← Earn Your Leisure
Earn Your Leisure
EYL #349: Credit Foundations, Wealth Building & the Business of Celebrity DJ’ing w/ Venus X & Stanley Lumax
01:05:33
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Venus
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Venus
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Venus
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Venus
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Host 1
Welcome back. Special episode of Earn your leisure.
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Host 2
Hey, man. We are very fortunate and delighted to be here. The ambiance is good. We got some familiar bases with us.
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Host 1
Yeah, for sure. We got some friends with us. So we got. Venus and Stanley, thank you for joining us both.
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Stanley
Thanks for having us.
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Host 1
So this is going to be an interesting conversation. We have our series with Chase called Freedom Foundation, Foundation Forward and it's on Hulu right now. Venus is one of the people that we spoke to and Stanley is one of the people that's actually made it responsible. So this is interwoven conversation on a few different levels. Venus, we spoke to you. I'm going to get more of your backstory. But Stanley, for people that might not be familiar with who you are, can you tell people like your journey as far as corporate working in Chase, what your position is in Chase and your background and how we got here to this point?
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Stanley
For sure, first and foremost, congratulations to you guys for making this happen, man. Like, this was. This was a journey, but we got here. In terms of me, I'm currently the executive director at Chase. My role is specifically around talent and cultural partnerships. Next week, I'll actually be at Chase for three years. So it's definitely been a bit of a journey in terms of my background. Prior to that, I've worked in advertising and marketing for the most of my life. A lot of brands that you'd be familiar with, a lot of blue chip brands, sports. I'm a big basketball guy, so definitely have been around some of those brands that you can use your imagination and guess what? But, you know, now that I'm at Chase and I have the opportunity to, you know, work with, you know, the youth and identify ways to help them start their credit journey. You know, it was really exciting to have the opportunity to bring you guys on board and do some magic.
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Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
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Host 2
It's very important, man. Watching the work and what you have to make sure y' all go tap in. I'll open it up for both of you about the timing of it, like why it's so important in this moment. I know we come from a generation and now it's like Gen Z, Gen Alpha. Why is this moment so important to get this message out? When we're looking at the economy, we're looking at the society as a whole and there's one piece of education that's always been missing. Why is this so important right now?
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Stanley
Well, I mean, I would definitely say, when you think about the resources that are available, you know, if a kid is going to, you know, a kid Gen Z, if they're going to be on YouTube, looking at, you know, streamers and things of that nature and entertainment, they might as well learn, you know, the. The other side of that, right? Because if you look at your favorite streamers and they're making a lot of money, right? Like, they're doing well for themselves, but what they're not talking about, which you guys are doing a great job of, is the business behind it or. Or the actual building of, you know, your financial, you know, foundation, right? So everything from starting your credit journey, you know, getting your first credit card, getting your savings and checking account, you know, these are all things that we offer amazing tools for. You know, even just the idea of having a tool that shows you your credit journey so you know what your score is. A lot of, you know, our Gen Z consumers aren't thinking about those things and those tools are available for them. So we want to make sure that, you know, we're not taking the traditional route in terms of speaking to Gen Z from a bank perspective, but we're doing it in a way where they see people that look like them, that they can relate to, that are on that journey.
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Host 1
So, Venus, you being a creative, we talked about this on the episode. As far as, you know, maybe that wasn't your primary focus as far as financial literacy, but then you realize that that's something that you need to focus on.
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Venus
Absolutely.
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Host 1
How. How are you adapting or adapting to this new age of finance with artificial intelligence and so much stuff is changing so quickly. How are you adapting?
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Venus
Well, I think that to build off of what Stanley said, we're living through a crossover of, I guess, culture and worlds really. We're watching a new world come to be and we're leaving a world behind that was a completely different version of reality. And I think that from even the way that I used to promote myself as a dj, flyers, going out and meeting people, building relationships, to having to have a digital footprint and having to concern myself with content and with reaching global audiences, the way that I have had to exist over the last 17 years, DJing is completely different today than it was when I started. And if I had been as intentional, let's say, at building my credit from day one as I was at building my social media personality, I think that I would have not a better career, but I would have a very different infrastructure. And granted, when I started, we were not accepting, you know, payment via credit card for a ticket to a show. We were cash only. We were mostly word of mouth. We had a small Facebook group. But now when we post, we can see that a lot of non followers are seeing our stuff. A lot of people are sending our stuff to other people who are not in our network. And it's the same way with money. When you deal with money and when you deal with transactions and when you deal with your image and you're inside of this closed circuit and you only have these few resources and you can kind of see where everything is going, you don't understand that the dollar that you spend or the hour that you spend has so much more possibility. And now I think what I'm living through is watching it change so quickly and realizing that in a world where we might have a digital currency soon or we might have, you know, AI expanding the growth of something that we didn't know how to grow quickly by ourselves because we didn't understand the strategy. And if you don't understand money and you don't understand the way that you can control your power in relation to that money that you make and that money that you spend and that money that you invest, you are at a disadvantage. Because there are people who, they not only have more resources, but they also understand financial literacy and they're also at the top of the curve of what's happening next. And we as people of color who come from low income neighborhoods who are doing things that, you know, oftentimes we don't have a budget behind, there isn't an investor or there isn't, you know, a parent who's done it before. There isn't a mentor. We have to go out and figure out how to enable ourselves to skip the line in some way and also make the most of our resources. And I think that the same way we go online and we post every day, that's exactly how we should treat our credit. We should be looking at it every day. We should look at all of our expenses. That's been one of the most important things for me is realizing that every dollar that I spend has the capacity to bring something back into my life and only as a result of credit, because of the way that credit functions inside of our in relation to other businesses. Like, you know, a kickback, a flight, you know, program or a, you know. Yeah, exactly. Like a transportation kickback when you buy gas or even just the simple fact that you, if you are committed to your goals, can show a bank. I have been doing this for 17 years. This is how much I spent, this is how much I made, this is how much I paid out. Maybe I made no money the first five years, maybe I broke even. Maybe I only paid myself the first 10 years. But what this shows is proof that I am a trustworthy entrepreneur and that I have the commitment to be able to build something and that there's a void for it. And then you go out and you use the technologies that are available to you, and you can build something that, you