- 4/22/2025
Babs Interviews the Creator of Pigeonly - Alfonzo Brooks
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FunTranscript
00:00Wow, 9401 to Bay's Party Station. It is Babs. And you know what? I love having people who were born and raised in Tampa Bay come through to the station, especially ones that do cool things.
00:13I got my good friend Alfonso here. He just told me that we're both friends and we see each other out.
00:20Now, I had no idea that you have such a cool business.
00:26Yes.
00:27So how would you describe Pigeon-only? Is that how you say it, right?
00:31Pigeon-ly?
00:32Pigeon-ly. Pigeon-ly. Pigeon-ly. But you said people always...
00:35A lot of people say Pigeon-only. That's like the first glimpse. You look at it, you think it's Pigeon-only.
00:41So what would you describe Pigeon-ly as?
00:45Basically what Pigeon-ly does is we're a communication platform to help families stay connected to inmates, prisoners, their loved ones behind bars.
00:53So what we've done is we've created an application that allows families to easily search, to find where their loved ones at, and then from where they're located, we provide a suite of services to allow them to stay connected.
01:07So based on that institution, you may only be able to receive photos or postcards.
01:13Some institutions may be greeting cards.
01:15So with that, we just took that data and now we make it easy for the family member to just get on this application.
01:21Well, actually not an application, but it's mobile compatible right now.
01:23Okay.
01:23It makes it easy for the family member to get on and to stay in communication, you know, throughout their busy day, their busy life.
01:31So we're going to make it easy on the family.
01:33And in essence, it'll make it a lot easier on the inmate behind bars to stay connected and stay, you know, within communication with his family.
01:41Now, what made you come up with this?
01:44Okay, so this story, my co-founder, Frederick Hudson, he was actually in prison for five years for trafficking marijuana.
01:56So he is from St. Petersburg.
01:58He's from the Tampa area.
02:00Right.
02:00I met Frederick back in, I don't know exactly when, but we met in the Air Force actually.
02:06So when we met in the Air Force.
02:07Thank you for serving our country.
02:08You're welcome.
02:10So we met in the Air Force.
02:11Because we both happened to be from the same area, both happened to be kind of same, similar background.
02:19Not too many people like us were recognizable in the job that we had in the Air Force.
02:25Not too many young black men were doing what we were doing.
02:27So we kind of just gravitated to one another.
02:30So I met him back in the Air Force.
02:32He got out the Air Force while I was still in, but we stayed in communication.
02:37While I was serving the military, he was serving other things.
02:41So that was like back in 2000, I want to say like 2008 or 2007, 2008, around that time.
02:53But from there, he went to prison, of course.
02:57And when he was in prison, you know, I wasn't even thinking about this, but while he was in prison, it was hard for me to search to find out where he was at.
03:04Right.
03:04And I mean, I didn't realize this until afterwards, how difficult it really was to find out where he was.
03:10I don't know if he was in Hillsborough County, if he was in Las Vegas where we were at at that moment.
03:15I didn't know where he was at.
03:16So we would stay in communication.
03:18You know, I put some money on his books.
03:20And while he was in prison, he was like, you know what?
03:22I have an idea.
03:23I think we should try this community, this specific demographic of people, this group of people that's underserved, not really paid attention to here in the prison.
03:35Like, it's a lot of opportunities to help, a lot of opportunities to create ways to help families stay connected.
03:43So when he was in prison, I said, you know what?
03:45When you get out, I got you.
03:47I currently was going to school at St. Petersburg College.
03:50I was a biology major.
03:51Okay.
03:52And at that time, it was very difficult.
03:55Biology was very difficult.
03:56Oh, yeah.
03:57No, that's why I'm a communications major.
03:59I can't do all the science stuff.
04:01It was me neither.
04:03That's what I just realized.
04:05But while I was going to school, it was very difficult.
04:08So at the time, you know, I'm going to school.
04:09I'm struggling.
04:10But I'm trying to push through because I wanted to be a pediatrician.
04:13So you know what?
