← Black Entrepreneur Experience
Black Entrepreneur Experience
BEE 501 Serial Entrepreneur, Wealth Strategist, and Real Estate Developer, Carrington M. Carter
00:37:59
Carrington M. Carter, Co-founder and President of McKinley Carter Enterprises (MCE), which owns and manages a network of luxury vacations under the Getaway Society Brand, Co-founder & General Partner of East Chop Capital. Info: In addition, East...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Black Entrepreneur Experience podcast. Inside the business buzz and brilliance of black entrepreneurs. Here is your host, Dr. Francis Richards. What happens in Vegas goes all over the world on Black Entrepreneur experience, episode number 501. Thank you for joining us as we elevate the Black Entrepreneur experience by interviewing CEOs, thought leaders, innovative thinkers and black entrepreneurs across the globe. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Francis Richards. Elevating our dialogues with a dynamic serial entrepreneur, strategist and real estate developer. Co founder and president of McKinley Carter Enterprise MCE, which owns and manage a network of luxury vacations under the Getaway Society brand. Co founder and general partner of East Chop Capital, a private equity firm. Welcome, Carrington M. Carter.
- [00:57]
B
Thank you, thank you. Excited to speak with you today.
- [01:00]
A
I've given our audience such a brief bio. Why don't you fill in the gaps, Share with our audience what you'd like them to know about you and your business ventures.
- [01:09]
B
Fantastic question. I live a complicated life and involved in multiple businesses. But I'll try to sum it up here. Quickly. Let me rewind a little bit. So over previous life in pharmaceutical marketing and advertising. So I worked about 10 years in corporate America, but since then I've been running my own businesses for the last 10 years. We have three main verticals of businesses that we operate. Getaway Society is our luxury vacation rental home company. And through that we have a $30 million portfolio of luxury vacation rental homes across multiple states including Martha's Vineyard, Hilton Head, Orlando, Gatlinburg, Oklahoma and the Texas Gulf coast. Eastchop Capital is our private equity firm and under East Chop Capital we operate under two verticals. Real estate development, vacation homes is one part, but also traditional real estate development for which we have a $500 million real estate pipeline. And that's more traditional real estate, mixed use residential, single family, new construction, hospitality, multifamily and student housing. And then our other vertical is angel investing where we invest in companies in various industries. Preference for early stage. Also a preference for black founders. We've invested in Uncle Nearest, Premium Spirits, Major League Soccer franchise, multiple fintech companies. And so that's the other vertical, our angel investing vertical.
- [02:26]
A
Let's step back a moment. When you talked about being in corporate America. Take us to that aha moment. What was that conversation when you knew you needed to pivot into entrepreneurial ship?
- [02:40]
B
Yes. So I've always been been fascinated by the ability to build wealth going back to freshman year in college. I've read Rich Dad, Poor dad, which a lot of folks have read and it introduced the concept of having your money work for you rather than just working for your money. And so many of us just work for our money. We sell our time in order to make money. And that's what corporate America is. That's what a 9 to 5 is, that's what a job is. You can do well that way, but you're never going to build true wealth unless you make it to the C suite, which is, you know, 0.1% of anyone, you know, kind of in their corporate career. So I always knew I was going to have to have businesses own assets in order to truly build wealth. So that's kind of what initially started got me thinking in that way. And then so pretty much as soon as I entered corporate America, I had an exit plan. Part of it was real estate, acquiring enough properties to be able to generate passive income and wealth to eventually leave corporate America and then flipping that money, the real estate income, the equity appreciation in the houses, into other ventures like larger income producing properties like vacation rental homes, and is also making private angel investments. So that's kind of my journey from corporate America into running my own multiple businesses, starting with real estate, building wealth that way, and then flipping it into multiple other business ventures.
- [04:01]
A
Someone is listening to the conversation and they're more mature and they have been out of the workforce for a minute. What advice would you give them?