know, people are not ever going to stop engaging in. Music, culture, fashion, all these things. And I think that we're basically at the crossroads of two different worlds where, you know, if you don't have credit and if you continue to rely heavily on cash or you live day to day the way that so many people from our neighborhoods and from our lives live, you miss out this grand opportunity to show these enormous, you know, brands and these enormous companies like banks, because ultimately, that's what they are. They're looking for people who know how to handle the responsibility of having access to these resources. So if you understand that it's the same as investing and building a following, it's the same as investing in, you know, your wardrobe or whatever, except it actually has the capacity to help you formalize your business and to help you formalize yourself as an individual and then go out and do all the things that you want to do that somebody else might get handed to them. And we're not going to get those things handed to us. We're not going to get jobs handed to us. We're not going to get homes, we're not going to get endowments or, you know, trust funds. So we really have to think about how we can very sort of, like, casually put ourselves in a position to earn something back. Because our work is worth more than another person's work, because they don't have to do that much to get something back for it. We have to do so much to earn it. We're already at a disadvantage with, you know, pay gaps and with class and race, and then we also then don't have literacy, and we're also not integrated into the infrastructure properly to be able to get back something for what we put in. And so I think that, you know, this is a really great opportunity for people to understand that it's never too late. It takes a while to figure it out, you know, to figure out how to be a person who cares about that stuff. But if you love something and you're gonna do it, you absolutely should formalize it, and you Absolutely should have a system. Even if, you know you get it wrong the first time you go back and you try again. But you should have a system where you have a financial footprint. And ultimately that's what I think credit is. It's exactly the same as having a digital footprint, except it's a financial footprint. And if you are a good person, which I believe most people are, most people are not out here scamming, Most people are not out here trying to get fast money. Most people are going to work. Most people are believing in themselves. They're trying to build something. If you are that kind of person, you need to put that penny, that dollar, that $10, that $100. You need to keep everything organized and you need to be able to get something back for it because that is your leverage. And that's the only thing we're going to have. For most of us, we're not going to have the people to go and ask for money. We're not going to have the parents to go to ask for money. We're not going to have, you know, the resources to go and get that job that pays 250k a year. But what we do have is proof of concept. And ultimately, I think credit is a really great way to go to a bank and say, you know, look at what I've been doing, even if it's just $10,000 or $5,000, I want to build this. And I think that if kids had that information from the age of 18, so many kids are abandoning the concept of college or they don't feel it's worth worth it for them. They need to understand that so much of what, you know, they're going for in life is attainable through just consistency, discipline, financial knowledge. And so, yeah, I'm really happy to be able to share my story and to share that shift that happened for me because I think my life got a lot less stressful when I realized that, you know, it didn't have to be all about cash and it didn't have to be all about, you know, like living to work and hand to mouth and all these cool things are happening. But if you don't actually write it down and you don't actually show anybody, you're going to be at square one forever.
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Host 2
Yeah, I think that's why this moment is important. I think when we sat down with each other, what came across for me was the vulnerability in your story. And I think that's important, right? People sharing their experiences, the highs and the lows of what we can learn from it, and hopefully with resources like this one and obviously with foundation forward, that becomes a blueprint where people can go back to. But I like what you said about the financial footprint because it is right. You get to track what you've done, even if you're not keeping your home records. There is a database that shows that. But it made me think to you, Zan. Now, I thought to myself, a lot of times people see you at this position, they think, oh, you've always had that financial education. You've always had the wherewithal to know how to use this to your advantage. But what was your experience of credit coming up, right? Like, what was that moment when you discovered the power or credit and how you can use it to your advantage, Right? Like, we tell this story, plus, you know, my. My mom made me an authorized user, and I had to understand when I got to college and getting that credit card that was a 30% interest rate, like, that was my moment. A lot of people share that. But sitting in a physician, you're in. Did you have a moment in time where it was like, oh, this is where 30 years?
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Stanley
Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, like, I think like most, you know, college students, you know, I did the wrong things. You know what I mean? I wanted to, you know, you see the suit, Like, I've been fly. I've been fly. So this isn't like a new thing, right? So, like, being in college and, you know, wanting the new. Whatever the thing was. And, you know, at that time, you know, you know, every bank, every. Every credit card was available to you. So you sign up and, you know, before you know it, you're in debt. You know what I mean? And for me, I think when I first started understanding the importance of credit, I actually, I was shamed into it, right? So I had. I had a group of friends and, you know, after college, everyone started looking at buying their first property, right? So when your friends are buying, you know, even. Even on the course to start buying their. Their first property and you're not, you know, the whole keeping up with the Joneses thing can be a positive thing, right? In school, it might have been, you know, getting the sneakers everyone else has. But then when you graduate from that and your friends are, like, serious about, okay, I need my first property. I didn't even understand how to even get there, right? So, you know, a couple friends, you know, bought a. Bought their first place and started talking about credit and made me realize that I wasn't even in a place where I could have a conversation with a bank about credit. And that immediately got me to a place where, you know, I found one of those programs that, you know, help first time owners, you know, get their stuff right. And you know, that began my journey where I was paying attention to my credit score and how I was spending and, you know, reducing credit card debt and really just focusing on, you know, putting a plan together. So that was, that was definitely my first, you know, introduction to credit. And you know, now that I have, you know, daughters, I have a 17 year old who's getting ready for college. You know, one of the biggest moments of our collective lives was taking her into a chase and getting her, her first, you know, checking account and savings account and adding her as an authorized user to my, to my freedom account. So being able to live those, you know, real life scenarios and understand that like all the things that it took me, you know, post college to learn honestly, you know, my daughter is going to be ahead of the game because she's already, you know, established credit, she's already, you know, has her own checking account and savings and, and all of those different things. So I think that's the part of the, you know, when we talk about foundation, right? Like that's my goal is to give them a foundation that I may not have had.
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Host 1
So Venus, it's interesting because you're on a corporate side, you're on the creative side. So talk about just the business of what you do as far as being a dj, celebrity DJ and traveling around the world and doing events. What's the business model behind that? Because I mean, people see that and they see like big name DJs, but how do you go about actually making sure that that's a sustainable business, like keeping the bookings coming and negotiating contracts and you know, making sure that you get the money up front, the back end and you know, working with corporate sponsors, making sure you, you have your deliverables done. Like what's, what's the business behind that?
