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00:00we hope to see you guys all weekend long in his own vent experience my name is dj rob nice all
00:19weekend long we're gonna be doing it up with the men but also chopping up game for everybody so it
00:25is time to get in our first panel discussion now all weekend long we're gonna be talking to the
00:30athletes we're gonna be talking to the the folks that are spitting game but we're gonna start our
00:35panel discussion talking some entrepreneurship so we hope you guys are ready ladies and gentlemen
00:41let's uh get it all started by first meeting our moderator he's the ceo and founder of the
00:48rightful place coming up to the stage we had jameel spencer
00:52hello can you hear me can you hear me how y'all doing how y'all doing all right essence men's
01:07experience this is important guys it's important because you know essence is the home for black
01:15women so if we can't create a space for black men at the home for black women then what we're doing
01:20right so this is important so give yourselves that round of applause please all right today
01:25man-made entrepreneurship in the black uh this is these are some amazing entrepreneurs you know
01:31that for black folks everything is different for us we got to be three times better than them to get
01:35the same thing we got it we don't typically have the same training but we still end up at the same
01:40table getting the same results so these brothers are fearless first help me join help me welcome to
01:47the stage john renthrope the ceo and brewmaster of cajun fire cajun fire brewing company
01:55john john went with the suit those some falcons digs and saints digs john opted for the suit option
02:02i went for the um gym gym school fresh instead i got support all right next up we have
02:10stefan miller the co-founder and cmo of young king hair care
02:15and then last but not least two brothers marlon watts and nicholas kark co-founders of
02:28world in visit i need this in my house right here world in visit oh y'all got a crew oh y'all got yeah
02:34y'all got a crew y'all cheap y'all cheap
02:40i love it all right so listen we're gonna we're gonna just you know just chop it up and really
02:49try to find a way for you the guys to tell your story but in telling you in telling your story
02:54impart some wisdom to other sort of emerging um you know what soon to be entrepreneurs and by the
03:01way i want to just commend all you brothers because being an entrepreneur is a lonely
03:06difficult task and you see them standing up here right now and they're getting the flowers but you
03:10don't see like all the hard work that goes into it right like i'm sure right now in your mind you've
03:15got 15 million things you need to get done you're like i got to get off this panel as quick as
03:20possible so i can get back to this bread so so so john um tell us who inspired you to become an
03:27entrepreneur um and my mic is good yeah you're good you're good you're good so it's a lot of
03:33different things i think what uh fast paced me and got me green lighted and said i want i need to
03:37pursue this opportunity was uh unfortunately like that's a hurricane katrina um i'm a first
03:43generation i mean second generation new orleanian my family's from the bayou country i'm born and raised
03:47in the east and uh when i looked at the opportunities that was available for uh young black professionals
03:52particularly uh black males it was like you know it was a clean canvas um and i looked at the
03:59opportunities i looked at uh trying to create legacy building and i said i need to i need to get a
04:03piece of this and that's what i did
04:05steph talk to us about starting a business
04:11during the pandemic oh uh and by the way whose idea was that oh it was uh it was my wife's
04:21see i said we're in the safe space for black men with women you can't be blaming i can't go blame
04:27it i can't blame it you can't blame it on the wife not here we can do it outside yeah outside once we
04:31step off the stage we got it yeah but no man it's you know for us starting in right before the
04:36pandemic was insane right i think we had to fully adapt our marketing strategy how we were gonna go
04:42introduce ourselves to the world you know we launched in december 2019 so we were out really
04:47had a ground game of like how do we go out do pop-ups get to meet our community right being a
04:51black-owned brand and for black people we wanted to be super intentional about that and then covid hit
04:56and everybody we were stuck inside right so um it forced us to get creative man really think about
05:01like how do we build authentic relationships when we couldn't be right here like we are today
05:05so so um marlon and nicholas now i i could tell maybe a little bit that you got some people here
05:13that you know right so who inspired you to become entrepreneurs and by the way give us give us your
05:21family background too because that's important like that you know that's a big part of who we are
05:24all right uh and by the way we are two-headed monster whirling vision uh i'm cool on the marlon
05:30corner uh but really where we come from that's where i come from is what inspired me to be an
05:35entrepreneur i come from the seven ward of new orleans louisiana not a lot of people around us own