- [04:14]
B
First, I would say partnership. You know, teamwork makes the dream work. Because of the wealth gap, because of a host of other reasons that we're at a disadvantage. It's imperative that we start partnering and working together, working with folks that you, your colleagues, that you work in your 9 to 5 with, family members, friends, fraternity brothers, sorority sisters. It's imperative that we start to work together. So I would say first start to identify people that you can work together to start businesses with, to invest with. So partnership first. Secondly, I would say get comfortable being uncomfortable. There's nothing easy about building businesses. There's nothing easy about building wealth and taking calculated risk. It's a muscle that you have to flex. And the only way that you're going to get comfortable with it is doing the work, making the investments, analyzing the deals, looking at the deals, getting in rooms that get you access to those deals, and then taking some bumps and bruises and making some mistakes. Those are the only ways that you're going to flex those muscles to be comfortable with investing and with building businesses.
- [05:19]
A
And on the flip side, let's talk to are younger Gen X and millennials, some in the workforce, some have taken that journey in terms of entrepreneurial ship, what advice would you give them?
- [05:35]
B
I would also say think about partnership. Myself and my main partner, Calvin Butch Jr. We're both Hampton alum. Most of the folks on my team and who I do business with are Hampton alums. So these are folks that I knew 20 years ago in college at Hampton University. So if you're younger, also start to identify. Don't just look at your classmates as folks that you go to parties with or as folks that you know you're in the same class with. Start to think about them being your potential partners 10, 15 years down the line. So again, partnerships and collaboration are key. I would also say in this age of artificial intelligence, there are going to be those who are productive and who succeed using artificial intelligence, and then they're going to be those who are left behind for the younger generation. For folks in college or millennials, Gen X, or what have you, I would say start to identify artificial intelligence tools that can make you more productive and irreplaceable because people who are not leveraging artificial intelligence are going to get left behind. Then the last thing I'll say Live below your means. This is something we have a problem with as a culture. We like the bling, we like the flash, we like the expensive cars, we like the big houses. And most. And depending on your situation, a lot of folks are living beyond your means. I know it's difficult, but start to think about how you can live below your means, especially in those first 10 years or so of your career, because it'll pay dividends later on.
- [07:04]
A
We are in 2025 and it started out with a bang and it's an appearance of a lot of disruption and a lot of distractions. What advice would you give individuals that's feeling a little uncertain?
- [07:21]
B
There's a saying that the only thing constant is change in business. In life, one of the keys to success is being adaptable. It's another muscle that you need to work and you need to flex and you need to use it. That adaptability muscle. Part of it is being curious. I say being a student of the game. So you need to understand macro and micro trends. You need to read, pay attention to the news, listen to podcasts, or however you consume information. You need to be a student of the game in order to be able to adapt at anything that may be going on, whether it's a changing political environment, maybe it's new leadership at your job, maybe it's a new technology that's going to disrupt your business. If you're a student of the game and always kind of being at the forefront of new trends, then you'll be able to be more adaptable.
- [08:11]
A
Talk about what's been your most successful. I know you've had a lot of successes, but tell me a story around your biggest success.
- [08:23]
B
I would say our biggest success is our East Chop Capital community that we've created. And so Calvin and I, we didn't come from a traditional Wall street background, didn't necessarily go to a top five business school, Stanford, Harvard, mit. But I think it's because that we were able to create this very unique private equity firm in our community. We have about 300 investors. 90% are black, about 10% are white, and about 23% are women. And so it's a very special community. And these are folks who have given us anywhere from 5,000 to invest in something on up to 500,000 to invest in initiatives. So I think it's this community, this trust, these relationships that we've cultivated over the last eight years has been truly special. And we've literally distributed millions of dollars back to these investors. But not only that, we say our commitment with each Chop Capital is to provide the best combined financial, educational and social returns with any investment. Financial returns are the expectation, but we're equally as passionate about the educational returns. So learning real estate development, learning how to analyze vacation homes, learning how to analyze fintech companies or what to look for in an industry, learning or characteristics to identify in a CEO you're thinking about investing in so that those educational returns that we are equally as passionate about, and then the social returns, bringing people together. We're a huge proponent of bringing people together to learn, to network, to build relationships. We do that through receptions on Martha's Vineyard every summer. We do that through annual investor retreats. We just had ours in December of last year, and it was phenomenal. We do that by bringing CEOs and founders on calls and giving their their investor pitch to our network of investors. So those are different ways that we deliver on our financial returns, our social returns, and our educational returns.
