- 2 hours ago
The session is designed to move the audience from awareness to action on private investing — opening with the data on where Black Americans are (and aren't) when it comes to private capital, then giving a clear, practical roadmap for how to start.
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00:01Hello, hello, hello.
00:04I am Melissa Mitchell again, and thank y'all for staying with us this Sunday.
00:08I know, like they said, nobody stays on Sunday.
00:10I said, have y'all been to Essence on Sunday?
00:13So I'm just really appreciative of you all sitting and soaking up all this knowledge.
00:16But we're gonna bring my good girl Enza back on stage and talking about having a seat at the table
00:21and really talking about how we invest and do things beyond our right now.
00:25So let's bring her up along with the lovely Khadijah to talk about investing.
00:28So come on up, girls. Give it up for them.
00:33It takes a lot to get on this stage, so I'm so proud that Enza is doing this all day,
00:37every day, all weekend.
00:38So let's give it on up.
00:40All right, babe. Thanks, Liz.
00:41See you in a bit.
00:43So I don't know, I think this is like panel eight or nine.
00:46I think it's my last one, though.
00:48So I'm excited because it's a really good one, and I get to sit across from someone
00:52who I know is about to drop some amazing gems on this audience.
00:55So if we haven't welcomed you to day three, welcome to day three of Essence Festival.
00:59We are so glad you're here at the We Love Us stage, and hopefully this resonates with you.
01:04So I'll start by introduction first.
01:07Let's give your name and what firm you work for.
01:10My name is Khadijah Robinson.
01:11I am a general partner at Fictive Ventures.
01:14I love it. Does anybody know what a general partner is?
01:18Okay, this is a good context. We're going to talk about this today.
01:21Let's go.
01:22So first thing I want to point out is actually something you pointed out to me.
01:25The median white family in America has roughly $285,000 in wealth.
01:31The median black family has $44,000 in wealth.
01:34That gap isn't income. We work.
01:37What's the gap, Khadijah?
01:39The gap is that we work, and that's how we make money.
01:42And these other folks make money all the time, year-round, while they're sleeping,
01:47because they are investing.
01:49They're seeing returns on things that are not directly tied to their labor.
01:53We're still stuck with labor for money, which is one of the many reasons why we are far behind.
02:01That's so true.
02:02I think that we are oftentimes taught that that's the only asset we have is our time or our bodies.
02:08And some of that is rooted in us systemically, I would say.
02:12But when you say other ways that the people are earning money other than wages,
02:17give us some examples of what others are doing, things that we should be doing that are beyond wages to
02:24earn money.
02:24So three general levels of investing.
02:27Public markets are the ones that folks are most familiar with.
02:30Who in here has a Robin Hood account or some other kind of stock account?
02:34All right.
02:34So y'all are investing in public markets.
02:36You're buying stocks of publicly traded companies.
02:39That's sort of first-level investing.
02:41Second level is usually real estate.
02:43Who in here owns some real estate?
02:46All right.
02:47Black folks love real estate because we can touch it.
02:49And usually, usually they can't take it from us.
02:53Now they try.
02:55But usually they can't take it from us.
02:57Third level, though, and where you tend to see the highest level of returns is in the private market.
03:03So that is when you are buying ownership into companies that are not yet publicly traded.
03:10So think Uber, like 15 years ago, when it was just getting started, before it ever hit the stock market
03:17and had an IPO,
03:19when people were investing like $5,000, $10,000, $20,000 and now became multi, multi, multi-millionaires from that.
03:27I love that.
03:28And I want to circle back just for a minute.
03:30So we gave you Khadijah's name.
03:31We gave you that she is a general partner at Fictive Ventures.
03:35We'll get into what a general partner is in a little bit.
03:37But I first want to ask Khadijah to share a little bit of her personal journey to give us some
03:41context and groundwork for why this matters so much to her.
03:45So I'm a girl from Savannah, Georgia.
03:47I'm a Georgia girl.
03:49I am a Spelmanite as well.
03:51But I grew up wanting to be an attorney.
03:53That's what I became.
03:54I went to Harvard Law School.
