talking to tons of companies to invite them to to learn more about our community and to be able to build value in sharing these new products and services with our community.

41:34.44

Doria:

One last question about the conference: , iIs it open to the public, the expo part of it, or can one choose to just go to that part and not the rest?

41:48.23

Regina:

No, so day one, June 16th, is for founders only. The content will be really geared towards founders and entrepreneurs. We’ll have some job seeker content online on that same day, and then day two is open to everyone. So it’s open to founders and investors, those that are interested in being a founder or an investor. I, it’s still the same ticket., iIt’s still the same general admission ticket for you to attend and experience the expo, or the beauty lounge, or the wellness lounge, or anything else.

42:33.87

Doria:

Since you co-founded the organization, what would you say is your biggest win to date and what has been your biggest unexpected challenge?

42:46.90

Regina:

I would say our biggest win came from our biggest challenge, which was our ability to pull off last year’s event online in the midst of a pandemic. The challenge has definitely been COVID-19. , iIt has just changed the way we’ve been able to connect;, it’s changed the way our businesses have been able to survive.Traditionally a lot of businesses of color are using revenue and customers because they don’t have access to a friends and family round or they don’t have access to venture. When you take away the revenue and clients due to COVID, then you literally don’t have a backup because that was your backup. The past two years have been tough. There’s definitely been businesses that have closed, people that we’ve lost, and all of that and yet we were still able to pull off one of the most successful digital conferences of the year. We approached it differently. We really invested in a lot of creative. The format was different, which allowed us to have a very different vibe even amidst everyone being Zoomed out and Google Meet-ed out and everyone’s just digitally–screened out. But I think that we were able to create an experience that allowed us to have amazing engagement and have a successful event in spite of that. So I would definitely say that was a high point.

44:26.67

Doria:

I love that. One question I had about your mission., I noticed that you say the next billion dollar business but I’ve also interviewed a lot of women on my show, women of color, who are solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and are running successful businesses and are happy doing just that. So is the billion dollar piece a prerequisite? Is it aspirational? Where is that coming from?

44:59.65

Regina:

We look at billion dollar businesses because we also focus on technology businesses. So we are looking for the next tech startup that will allow for a billion dollar valuation, i.e., the next Uber, the next Facebook, the next Intel, the next Microsoft, and we believe that these businesses can be innovated by, launched by, led by, built by Black women. We recognize that there is, in fact, a difference between a lifestyle business that can be a dry cleaner, an accounting firm, a daycare. A, all these types of businesses can generate millions, probably tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. , bBut if we think about actually the $5 trillion businesses are Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and –– oh my goodness I always forget the fourth one, there’s two other ones. We’re looking at how are we building generational wealth in our communities.? In order to do that, we need to be able to have outsized returns that allow us to leapfrog centuries of being behind. So in order for us to do that, yesthat yes, we need to be focused on billion dollar opportunities, and that is why we focus on creating the Roadmap to Billions as a conference and why we focus on billions in our mission.

46:51.00

Doria:

Powerful answer. What do you want to tell listeners about Black Women Talk Tech in 2022? Any goals or initiatives that you’re planning for the future that you’re really excited about outside of the conference?

47:06.13

Regina:

We are excited about the membership platform. , dDefinitely go to our site and check that out;, sign up. T, there’s lots of new programming and content that will be loading onto the system relatively soon. We’re excited about an international expansion. We are setting our sights on London in the fall so we’re excited to head over the pond to London for a condensed Roadmap to Billions in London. Then we also have Black Men Talk Tech. We have our fourth annual conference with Black Men Talk Tech in October, as well in Miami, Florida. Definitely geared up for that and excited about expanding that community and keeping the conversations going.

48:04.40

Doria:

Are they growing equally, out of curiosity? Yes.

48:07.85

Regina:

For Black Men Talk Tech? Black Men Talk Tech is much newer, and we’re not men so we have partners that help us with that event or they really help drive strategy and support the kind of conversations that should be appropriate for that audience. But that also, and I’ll take a step back, we welcome everyone to everything. We don’t want to necessarily say Roadmap to Billions is not only for Black women. Anyone can come, learn, be inspired, and understand how diversity could work and be profitable, and same for Black Men Talk Tech. We want everyone to to feel welcome and to know that these challenges are things that can help inspire and help better understand how to build a good business. We find that the community is growing but we have to grow it in the right way and make sure that we’re in tune to the members of that community so that we’re telling the right stories in our content.

49:23.60

Doria:

Absolutely, authenticity, 100 percent. This is great and I would love it if you could let listeners know where they can find out more about Black Women Talk Tech and Black Men Talk Tech and anything else that you would like to mention.

49:41.57

Regina:

www.blackwomentalktech.com and www.blackmentalktech.com. Same on Instagram, so we’re @BlackWomenTalkTech and @BlackMenTalkTech on Instagram and on Linkedin. Definitely follow us, sign up for our email newsletters. There’s tons of information in our biweekly newsletters about accelerators, incubators, grant opportunities, investors, events, programs. We’re constantly sharing out as much as possible. You’ll find your next co-founder, you might find your CTO, you might find your next investor at these events. aAnd we welcome everyone to to come out and support.

50:33.41

Doria:

I love it. Thank you so much for taking time this morning to speak with me and be on SheVentures.

50:39.11

Regina:

No problem. Thank you so much.