- 20 hours ago
Arian Simone didn't just build a business, she built a movement. And in Fearless Freedom, she lays out exactly how she did it, what it cost her, and why she'd do it all again. We sit down with her to talk about the book, the journey, and what freedom really looks like when you've had to fight for it.
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00:05Welcome to Essence Festival of Culture 2026, the book festival. Happy to have you all here.
00:13Also, I'll be... I don't think your mic is on. You see how loud I am.
00:18Can y'all hear her? They said no. Can you hear me now?
00:24Hold on one second. Can we have another microphone out here?
00:29Hey, take mine for now.
00:33I'm so sorry. I'm Arian Simone. I'm the author of this amazing book that is coming out called Fearless Freedom.
00:39I serve as the founder of the Fearless Fund.
00:42I'm pretty sure she was about to do an intro, but since I started talking, I wanted to be polite.
00:46Hold on one second.
00:49Thank you, Arian. So, yes, I was... Thank you, sir.
00:56I wanted you to introduce yourself, so thank you for that.
01:01Now... Is it? Okay.
01:02Yeah, we're on.
01:04Will you please let us know what you do exactly in your role as CEO and founder of the Fearless
01:10Fund?
01:11Great. I run the nation's first venture capital fund that is built by women of color for women of color.
01:19And... Oh, thank you for those hand claps. I appreciate it.
01:22And what that means is we exchange cash for equity if you have a business and you're a woman of
01:29color that's a co-founder.
01:30So, say, sister, what's your name? Kimberly? Kimberly! Okay.
01:35So, say you come to pitch to the Fearless Fund and you're like, oh, can you give me $500,000
01:41for my business?
01:42And I'm like, yes, in exchange for 10% ownership.
01:45It looks just like Shark Tank. We do cash for ownership of your business.
01:51Okay. Thank you.
01:53Kimberly, you ready?
01:54You ready to pitch? Okay.
01:55Okay. So, Arian, I know that you are a graduate of FAMU. Any HBCU graduates in the house?
02:04Uh-oh, Rattlers! I see the strikes back there.
02:10We love our HBCUs. You have two degrees from FAMU, your bachelor's and your MBA.
02:17Okay. What informed your decision to choose FAMU and what did you learn at FAMU that prepared you for the
02:24work you do with the Fearless Fund?
02:26Well, my parents encouraged me to go to an HBCU.
02:30They are both graduates of PWIs and they knew that the experience and the network would be so enriching that
02:38it would set me up well for the future.
02:40Now, talking about being set up well for the future, Florida A&M University is even an investor in the
02:47Fearless Fund.
02:48I love that.
02:49She said, I love that.
02:50Yes.
02:51That right there just proves to you the impact and the benefit of attending an HBCU.
02:59That the people that I was in class with as my teachers, they didn't just follow me through, you know,
03:06my trajectory there at FAMU.
03:08They're following my trajectory of life, you know, and they are still cheering for me.
03:13They're still supporting me and they're still investing in me literally and figuratively.
03:19Love that and love the vision that your parents had way back when.
03:24Okay.
03:24So how do you show up continuously in these boardrooms, maybe on the golf course sometimes with people who don't
03:36look like us,
03:37who don't have the backgrounds that we do, and still be your authentic self, show up with these beautiful yellow
03:43dresses?
03:45Don't we look great in yellow?
03:46I think God created yellow for black women.
03:50I do.
03:51But seriously, how do you continuously show up in these spaces where we're so underrepresented?
03:58I mean, venture capitalism is just not, there's not a lot of us doing it, y'all.
04:02And so, yes, tell us about how you, you know, maintain who you are.
04:08That is correct.
04:09I work in a $62 trillion industry of private equity and venture capital.
04:15And in that industry, it is 92% white men.
04:20So those stats exist.
04:22But when you ask how I continue to show up authentically, I don't even think twice about it, to be
04:27truthful with you.
04:28I am who I am.
04:29I've been confident in who I am since childhood.
04:32And I talk about a lot of those stories even in the book.
04:36There was a moment in, I guess you would say this is before elementary school, pre-K.
04:41I was three years old.
04:45And my father talks about how all of the kids had to draw themselves.
04:50And I was in a predominantly white school with 30% minority, and I was the only black kid that
04:57drew themselves with a brown crayon.
04:59So I've always been just confident in who I am and not compromising on that.
05:06So as far as showing up authentically, I mean, I don't code switch.