05:40business or even graduated from college i feel like i just wanted to do something to show other people
05:46that come from where we come from that they could do it too so it was mainly about like i didn't see
05:51it around me as much and i uh i knew i just wanted to inspire other people to do that too so i wanted
05:57to go chase something that i haven't seen but i know i could do it that was really what inspired me
06:01and uh for me it's like a two-part question because when i came out the womb i guess my mama told me i was
06:08going to be an entrepreneur and i've been uh like literally i knew that's what i wanted to go to school
06:13for i knew i we were selling candy iphone accessories we always had the entrepreneur mindset
06:18but never really knew what entrepreneur was uh what an entrepreneur was and then also what made us what
06:24made it click to us is we realized that everything's a business like the phone that you have your iphone
06:30the service the at&t the car that you drive the school that you go to everything was a business and
06:37we wanted to choose to play that game and not be a part of it if we can see it now with the nil deals
06:44with um name image and likeness people are now becoming brands and businesses and if you don't
06:50choose to operate yourself as a brand or business you're going to lose out in the future
06:53no dope um actually so what you made reference to is right there's new economies that are happening
06:59right there's new things that are happening and it's crazy because most people go to college
07:03to learn about a profession that may or may not even exist by the time they get out right so i don't
07:08think anyone went to school to study nil deals right i don't think anyone went to school to study
07:13cryptocurrency and nfts but these are new economies tell the people because because we also this is a
07:20community we're trying to create here too right tell people exactly what your business is and how they
07:25can buy it that's important because i'm gonna give you guys the best jewel of the day the revolution
07:30must be financed amen yeah right so tell them how tell us how we can how we can invest in what you
07:37guys are doing um so we started this brand in 2010 just selling things like candy and iphone
07:42accessories uh we noticed that fashion was a big thing in our community as everybody everybody did
07:48so we spent all our candy money and our iphone accessory money on gucci and louis vuitton whether it
07:53was fake or not um but we realized that fashion was a way that people got outside of their
07:59environment you can have a terrible you know you could be going home and be in a depressing
08:03situation but you give that kid a fresh pair of g nights and you know a nice white tee and he felt
08:08different and uh we started to go to football games basketball games and uh we wanted to get girls so
08:15we decided that we was going to start this t-shirt brand you know we started selling t-shirts we ended
08:19up going to college we had scholarships to go to college where i played football and i went for business
08:24management and nick had a top scholarship and he went for graphic design and at tech we got in a
08:29business accelerated program see this was really turned our hobby into a business the accelerator
08:34started to teach us about profit and loss taxes balance sheets marketing um you know how to actually
08:40run a business and uh we had an unfortunate situation in atlanta where all of our stuff got stolen
08:47our car basically the whole company was in a car at that point camera money clothes games and uh we just
08:53realized that if we wanted to is either we was going to stop or we was going to keep continue to do
08:58this and show people that even if you don't have nothing we could go out there and do it again and
09:03at that point we started reading books we started listening to podcasts seeking mentorship and we
09:08started realizing that environment is key who you keep around you who the advice that you get and that's
09:14when we started to take the brand serious we started to do pop-up shops and uh we started to expand
09:19our online so we mainly sell online if uh if you want to go and purchase from us uh it's going to
09:25be www.worldenvision that's w r l d i n v s n and actually we actually are one more time slower
09:33w r l d i n v s n and actually we have a display right here in the gallery and they have some uh some
09:43brochures that you could take away and get to our website we got a booth downstairs and we got a
09:48booth downstairs in the market in the marketplace 4308 come and check us out shirts are 20 dollars
09:55shorts are 30 dollars we have hats for 10 dollars very affordable make sure you get your son your wife
10:02your daughter yourself get right man all right steph yeah tell us about your business yeah man um you
10:11know for me my background is all in corporate so actually uh you know i was i had fortunate to
10:16work for some like huge brands worked there used to run nature valley um ran sprite for coca-cola um
10:22and i was tired of making corporations all these billions of dollars like you know we had it was a
10:27great time um but i was really focused on how can i build something and create a legacy um you know
10:32when we started the businesses really because of our son kade who's now five um and when we started