03:56I practiced law at a big law firm in DC for several years.
03:59And I went on what I call my first epic side quest, kind of haphazardly started a tech company, had
04:07no idea what I was doing.
04:08And then somehow, some way, I sold the company.
04:12And from there, I started investing into other startups.
04:16So I invested into startups.
04:18I invested into a venture capital fund.
04:20And I will say one of the big reasons why I'm very passionate about educating people in this space is
04:26because when I was growing up in Savannah, which at the time was less than 100,000 people, I had
04:32never, ever, ever even heard the words venture capital in the same sentence.
04:37I had no idea what that meant.
04:39It never entered my realm.
04:40And we talked about money, but it was usually, OK, how are we going to pay this?
04:45We can't pay this in this at the same time.
04:47Let's budget.
04:48And that kind of talk and not at all about investing and how you start to generate returns from the
04:56money that you already have.
04:57I love that.
04:58One of the things that I think we would share a mindset on is oftentimes when clients come to me
05:05about a budget, they're looking to figure out how to better spend their money.
05:09It's never the question of how to make more money.
05:12I find that so intriguing when people come.
05:15So I love that we're trying to tap into how to make more at the top versus trying to how
05:19to better manage the things we're already making.
05:22So specifically, you mentioned the three levels of investing.
05:25Level one being public markets.
05:27Level two being stocks or real estate, excuse me.
05:30Level three being private companies.
05:32Give us a little bit more about private companies and private investing.
05:35Why should we take that route?
05:38So I do a lot of educational work around angel investing in the startups.
05:42And I was at a session a couple months ago in Detroit.
05:46And one of the people who joined us was like, you know, I always thought that an angel investor was
05:50like an old white guy.
05:51And I'm like, girl, I made my first investment when I was like 30.
05:54And it was only a thousand dollars.
05:57I put a thousand dollars into a company and the opportunity kind of just came to me.
06:01But one of the reasons why it can be very insular is because a lot of times in these private
06:06markets, the folks that hear about it are the folks that are in that network and already know.
06:11So a lot of people just don't know that you can invest into companies sometimes for even less than a
06:19thousand dollars at the very early stages and be a part of that company's growth trajectory.
06:24I have invested, you know, twenty five hundred dollars here, five thousand dollars there.
06:29And then when the opportunity presented itself through my network, I invested into a venture capital fund, which is essentially
06:36me investing into a pot of money with other investors.
06:41And then the person who runs that fund takes that money and goes out and invest it on our behalf
06:46into private companies, helps those companies grow and looks for returns on our behalf.
06:51I think that's an important nuance to double tap on.
06:54So she mentioned a venture capital firm.
06:56And one of the things I would love for Khadija to help me to expound upon on this stage is
07:01what that looks like.
07:02I think a lot of times people are fearful of investing because they don't believe they know enough.
07:06So a model like venture capital is one of those ways I would say you can get over that hurdle
07:11of not knowing enough.
07:13Can you give us a little bit more about what it is like to be a general partner versus a
07:17limited partner?
07:17What are our responsibilities?
07:19So, like I said, I invested into my first venture fund.
07:22I was a limited partner, which means that I didn't really have any say in the day to day operations.
07:28I put my money in and I'm just waiting for my returns.
07:31The general partner, which is what I am now for my fund fictive ventures, is the person who actually operates
07:37the firm from day to day and makes the investment decisions.
07:40And then on top of that, if they're good, which, you know, hopefully you will be.
07:45That's the hope, right?
07:49And some of the companies that y'all might actually see in here today, they are going to help them
07:54grow.
07:55They're going to help them get customers.
07:56They're going to help them get partnerships.
07:58And the things that are going to take them from the smaller companies that you might see today in the
08:02marketplace to the larger companies that you'll see in ads, that you'll see online.
08:06And they become, they really start to permeate our everyday life.
08:11A lot of the companies that we interact with on a day to day basis have received venture capital funding,
08:16whether that's Uber, whether it's Airbnb, Spotify, all these big tech companies are venture capital backed.
08:23That's part of what helps them scale and grow really quickly.