05:09I am who I am.
05:11I don't pretend and I don't conform.
05:13So I can't say that being in those situations has ever persuaded me to be anything that I'm not.
05:21And if you don't show up as who you are, I mean, how can somebody even get to know who
05:26you are?
05:27Yeah.
05:28Okay.
05:29Now, we're particularly today talking about not waiting and going after what we want.
05:36Just the constantly feeling like I'm not ready.
05:40I have to do this.
05:41I have to do this.
05:42I have to do this.
05:43So for those of us who, you know, maybe we have a business idea and we just don't know when
05:52we're going to be ready,
05:53what would you say to that woman or that man that's just continuously waiting and not acting?
06:01I heard a wise woman once say that procrastination is your arrogant way of thinking that you are in control
06:08of time.
06:10I'll repeat it again.
06:11Procrastination is your arrogant way of thinking that you are in control of time.
06:16There are moments that will occur in our lives and it's up to us to seize that moment.
06:22We would be arrogant to think that, oh, well, that moment will come again.
06:26Oh, well, I can see that person later.
06:29You may not see that person later and that moment may not come again.
06:34I mean, it may, but that would be a risk that you're taking.
06:37So when it comes to your dreams, why would you wait?
06:43Right, right.
06:45Okay, so your career trajectory is not common.
06:49No.
06:50No, right.
06:51And I'd love for you to expand on that as well.
06:53But what do you want us to learn from your career trajectory and your life's path, regardless of what we
07:02do?
07:03We may not, you know, we're not all going to become venture capitalists.
07:06But what could we learn from the steps that you took to create the lives that we want and the
07:13career that we want?
07:14Well, there is a benefit when you just live on purpose, you know, and I remember one time I heard
07:20Bishop Jake said that in the event that you're not living on purpose, anything outside of that is called wasting
07:25time.
07:28So I would just encourage anybody to be obedient to what their calling is, to why they were created, to
07:34what it is that they are supposed to do here in this earth.
07:37We see enough problems day to day in this world.
07:42But it is a result of people not taking up their place in space in society.
07:49And then also, you do a lot of work outside of the United States.
07:54Tell everyone where you're from, also.
07:56Oh, I'm born and raised Detroit, Michigan.
07:59What up, though?
08:01I see you in the back with the D hat.
08:05Yes, born and raised Detroit, Michigan.
08:07Detroit.
08:07And your family is from, I don't want to mispronounce.
08:12From where?
08:13I repose.
08:13Oh!
08:14Okay.
08:15You say that.
08:15Yes.
08:16That's a story in itself, but you would have to get the book to hear that story.
08:19Yes.
08:19I'm Ivorian, Ghanaian, and Grenadian, and American.
08:23But yes, you would have to get the book to fully, yes.
08:25Well, you have to get the book.
08:28But talk to us about the work you do on the continent, in other parts of the African diaspora,
08:35and why that's important as well.
08:38The work I actually do on the continent is very similar to the work that I do in the United
08:43States.
08:44As it pertains to the disparities as far as black women receiving access to venture capital funds,
08:50access to any form of funding, these are not domestic issues that are particular to the U.S.
08:55These are actually global disparities that exist worldwide.
08:59So the work that we do at the Fearless Fund in the U.S. is very similar to the work
09:04that we do at Fearless Fund Africa,
09:05where we deploy capital to women of color entrepreneurs as it pertains to venture capital,
09:12as it pertains to lending, as it pertains to grants.
09:15So that's the work we actually just happen to do globally.
09:19Okay.
09:20And then a lot of us have business ideas.
09:23We may work for the post office.
09:25We may be a teacher.
09:26We may be a, I don't know, work for the federal government, right?
09:30But we have a seed of a germ of an idea.
09:32And we just don't think that we're able to get the funding, you know,
09:36traditionally by going to a bank and getting, you know, a loan.
09:41What would you say, especially in the, you know, the rooms that you sit in, right?
09:45What would you say to those people who are thinking that that money, that money just doesn't exist for us
09:51as black women?
09:53Because I would imagine that's not true, even though that's what we've been programmed to believe.
10:00What you're saying is a lot of the thought process that a lot of black females do go through.
10:06And I would say women in general, just to give a stat, women as a whole, regardless of race,
10:11only receive 2% of venture capital funds.
10:13So you're talking about every single race of women, white women, black women, brown women, yellow women,
10:18and all of it combined are under, yeah, so 98% are going to mint, that in itself.