10:37up with businesses young king hair care um so we're a natural grooming brand intentionally crafted
10:42for young men of color so really focused on changing the narrative about how the world sees black and
10:46brown boys um so they don't have to deal with a lot of things we had to deal with as we're growing now
10:53so for us we're also downstairs um as well we're also in the barber shop um we are available to about
10:591500 targets and walmarts across the country um as well um and as we just found out we uh randomly some
11:05people have seen us uh on shark tank recently um we were on there back at about three months ago as
11:10well so um we've been fortunate in in a little over two and a half years to um just really carry this
11:16mission on man and really inspire black and brown boys so young kinghaircare.com young kinghaircare
11:23on all the socials so now you by the way you know what's amazing and it's kind of consistent with who
11:28we are as a people right you heard the young brothers at the end talk about um how what they do and what
11:33they provide to people how it makes you feel right and and that and there's an emotion to that right
11:38you talk about there's a there was a purpose right you you created this for your son because there's
11:42something that you weren't seeing out there so you went out and did it for yourself right absolutely
11:45that passion that emotion that's that's our superhero that's our superpower right keeps you
11:49grounded amen amen let's go uh tell us about your business john uh so i'm a brewmaster by trade
11:55profession that means i craft by the way can we just think people just throwing this
11:58shit out there i'm a brewmaster right right i love it keep on yeah i mean it it's um you know
12:04everybody drink beer it's like one of the oldest beverages in civilization third most consumed beverage
12:09in the world we don't have a place in it you know we don't have a necessarily a ownership stake in it so
12:14you know i'm a brewmaster by trade i created a cajun fire brewing company with the first black-owned
12:18beer company in united states south history and the fifth uh black-owned beer company in operation in
12:24north american history so we got created that yeah um we just hit our 10-year milestone which makes
12:30us the second longest continuously operating black-owned beer brand in in the world uh so when we got
12:36started the landscape as i mentioned we started in new warlands the landscape was uh pretty much
12:40devoid of any kind of warehousing uh companies that produced the craft beer so you know i didn't have
12:45anybody to mentor under i didn't have anybody to apprenticeship with i just tapped into my entrepreneurship
12:50gives and and and never look back uh it's probably been one of the taxing most uh mentally engaging
12:56things even for my family you know i got a family of two married um the financial uh toll that
13:03entrepreneurship take you know that that's pretty it's pretty demanding everybody ain't cut out for it
13:08but when i was looking at the opportunity i'm in a landscape with this 9 000 craft brewers in operation
13:14is one in i'm one of 40 black-owned beer people in that space
13:18so and when you're talking about like having regional contracts having walmarts and your targets
13:23that number shrinks to five so you know the experiences i overcome the scale that we produce
13:30some of the development that we have is only going to create opportunities for people to come behind
13:33me to get access to this billion dollar industry so uh you can find our products at uh like i mentioned
13:38walmart trader joe's total wine i joke everywhere but win dixie in the south
13:42and uh also we we're featuring our products uh uh in in this in this convention center we got a
13:49product called big queen which uh paid homage to the mardi gras indians i'm a member united nation
13:54nation of home indians i don't mask but i'm a tribal member and we also are the first i want to say
13:59this the first native american-owned brewing company in operation in north american history as well
14:03so you know uh we we accompanied many milestones and we also are developing a 10-acre commercial
14:09development in new orleans east which my family has site control of uh right next to the i-10
14:14service road adjacent to six flags so we um we're putting some tangible results out there creating
14:19opportunities uh and getting more people acclimated in this manufacturing space love that yeah um so
14:26just recently we went through probably the most difficult time in our lifetimes um where you know
14:33it was a pandemic the whole world stood still you know we saw the very public murder of george floyd
14:40we saw um white folks out in the street with black lives matter right and then there was this
14:45whole conversation around diversity and inclusion right um and so how has that moment in time
14:55impacted your business either for good or for bad right because so some people were able to pivot
15:00if you if you're selling if you're selling alcohol and people are stuck at home and they can get it at
15:04home you could you probably could be doing better than than other folks right so so how did how did
15:09that moment that we just went through impact your business in either a positive or negative way well