08:26So now as a general partner, I am the one who's responsible for going out and finding the companies that
08:32I really believe in that I think are going to do well and investing into them and helping them grow
08:38and looking for returns.
08:40Yeah.
08:40I think what I want to make sure we all get out of that is you've got to be looking
08:45for knowledge and process, right?
08:47The general partner should have knowledge about the types of investments they're making, and they should have a process for
08:53how they make those investments and communicate that to you.
08:55But also they should have a process and knowledge of how to help portfolio companies.
08:59So you're looking at their track record, their history, or even just their thesis to see that you're aligned if
09:04it's their first fund and supporting that.
09:07One of the things I want to share in terms of knowledge is a little bit of demystification.
09:12Raise your hand if you've ever heard the term accredited investor, that you need to be an accredited investor.
09:16Do you know what that means?
09:18Most people don't, right?
09:20So I would love for Khadijah to give us some insight on what that big term means.
09:24I know that it scares a lot of people off, but it doesn't have to.
09:27So give us a little color.
09:28So a lot of people are accredited investors and do not even know that they are.
09:34It is not something that you necessarily have to apply for.
09:37You qualify based on income or your net worth.
09:41So in order to be an accredited investor, you have to make $200,000 a year solely or $300,000
09:48a year jointly with your partner.
09:51Or you can qualify based on your net worth if you are worth over a million dollars, not including your
09:58primary residence.
09:59So not including your home that you live in, but it can include your 401K.
10:04It can include stocks and bonds, et cetera.
10:06And presumably that requirement for a accredited investor is implemented by the SEC in order to protect people,
10:14to make sure that the people who can't afford it are not losing their money in the private markets without
10:20having real recourse.
10:23But what it operates to do a lot of times is keep us on the fringes.
10:28There are a lot of black folks.
10:30The majority of black folks do not qualify as accredited investors.
10:34And a lot of the ones who do are not necessarily tapped into this realm to even know that they
10:40can invest in this space.
10:42Yeah, that's powerful knowledge.
10:43I think the more we know, the more we grow.
10:45So knowing that we're accredited investors, knowing that this possibility is open to us is incredibly important.
10:51I would like to ask you for some tactical next steps, because I think this is where Essence and firms
10:58like yours and people like you in general
11:00really excel in giving us really practical next steps for what we can do to become investors of any kind.
11:07I say start small.
11:08So there were a whole bunch of people who did not raise their hand that they don't have any stocks.
11:12Start small.
11:13Open an account, whether it's on Robinhood or some other account that allows you to trade publicly and buy some
11:19stocks.
11:20So you do not have to spend a lot of money.
11:22You could spend $20 a month.
11:24You could spend $50 a month.
11:26I personally like to buy stocks that return dividends.
11:30So even if the stock is going up and down, they're going to return you some dividends on a quarterly
11:36basis, for example.
11:37And start there.
11:38That's the level one investing.
11:40And then from there, just start paying more attention to the people around you.
11:44We all know entrepreneurs.
11:47Like who in this room is an entrepreneur?
11:49All right.
11:50So if y'all don't know any entrepreneurs, then there's some in here that y'all can talk to.
11:54But we all usually know an entrepreneur.
11:57And at some point, we are going to meet somebody who is raising money.
12:01Double tap in.
12:03Ask them more questions.
12:04Ask them what is their plan for growth.
12:06Ask them how many customers do they have?
12:10How much revenue have they generated?
12:12Where do they see themselves in five years?
12:14One of my favorite questions to ask people when it comes to investing is because it's about more than money
12:22to me.
12:22It's about what I want to see in the world, right?
12:25I want to see a certain version of the world.
12:28And I don't necessarily want to see a world that's just being funded by people like the Elon Musk.
12:34Because the things that they put their money into is questionable a lot of the times.
12:40So what I like to ask folks is, if I'm looking at them for investment, how will the world be
12:48different in five to ten years based on what you are building today?
12:52If you are building a new tech platform, what does the world look like in ten years based on your
13:00contribution with this platform?
13:01If it's better, if it's good, if it's great, particularly if it's better for black folks, now I'm leaning in
13:08a little bit more.