10:25We have to change that, right?
10:26We definitely have to change that.
10:27I think that the more that we become the investors, then the investments get diversified.
10:33So I will definitely encourage people to be check cutters.
10:37And you're like, okay, well, what if I don't have no check to cut or if I don't have enough
10:40money?
10:41You may have $5.
10:42Y'all got to Essence Fest.
10:44Come on.
10:45Yes.
10:45Somebody, you had to pay your way to get here.
10:48You got to Essence Fest.
10:49You got $5, $10.
10:52Hey, here's $100.
10:53Pay me back $110.
10:55Here's $200.
10:56Pay me back $250.
10:57So I was what we call angel investing before I knew what angel investing was.
11:01I always wanted to be the business investor that I had always wished for, right, since FAMU days.
11:08So when my friends just started having businesses, it could be as small as $1,000, and I say,
11:12hey, you need to give me back $1,200, and you can give it back to me in a year,
11:16but this is what this looks like.
11:18So even if it's on that level, we have to learn as a community how to fund ourselves.
11:24It doesn't have to be as formal as venture capital or as formal as going to get a regular traditional
11:30loan from a bank.
11:31There are enough resources amongst ourselves, especially with us being such large consumers in the trillions.
11:38Everybody even saw the most recent report that came out.
11:41It went viral.
11:42There's enough cash amongst ourselves.
11:43Even if you've got to send somebody $50, you can do it.
11:47I love that.
11:48Thank you for that.
11:49And who's more resourceful than a black woman?
11:52I love that.
11:54Okay.
11:55Seriously.
11:55So let's think about that.
11:57Let's give stats behind that.
11:59So we as an organization right now between our fund one and our fund two, we are looking at probably
12:05about 20% of our portfolio companies we invested in returning the fund.
12:09The average in venture capital is around 10%.
12:12People are always asking like, well, I'm like, hey, we bet on black and brown women.
12:17That's how.
12:18So our cash burn rates are much lower.
12:21We are very conscious of how we budget and spend.
12:23We're going to stretch a dollar further than the white men that are just blowing the cash.
12:28We know how to turn a nickel into a dollar because it's what our mothers, our grandmothers, our great grandmothers
12:35have been doing for centuries.
12:36We have had to have a job outside of the jobs.
12:39We've had to have a side hustle in addition to the side hustle.
12:41I see you clocking me, mother.
12:43I see you, yes.
12:45But it is the truth.
12:46So that, when it shows up in the form of venture capital, people can see on paper, wait, how did
12:52this lady stretch this out?
12:53One time we had a company, they said they were going under.
12:56They came back and they made $5 million.
12:58They said, we thought you wrote off the company.
13:00I said, we actually don't write them off too much later because we know they have the ability three months
13:06later to be like, hey, I figured it out.
13:07I made it work.
13:09So it's just good business.
13:12Right.
13:13Love that.
13:13Aren't these great gems?
13:15So to get more great gems from Arian, I want you to tell us if there are two things that
13:24are in this book that we all need to know that you can, you know, give us like nuggets today.
13:32What would that be?
13:34Oh, two things.
13:38One, I say that the issues that we face in society are not just particular to the U.S.
13:43that they are definitely global and you'll learn more about that through the book.
13:48And in that, the second thing will be is about how we solve that.
13:52And like I was saying, whether it's the $5 or the $50 or however, but we need to solve these
13:58global disparities or else.
14:01How should I put this in the next one?
14:03We'll be in a situation if we don't.
14:05Yeah.
14:05We definitely need to solve these global disparities.
14:08But the book gives just guides on how to build and establish fair funding.
14:13Okay.
14:14Thank you so much.
14:15So we have a great treat for everyone here.
14:19If you're quick enough, to my left, Arian will be signing.
14:25So the book doesn't come out until October.
14:27October 6th, y'all.
14:28But we got about 48 copies here today and I'm going to sign them.
14:31It's July.
14:32You all are getting a sneak peek and you have an opportunity to get an advanced copy signed here at
14:39Essence Fest 2020.
14:41Aren't you glad you came?
14:42Yes.
14:43Yes.
14:43So, yes, right to my left, she'll be, when the space opens up, she'll be signing copies of the books
14:51for the first 48 people.
14:53Alrighty.
14:54Well, thank you.
14:57This is a pleasure.
14:58Thank you all for being here.
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