- [10:19]
A
You talked about that, the muscle and about change. Let's talk about opportunities. Some would say another way is that worst moment in business. But it was a teachable opportunity. What was that for you and what lessons did it teach you?
- [10:38]
B
So Warren Buffett has a saying, be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. So I built a lot of my initial wealth, you know, during the Great Recession when everyone was fearful of everything and I saw opportunity, I started investing in neighborhoods that I was familiar with buying houses for 50 or 60,000, know, three or four bedroom houses and neighborhoods that I was familiar with because I knew, being a student of the game, that these values would eventually rebound. Being greedy when others are fearful and fearful and others are greedy. And then also similarly, during COVID you know, when folks were at unrest and didn't know what the future was going to hold and didn't necessarily know the outcome of this pandemic, I was scouring the earth, scouring the United States, looking for real estate opportunities and buying from panic sellers because I knew that with the ingenuity of America, with the ingenuity of the world, the pandemic would eventually come under control. And so we did well buying real estate during the pandemic. And then also, you know, this is a challenging time, especially in our community where there is an attack on diversity, equity, inclusion and other things that have benefited us over the last couple of years or so. I think this is opportunity for us to come together, to partner, to pull capital, to pull relationships and knowledge in order to strengthen our community. There's always opportunity. Even Jim Cramer has a saying, you know, there's always a bull market somewhere. There's always opportunities to make money, whether it's real estate, whether it's private market deals. We've invested in, we've diversified away in some parts of real estate, so we've invested in fintech companies and artificial intelligence companies. We don't have that expertise, but we are investing in those that do. So that's another way to kind of take advantage of this new wave of technology.
- [12:27]
A
And Carrington, what problem exists in the world today that you'd like to solve?
- [12:32]
B
I would say economic disparity, economic empowerment, financial literacy. That's why the educational returns is such a core component of what we're doing. Equipping us with the knowledge and information to analyze deals, to build wealth. Literally getting our eave capital investors in those rooms and getting access to those deals and those opportunities, help them vet and validate certain opportunities. And then generational wealth, you know, that's probably creating generational wealth is kind of the core. It's our. It's our why creating wealth in our communities, generational wealth. And we're dedicated to that. And we've been doing pretty good at it over the last 10 years, 10 or 15 years since we've been investing in, over the last seven years since we started our private equity firm.
- [13:19]
A
Advice you wish you had followed.
- [13:22]
B
I am grateful for all aspects of the journey that we've been on the Wins, the losses, the bumps, the bruises. So I wouldn't change anything. For those who are thinking about launching a fund, whether real estate or whether a venture capital, I would say at a minimum, you should have a clear path to being able to raise $50 million, preferably having certain anchor investors who can anchor you on your way to 50 million. Otherwise, the economics are just, are such that it just makes it difficult to scale a company and to operate if you're managing less than $50 million. So that would be my biggest piece of advice. And if myself and Calvin and I, if we hadn't made the necessary investments early on, before we started the firm and had independent financial success, we would not have been able to scale this firm like we have.
- [14:21]
A
I want you to have a monologue and I want you to name this person, living or not, and they have inspired you so much. Who is that person and what are you saying to them?
- [14:33]
B
That's a good question. That's a good question. Been a huge fan of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Just everything that he stood for. So I guess I would say to him, thank you for the example that you've set, your concern for those who are overlooked, your vast knowledge of equality, not just representation and access, but economic equality. So I would say, you know, he's, he's a person that, you know, I significantly look up to. Also someone who's living. Ray Dalio, he's a hedge fund manager of Bridgewater Associates. And through his, what he calls the last phase of his life, I think he's over 70 years old or whatnot, he is really dedicating this kind of last phase of his life to educating business owners, fund managers, humanity, society, governments. He's a macroeconomist at heart as well as an investor. But just the, the information that he's put out, the books, the LinkedIn posts, the email newsletters, he's literally dedicating the last part of his, his life to educating others and passing the torch, so to speak. So, Ray Dalio, I see you, I appreciate you. Those are two folks that come to mind.
- [15:50]
A
Your top two mentors and what lessons did they teach you?
