Читать книгу Resilient - Sevetri Wilson - Страница 8

As a business owner I was a “triple threat”—and not in a good way. I was Black, a woman, and young. And so, in many ways, when I was hitting roadblocks early on I felt the world was working against me. I had individuals across the table who weren't that much older than me, but they didn't look like me and so some of the struggles that come along with that were questioning myself, like oh man, what am I doing here again? Should I even be doing this or that?—the questions I was asking myself was a challenge within itself, and because there was no one else at the table who looked like me who was I suppose to ask were my feelings valid?

But I was here and I felt like I had nothing to lose, and I mean that very literally. My mother had just passed away when I graduated college and I started my company six months after that, and for me it was like, you know, I had spent so much time wanting to create this life so that I could help my mother, I felt like she'd missed out on so much and she had given so much to her children. When she passed away, I really had to rebuild in many ways.

I had to reframe what it was that I was living for. I'd launch my first business, Solid Ground Innovations (SGI), in July 2009, but wouldn't make it publicly known outside of my clients until 2011, which is also when I started to see real growth within the business.

I experienced so many lessons down the road, and it's important to know that you will face a lot of challenges. I made money. I lost money. I had contract deals that, starting out, I would have never dreamed of. I had an employee steal from the business by creating fake vendor invoices. I was furious. I had to fire my own clients because I no longer wanted to work within a situation that was not designed for anyone to succeed.

Yet, if it weren't for these hard lessons that I learned within SGI, I don't think I would have been as prepared to start a second company. Without the success of SGI, Resilia wouldn't exist today.

When you're first starting off in a business you feel like you can't turn down work, at least not paid work. I look back to some of those situations and today I wouldn't touch some of the work we took then because it wouldn't make sense. Time is one of my most valuable assets, and you don't want to waste it on deals that aren't worth it.

Choosing to turn down some work was one of the most refreshing moments in business for me. I was coming into my own as a business owner and leader; I could take opportunities that were meant for me and pass on the ones that I thought were not. But it wasn't always like this. Early on I had to build my capabilities, and create a name in the industry, and prove that we could compete, so I was happy to do work to build my portfolio and resume. This didn't mean working for free, but it did mean that the rate I charged in 2010 was a fraction of what I charge today.

I also made a conscious decision to stay in Louisiana and build my business where I was from. Not once but twice. People are always floored that I've made this decision, but I'd been committed to creating an ecosystem for minority business owners, and those who I never saw get a chance to sit at the table.

Building a business in the Deep South as a Black woman is challenging—and that is putting it lightly. At times, I thought maybe it wasn't meant for me to be here. Maybe I needed to go somewhere else because I could grow faster, I could hire from a larger talent pool. Eventually I would open up offices in other cities to create this dynamic, but I stick with my initial thoughts on if you leave at the moment you taste success, then you never grow an ecosystem where things do grow faster, where the pool of talent does become bigger where you're from. I also grappled with the idea that maybe I couldn't be a “king” on my own land—something I would paraphrase when talking to my mentor about the biblical saying “no one is a prophet in their own land.” A lot of entrepreneurs may experience this phenomenon where they don't feel supported where they are from. The idea is that when people are too familiar with you they're not as attracted to you as they would be to someone they are less familiar with. This is also perhaps why you see statements like people support strangers before they support those they know. Even Jay-Z had a verse in his track “Boss” that said, “rather work for the man than to work for me.” Yet, there were times where I was really frustrated. In many ways, I'm still frustrated. I had been on all the lists—the LSU 100 fastest-growing businesses, all the 40-under-40 lists in and out of my state; I had joined the most exclusive boards. I had helped people secure powerful roles and jobs, and when they were in a position to help me never lifted a finger. I had won a Pulitzer Prize for public service. I had been recognized by the White House. I checked off all the boxes. Why was it still so hard for me to access resources?

Maybe one of the reasons I'm still here is also so that I can extend support to other entrepreneurs, the support I felt it took me a very long time to receive. The support I feel like I still don’t always receive.

When I started a tech company I knew I'd have to venture out of Louisiana if I wanted a chance at scale and to grow faster, and we now have a second office in New York City.

When I went out to raise capital for the first time, the journey was intense. I had never raised capital before, but surely once I showed investors how well my first company was doing and how I had bootstrapped it to seven figures and had already started to gain traction for Resilia, it would be a no-brainer. Right?

The idea of raising capital when I first started out in business wasn't even a factor. It just wasn't something you did where I was from. So, when I saw all of these headlines, with people more captivated with companies that had raised tens of millions of dollars, but not have the same enthusiasm or press attention for those who had made tens of millions of dollars, it was odd to me.