- [19:38]
Venus
So it started out more in the traditional sense of throwing events and figuring out how to create enough demand and enough relevance that there would be an inevitable, I guess, sustainability to it. And I think that whether I knew that or not, when I started, I guess I had the instincts to build something of my own. And that thing was, you know, for me, I think people can talk about generic infrastructure, right, for the business of being a dj, but I credit a lot of my success to the quality of my ideas and the quality of my community building and my network building. So it's not that I'm a networker. It's just that I like to create spaces where people feel comfortable connecting. And when people feel comfortable connecting, a lot of good things happen. So whether people are dancing, whether people are talking, whether people are like, you know, getting their fits off, whatever it is, ultimately, it's like the DNA of what will ultimately be your life. So for me, the business model has a lot to do with making something at the core that people will always need me for. Right? And that thing is being ahead of the trends, setting the trends, looking at what are the voids. And then I think that that's what most businesses are supposed to do. But when you're young and you're creative, you don't look at it from the perspective of a business person. You look at it from the perspective of need. We needed a space to congregate. We needed a way to promote our talents, and we needed people to take us seriously. We were very young. I started DJing at 22, and most of my friends were between 20 and 24 at the time. And they have now gone on to build some of the biggest businesses in the fashion business. They have gone on to have, you know, great careers in music as producers, as singers, as all kinds of artists. And so the only way you get an incubator like that is by being intentional about cultural curation and about what you do being forever needed. And I think that that is, in and of itself, the key to making a business as sustainable, at least in my field. Because the fact is that There's a million DJs. Some of them might play better, some of them might look better, some of them might have more followers. But for whatever reason, I am still being called to help brands connect to the communities that I'm a part of, and also to show value as an influencer, as a person who has impact over what people think. And I think that ultimately that took me being brave, brave enough that 17 years later, people would still be like, that was the coolest party in New York in the last 20 years. Or, that's where I saw this happen for the first time, or the way that everybody's doing that now. She was doing it then. So I think that as, you know, hard as a concept as that is to grasp for most people, you have to be willing to do something that other people aren't doing, and you have to be willing to do it first, and you have to be willing to do it in a way that is collectively beneficial. So I initially reached out to my friends who were fashion designers One of them was Hood by Air, another one was Telfar. Another one was Luar. What are the odds that I would just randomly be friends?
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Host 2
Was it pretty good?
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Venus
And then say, come work here, I'm going to pay you. And then say, oh, you want to make that sample but your tailor is Latino and doesn't speak English. I'mma go with you to help you make the sample. Then I'm going to wear the clothes at the party and I'm going to pay you to come to the party every week and give you $500 a week so you could pay for the samples. And I'm going to give you a laptop that you're going to pay off at the party. That's business. And people don't look at it like that because they're like, you're a 22 year old girl and you're like, you know, pouring shots and you're dancing around and. But those businesses hood buyer was $100 million rotating income at one point before it collapsed due to where they were getting money from. They took money from the Italians, they did business with the Chinese, they got bootlegged heavily, they got into a back contract with the Italians. The infrastructure of the business crashed. It comes down to something that could have been resolved by credit, right? Just saying Telfar, it took a long ass, excuse my language, it took a long time. But that brand is now a household name that you see on the news on average every six months. Aunties, little kids, everybody's mom wants one. I was the first person posting it, I was the first person sharing it. I was giving Telfar jobs as an R and B DJ when nobody wanted to wear his clothes because they were too weird and he hadn't figured out what that one product was yet, that it was the bags. And my point is that when businesses are generative, not just for you but for everybody in your community, when you say I like that person's personality so I'm going to have the most, I like that person's swag. So I'm going to have them dress us and they have really good music taste. So I'm going to have them collectively DJ with me. That was my thing with Shane from Hood by Air. We were Back to back DJs. It's not like I said, you know, stop what you're doing, I'm going to turn you into a dj. I just said, okay, have a good taste. Let's, let's have a good party. That's how we got Mia in the room. That's how we got Diplo in the room. That's how we got all types of celebrities in the room at the age of 22, 23. And that's how we were packing out these spaces. And we were only charging two or three dollars at the door because, again, we wanted kids to be able to afford it, you know. So all that to say, the business model is be brave, and the business model is help people. It doesn't always pay in the way that you expect. So not understanding equity, not understanding investment, not understanding business partnership, not understanding the vocabulary. Very specifically, doing the work, knowing how to gu Gorilla market. You know, I wore a hood by your sweatshirt in an ASAP rocking video 2011. That video went on MTV. The end of MTV playing music videos.
- [26:12]
Stanley
That's music television.
- [26:13]
Venus
Yeah, it's. It's about to rip in a couple weeks.
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Host 2
Video at a time.
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Venus
Yeah. Every day, all day, on your way to school, after school, when you're going to bed. That was marketing. You couldn't pay for, you know what I'm saying? So it's like, why did I do that? Because my friend, my best friend was Shane at the time, and we were trying to get his brand off the ground. Did he have a website? Could he sell anything to anybody? No, there was no website. But there was the forethought that if you want me to be in that video, I'm going to need something in exchange for that. I'm going to need you to promote this hoodie. And then that led to ASAP Rocky wanting to wear the clothes. That led to Drake and all other types of artists. Every artist at some point. I mean, Cardi, Playboi, Cardi bought it back recently. But my point being that it's about, you know, having the capacity to say, whatever the thing is that I get to do, I'm going to do it with the best intentions. I'm going to try to help as many people as possible. I'm going to try to create something that is undeniable. You know, we were playing all kinds of weird music in there. It's not like we were like, yeah, come listen to hip hop and R and B. We were testing the waters. But what that led to was us being able to say, hey, no other black kids, no other Latino kids are moving like this right now. So we're the cool kids. You might think we're really weird, but, hey, eventually everybody's gonna dress like us. And they did. And they do. And you might think these brands are weird because they're not Gucci. They're Not Balenciaga, they're not Louis Vuitton, but now they're household names. And so I think that ultimately, whether you are, you know, a real estate agency, where we happen to be right now, you're looking around and you're saying, okay, who has space? Who has, you know, value proposition in the neighborhood? How can I help that person to fill that space? Who is the best, you know, interior decorator? That's going to help your business move forward. It's going to bring eyes to your, to your business because people are going to be like, oh, that looks like an interesting place, I want to walk in. And then in that process, you're helping the person who is really good at finding properties or really good at, you know, rebuilding properties. You're helping them fill their spaces and now you have tenants and those tenants want to buy, and now you're helping the communities to expand into ownership. If you look at that matrix, there's a lot of people benefiting. It's just not just one person. And I think that when you build matrixes like that, whether or not you financially benefit, you will always be a relevant business. And that is what I credit my business model too. Because at the end of the day, some years have been highly ticket event based income and some years have been highly brand event partnership income and some years are heavy on modeling and campaign work. But the only reason why I'm able to have any demand is because that core starter DNA is so strong and it's so, it just keeps on giving. It's like a tree that just doesn't stop producing fruit. And even to this day, you know, like we're seeing all these new DJs and it's like, oh, this open format, club music, remix, edit thing, we've been doing this for so long, but it's making people super famous and it's making people have jobs. Now we've probably created, you know, a million jobs not even knowing it because we were just so brave at the time when we were to push a sound, to push a style. And I think when you do that, you know, that's what people look for, right? So whether your timing is at that moment to sell tickets to a show or your timing is to help Chase sell the idea of credit to a bunch of kids. When you are in an ecosystem and you are invested in creating jobs and creating opportunities and creating visibility for people who don't know how to do that for themselves, even if you don't know what you're doing, that is the business model.