04:13I want to go into medical school one day.
04:15Let me just keep pushing and keep pushing.
04:17He gets out of prison, right?
04:20So I'm going to school, and I have this little tax office that I have.
04:25Oh, my God.
04:25Like, you need to, a movie needs to come out about you.
04:29You've done so much.
04:30I mean, I just, I mean, once I got out of the military,
04:33and I realized that I just wanted to go to school,
04:36and I realized that I wanted to work for myself.
04:38Right.
04:39So I was looking at different opportunities.
04:41So having that tax office was an opportunity that I had when I got in the military.
04:44So, like, I basically just fast-forwarded to me being in school
04:47and having this tax office and kind of hustling to try to get things,
04:52you know, to pay bills and stuff like that.
04:54But I had this little tax office, and once he got out of prison,
04:57he needed, like, a halfway house.
05:00Well, he needed permission from the halfway house to be able to work.
05:03So what I did is I hired him to work for me.
05:07I made it, you know, look like he was working for me in the tax office.
05:10Yeah, and that's what you do.
05:12Like, you know, you look out for your friends.
05:14Oh, yeah, that's my brother.
05:16Like, that's my family.
05:18I do anything for him.
05:19Right.
05:19So I knew how smart he was.
05:21I know that, you know, everybody has their situations where they make decisions
05:27that might not be the best decision.
05:29But you have to do what you have to do sometimes to take care of whatever you need
05:33to take care of is yourself, your family, kids, whatever it is.
05:37So, you know, I'll never hold that against anybody that, you know,
05:42try to be resourceful enough and creative enough to come up with ways to pay bills,
05:46even though it might not be the best decision.
05:49At the end of the day, you know, we all make bad decisions,
05:52but we have to take care of what we have to take care of.
05:54So when he got out of prison, you know, I hired him in the tax office to work for me
06:00in the tax office, but in reality, we started working on Pigeonly.
06:05This was like 2012, so it was like 10 years ago.
06:09So when did it officially drop?
06:12This officially, 2013.
06:15Okay.
06:16So 2012, we went through the process of working in this little office
06:20and trying to understand how the tech industry works because we had no background in tech.
06:26Neither one of us are educated.
06:28You know, he's a prior felon.
06:29And, you know, the odds were stacked against us.
06:32So basically, we had to be resourceful and figure out things on our own.
06:34So what we decided to do is we decided to apply for these little, they're called like accelerator companies,
06:40I mean accelerator programs.
06:42What they do is they accept certain ideas, and then from there, you know,
06:45they help you basically create a strong business model and create ways to generate revenue
06:56and be able to scale your idea.
07:00So that's the purpose of it, is to turn an idea into an actual tangible business.
07:06Lucky with us is before we went into this program, we figured out that we can make money before we even went there.
07:12Now, mind you, it wasn't a lot of money, but we were generating a little bit of revenue.
07:17So you had capital that you were getting from your tax business,
07:22or were you already making money off of the, like, the pigeon meat?
07:26Really, the way it really initially got funded is I was going to school,
07:31and I took out as much as I could in student loans, and I dropped out.
07:35Okay.
07:35And I just said, I'm going to take all this money and put it into the business.
07:39And we're going to see where this takes us.
07:41So, I mean, initially we were in this little office, no windows, here in Tampa, off of Kennedy.
07:48Wow.
07:50And after we presented our idea, we got into an accelerator company.
07:56I mean, accelerator, I keep saying company.
07:57Accelerator program called New Me.
07:59And once we went into the new me, we pitched our idea, and we had some investors that loved it,
08:07some investors that looked at us and believed that we can accomplish the idea, the goal that we said we could do.
08:19And they could, I'll just say this.
08:22We were two black men going to Silicon Valley, young black men with no education,
08:27but the investors that saw us had similar backgrounds to us.
08:31I'm not saying that they were entrepreneurs, but they got into investment banking and things like that.
08:35So they saw us as, like, two young black men.