- [15:55]
B
It's an interesting question, Dr. Richards. I, I don't really have formal mentors. You know, there are folks that I listen to and I consult, but I kind of think I kind of take the, the Mark Cuban approach as it comes to mentors. I don't really have any. I can certainly learn a lot from folks, but there are things, there's knowledge that I have, there are experiences that I have. There are visions that I have and there's a purpose that I have that nobody else does. So and if I were to listen too intently from mentors who don't have that experience, that knowledge and that purpose, they may guide me in the wrong way. That's a long way to say I don't have specific mentors. I do listen to people. I have advisors. There are experts in certain industries that I seek in order to get certain information. But I don't have formal mentors.
- [16:46]
A
And speaking of purpose, talk about your why. Why do you do what you do?
- [16:51]
B
My why is to and this is I read a book many years ago called Integrated Life and that has been kind of instrumental in how I'm living my life, integrating all aspects of it. So business, personal life. So my wife works in our business. We have a lot of Hamptonians who work in our business. So Integrated life and in my purpose is woven into that. And so I mentioned the kind of the the commitment or the mission of our firm to provide the best combined financial, educational and social returns. So that's our purpose. That's our why. To build generational wealth in our community and allies of our community to educate, to improve financial literacy, economic empowerment, give people access to deals and opportunities and information and in the social returns and bringing people together, building networks, building relationships and having fun while doing it. Because there's a fun part of investing and building wealth that I want people to experience. So I would say that that's that's our why. Our why is our commitment, our why is our mission to provide the best combined financial, educational and social returns.
- [18:02]
A
Talk about love, marriage and entrepreneurial ship.
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B
So my wife, Kia Walcott Carter, we met at Hampton University. We are celebrating nine years of marriage this year. She has been a tremendous supporter of everything that we've been building over the last decade or more. I know it's tough being married to an entrepreneur and a business owner and a business leader, especially one who's ambitious as myself and is doing everything that I can to live my purpose. There's a lot of personal sacrifice. There's a book, Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last. Leaders Truly Eat Last. You have to make sure everyone else is taken care of. Employees, clients, vendors. Often a personal sacrifice to the Carter household and may not. She probably didn't know what she was getting into when she signed up for it, but she's been very supportive ever since. Love marriage. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. We just had a influencer retreat to launch one of our homes in Orlando Florida. And there was a session down there where they talked about kind of families building businesses together, led by one of our investors, Derek Lewis and his wife Shereen, and the business and the empire that they built across a variety of verticals. So it's a beautiful thing when folks can. When families can come together and build businesses. And it just doesn't have to be, you know, husband and wife. There's love and families, whether it's brother and sister, brothers, kids and parents, whether it's aunt, uncles, cousins, nephews. I mean, there's a lot of ways to have love as the anchor of a family business.
- [19:46]
A
I love that. Thank you for that. Carrington, what is your zone of genius?
- [19:51]
B
I think one is being a visionary. There's an operating system called the Entrepreneur Operating system, which is a system that you can incorporate in your business, developed by Gino Wickman. And in one of the series of the books, it talks about visionaries versus integrators. And I think it mentioned something like maybe 5% of all people are visionaries. And I am one of those visionaries. And there are many, many things that I've been put here on this earth to do. So part of my zone of genius is being a visionary. But I'll also say, you know, not to. Not to toot my own horn, but I can also integrate and execute. I think I'm one of the few skill sets where I can see something, put a plan together and then also execute. So I would say those are two of my zones of genius. Vision, strategy and execution. However, understanding that there's only 5% of the population that are visionaries, I need to operate more and spend more of my time in that zone. And I need to spend some or bring some more people on board the team to help execute on the vision.
- [20:55]
A
And we. I call this part of Think Fest. I'd like you to thank individuals and situations and businesses. Whomever that has really impacted your life, have at it.
- [21:11]
B
Yeah. So as far as thanks, certainly thanks to my wife, who has been supportive as we built these businesses. Calvin Butch Jr. Who founded the vacation rental home company with, as well as East Chop Capital with, and he's been a huge supporter as we built those businesses. The rest of the East Chop Capital team, our ETH Capital investors. I mentioned our 300 or so investors who have been rocking with us for the last seven years or so, whether it was a $5,000 check or a $500,000 check, we couldn't have gotten to this point without them. All of the contractors and partners that We've worked with, so builders, electricians, H vac, plumbers, housekeepers for our vacation rental home business, property managers, accountants, lawyers. I mean, I can go on and on. There's no shortage of people to thank when building a business. And then also God, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Being a business owner, you have to have irrational optimism and, and a unreal amount of faith. And I have those and because of my, my faith in God. So I thank him as well for giving us the patience and the fortitude to build these businesses.