- [30:04]
Host 2
I Want to stay around that theme of being the first two, because I would argue all of us here are probably the first to have financial education, to be financial literacy. Even through the experiences that you live, you gain education.
- [30:16]
Venus
Absolutely.
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Host 2
And I feel like the series is at, at bare minimum has started the conversation. I've gotten calls even yesterday. A young man was asking me about his. How he's even helped get his credit score up to get a car that he was trying to get. As we start this journey for. Well, a lot of Gen Z, Gen Alpha are starting the journey. What piece of advice would you both kind of recommend to help them start to begin? Right, Because Stan, like, you even assume you did have it, but now your daughter does. Right, but there's so many parents that don't have it and their kids are trying to learn it. What would be that first piece of advice, obviously, from your liver's experience and obviously what you're doing professionally for that next generation to get started on this, this, this journey? Credit.
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Stanley
Yeah. I mean, I think, like, you know, with everything else in life, you know, credit is a tool and it's, It's. It's a tool that helps you build the, the foundation. So without, you know, leveraging that tool, you'll have an uneven foundation. I mean, that's just the reality of it. When I think about, you know, growing up and, you know, swiping a debit card and just being excited to have a debit card and not realizing that, like, I'm not getting anything back from this, right? But now, like, you know, again, keep using my kids as an example because I'm able to give them insight that I didn't necessarily have. You know what I mean? So, you know, even just kind of the idea of cash backing, right. Every time, you know, my daughter uses her card, she's getting cash back and she's again establishing, you know, a use of credit that in the long run will. Will be something that she's. That she benefits from versus just leveraging cash in, In. In a very loose way. And I think, like. But the reality. Back to your question, in terms of how do you. Or what piece of advice I would give is the same way our youth, they're very good at learning languages. I look at social media as a language. I look at emojis as a language. They need to learn the language of financial literacy. They need to be fluent in finance. And it's not as hard as they may think, right? One of the things that, as we were thinking about how we would approach this, this this campaign was, you know, we realized that there was an insight that, you know, Gen Z is really not necessarily fans of credit. And our goal was to help them understand, almost give them a nudge in terms of it's not something to be afraid of, it's something to learn. That way you can utilize it correctly.
- [32:58]
Commercial Announcer
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- [34:27]
Venus
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Commercial Announcer
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- [36:54]
Host 2
I just want to hear if you have a special born. Obviously you do live through the experience.
- [36:58]
Venus
Yes, I've lived through the experience. I'm still fully in the middle of it, you know, but I feel like I have a great, I have a great understanding of how to start because I had to start late and I had to start sort of on my own. I didn't really have any clear entry point. I just knew that it was sort of that time when things just didn't make sense to, to handle them, you know, with cash. Because I had become tired of being, I guess, not seeing anything, not seeing anything. As a result. It's like, it's like when you're, you know, you're, you're doing everything right and you're just not getting anywhere further down, closer to your goal. And I realized it was because I was trying to be, quote, unquote, a concept of good, which meant only spending the money that I earned and, and I think also realizing at some point that the business infrastructure shouldn't be completely reliant on my money. So, for example, one time we did a party and this is a really great pop cultural reference for people because recently I was asked to be in a documentary and I Chose not to be in it because I didn't like the way it all played out, right? And it was for the brand Telfar. But there's a flyer, right, that says, all proceeds of this party will be donated to collection, SS whatever. So as a kid, I'm trying to pay for a clothing collection. Had I had the knowledge that I have now, I would have made that a company and I would have made a contract and I would have gone to the bank and I would have said, I've been doing these parties. We work with these kinds of artists and creatives. We need $5,000. And I would have given him the money and I would have said, okay, this now doesn't have to be a community effort. That is all like, let's be good people and help our friends. This can be a business. This is a business. And so I say that to say that when you're building credit, you're sharing the responsibility. It's not like you don't have the money. We know you have the money. You have a job, right? That's why you even get to think about these things. Because you need money in order to pay the credit card at the end of the day. But everything you do should you recognize and respect yourself as a business, which you have to respect yourself as a business in America. America is a business. We are all part of a business. We need the money and we need the transactions in order to formally move through the business in a healthy way. Look at what you're doing and figure out how to share that responsibility with someone else. Even if at the end of the day you're going to pay that money back in terms of your payment to the credit card. And I say that because I chose not to be in the documentary, because I just didn't like what happened when they actually made money and they moved forward and they started having the budgets and, you know, I used to have the DJ at White Castle when they had a sponsorship with partnership with White Castle, and I was next to the chicken frying tray DJing for $300. And the party was packed and it was top of the, you know, top of the headlines. And then when you made money, you didn't call me. So I don't want to be here representing you anymore. But. But there are stories in all of this for everybody to learn. And that is that everything you're doing has value. And if you can figure out a way to formalize that, if you say, I want to buy a car, I have $50,000, I can go and make this the responsibility of the bank with me for a small interest rate, or I can go and pay that in cash. Make the bank part of your process. Be mutually responsible and put it in writing, because this is going to help you buy the dream car one day. This is going to help you buy the house one day. This is going to help you formalize the business. Shit. Excuse my language. I could have been a very different kind of mogul at this point had I understood the words equity or investor or, you know, angel investor or whatever the hell it is. But I didn't. And now that I do, I just see it as a missed opportunity to formalize the transactions that I'm having. So if I know I like to buy Starbucks every day, I can do the math and see how much money I'm going to spend on Starbucks. I know that I can go in and pay with this credit card, and I'm going to get money back for that. So I know I'm going to go and have an extra whatever amount, and then I'm going to say, okay, at the end of the day, I know I'm spending this much on Starbucks. After a year or two, I'm going to have enough money to go and buy that thing. Now all of a sudden, I'm in a mutual, responsible relationship with my credit card. I have already taken the time to say, this is going to be an expense I'm going to have. This is what I want to do. It could be your makeup. It could be your fashion addiction. It could be your, you know, music career. You want to buy a bunch of equipment. You want to start throwing parties. Don't do it with your own money. Use your money to pay your credit card. Use your credit card to build your business. Put it on paper. And absolutely the same way you have the audacity to go on Twitter and Instagram and all these other platforms, TikTok to post your thoughts and ideas and creativity every single day. Make sure that every single dollar that you spend does something for you. Or at least that you learn how to track your own personal expenses, your taste, your interests, and the things that you do. Not that you have to turn every hobby into a business, but you do have to recognize that we do live inside of a business model, and somebody's going to make money off of you spending that money.