15:14the one thing that i always stress like when people going into entrepreneurship is
15:19they focus on an inelastic commodity so beer you know people going to drink recession war whatever if
15:27they ain't got no coins currency they're going to borrow something to get access to it it's like you
15:31got hair care products you know people always going to have hair to take care of um when when
15:35the particularly when the joy floyd situation happened because we was already incubated in from
15:39the pandemic um we we did see uptick in retailers that was looking to carry black brands some of them
15:46intentional some of them kind of disingenuous but nonetheless we was able to scale our business into
15:51different states via that unfortunately we was able to get access to michigan market so we got a
15:56statewide distribution in there we also participated in doing a product called black is beautiful which
16:02we released in 50 different states along with another company called weather souls that started
16:07the initiative the proceeds went to uh engaging more uh economic uh just increasing and decreasing
16:14economic disparities in areas where you have uh insensitive training when it comes to police reform
16:20so we did a lot of things like that we continue to do that we got a product we created
16:24through that called uh black is beautiful beignet stout which is a stout kind of similar to like
16:29guinness which we infused beignets into the actual mixture from a black owned company so we we uh we
16:34some mad scientists we created some next level things i need one of those right it's available sunday
16:40in this area so i'm having one of those yeah yeah no man you know the big thing i've always talked about
16:46is uh you know what we saw during the pandemic during george floyd you had a lot of people
16:52both brands and individuals doing diversity theater right yes a lot of people showing up
16:56like oh yeah i'm with y'all i've been with y'all the whole time love black people and then it's like
17:02where are you at what are you doing right and it's the things that we've been doing in entrepreneurship
17:07across all of our brands we all doing it because of a need right and i think a lot of times the
17:12misconception people have is just because i'm a black entrepreneur doesn't mean that my product is only for
17:18black people and i think during that time we saw that we had so many consumers that were like oh
17:23i'm now introduced to all these different things that i didn't know existed even though we consistently
17:28been doing the same thing we were doing the whole time we were running our businesses so um it's sad
17:33that it took the george floyd in that moment but it was a differential it's one of the things that we
17:38struggle with the biggest the most because it was a very tough time for us as a community but it was also
17:44our best year in business as we started out in a you know we were four or five months and it really
17:49set us on a different trajectory so there is a little bit of the balance and i think as long as
17:53we're all grounded in our purpose of what we're doing and how we're making impact that's how we've
17:58tried to you know continue that legacy moving forward yeah so yeah and for us it happened in a positive
18:04way honestly we took it as a chip on our shoulders to be uh leaders by example and what i mean by that is
18:11like we have to create opportunity for our people we have to be the ones that's establishing these
18:16businesses establishing these economies hiring our people so for us we have 90 of our people are black
18:23minority or women so you have to be the one to put those people in position for us is that we don't
18:30we don't have enough distribution we don't have enough businesses we don't have enough b2b where now
18:35we don't have to go to them to get something so that's what we really need to to focus on to see
18:40a change we have to put dollars into our own pockets and we have to start those businesses
18:45and we have to give those opportunities to the people that that need them our people that need
18:49them yep people people say often say um people don't necessarily buy what you sell what you're
18:54selling them but they they buy how you make them feel right um and and community you guys it's kind
19:00of a through line of everything you guys are talking about there's a there's a there's a passion
19:04and purpose that's really intended to unlock community so how important is it to you that
19:11our community supports your business you're rapping about uh that's like our whole business is about
19:19like just the story of how we even created this and how other people could do the same thing like we
19:24sell t-shirts i'm not going to sit up and see my t-shirt is any different from anybody else t-shirt
19:29out there but it's the story and it's how we created it from where we come from just everything
19:35about it like we didn't even know what we was doing at the time we was doing it but like it just so
19:39we knew that we wanted to be successful that was like the main thing and we was willing to do whatever
19:44it takes to get there so like really us being transparent i was just telling you also we our brand
19:50is just not just selling clothes we also create content where we teach other people how to start brands