- [22:22]
A
What milestone do you want to accomplish over the next six months?
- [22:27]
B
Over the next six months? So there are two houses in Orlando, luxury vacation rental homes that we're building. One we just received certificate of occupancy on, so I want to finish the other one. We're also building some new construction down the Texas Gulf coast, so I would love to get those to a great place. I mentioned our $500 million real estate development pipeline over the next 10 years. Can't disclose the location just yet, but there are some key parcels that we want to acquire in this particular town which will give us the critical site control in order to build out our vision for that place. So there's maybe another hundred acres or so that I want to buy down there. So that's another key success milestone that I would like to achieve in the next six months.
- [23:12]
A
And what do you do when you hit that bump in the road? How do you pivot and reset?
- [23:18]
B
I mentioned having fortitude and mentioned being get comfortable being uncomfortable. So I've been living in a perpetual state of discomfort ever since I've been on this entrepreneurial journey. So I'm used to it. So whenever those, those low points, those bumps and bruises or those disaster strike, I usually have a like, oh crap, what am I going to do? Moment for literally for like five minutes. And then after that, boom, I'm into problem solving mode. I'm into, you know, how do we fix this? How do we mitigate this? Who do I need to reach out to for support? How do we pivot? How do we create a plan B, C and D in order to navigate this obstacle? I mentioned Ray Dalio earlier. One of the things he talks a lot about is how people are wired. And I'm grateful that there are certain characteristics of how I'm wired, and I really lean into that. And one of those is that to your question, if there's an issue or if something happens, I may be down in the doldrums for five minutes and then I've bounced Right back around into problem solving mode.
- [24:19]
A
What can we do right now to support your business?
- [24:23]
B
I would say capital. I would say at one point lack of access to capital is a hurdle for a lot of our businesses. Specifically, we are, it's difficult building a business, building a private equity firm. The $5,000 checks, the 25, the 50 to $100,000 checks are great. But as a firm, from an individual investor standpoint, we need to have more $250,000 checks or a million plus. So to your target or to the audience of your podcast, I would say that's specifically what we're looking for. Checks anywhere from 250, 250 thousand up to a million plus to support this $500 million real estate development pipeline. And then secondly, I would say on our luxury vacation rental standpoint, we've secured enough investors for that. But we would love to host anyone at our portfolio of luxury vacation rental homes. Those who are looking for a family vacation, couples retreat, guys trip, girls trip, fraternity, sorority yoga, book club, leadership retreat. We would love to host you at any of our portfolio of homes, whether on Martha's Vineyard, Hilton Head, or including our newest 12 bedroom, 14,000 square foot home in Orlando, Florida, indoor bowling alley, indoor basketball court, 10 minutes south of Disney. We would love to host you at any of our properties. And then lastly, our angel investing deals, we are giving access to folks to invest in private companies for as little as 5 or 10,000. So for folks who are accredited investors and you are interested in diversifying away from or in addition to the stock market, bonds, mutual funds, if you want to invest in private market deals, we would love to have more folks who want to join some of these syndications with us. And one point on that for those in your audience who may not be familiar with accredited investor. So the SEC has certain terms or certain criteria for folks to invest in private market deals. And the minimum threshold for private market deals, you must be what's called an accredited investor. And that is 200,000 in annual household income as individual, 300,000 as a married couple, or $1 million in net worth excluding your primary residence. And that's the minimum threshold the SEC set. It's more of a consumer protection. They want to make sure that you have the financial wherewithal of potentially losing your entire investment because there is risk associated with private market investing.
- [26:56]
A
Thank you for that. Let's talk about Legacy Carrington, when it's all said and done. How do you want to be remembered?