- [42:40]
Host 1
Let me ask you this. As far as, like, the show that we have, Foundation Forward, it's all geared around people that's, like, getting onboarded into the credit process, young people. But you have a unique Perspective that I think we could highlight as far as being a first generation American, being Latina, I believe, Dominicana and Ecuadorian.
- [42:59]
Venus
Yes.
- [42:59]
Host 1
So from the Latinx standpoint, speak about that, speak about the difficulties as far as the onboarding process of credit for people that may not be able to speak English or for people that come from a different country.
- [43:13]
Venus
Absolutely. I think that one of the biggest issues that we're having right now is that so many people who work super hard in America do not have the formality of even a citizenship. Right. But that doesn't mean their kids don't. And that doesn't mean that you have to be a result of the environment that you grew up in. In my home, you know, I had a lot of, you know, compromised individuals, let's say, right? People who are doing things outside of the formal infrastructure for work. People who are bringing in money that wasn't necessarily accounted for in the formal systems. Right. It's not money that's taxable, it's not money that's thing. But at the end of the day, that money still goes to my mom, my aunt, my grandma. They have jobs, they have bank accounts. And even with the people that I've dealt with in my life, right. People that I've dated, people that I've been friends with. One of the things that I've noticed is that yeah, there's a lot of people who work super hard, who show up every day, who risk their lives to make money and they just collect cash and they spend it. They don't see that small bridge that they can cross, which is to say, how do I formalize myself or how do I build partnership with someone to allow myself to formalize? We can't pretend that we don't live in an ecosystem that is full of chaos, right? Financially, this ecosystem is full of chaos. There is a lot of transaction happening that does not get accredited or credit accounted for. And that is not going to change. But what can change is the fact that I don't generationally have to inherit that. I don't have to inherit the irresponsibility. I don't have to inherit the chaos. What I can say is, oh, well, I see this transaction happening. I want to start a business. That business is going to enable us to move out of that situation fairly quickly, right. Even to the extent that, you know, I had a parent who was fronting money to grocery stores, right? Bodegas, those are enormous transactions to make for someone who is not contracted, who has no legal rights over their money. You're talking $75,000 at a time is going from one hand to another with no oversight. That is a problem. And we need to, as a community, collectively stop, I guess, making it look cool to have cash to move in the way that we do. Where we don't have businesses, we. We need businesses. That's just the bottom line is we need businesses. We need to say, if I'm doing this by this year, I'm going to stop doing it. And in order for me to stop doing that, maybe I can't do it, but I'm going to go and partner with that person because I know that this money is not real if it's not accounted for. That's just the world that we're living in. And I think that people who are young, who are children of immigrants, don't realize the intensity of that. And then they become indoctrinated into that, where it's like, oh, I have money, I have money, I have money. You don't have money. If you don't have credit, if you don't have the ability to go and house yourself permanently in a space that you own, if you don't have the ability to go and buy a vehicle without putting all your own cash up front, if you. You don't have the ability to formalize your business, you don't have money. And that's just a simple fact. And I think that people have a hard time talking about that because it is chaotic and it is embarrassing sometimes. And I think it is also, we. We all know a lot of this is straight up criminal, but that doesn't mean it's where you have to stay. And we know that the infrastructures at hand force our parents or our elders to be in those systems, but they don't force us. And that is the key thing that people need to understand that just because someone else can't do it doesn't mean that you can't do it. And it doesn't mean that the money that you are getting, whatever the case, is how your parents work. If they're paid cash in hand, if they're under the table, if they're not legal citizens, you still have a responsibility to shift the narrative. And you have to do that by figuring out your business. And it's not just being an entrepreneur, it's also your business. Your life is your business, your money is your business. And we cannot just say, oh, well, my parents this and my parents didn't have that, because at the end of the day, we know it doesn't end well when you Just have cash. You can get frauded out of your money that's sitting in the bank. You can loan money to people and they don't pay you back. You can invest in businesses and when you don't do it formally, you do it with your own cash. You can get screwed out of it. You have no insurance, you have no claim over anything. At the end of the day, ruined credit is better than you being homeless. And it is better to get that process started earlier than later because it does take a while to figure out how to navigate that language and how to speak it. But there should be no shame in wanting to actually formalize your life. And I think that that's the main issue that we have collectively as people who are coming into the country, not necessarily on clear pathways with citizenship and with all the things, is that we don't realize how urgent it is to clean up the mess. Clean up the mess. That's your job as a, as a next generation. Clean up the mess. It's not fair, it's not easy, but you have to. And that is one of the primary reasons why I love my job. Because I get to do my job. I get to do a cool job that I get to put an invoice in for and I get to have a W9 and I get to pay my taxes on. And I figured out the way to have the best of both worlds. My mom hates my job, but hey, it's a real job and it pays very well and it's really cool. And that is something that I learned from watching people do things their own way and, and also watching them never get anything back for it and never have the safety and protection of saying, I signed a contract, I'm going to get paid within 30 days, I'm going to get paid within 60 days, I'm going to get paid before I hit the stage. And I think that a lot of that has to do with the psychology of money. And at the end of the day, a lot of the reasons why people don't go out and get the credit and they don't go out and get, you know, sitting. They don't sit down with bankers and they don't sit down with people who can help them is because they're sad and afraid because they're traumatized by whatever experience they had. I'm here to tell you that it's not going to help you to stay traumatized, just get over it. Because the reality is that if you hold on too tight and if you think you can control this, you're going to miss the boat.