08:37Like, we know that, you know, based on your upbringing, based on some of the obstacles you probably faced naturally as, you know,
08:46just being two young black dudes that, you know, you don't have a lot of people that we can look at and say,
08:51oh, how do I start a tech company?
08:53You know, we just don't have that.
08:55So they just saw the fact that they saw that we hustled our way to where we wanted to be.
08:59And they loved it.
09:00They loved that.
09:01They loved that.
09:03So they give you the money for the app, right?
09:06They invest in the app.
09:07And then what happens then?
09:09Like, when it dropped in, like, what was the launch like?
09:14So when we first went to Silicon Valley and the investors came on board,
09:19and I'd like to shout out some of my first investors, Eric Moore and Kirby.
09:25Shante Spencer, these guys really believed in us.
09:28Can I find them on Instagram?
09:29Are they single?
09:30You can find them.
09:32Actually, I'm not sure, actually, if anybody's single or not.
09:37They're amazing guys that over time have turned into family for us.
09:42But they invested in us, and we were able to raise our initial seed round of a million dollars,
09:49which is, we had a 1% chance, less than 1% chance of being able to do this.
09:54We raised a million dollars.
09:56Initially.
09:57So two black men from St. Pete, one is a felon, the other one is a student at the time.
10:04Yes.
10:05Were able to raise a million dollars in capital.
10:09Yes, a million dollars.
10:10Anything is possible.
10:12Anything is possible.
10:13With hard work.
10:14Hard work.
10:15Hard work, a vision, consistency.
10:18You know, those are things that you really have to have.
10:21But once we raised that million dollars, you know, us two, you know, we really had to put together what we wanted to do with this million dollars.
10:28And investors wanted us, you know, they wanted to know as well.
10:30So the first thing is, you know, you build a team.
10:33So we went to Las Vegas, and that's where we initially headquartered our company in Las Vegas, Nevada.
10:39And the reason behind that is because one of our investors said that, he said in Nevada, Las Vegas, it's really turned into like a small tech community, a tech club.
10:48And they would love to have a company like ours, you know, a diverse company that they feel like it could do really big things.
10:56So we decided to go to Las Vegas and build a company with the first million dollars that we raised.
11:01Eric, that was the first million dollars that they raised.
11:04Yes.
11:04So you raised more millions?
11:06Over time, we've probably raised close to $8 million so far.
11:11So tell me that the app seems, the app, is it an app or a website?
11:17What would you say Pigeonly is?
11:19Is it, can you, is it an app?
11:22Pigeonly is a, it's a mobile compatible website.
11:27Okay.
11:28So you can go on your phone, and it'll work just like application.
11:31It'll feel just like application when you sign up.
11:33So how does the other side work?
11:36So like say, okay, so I used to write a lot of dudes, one is famous, kind of, and I can't find him anymore.
11:46Really?
11:46So how would that work?
11:48Would I, like, I don't know, I'll tell you about who it is.
11:52Like, there's like a TV show about him now.
11:55But how would I find him?
11:58When I app, you may be able to still, have you tried signing up with us at all?
12:04I'm going to sign up today.
12:05So you should try signing up, and you can, you'll be able to, you'll possibly be able to find him by searching his first and last name.
12:13I don't know if you had any other specific information of what state he was located, or was he a federal institution or not?
12:20Feds, yeah.
12:21You'll be able to find him, and search him and find him on our application.
12:24So once I find him, and I want to write him, and be like, hey, it's Babs, do you remember me?
12:29I'm like, you know, doing big things in Tampa.
12:31Yes, yes.
12:32Like, how am I able to get a message to him?
12:37So with our application, you'll be able to send him a letter from your phone, send him a postcard, send him a greeting card, any one of those.
12:48And he'll get it?
12:49He'll receive it.
12:51He'll receive it within five business days.
12:54So what we've done with this, the purpose of this was to make it easy for the family member.
13:00We don't want you to have to handwrite a letter, stuff an envelope, go to the post office, buy a stamp, and send it.
13:08What we do is we allow you to do everything from your phone.