By the time I had closed my seed round I had made far more money in my first bootstrapped business than I had raised, but when news of my raising $2 million became public, it went viral. I was shocked. I wasn't on the tech scene. I was just in New Orleans building a company out of sight; so many people, especially within the realm of Black tech, had never heard of me, and because of this I seemed to have come out of nowhere. In reality, I had started my first venture almost a decade prior.

As a two-time founder, I know not to get caught up in the hype of it all. The way society moves today, they will crown you and then dethrone you in a New York minute. As the CEO and founder of a company, I start my day by literally just trying to get my mind right. On Sunday, I begin to prepare for my week ahead. I've found that going into Monday even a little more prepared than if I didn't do anything decreases anxiety. I know a lot of entrepreneurs and even individuals who have jobs and careers feel this on Sunday night, setting in right around 5 p.m. or so. A lot of entrepreneurs in general are like that when they're just coming up: they have anxiety on Sunday night because they know they're about to start the new week. For me it's definitely been one of those things where I'm very intentional in my thinking.

I started doing meditation and my friend Summer, and then another one of my friends, Jason introduced me to a guided meditation using Muse (a wearable brain-sensing headband). It helps me be very conscious of the energy I take in and give out. Most importantly it helps me focus and limit the normal distractions of the day—and how I move. It's about practicing mindfulness and trying yourself to let go negativity and calm your mind and body.

It's important for me to focus on what's in front of me and what's ahead of me. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely journey. You're going to be tested in many ways, especially if you are a minority. You really have to have the confidence to not be shaken, but even if your confidence is shaken, you can't let it break you.

If you're not confident, things will start chipping away at you little by little, and you start to realize that some of the issues you may be having really stem from the fact that you just lost your confidence somewhere along the way.

This can also potentially put you in a position of resentment or jade you in a way that you become a detriment not only to your own success but potentially to other people as well. That's why I believe that when women founders meet women investors or other women along the way who are harder on them than men, or treat them negatively, it's because of what they faced along their journey. No one should have to endure anything that makes them feel lesser than. So on the journey, be sure to treat others the way you would have wanted to be treated when you were in their position. Lift as you climb.

Because of experiences like this, I've been super mindful about ensuring that I connect with women, especially Black women, and being really intentional about how I can help within reason.

I felt that I was missing a lot of support. My father passed away when I was about 9, and then my mother passed away when I was 21, four days before Christmas. She had an aggressive form of cancer and within 3 months time she was no longer here. I was in grad school at the time and during her initial chemotherapy I drove the 50-minute trip every day to be with her at night. There is something about watching the person you love most wither away like she did that changes you forever.

The next year, after my mother passed, I went on to start Solid Ground Innovations. I was definitely in this space like okay, you know, can I do this? I've always been a person who believed in execution. I'd always been the person my friends could depend on and call on for anything. But could I start a business? From scratch?

Even though I had been “that person” in general, for me it really became about, what the next part of my life would look like. I had always been a pretty good student, an even better networker and student of people. And I'd always had plans for a better life, but many of those plans were aligned with wanting to create a better life for my mother, the life I felt she deserved.

When my mother passed away, I felt like that was taken from me. I wanted to give her the opportunity to really live, as she had worked so hard so much of her life as a single mother, as a loving sister and daughter, and I wanted her to be able to reap the rewards of what she had invested in me. With that opportunity gone, I had to really think about what I was doing all of this for. You'll have to ask yourself at some point the same question: What are you doing all of this for?

Not too soon after that, I felt I had refound my “why.” I wanted to build a company to help other people solve their problems. I wanted to build a legacy. I wanted to create opportunities via economic mobility offered to people in the form of a well-paying career that they loved and a company they could grow in.

I wanted my community to understand that just when they thought they couldn't make it another year, another day that things could still work out for them—that they could still lead a life they had imagined and a life they could be the architect of. I was also talking to myself, and I'm also saying this to you.

I wanted to help people, and not just those who were in my household. I wanted to go beyond that, and have a bigger impact on people's lives.

I wanted to create generational wealth.

That was the impact that my parents’ deaths had on me.

Yet, I know that losing someone close to you, whether that is in death or through some other form of separation, can be devastating. It can have a different effect, and many find it hard to recover. For me, my parents dying at a young age in my life made me work harder.

Also, in my subconscious, I realized I didn't really have anyone to turn to. I didn't have the normal home to retreat to, especially when you hear these stories of successful founders working out of their parents, basements or homes to get their businesses off the ground.

When I think about founders from communities of color and otherwise, supporting our families rises to the top of our reasons of why we do what we do.

I never was able to realize buying my mother the home of her dreams, or retiring her so she didn't have to work until she couldn't physically do so anymore. Now I'd pour my days and time into building—building a company that seeks to enrich communities so that those with less have more.