- [50:00]
Host 2
I think you're spot on. And financial trauma is something that we've been talking about a lot over the past few years and kind of what our platform was built on is to make sure that we can ease that. And the number one way to ease that is to educate people. Saying we've talked about a lot, man. We've talked about boobs, right? We've talked about sneakers a bunch of times. But we're not going to talk about partnership, right? And one of the things we've been doing this for seven years, having corporate buy in has been one of those issues that we can't seem to just overcome. I want to talk about why Shade street and Ross thought that this partnership with us would be so profound. And what was that process like?
- [50:40]
Stanley
Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to, you know, whenever we start a project like this, we always think about, you know, what is the insight that we have on our consumer, right? And you know, Chase Freedom Rise specifically talks to what we call a starter consumer, right? So that can be, you know, someone that is finishing up, you know, college and ready to, you know, start their post college journey. That could be someone that, to your point, you know, may have just entered the country and doesn't have an existing, you know, credit situation. And our goal is to give them a card being Chase Freedom Rise that allows them to start that, that, that credit journey, to learn the basics, to learn a foundation and to start, you know, growing their credit in a way that allows them to evolve into some of our other products, Chase Freedom Unlimited, whatever it may be. But I think in terms of your question about the process, for us, we wanted to just be authentic to Gen Z and to these consumers that we're speaking about. And one of the things that we, we've heard is a lot of people are afraid of banks. A lot of people are afraid to sit down with banks and have real conversations about, you know, their financial situation. So how do we have a conversation with, you know, a starter, you know, someone just getting out of college who doesn't necessarily want to talk about credit? We find individuals that have done an amazing job of, you know, creating a culture out of it and showing, right, because I think that's the thing, right? Showing, improving the value of credit, of learning, you know, a variety of things that, you know, help build your financial picture. And you know, obviously you guys have, to your point, done it for the last seven years and for us it made sense right when we started having a conversation with masspeel about it. You know, we wanted to make sure that this felt authentic, that this felt right for the consumer that we were speaking to. And I think most of all gave us a clear sense of storytelling from an authentic perspective that would resonate with our consumer. And, you know, I think we did a really good job of that. Like, when I think about guys like Broderick that we met down in Atlanta, hearing his story, Margaret, you know, who was a dancer, like, all of these people had different stories in different parts of the country, but, like, they all left learning more, and literally, you could see their eyes light up when they discovered simple things. You know what I mean? And I think that's. That's how I knew that we were doing the right thing, right? Because these kids actually left with more information than they had before and things that they could actually apply.
- [53:31]
Host 1
Well, following up on that, you were there, you watched all the episodes. What's some of the key insights and lessons, like, from your vantage point of view, actually watching it, that you're like, okay, like, this is something I could really, you know, see can be transformational, for sure.
- [53:46]
Stanley
I mean, I was definitely taking notes. I mean, I was like, you know, thinking of things like, you know, your closing date, right? Like, just the idea of being on point enough where you're, you know, paying attention to how much credit, you know, you have by your closing day, right? And one of the things we talk about a lot with Jim Gen Z is gamification, right? Everything is a game for them. So when they start thinking about credit from the perspective of, you know, this is my life, but it's also something that can be gamified. It takes some of the stigma out of, you know, the fear that comes along with it, right? When I think about you guys talking about, you know, debit versus credit, right? Again, that's something that a lot of folks take for granted. But understanding that is a. Is a game changer. You know, understanding the value of getting, you know, cash back on every. Every. You know, every time you use your. Your card, like, these are all things that, like, for us, it feels second nature. But for a lot of people, that information isn't there. So I think, like, being able to have that conversation with them and helping them understand that, you know, was definitely something that I felt was key.
- [54:58]
Venus
I think also to piggyback on that, when you say, you know, debit versus credit, it makes me think about how many people miss the opportunity to show a bank how hard they work because they think that, oh, I want to pay as little as possible in taxes. What they don't realize is that by doing that, they're missing the opportunity to create more leverage for themselves on the credit side. That's not saying that you have to take on that responsibility personally. But if you open up a business and you pay yourself as an employee, you can pay yourself whatever salary you want, a small salary, your business still qualifies for credit. And all of that means that you get to benefit from the hard work that you do. And I think that a lot of people miss that step because we've been taught so many things from movies, from, you know, hip hop culture, from the cultures that we grew up around that we don't see the value of even showing. Like, I made $10,000 more this year. I made $20,000 more this year. I Made $40,000 more this year. Maybe I still paid myself, you know, a poverty wage because I want to pay a low tax and I want to spend all this money on my business. But at the end of the day, the fact that you made it makes your business a more viable leverage. It gives you more leverage and makes you a more viable client for the bank. And the bank now wants to do business with you. And ultimately the bank is your business partner. And that's what your bank is. Whether you're an individual or whether you're a business or whether you're an individual with a business, the bank is your business partner. And I think that the simplicity of that is what people miss out on because they think that they're doing something brave by paying for things with money that they have. And what that lacks is that little bit of discipline that it takes to save that money that you have to pay your credit card at the end of the month and not spend double.
- [56:46]
Host 2
I think you both are in a unique position. It's interesting because when I look at you both, I think leaders, right, like you're leading by example and you're leading by example in respective ways. But there's a word that's used Stanley, and there's trust. I wonder, as we look at the last five years, that we're starting to see crude oil open more accounts, we're starting to see crude oil invest more. Do you see that next generation demystifying the trust around having credit? Right? It was always, I don't want to owe anybody. Are we starting to see a change?