13:10So you'll be able to sign up, you'll be able to locate where he's at, you'll be able to add him to your address book, you'll be able to purchase the plan that we have.
13:19And then from there, whatever product you would like to use, you use that product, postcard, greeting card, letter.
13:25You can send photos, multiple different ways to communicate with him.
13:34And from there, we have a fulfillment center in Las Vegas, Nevada, that will print and ship it to him.
13:43Usually we print and ship the same day, but it will happen within 24 hours.
13:47Damn, okay, I love this.
13:50So I'm about to start a bit on my show called Prison Mail, and prisoners write me often.
13:59I tell them that they have to be nonviolent criminals, though, before I read their letters on air.
14:04But they listen to me in jail, and I like it.
14:09So I just want to know how they're doing.
14:11So is there a way I could just do that on an app?
14:14Could I set up something, I'm sorry, not an app, can I set up something on Pigeonly where I can just, you know, get messages back and forth?
14:22So when they want to write me back, will it come through the app?
14:26I keep saying app, I'm sorry, will it come through the website?
14:29If they write you back, it won't come through the website.
14:31Okay.
14:32But I have an idea for you.
14:35Okay.
14:36Well, we can try to set something up to where you have a specific P.O. box to where all your mail will go to.
14:48And from there, I'm not going to say this is 100% certain.
14:54But we should be able to transcribe your mail, and you can see it on the dashboard digitally and read the mail that way.
15:05This is so cool.
15:07I like this, and I'm happy that I get to find my friend that I haven't talked to in such a long time.
15:12Me too.
15:13Me too.
15:14And you know what?
15:15I talk about this a lot on my show, too, because I like there's something that you said that was super important.
15:21It's so hard, thanks to people like you and other people in the Tampa Bay area who do hire people who are felons.
15:30Because it's very sad that they get out of prison and they can't find work.
15:34Like, and had it not been for you, your friend, who was selling something that's damn near legal now in every state, had it not been for you, he wouldn't have been able to, you know, get a job.
15:45And that's so sad because then what happens is it's just like it's like a cycle.
15:49They go right back in because they can't find legal work.
15:53You're right.
15:54I mean, recidivism rate is high.
15:56You have a over a 50% chance to go back to being incarcerated.
16:01So the purpose and one of the main, well, part of our mission is to help, you know, lower that recidivism rate.
16:10And one of the ways is constant communication with family.
16:13True.
16:14I like that.
16:14So a lot of guys, you know, they're in, they're in prison, but they don't have a support system.
16:20They don't have the tools or things in place where family members can stay in constant communication with them.
16:26So when they do get out of prison, they have some type of plan.
16:31A lot of guys get out of prison.
16:33They don't have a lot of people to communicate with.
16:35They don't have a support system.
16:37And what happens is they, they go back to what they, they know, you know, a lot of times that is something that may see them in back up in prison.
16:48So, you know, I, I, one of our main goals is to help, help with that, lower that recidivism rate and, and find multiple ways for them to stay in communication, easy ways, affordable ways, because it's a very predatory system.
17:03You know, the system isn't built for you to win.
17:05It's not built for us to win.
17:07It's not built for inmates to win.
17:10The prison, the prison industry should be more, you know, geared towards rehabilitation and providing an outlet and providing resources when you do get out of prison.
17:21But that's, that's just not the, the truth behind it.
17:24It's the exact opposite.
17:26Prison is a business.
17:27So a lot of times, you know, the goal isn't to, to help these guys, to help rehabilitate and help them get back on their feet.
17:35So it's up to people like, you know, us and our company and other programs out there to help them, help them transition from prison back into the, to, to normal, you know, to, to normal life, to where they can feel like they can be an asset, instead of going back to some of the old ways that naturally you would go back to if you're trying to make a means, you know, to take care of your family and to live a happy life.
18:00So, um, facts, facts, facts.
18:02Now, how many people would you say are signed up?
18:04Like, how many members do you have on Pigeon League?
18:07How many, um, subscribers we probably have?