19:54too so it's like really we just want to be as transparent as we can be so we could just inspire
19:59the next person and the next entrepreneur out there because we didn't see it when we was when we
20:03was trying to create this business we ain't had nobody teaching us nothing that's why it took us
20:0710 to 12 years to create this right but now other people can do it even faster two to three years if
20:14they just listen to the things that we telling them to do go watch our content different things like
20:18that and that's the reason why our brand is what it is today because it's really the story
20:22in the background of what we actually out there doing in the community so you know i think for us
20:27man is is self is self-care self-esteem and representation for black boys right very simple
20:33and i think we've got to think about if we can change how at least one person sees any black person
20:39they come across that will all put us as a society in a much better place um and we want that young men
20:45to have that confidence to walk out that you don't have to conform you don't have to have a certain look
20:49and feel i know when i started my career back when i had hair um you know you had to have a certain
20:53look right but it's that it never was the context of what was on our head but it's what it's in our
20:58head and i think allowing us to be able to shine in that regard um is so big and it's just also for
21:03us making sure that our community isn't taking advantage of um you know you talked about like nil
21:08earlier um you know we launched a we have a free game series where we just go educate high school and
21:14college athletes about how to brand yourself so that you can go not get taken advantage of because
21:19nobody's having those real conversations it's just somebody that's in your pocket so again if we can go
21:23in and make those little incremental change we think that a multiplier effect can happen and and have
21:28us all you know be our contribution to society at the end of the day so again um my background is uh
21:34political science and uh community development finance i treat bill like a trojan horse it has a way to
21:39infiltrate all levels of society and i make sure when what we have uh designs uh any kind of
21:46narrative building we make sure we tell our own story so we don't use any kind of caricatures we
21:50make sure we protect all trademarks and word marks like big queen uh big chief things that's synonymous
21:57with new orleans culture we also pay homage to neighborhoods we just did a product uh called p train
22:02funk it's an ipa with raspberries infused into it where we paid homage to the punch train park community
22:07which uh just got the landmark declaration yesterday uh so it's a historic black community the first
22:13black suburban community where a lot of uh a lot of our families and everything have started families
22:18created generational wealth from so we always try to make sure we leave with that because the reality
22:22is if you don't tell your narrative somebody else that don't look like you're going to tell it for you
22:27so that's dope um you guys said something interesting um about it took you 10 12 years because you didn't
22:35have any information right so how much how important is it for you to reach back and mentor because you
22:40know as mint right it is our assignment to make the next generation's uh time period to figure some
22:49shit out shorter right like you have our generation that that came from like struggling how many uh went
22:55to college for what you're doing right now
22:57not really not really not really not entrepreneurship not really right right tell me your your um family
23:06situation like you grew up with your mom and dad in the house who how many of y'all have had your dad
23:09in the house shout out let's clap for them by the way clap for the dad in the house um no so it just it's
23:17just a testimony to like the ghetto engineering of black folks right like that whatever it is that has us put
23:24the the wire hang on top of the tv right to get the reception like we just that's not how we figure
23:30it out like so how how important is it that you reach back to the next generation so that
23:37their experience is better and incrementally like that real change happens for us as a people
23:42yeah for me i'm i'm i'm 20 i'm 26 so our younger generation are you know out here in the streets
23:49honestly and the reason why they're out here in the streets is because they don't know no other way
23:53like most people that i know you ask them was one plus one and they're gonna say two but they never
23:58understand that you know i'm sorry that they say two plus two is four but they never understand that
24:03one plus one plus one plus one plus one is four that three plus one is four that is other options
24:07to get the same result that you want and uh for us it's about showing them so it's about us being on
24:13youtube giving them the information that they need we do activate your vision seminars we do meet and
24:20greets so getting out there so that way they can see it and that way they they can learn it because
24:24honestly that's it just took for us to get behind some people and to learn what they were doing see