- [57:17]
Stanley
I think, you know, the change is definitely happening. It's happening slowly because to my earlier point, Gen Z is afraid of credit, right? So our ability to help, educate them and show them through series like Foundation Forward. I mean, we've even done a series with Kevin Hart and his daughter Heaven, who recently went to college. And the whole goal is have these real conversations in terms of the impact of credit. Right. Like, and I think with that, again, the idea of showing improving, right. Like, a lot of these conversations weren't had. And I think that's the biggest challenge. When I think about my. My upbringing, I don't remember ever having a conversation about a debit card versus a credit card. I saw credit card bills, but I didn't necessarily, you know, get any sort of guidance with that. And I think, you know, we're at a place now where with all the information available, with the fact that we have banking institutions, you know, like Chase, that provide the information and not just. You don't always have to just walk into a bank. Like, we obviously have online services. You know, we leverage social media to tell these stories as well. I think it is opening doors because, you know, I think to Venus's point, like, if. If you don't have the foundation, if you don't have the tools, like, how do you navigate the next 10, 20 years when all of these things are continuing to evolve and it's only getting more complicated? So you have to sort of understand the foundation for you to play the game.
- [59:00]
Host 1
All right, so let's do some rapid question and answers before we wrap. And either one of you can answer or both of you can answer. So the first one is, what's one credit myth you like to bust?
- [59:15]
Venus
The main one is that having credit cards is bad. And the reason is because having credit cards is only bad when you don't have discipline and when you don't want to respect yourself. At the end of the day, credit is just an extension of what you can afford to do. And if it's any more than that, then there's a problem. So having credit cards is not bad. Having no discipline, that is very bad.
- [59:41]
Host 2
All right, Stan. Well, one mistake to avoid early.
- [59:46]
Stanley
I would say spending more than you have. I mean, it's a simple one, but we all. We all have fallen victim to it. You know what I mean? Like, just because you have the credit. And I think thinking back to the conversation you had with. With, I think it was Broderick, and he said, you know, I remember getting my card and having $2,500 limit. And you specifically said, just because you have $2,500 doesn't mean you have to spend $2,500. And I think that's a key one that, that people need to think about.
- [60:18]
Host 2
I needed my own advice.
- [60:19]
Stanley
I needed my own advice and just, you know, utilization, Right. Like, you talked a lot, I remember you talking, you know, to our, you know, our cast members a lot about the concept of utilization, keeping it under 30%. And again, those are things that once you have that information, you can actually apply it. Like if you're, if you're keeping, you know, track of, you know, your credit score with, you know, tools like Credit Journey that we have, you know, you're immediately thinking about utilization and how do I make sure that it, it stays, you know, at a low enough number where it's not impacting my credit score negatively.
- [61:01]
Host 1
First step every young person should take as far as building their credit.
- [61:05]
Venus
Write a budget. Write a budget and then write another budget. Don't lie to yourself. Know exactly what you spend, know exactly what you have, know exactly what you're making and give yourself some 3, 6, 9, 12 goals. Maybe you're trying to buy a special dress for prom, maybe you're trying to go on vacation or you're trying to, you know, make your first payment towards a computer or something. The easiest way to start this process, whether or not you go into a bank, is to actually write things down and make sure that you know yourself so that you are familiar with your own identity. Financially, I think that's a main thing that a lot of people miss out on is the opportunity to just look at what they spend and to look at what they have and look at what their goals are based on real math. I make this much every week and I want to save this much and I want to do this with that money. Once you have that, then you can start to use all the resources available to you, big or small. But if you don't want to look at yourself in the mirror and say, this is who I am financially. This is what I make and this is what I spend it on, and this is what I would have to change in order to save or in order to have access to, you know, a credit card that I can pay off. Then you're not going to be in a better position by opening up a credit card.
- [62:18]
Host 2
Now I'm interested as we did the series, you know, it's almost like a self reflection. Absolutely. About these stories that you live. I wonder how looking back now, how you reflect on it, listening to your story and saying how far you've overcome. How has that been people?
- [62:36]
Venus
I mean, I would say that it is really interesting to have this conversation. It's not One that I ever imagined I would have to have for work. But it's really cool to be able to share it because I think that I started working very young. I started working at the age of 12, 13 years old, but I had already been doing jobs. Like, I had been in a commercial before that when I was 10. And I made a lot of money. And I never saw that money because my parents didn't have good financial literacy. So they spent that money. My assumption is they spent it trying to buy the house that we ended up growing up in. After that, I will never know. You know, I just remember finding these pay stubs when I was much older for, like, this Microsoft commercial that I was in, which was so crazy, right? Because now I am a whole entertainer, and I make money with brands, doing exactly that, being in commercials, being in, you know, partnership with brands. And at that time, you know, I went on to have this job. I taught art. You know, I was an art assistant at a summer camp, and then I went on to work at a pizzeria. And then during high school, I had three jobs. I was working at the library. I was working at the mall. I had two jobs at the mall. I remember I was working for an assemblyman. I was, like, the youngest intern they'd ever had. I was, like, 14 years old. It was like, all these jobs. And I look back, and I think if I had just started my financial journey when I was 10 and I made those residual royalties from that damn Microsoft commercial, I would be so rich right now. And I'm not mad about it, but I just think it's really interesting because it's sort of like, you know, life. You can't pick where you start. You can't pick the things that happen to you. But you can notice at the end of the day the kind of person that you are. I've always been drawn to the arts. I've always been drawn to being, you know, I wouldn't say the center of attention, but definitely a talent. Musical theater, all the things. And I was already, like, making money off of that at the age of 10. We were the first school in New York to ever have laptops. So we got to be in the commercial showing people that kids should have laptops. They paid us enough money so that we could pay monthly for these laptops so we could own them. I think they paid half, and we paid the other half, but they also gave us royalties. And my point is that I look back and I just say, wow, you know, imagine if I had these tools that we're giving you guys. Now, imagine if I had them to tell my parents, hey, I saw something on Hulu mom, and I think we should invest some of that money in this kind of account. Or I think, you know, I made money, so I want my own credit card because I want to be able to go and buy whatever I want, because I made money, so I want to take 10% of that or 20% of that. And I just say, I can't wait to have kids and teach them that all the money that they make and all the personality that they express, whether it is to be creative, whether it is to be hardworking, all of that should be something that they can gain something from in the end. You should not just be a slave, and you should not just be out here working to survive. You should absolutely use the resources. This is one of many that Chase has to offer. Obviously, we're only dealing with credit, but I was a fan of you guys before I ever met you. I was watching your show in 2020 during the pandemic, and I was literally taking notes. Market Mondays. So it's like, there are so many things that this little credit rabbit hole leads to. If you can figure out who you are and look at yourself clearly and give yourself a little bit of structure and also say, you know what? This is what I want to do. I want to own a house or I want to do this for work, or I want to start this business, or I want to have enough financial freedom and financial stability to be able to move a certain way. Whatever that goal is, though, you need to start somewhere. And my reflection is just, damn, I wish that this existed when I was a kid. I wish that somebody had told me, you made $50,000 on that commercial. You deserve to have $10,000 credit card, and you deserve to say, I want to go and buy pizza every week with my credit card, and I want to pay my bill just so that I could learn. Because at the end of the day, gamification, it's all a game. It's all a game. And if you don't acknowledge that and you don't play the game and you don't learn the rules of the game and you don't follow the rules of the game, you're just not actually going to be playing the game.