Because of this new vision, my first company was heavily geared toward helping community figures, nonprofits, and those aligned with social good, to get their programs and ideas off the ground. We wanted to ensure that they were effectively operating and able to serve the communities that needed them the most.

It took some time, but you have to think of yourself as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a builder; otherwise you'll spend a lot of time downplaying what you do and what you are seeking to accomplish. Yes, you could fail and the odds are you'll fail at a lot of things along the way, perhaps even that thing you created and wanted most. I know I did and still do. Yet, I've learned my strengths and my weaknesses and seek out the strengths in others to create balance. I don't desire to be a jack of all trades. I desire to do what I do, best.

A lot of times we are waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect feeling. Lisa Nichols, an author and motivational speaker who often talks about overcoming doubt and fear, said it best: “do it afraid.” You really have to sit in that for a second, because you can wait for years or never get started at all waiting to feel something different. Something that doesn't feel like anxiety or fear or doesn't give off nervous energy.

I am often asked if I get nervous. Sometimes I can speak on a large stage and feel no anxiety, and other times I can speak in front of a group of teenagers and feel the pressure of wanting to leave an impression that could potentially alter their future, the way that some speakers have done for me.

Either way, you have to find what motivates you—what's going to push you after a long day when you don't want to go anymore, or you are feeling the weight of success or failure.

I talk about my upbringing because it's important for people to understand my journey, especially those who come from a similar background as I do. I want everyone to know that if I did it with so few resources, then you can do it too, and most likely even better.

People often ask me what my favorite part is about the work that I do. For me, it's about building a company that is mission-driven, one that I feel, as my mentor told me, I can make money and do good too with. But most importantly, I want the people who work with me to feel empowered to utilize their own capabilities and their own skill sets.

I want them, as well as digging deep to make great products, to sell great products, and to be a part of a team that markets great products, to know that they're part of something that's really helping the world and helping the community we are fostering do their work better.

I want them to make a lasting impact and really create something that is beyond what they had imagined. Building SGI and now Resilia is something that I feel really embodies our mission of powering the people changing the world.

When I think about my favorite part of the work that I do, it would be building a company and employing people to be able to do this work. It's not about necessarily building this huge hundred-million-dollar annual recurring revenue company, it's about whether we can build products that move the needle and raise the bar.

You'll have to remind yourself often of the reason that got you started.

I often have to remind myself of why I started because I think that's important, too. As much as they try to tell you otherwise, business is personal. I think about how I spend my time, where my mind goes to, and where my thoughts lead me to so I can recenter when I need to, reinforcing what really matters.

As an entrepreneur you have to keep positivity in your life. If you wake up in the morning and you're like, oh, you know, this is going to be a dreadful day, or if it's Wednesday, and you're telling yourself it's the middle of the week and I just have to keep pushing to Friday until it's over, that mindset takes over your entire aura and embodies who you become.

Instead, you want to wake up and realize you have another day to get it right. Another day to get what is in front of you done. If you need to rest for a day or a week, then do it. What matters is that you're doing things that align with your whole self, right? You're doing things that make you feel good and you have to reaffirm yourself. That's so important because not everyone will. I had to learn over time how to live in a healthy state of mind. I'm a sponge when it comes to learning. I want to learn as much as possible, and in business you are constantly learning, but what are you absorbing? I listen to what people are dishing out and I soak up what I need and I release the rest. I have to, because we're in the age of over information.

Yet, in order for me to become a really good entrepreneur and business owner, I had to learn what I didn't know. When I first started out, I began to reach out to people who were in business who had ascended to greater heights, to where I wanted to go.

I think it's important to seek people out because they have insights that they're able to recall from their journey in a way that was exciting for me to listen to. It was exciting to understand what mistakes they had made so I could try to avoid some of them, although I'd make enough of my own. But I listened because the more you learn the more you can minimize the mistakes, and when you're building a business that's critical.

At the end of the day you have these people in your life as business mentors, or guides as I often call them, and you're trying to figure out how to win, how to play this game, how to be better than the next, and if you're in tech, probably faster than the next, too.

I grew up in a single-parent household. My mother raised four of us on a salary of $29,000 a year. She was an assistant manager at Kmart, running their gardening department. My mother worked hard for whomever she was working for and everything she did, she did with excellence. She passed that down to my siblings and me.

My mother was my role model, although she herself had not graduated from college. My grandmother had not received a formal education past the sixth grade but would live to be 103 years old. She was also my role model.

Do you know where your story begins? My entrepreneurship story began where my mother's story left off.

When I started SGI and then when I entered tech I was ready to work hard, but I knew I was behind. I knew that there was a knowledge curve that I had to really overcome. I wasn't out in Silicon Valley. I wasn't in New York. I wasn't in a hotbed for tech, and so I had to get really resourceful.