24:30how they were operating see a lot of things is our our mindset we're not even thinking about it the right
24:36way you know somebody be like uh man how can how can i support you and you know in our heads sometimes we
24:46think somebody trying to they're trying to play like it's just crazy how mindset how about this
24:51i mean you just said something more important how can i help you right you need to have an answer to
24:55that question too right if you're trying to start a business if someone says to you how can i help you
24:59and you don't have an answer right away then maybe you need to rethink the business but people and people
25:05think that man this person might want something from you that it's just the whole mindset of not even
25:09receiving the help because you are you're putting your mind in a position where it's not in a mindset of
25:15abundance it's more of a scarcity mindset and once we realize that it's billions of people out here
25:20billions of dollars so many resources just because this person go to the same manufacturer or this
25:26this person using the same brand it doesn't make us different doesn't make anybody better we all just
25:32want to figure it out and we can figure it out together faster we can get to where we want to go with
25:38more people than what it is just by yourself everybody want to be self-made but i want a team with me
25:43i want a team around me because i'm gonna get there faster than just trying to put all the weight on
25:48my shoulders all ties have to rise together right and i think that's the the biggest thing there's
25:53been like economic reports that say black people are about 3.4 generations behind in wealth right so
26:00that's saying like i got to catch up for kids and and family members that i'm never going to know
26:05right and we have to learn how to build together we've been trained as black people of crabs in a
26:09barrel mentality we both we all can't collectively win it has to be one of y'all right and it's really
26:15now how can we go leverage the synergies of we all operate in three very different industries but
26:20there's probably some game that we can help each other with to drive that scale and help each other
26:25so we have to be more intentional in and making sure that we're building into each other um because
26:31nobody else is coming to the solution right nobody's coming up with it so we just got to be choiceful
26:35by building together and everything and you um jameel you mentioned uh like about the youth
26:40particularly like how you laid it to the question about fatherhood so you know that that's so uh
26:43that's so significant right i'm on um i'm on the executive board 100 black men of metro new orleans we
26:48serve mentorship to the youth we got a boot downstairs the most significant thing we found to overcome a lot
26:54of our systemic you know hurdles as it pertain to young black males is putting in that time you can't throw
27:00money at it you can't you know you can't do anything superficial you got to just really have that time to uh
27:05mentor your youth and i know you know i'm 34 i got kids but i make sure i have a lot more time to
27:11talk to the youth and and tell them about opportunities with entrepreneurship entrepreneurship
27:15i didn't know about entrepreneurship when i was coming up i didn't really know the term until i was
27:19probably 21 admittedly you know um but you know i make sure i use my platform to to put that out there
27:26and hopefully you know other generations don't have to go through the different obstacles that
27:29we might have had uh coming up and it could be easier so our slogan is what they'll see is what
27:34they'll be having that role modelship performing in corporate performing on a business scale
27:39um that's that's what it's all about that's dope so that's our time i want to thank y'all brothers
27:45to give a round of applause for these brothers let me tell you something hold on hold on hold on
27:50don't don't give me don't give me the um the oscar music real quick before
27:58i just want to first of all i want to thank essence for doing this i want to thank you brothers for
28:01doing this um you know this festival is important because it's not just music right it's conversations
28:07it's community it's fellowship we're here to do so so nobody leave away from this weekend about
28:13without meeting somebody that you don't know talking about a dream that you've been keeping to yourself
28:19like this should be the place that we come get full and then go back out in the world and show them
28:24our greatness so i'm challenging everybody and myself to all do that don't leave this this weekend
28:30and just all you saw was nikki minaj right i mean you go see nikki minaj but also like get lean
28:38into that community and that fellowship it'll make because you can go fast alone or far together
28:42let's go far together thank y'all
29:04ladies and gentlemen whoa that's how you kick it off talking some entrepreneurship
29:09coming up next we got some very special celebrity guests
29:14and a very special celebrity moderator
29:18coming up in just a couple minutes don't move
29:22we in his own men's experience as of 2022
29:26everybody get on now because you know we got to get it wrong mary j is in the spot tonight
29:33time
29:42i'm
29:44so
29:44i'm
29:47i'm
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