- [66:48]
Host 2
Well, the bright spot is that it does now.
- [66:50]
Venus
It says, I'm in my 30s. I still have a long Runway to get it right. And I'm super excited, you know, given that I've been able to touch so much in A short but long career. But it's just interesting, you know, I just. I just say, damn, this is. These kids are lucky. You guys are lucky.
- [67:11]
Stanley
I mean, even just thinking about the, you know, call them characters or the stories that we were, you know, privilege to be able to tell. Right. Like, I think about somebody like Jaden, and I think we were in Santa Barbara. This is a kid that. He's a real estate agent. He's a dishwasher. Like, he's a waiter. Like, he has all these different jobs. And again, like, you guys left him with, you know, actionable checklist of things that he needs to be thinking about as he's trying to stack money. And I think we had a nice variety of people that I think were relatable in terms of. If I'm sitting at home and I'm watching this on Hulu, Jaden story might appeal to me or Margaret's story might appeal to me. You know what I mean? And I think, like, that. That part is really key. Right. Like, it wasn't one story. It was multiple stories of individuals that are trying to figure it out. You know what I mean? You know, you had Broderick, who was a videographer living in Atlanta, trying to buy his. What was he trying to buy home from his dad, from his brother. Yeah. You know, so everyone's at a different step in their life. And I think the value of the way we approached it was, you know, we showed that regardless of where you are, that initial step is the most important step.
- [68:34]
Host 2
Congrats to Bojar. He actually got engaged after the show.
- [68:37]
Venus
Good.
- [68:38]
Host 2
Yeah, man. We probably part of the story. And I think our coaches were incredible, too.
- [68:43]
Host 1
So.
- [68:43]
Host 2
So the coaches that were part of the digs we had, we had a lot of good interactions in there, so it was definitely a dope experience. And like you said, the next generation gets to watch it and be a part of it and educate themselves from something that they do all the time, which is streaming.
- [68:58]
Venus
Yes. Yes.
- [69:00]
Stanley
Yeah, we had some heavy hitters. I mean, Venus, Courtney, you know, like you mentioned Bigsby, the social historian, Khalil. I think he was amazing. Yeah. And I think, again, giving regular people an opportunity to connect with cultural leaders that are moving the needle in their everyday lives. But they started from something I specifically remember even Courtney and obviously Venus talking about their credit journey, you know, so we all have it, and I think humanizing that was a big, important piece of the storytelling that you guys did.
- [69:39]
Host 1
Well, yeah, no, it was. It was a. For us, I think it was really impactful. To actually be able to share stories from people that people may not be familiar with or they may be familiar with. And it's all different people. So somebody that's a celebrity dj, somebody that's a waitress.
- [69:55]
Venus
And I used to be a waitress too.
- [69:57]
Host 1
Yeah, for sure.
- [69:57]
Venus
It could be you. You could be the waitress turned celebrity DJ. I was a waitress for 10 years from 14 to 24. I transitioned from 22, 23 to 24. That year. I did both DJing and waitressing. This is all accessible to you. My life, the life you have, the credit we're talking about, the only thing we can tell you is just start the journey. Start the journey.
- [70:23]
Host 1
Chanel is a point for us to do this. So definitely want to thank you guys. As far as Chase and Mass Appeal, as far as working with us, it's on Hulu now and hopefully we get season two.
- [70:34]
Venus
Yeah, guys, we need season two. So if you're out there and you want to tell your story, hit these guys up because they're not going to stop what they're doing. And it's also really cool that I used to watch you guys during the Pandemic.
- [70:45]
Host 2
Used to?
- [70:46]
Venus
I mean, I don't really watch that much stuff right now. I'm not going to lie. I'm not in my YouTube or streaming bag at the moment, but I learned so much, and now I'm in this series. That's crazy to me because I didn't know very much in 2020. I was just a few years into starting and formalizing my business credit and personal finance journey. And this was an amazing resource because of the fact that you guys went out and interviewed so many people that I thought had really compelling stories, but maybe weren't formally business structured. And now we're able to share that with you and you're able to see the real fruit of it, which is that because of, you know, things that I learned watching Eyl, I was able to continue expanding my business. At the same time, Stanley and I were becoming closer and he was starting to mentor me and tell me, you know, there's these other ways that you can expand your business as a creative. And now we're all here, so it just, you gotta start somewhere. And, you know, for me, it didn't just start with opening a credit card. It actually started with watching things like Eyl, because that was the first time I saw black people talking to other black people who weren't all corporate people. And it was cool. And I was like, I can learn something here. And I feel safe and so yeah, we hope that you're watching at home and that you go and you look at your credit score and that you write down your budget then that you hit up Chase and start somewhere.
- [72:15]
Host 2
This is true. Like Rashad said, Foundation Forward is now streaming on Hulu. So make sure y' all check that.
- [72:20]
Stanley
Out and make sure you go check.
- [72:21]
Host 2
Out Chase for your rise to start your whole credit journey. It's been a pleasure having y'. All.
- [72:25]
Venus
Thank you guys.
- [72:26]
Host 2
We appreciate it.
- [72:27]
Venus
So cool.
- [72:27]
Host 2
Love as well.
- [72:28]
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Venus
That's what I'm talking about.
- [73:21]
Commercial Announcer
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Venus
Your girl, Laney Wilson.
- [73:40]
Commercial Announcer
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Venus
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