18:10Yeah, subscribers.
18:10Um, um, um, at any given time, we could have up to 50,000 subscribers.
18:16Um, and from that 50,000, they're probably communicating, um, upwards to, upwards to a million, um, people that are incarcerated.
18:31That's like people in prison, in and out of jail.
18:34Um, so yeah, it's a, it's a pretty large number.
18:37It's a pretty big industry.
18:38That is, and thank you so much for creating this, like, business, this website.
18:44You know, it's a lot of people out there with loved ones that are locked up.
18:47But let's talk about the founder, the creator of Pigeon League, Alfonso, because you have a very inspiring story.
18:57And I was shocked because seeing you out, I can never tell.
19:02But then I'm, you were just telling me about it today.
19:05And how great does it feel to still be here with us?
19:08Um, it's, it's, it's beautiful.
19:10Like, um, life is, life is beautiful.
19:12Life is an amazing thing.
19:14Like, I'm, I'm, I'm blessed, you know, just to, and you realize that you're blessed just to, to wake up.
19:20Right.
19:20The next day and to be able to, to live whatever story you have.
19:26We, we don't even know our true story.
19:28Right.
19:28But just to have the opportunity to wake up and to, to live it is a, it's a beautiful thing.
19:33It really is.
19:34Now, my mom, um, had a stroke two years ago and she, it's, it's still, um, she, you know, I don't want to tear up, but she's not like a hundred percent again, you know?
19:47And, um, I don't know.
19:49It just, it makes me sad a lot.
19:51Cause I'm like, damn, like I want her to just keep working at it.
19:54And if you could talk to her, cause like give her some encouragement just from things that you were telling me, how you just have to keep going and stay positive.
20:01And I try to tell her, but I think it would, you know, sound better coming from you.
20:06Cause you had to like work at regaining like your strength and stuff.
20:10Um, yeah, well, I mean the, the biggest thing is, um, you know, when something tragic happens, you, you have to realize that regardless of what you're going through, like.
20:24It, it's your responsibility to get yourself back to where you want to be.
20:29I mean, as much as you, you want to depend on others and as much as you want to feel bad and as much as you, sometimes you need others to feel bad for you at times, you really have to take ownership of what's going on.
20:41Not saying that it's a blame game or anything like that, but you have to take ownership of what's going on and you have to fight.
20:48Like it's a, it's a daily, it's a daily fight.
20:51But at the end of the day, when you look at each day, you have like, you have an opportunity to, with some people, they're going to school.
21:01Some people, it's their jobs.
21:03Um, you have an opportunity each day.
21:05You have that second chance.
21:07And with that second chance, you have to make the most of it, especially when you have people like depending on you.
21:12I'm sure you depend on your mom in ways that she probably don't even realize it.
21:15Um, I remember when I was in the hospital, I felt guilt when I remember being in the hospital and I was like, I don't think I'm going to wake up the next day.
21:25And I have a daughter and I was thinking in my head, like, I'm letting my daughter down.
21:30So you feel a guilt.
21:32You feel a guilt that you're not back to, to where you want to be, to be the person that you was before.
21:37Right.
21:38And the thing is, you can't really look at it like that.
21:41You have to look at it as the person that I can become afterwards.
21:44And it takes a lot to do that, though.
21:47Right.
21:47It takes a lot.
21:49Well, I'm so happy for you.
21:52I'm so proud of you that you're still doing big things, encouraging people, you know, to just keep going.
21:59Because anything's possible.
22:01Again, two black guys from the Tampa Bay area, one was a felon, one was a student, was able to gain millions of dollars in capital to start a business because someone believed in you and you guys believed in yourselves.
22:15So anything else you want to say to, like, other guys who are in the tech industry?
22:20Because I'm sure it's a lot of, you know, young black guys out there that want to create websites and apps and stuff, but they're scared they don't know the first step.
22:28Any advice for them?
22:29My biggest advice is, I mean, you have people, you have people like me and Frederick.
22:35You have people that look like you that are in this space that can understand where you come from.