13:09Absolutely.
13:09Absolutely.
13:10I want to understand your thoughts around how people, so I'm asking this question because how many of you have
13:17heard of WeFunder?
13:19Okay, that's another, okay.
13:21So WeFunder is a platform to aggregate capital of consumer investors.
13:25And one of the things we find when we have portfolio companies on WeFunder is the investors don't understand how
13:32to engage,
13:33what type of information should you be getting, how frequently.
13:36That can be good and bad.
13:37Sometimes we have people over communicating.
13:39They're walking up to the founders and saying, where's my money?
13:42I need to call you.
13:44You didn't answer my call.
13:45And I'll go look and be like, you invested $2.
13:48I'm not down on your $2, but relax.
13:51So I'm asking Khadijah with that context, what is a good cadence or expectation if you start to invest either
13:58through conglomerate of angels or through VC?
14:01What can you expect in terms of communication and maybe even returns?
14:06She is not bound by any of these returns and neither am I.
14:09This is just to help you understand what it could look like.
14:13Child, is he about to give me PTSD?
14:15Because I got a company that's avoiding me right now.
14:17They don't want to send me an update right now.
14:21So I am of two minds about the platforms that allow consumers to invest directly into companies.
14:32On one hand, I really love that we now have more democratized access to invest directly into companies.
14:40And I want us as a community to be able to back the things that we really believe in.
14:45On the other hand, and this is my Georgia coming out, like I'm going to keep it real straight.
14:51A lot of these folks are scammers and schemas.
14:53Scammers and schemas.
14:53Scammers and schemas.
14:55And a lot of entrepreneurs, honestly, and I know we, a lot of us raise our hand that we know
15:00a lot of entrepreneurs.
15:01How many of us have met an entrepreneur who is completely delusional?
15:06Like they think that what they got is the best thing since sliced bread.
15:09And then you see it and you're like, oh, okay, this is what you've been doing.
15:13Okay.
15:15Wow.
15:15Okay.
15:16That's very nice.
15:17Okay.
15:18Because I thought I was one in Duluth land.
15:20Very nice.
15:21So there is an education gap.
15:24And a lot of times when the only source of reference that you have is the entrepreneur themselves, they can
15:29make anything sound great.
15:31You really got to be able to dig in and do the diligence.
15:34And I have a hard time with the gap in access for people to really do that when they're investing
15:41on these platforms.
15:42But in general, I would say that if somebody takes your money as an investor, they should at least be
15:48giving you quarterly updates to let you know generally what's going on.
15:51And the more specific with numbers, the better.
15:55We acquired this many customers.
15:58This is what our quarter was like in terms of revenue.
16:01This is where we're going over the course of the rest of the year.
16:04The more specific they are, the better.
16:07The more vague they are.
16:09Lean in.
16:09The less frequently that the updates come, lean in extra hard.
16:13Because if they used to send them every month and now they send them every six months, usually that means
16:18something is going on.
16:19And a lot of times people get embarrassed.
16:21There's a lot of shame.
16:22And they want to hold that close to the chest, but they should really look at their community and investors
16:27to help them.
16:28Yeah, I always go backwards and forwards.
16:31So in the updates, if they're not giving me some historical information and some future information, at the same time,
16:37I have concerns.
16:38I know a lot of portcodes that break that data into two different updates because they don't want you to
16:43immediately compare what they told you they were going to do to what they're about to do next and see
16:48like, wait, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense.
16:50And if they give you one data point this month and an entirely different data point next month without cohesion,
16:56there's probably concern there as well.
16:58Well, we're coming to the end.
17:00I want to at least ask you some very, two technical questions.
17:04Okay.
17:04I'm going to start with, what is a cap table?
17:07Because we hear that all the time when we get ready to invest.
17:09Where's my cap?
17:10Where's my table?
17:11Where's the cap in the table?
17:12I actually wanted to name this session a seat at the cap table.
17:15And someone was like, are they going to know what that means?
17:17They'll know what the cap table is.
17:17So cap table, short for capitalization table.
17:22That is essentially the table that outlines the ownership of a company.
