00:03welcome back to the we love us stage right here at essence fest 2026 i'm super excited about the
00:09next conversation that we're about to have we are going to have a session called let's talk about
00:15it and this conversation is all about topics making headlines and impacting our communities
00:20from entrepreneurship wealth building to health care and culture and the two women that you are
00:26about to meet i'm telling you they have the inside scoop they got the tea and they're going to have
00:31a
00:31conversation with you right here right now so join me to engage in this conversation we have miss enza
00:38huger of nvf capital can we give her a round of applause
00:46joining miss enza we have the one and only miss casey dk of blaze group let's go ahead and give
00:53casey a round of applause all right ladies let's talk about it let's talk about it good morning
00:59good morning good morning welcome to festival day three how many of you been here all three days
01:05i love it you tired i know you tired so we have been talking every day about different pieces of
01:12data and casey and i are going to round that out today yep so friday we talked about uh the
01:18founders
01:18that we serve and the stories that they carry saturday we got into the math the gap between what
01:24founders really deserve and what the institutions are actually investing in and today let's talk
01:29about what holds it all together which is each other the village the community so here's the numbers
01:34that matter the most today 59 of founders say they feel genuinely supported by other founders
01:40by community by network by people who have been where they have been and where they're going
01:46yeah and when founders talk about their community or who's supporting them 59 is actually the highest
01:52number in the entire report
01:57higher than institutional funding at 19 and higher than non-institutional funding which is only at 26
02:03so what they're actually saying is founders trust us the community more than they trust these
02:09institutions the systems that are supposed to serve them this data this weekend showed us three things
02:15founders are building 49 are generating revenue 47 are profitable and most of them are self-funded
02:24but let's be honest about the gaps so insa just said that 47 are profitable but of the 53 that
02:32are left
02:3221 of them don't even know if they're profitable or not they're not tracking their numbers no judgment
02:38on that no judgment they trust each other more than the systems meant to serve them how is a system
02:45meant to serve them that i can't trust or rely on exactly and that's on us to fix it's not
02:50on the
02:50founders to fix that that's true so founders i want to encourage you to keep building keep showing up for
02:56each other exactly the way the data says you already do for one another and to everybody else in the
03:01room
03:02whether you're giving capital whether you are a partner in the ecosystem whether you're building new
03:06systems that are going to come one day this invitation is for you it's not complicated meet
03:11and trust these founders who have already built with the investment of their time and their legacy
03:16they've earned your commitment and so what let's kind of recap uh the things that we have already
03:24stepped through on this stage this morning you heard about investing in communities uh by building
03:30black wealth through the power of kiva and other partners we're going to get into some some other
03:34things today yeah we're going to get into a seat at the table in a few minutes actually a seat
03:39at
03:39the table is talking to us about investing beyond just stocks and savings what are other ways we can
03:44invest and we're going to also have a session that's called community is care so definitely be in
03:50the audience for that one and in the spirit of community today we're going to have our second pitch
03:55competition which is catered to the local community in greater new orleans founders who spent this
04:00weekend telling their story showing their math on this stage and now are directly asking us to put
04:06our money where our mouth is today we're going to do that let's do it y'all ready all right
04:12i see some
04:12head now all right so come back here at 2 p.m for sure to see the power pitch competition
04:16for the new
04:17orleans founders thank you everyone have a great day we'll see you soon
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