- [27:03]
B
I would like to be remembered and our entire team, our firm. We would like to be remembered as those who help close the wealth gap, who literally created Gener, who tangibly created generational wealth in our community and our allies, who increased education and exposure and financial literacy in private market investing, whether it's real estate startups or other companies. And as one of my colleagues put it, I want to be remembered as someone who did the Lord's work from a financial services standpoint, because like I said, unless you have, you know, 50 million or 100 million in assets under management, it's difficult to build a sustainable business. So Calvin and I, our families, have personally invested significant amounts of our personal money in order to get the business of where it is. And it's been a form of doing the Lord's work because it hasn't been easy. It has been easy, but we're committed to it and we're bringing along as many people as we can for the ride.
- [28:05]
A
And thank you for the work that you're doing.
- [28:07]
B
Thank you.
- [28:08]
A
Give us one to three words that would describe Carrington, that would describe you.
- [28:13]
B
Good heart, resilient and ambitious.
- [28:19]
A
And speaking of Calvin, your business partner, talk about vetting someone to partner with, to go into business with.
- [28:28]
B
It's tough. It's tough. Thankfully. And this is why I kind of like working with Hamptonians and is because of the, the culture, the character that Hamptonians have that was ingrained in us during our matriculation at the university. So, I mean, just knowing Calvin, being a Hamptonian, I know certain characteristics that he has and who he is as a person. So that certainly helps being aligned with someone as far as values and ambitions and goals. We both have a shared belief in building wealth and closing the wealth gap and then exposing our community to opportunities and to deals. We also have a complimentary skill set. So I think that's important as you think about partnering with someone. If you're a visionary, you may need someone who's great at execution. If you're executionist, you may need someone who's a visionary. If you're an introvert, it may help to have someone who's extroverted and who enjoys being around people and building relationships. If you have a strong creative background, maybe you need someone who's good on finance and numbers and things. So that should go into your equation as far as identifying partners to work with. And then also you have to give yourself some grace. All partnerships are not going to work work out. You know, there's a saying that people are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. So in Some aspects, you know, sometimes the relationship or the partnership that got you to this point, maybe not be the one that'll get you kind of to your, to your next milestone. You're not always going to get it right. You know, partners have falling outs, people don't see eye to eye. And even with hiring, you know, you may not always hire right. So giving yourself some grace and, and being able to recognize and understand when something isn't working and when you may need to pivot, what is the one.
- [30:15]
A
Thing that you do daily that's bringing impact, that's making impact in people's lives.
- [30:22]
B
Staying true to our commitment, our mission, providing the, the best combined financial, educational and social returns. So delivering on the returns and the financial returns, delivering on building wealth, but then not forgetting that core to who we are is education. Teaching people, literally hand holding, spoon feeding, teaching people how to analyze opportunities, teach people how to send wires and, and then bringing folks together. So doing that every single day, staying true to our commitment, our mission, that's something that is having impact.
- [30:56]
A
If you could spend time with one person, living or not, who would that person be that you could have dinner with in a conversation? And why?
- [31:07]
B
Rather than a person, I'm going to say a class of people and I'm going to say African Americans with at least a $10 million net worth. And the reason why I'm saying that is obviously if you have a $10 million net worth, you have a financial cushion to invest in the next generation of business owners and entrepreneurs. But I feel like not enough of that is happening. So you hear about the lack of access to capital, you hear about 1% of venture funding is going to black and brown entrepreneurs. But yet we have the wealth in our community, but it's not getting to those who need it to scale their businesses. There's another saying. The first five years in business is not when you make money, it's when you get good. And what that means is getting the experience, taking the bumps and bruises, building your team in order to scale and really build value and deliver. But a lot of times we don't get the opportunity to get good because we don't have the capital to compete, the capital to scale, the capital to hire. The reason why I didn't point to a particular person I would like to meet with, you know, kind of that group of folks, $10 million in net worth and above, and understand their mindset. What are they investing in and why? Why aren't they investing more in black fund managers and black business owners and women? Because we can't complain about how venture capital is not investing in our business owners when there's a whole class of our community who could be doing more. And is it? So that's who I want to talk to. I understand that mindset.
- [32:45]
A
And speaking of scaling and growth, what was the biggest shift that you made in order for you to scale and grow in the business?