22:41And what you have to realize is a lot of times you look at things as a disadvantage.
22:45But the disadvantage is really an advantage.
22:49Like growing up and not having as much and having to be resourceful, having to be creative, having to come up with ways to get money and come up with ways to get people to believe in what you're doing.
23:03People do that all the time in our communities, but they just don't realize it.
23:08And they don't realize they can use that strength towards something productive, like a tech company, something to build instead of doing other things that might, you know, end up with you either being dead or in prison.
23:22So it's like use that disadvantage that you think you have as an advantage because we saw ourselves as the biggest hustlers in tech because when we were doing this, it wasn't too many of us at all.
23:32Right.
23:33Like we were going into rooms and it's me and him and it's not too many other, you know, young black founders going into these rooms.
23:40And so what we said we were going to do is we're going to take some of the strengths that we do have.
23:43And hustling is just one of those strengths.
23:45Like we feel like we can go into a room and we can get whatever we need to get out of this room.
23:51And that's what we had to do.
23:52And, you know, I don't want to give that same spiel.
23:57It's like, oh, just give you your dreams.
23:59You just work hard.
24:00You succeed and everything.
24:01That's just not true.
24:03To be real, it's not all about hard work.
24:05It's about, you know, being smart.
24:07And it's about it's about building relationships.
24:11It's about, you know, it's so much more to, you know, just having an idea and working hard.
24:19There's so many intangibles that you already have in place that you just don't even realize you have in place already.
24:25And that's what we've done.
24:26I love that.
24:27Use your disadvantage as an advantage.
24:30Yes.
24:31I want to get that tattooed.
24:32I don't know where though on my body.
24:34I want to get that tattooed.
24:35Thank you so much, Alfonso, for coming through.
24:38I'm definitely going to write up a story on this, post this interview to the website because I have so many people who listen who have family members incarcerated.
24:47I have, you know, incarcerated people listening.
24:50So maybe when they find out about Pigeon Lee, they can let their loved ones know as well.
24:54It's an easier way to stay in constant communication.
24:57Oh, can I do one more thing?
24:58Yeah, go ahead.
25:00One thing I wanted to do as well is I wanted to thank a couple people.
25:04Okay.
25:04And Frederick is one of the people.
25:05He's the founder of the company.
25:08Is that the one that's in Africa right now?
25:10He, we went to Africa for a birthday.
25:12Oh, okay, okay.
25:13Yeah, Frederick.
25:13Do I sound like a stalker?
25:14You're like, how do you know what's Africa?
25:16What is this?
25:17Is he in Africa right now?
25:18No.
25:19No, I want to thank him just because he's done an amazing job.
25:23I've seen him grow from where he was to where he is now.
25:26And I want to thank him.
25:27I want to thank some of my early investors.
25:30Because we don't get a chance to really say some of the things that we should be saying to these people as often as we should because we think that we have tomorrow all the time.
25:38We really just don't.
25:40So I just want to thank some of my investors.
25:41I mentioned the name of Eric Kirby, Shantae, some of the early investors.
25:46I want to thank, you know, my daughter for always giving me inspiration when she didn't realize that she was writing, Daddy, I miss you and I love you and the greatest dad.
25:55When I moved to Las Vegas, she was still here in Tampa.
25:57And she said, you know what, I believe in you.
25:59Like, she was very inspirational and strong while I was gone.
26:03And I know I want to thank my girlfriend as well to help me, you know, get through the toughest time ever in my life.
26:10I love you guys' relationship.
26:12And I better be invited to the wedding.
26:14Oh, for sure.
26:16Definitely.
26:17Thank you so much for stopping by to WOW 94.1 Alfonso.
26:21Pigeonly, Pigeonly, Pigeonly.
26:23You got loved ones locked up, family members, exes, people that you used to write in the past that you reminisce about.
26:30Pigeonly is the website that you need to get on.
26:32Pigeonly.com, P-I-G-E-O-N-L-Y.com.
26:38Yes!
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