17:26So a privately held company, you can look at their cap table and you can see all of the entities
17:32or people who own a portion of that company.
17:35Starting out with the founders, going through investors, advisors.
17:39Sometimes if an advisor is very involved in a company, they'll give them a little piece of the company as
17:45well.
17:46It's going to tell you who owns what and how much.
17:50And also usually what types of shares they have in that company.
17:55So it's essentially a very sort of formulaic way to understand who owns the company.
18:02And my goal, my overarching goal for us right now is to make sure that black people have more seats
18:10at the cap table.
18:11Yeah, that's where I was going next.
18:13So what is the next step?
18:14If you give them anything today, how can they find you?
18:18What should they do to start creating seats at the cap table as equity owners?
18:24So I don't want to say, like, go out and invest into a startup because, you know, if you're not
18:30ready for that, don't do that.
18:31Go out and invest into a startup.
18:31But the reason why we created the Fictive Ventures, my fund, was so that we could give people an on
18:39-ramp into venture, into startups, and make it a little bit more accessible for people.
18:44That was the goal.
18:45Like, it might be a little bit more daunting for you to go out, find companies, diligence those companies, and
18:52invest directly.
18:53But for a relatively accessible minimum investment, we are going to do that for you.
19:00We're going to invest into 20 companies on your behalf.
19:02We're going to do the diligence, and we're going to educate you along the way because we want you to
19:07make more investments.
19:07So my firm invests into black-led tech companies very early stage, and we are one of the first venture
19:15firms in history to have 100% black investors in the fund.
19:19Every single person who has invested in our fund is black.
19:23That is rare.
19:25I only know of one other fund that has ever done it, and we are very purposeful about that.
19:30We want to make sure that we're on both sides of the equation.
19:33We're able to build our companies and innovate with some real backing from investors, and then we're also able to
19:40generate those returns.
19:41When folks start getting their distribution checks, we want them to be black.
19:45Yeah.
19:46So I want to stop for a minute.
19:47I don't know if y'all heard that.
19:49One of the biggest things that a venture firm can do is provide education to us.
19:54And I want to clap for Khadija for being a firm that is providing education to us along the way.
20:01Not just taking our money and going and doing something, but teaching someone so that they can go start a
20:05firm as well.
20:06So give me a bigger clap for that.
20:10All right, Khadija, any last words you want to share with the audience?
20:15I think the biggest thing is trust.
20:18Make sure that if you are investing into anyone, you trust them with your money.
20:23We all got people that we would not give a nickel to because we don't trust them for nothing.
20:27It is the same when you're talking about investing.
20:30Lean in on your intuition and your trust as much as you are looking at the numbers and the diligence.
20:36That's number one.
20:37And then number two, make sure that what you are investing in aligns with the world that you want to
20:41see.
20:41I've been walking around Essence this entire weekend with my friends and I'm like, I love black people so much.
20:48Look at us.
20:49Look at us.
20:49Look at us.
20:49In every life.
20:50I love us.
20:51They be black every single time.
20:53AI could never replicate this.
20:55Like we just crazy, creative, amazing people.
20:59And so that is why I invest in us.
21:02I want to see us at the helm.
21:04I want to see our culture remain the center and the heartbeat of everything in this country and beyond.
21:11And that's what I invest in.
21:12So think about what it is that you want to see in the future and invest in that.
21:16Yeah.
21:17So what I hear is, if it's too good to be true, it's not true.
21:21And invest in what you want to be true.
21:24That's what I got.
21:25Correct.
21:25All right.
21:26Well, I want to thank Khadija for joining me on this stage.
21:30Her firm is called Fictive Ventures.
21:32Yep.
21:33And she will actually be right next door in the booth if y'all want to meet her over there.
21:37Yes.
21:38I didn't know I was going to be there with gas.
21:40I know.
21:41I know.
21:41It works out.
21:42This is the New Voices Village right next door to us.
21:44Feel free to go engage with Khadija next door and engage with the other interactions in our booth.
21:50I really appreciate you all.
21:51Have an amazing day.
21:53The power pitch is on this stage at 2 p.m.
21:55So come back.
22:02Bye.
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