- [32:55]
B
I would say one of the things we're doing this year is taking more, more moonshots. Because I think with, especially with black owned businesses, our goals are not ambitious enough, our goals are not lofty enough. And so as a result we're doing okay, we're surviving, but we're not thriving and scaling because we're not shooting high enough. And it only comes from shooting high enough. So I mentioned our, our 500 million dollar real estate development pipeline. We've got six or seven acres in a downtown area plus an additional 150 acres. Now if we were just trying to develop a house or one hotel or a four unit building or a 20 unit building, there's just not enough cushion in order to build a team in order to scale. That's why instead of 20 unit, we're going to do 500 units downtown. Instead of 5 acres, we're doing 150 acres. So we got to think bigger in order to have the scale to create sustainable businesses. And when I say sustainable businesses, I mean people are expensive, six figure salaries, benefits, stock options, health care and things like that. But you can't afford, be able to pay good people in order to scale your business if you're not shooting lofty enough because you don't have a large enough enterprise to be able to scale and be comfortable. And be comfortable.
- [34:20]
A
If you conducted this interview, what is the one question you would have asked yourself? I want you to ask the question and answer it.
- [34:28]
B
I think it's the one you asked earlier. And that's what is your why? What is your why? Because business is so difficult. Because entrepreneurship is difficult, period. But it's even more difficult being African American, being an underrepresented minority, being a woman. It's even more difficult because of the barriers to resources in order to scale. So my question would be the one that you asked earlier, you know, what is your why? Because you're going to need that why to sustain you, to keep you, going, to motivate you, to push you, to keep you focused. So what is your why? And my why is, you know, to provide the best combined financial, educational and social returns. And then the other is a yes or no question. Gary V. Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur and a business personality. He talks a lot about eating dirt. Eating dirt. And then so the other question would be a yes or no. Are you prepared to eat dirt for 10 years? And that's a metaphor for are you prepared to struggle, to fight, to suffer, to go without a yes or no question. So are you prepared to do that? Because if you're not, then don't start. Don't start the journey of being an entrepreneur and a business owner.
- [35:42]
A
Thank you for that. We've come to the final part and it's called the Rapid Round of Fun. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. I. I'd like you to give me very quick answers. If it's something you desire not to answer, you can say pass. Are you ready for the Rapid Round of Fun?
- [35:56]
B
Yes.
- [35:57]
A
Your first job.
- [35:59]
B
Officially landscaper. So I worked at a nursery. Unofficially, I worked at a nursery and an officially Walgreens. Walgreens.
- [36:08]
A
The last movie you saw.
- [36:10]
B
I worked too much so I don't remember what last movie I saw, but I've been watching the Godfather of Harlem, the series on hbo or Showtime. The Godfather of Harlem featuring Forest Whitaker.
- [36:21]
A
You relax. Doing what? Reading your favorite singer or rapper, Lil Wayne, Your favorite dance song.
- [36:30]
B
Probably something lean with it, rock with it. Snap music.
- [36:34]
A
What food you eat every week, no matter what.
- [36:37]
B
Eggs for breakfast, mostly hard boiled.
- [36:40]
A
Work out or hit the couch.
- [36:43]
B
I need to work out more. So neither right now, but I'll say in front of the computer.
- [36:48]
A
Carrington M. Carter thank you so much for joining us on Black Entrepreneur Experience podcast. Before we let you go, share with our audience the best way for them to connect with you, to do business with you, to invest in you. And feel free to leave all of your social media handles.
- [37:04]
B
Sure. So @carringtonmcarter on Instagram. Also on LinkedIn. Carringtonm Carter my website carringtonmcarter.com our private equity firm, East Chop Capital. If you're interested in being added to our email list to have access to our deals, please visit eastchopcapital.com and our luxury vacation Run a home business. We would love to host you at any of our portfolio of properties. Getawaysociety.com and then etawaysociety on Instagram and LinkedIn. If you would like to follow us and see our portfolio of homes.
- [37:38]
A
Thank you Carrington. That's a wrap. Thank you for listening and subscribing to Black Entrepreneur Experience. We would love for you to leave a review and rating on itunes and share with your friends. For show notes and more episodes, go to www.beepodcast.com. join us next Wednesday. And remember, green is the new black, so keep your bank accounts and your business in the black.