← The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
How Dia Simms Is Shaking Up The Spirits Industry with Pronghorn
00:51:41
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- [00:00]
Morgan Debaun
Hi friends, it's Morgan debann and I have some exciting news. My book, Rewrite youe Rules the Journey to Success in Less Time with More Freedom is now available for pre order. Pre orders are so important, not just for me as a first time author, but for the message of this book. Ordering this book helps amplify the message that more people can break free from the grind, rewrite their own rules in life and live a rich, juicy life full of joy and empowerment. So if you resonate with any of the content that I put out over this last few years, this podcast, any of the stories I share on social and you've been inspired by my work at Blavity or Afrotech, pre ordering is.
- [00:43]
Dia
The best way to show your support.
- [00:45]
Morgan Debaun
And your gratitude for any of the.
- [00:46]
Dia
Work that I have done. Plus, you'll be the first to get.
- [00:50]
Morgan Debaun
Your hands on the book when it launches next spring. And that will mean literally the world to me. So make sure you check out morgandebond.com to secure your copy and join me in this movement to create a life of freedom, abundance and more importantly, to have the tools and the frameworks that you need to take control of your life.
- [01:09]
Dia
Hey everybody, welcome back to the Journey podcast. I'm here today with the incredible DSMs. We are going to talk all things behind the scenes of working with some of the best brands in the world and bringing together this new huge venture and enterprise that is investing in black owned brands, diverse brands in the liquor industry. So dia, welcome to the show today.
- [01:32]
Thank you so much, Morgan.
- [01:34]
Hey everyone, I'm Morgan Debaun, a passionate entrepreneur and life advisor. With the Journey podcast you'll discover that success isn't about the destination, it's about the journey. I'm sharing stories of amazing people who've taken control of their lives. Join me on my own journey to discover the secret sauce behind reaching success with permission from no one else. Okay, so before we go into the present, walk us through your career, how you got started and where did you start off. Like when you were in college, what did you want to be?
- [02:07]
Oh, college. I went to Morgan State University in Baltimore. Honestly in school I studied psychology at Morgan. Some school psychology is like a BA and some places a bs. So in Morgan it was a bs. One of the things that I love and I still reference from that was learning so much about how to approach kind of life and things like a scientist. Right to this day I have an 11 year old and I, I borrow from like okay, let's do a scientific method like, how are we dispassionately upset? Like, how are we failing fast and getting to the results? So I'm, it was such a great springboard. Although I'm, I never did anything in psychology except, you know, mention negotiations with my husband on movie night. But, but, but I thought at the time I was thinking about medical school or law school and I thought it was like a good science based curriculum, but also the psychology from a negotiation standpoint. Either way, ended up doing neither. And I started my career, I worked for the Department of Defense doing contract negotiations. And again, this has been, I've been really fortunate in this space. Just got the best training. So I was part of this like new program. They were going around the country trying to get college graduates to come in and be like trained from scratch to ensure like the best protection for U.S. taxpayers and the way we negotiate items for defense. I'm like 21 years old. Yeah, super giving. I was given like $100 million contract to work with a very small team. Crazy, right? So like, don't worry, I was a good fiduciary for us, but you know what I'm saying, I was 21. But the best part of it was the amount of training I got on negotiating. Right. So I was trained on what is your kind of like arsenal of tools in terms of whether it's research, whether it's the win win, whether it's pricing methodologies, whether it's personality management. And it's something that weirdly, you don't actually ever get taught on purpose like most people. You can have six degrees. When I go out, like we ever trained, negotiate, most people are not. And it should legit be like first grade. Like you should understand how to persuade one another how to negotiate, how to advocate for yourself. So I didn't really go into it without intention. I kind of fell into it thinking it would be good to go to law school. But the things I learned there are so have been so incredibly useful as a springboard to everything I've done now almost 30 years later. So I did that for a couple of years. Loved what I was doing, but I ended up moving around and then I moved to kind of a very slow position and I'm impatient. So I would be doing my projects, they'd be like, this project is doing. You give it to me in January and maybe this project is due in June. I'm like, did it done? And it got to the point of like, this is a snooze. So I wanted to do something like that. Felt like I was always learning and more interesting and exciting. Hard switch got into radio. Sounds like total opposite. And it's funny because it's a similar thing where I was like, somebody suggested to me, actually a friend who I still work with to this day. He was like, you were saying you would be good at sales. It's like, I don't want to push anybody on anything that's not. I don't want to do sales. They were like, no. Every minute something's getting sold. You just have to persuade them, right. That to provide a value of something that is worth their investment. Okay, I think I would do that. And radio sales, you know, I often joke is like. Back then was like, it's like selling crack. But like, with none of the addiction non excitement like you had. I had to sell enough to cover my own salary. So I was, you know, I mean, I had to be out in those streets pushing those radio commercials and console sponsorship.
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It was the best sales training. I actually head of sales at Blavity. She's now our GM of AfroTech, but she was formerly head of sales. Started off in radio sales. And I'm like, whatever. Yalls training was top gangster.
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Yes. Yes. Actually, to this day, when somebody tells me they worked at radios, I'm like, oh, okay. You should see that. Because you have to. You really have to build a program from scratch, sell it in, then actually run it and make sure it's successful. And if you don't do it, you actually don't make your own salary because you work on a draw. So that was like such an entrepreneurial unlock, because after doing that for eight months, I was like, well, I'm really working for myself so I could clearly run my own business if that's the case. And me and some of my dearest friends from there launched a small company in the D.C. maryland area called Madison Marketing. That was also my first entree into like, the spirits industry. So we worked with this legend, Mark Barnes, out of D.C. who is like just a nightlife impresario who was such a commitment to excellence and experience. And we started really just throwing parties, doing events. And I also was able to negotiate some contracts where I got together 30, y'all don't judge me, but 30 of my homegirls and just girls at the time, and negotiated a deal where they would do the promotion, be promotional models, like, oh, would you like to try this? But the thing was, again, I was like, okay, we're going to do it. But what will be different when you.
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Understood marketing, I think that people Underestimate that, though. That's how things were moved at the time. It was through in person influence and like these scenes that people were able to get in the scenes and what did the girls look like and what were we drinking? What are we celebrating with? Like, that's how things were moved that 1,000%.
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So it was, it was that in person marketing really like the best learning you can have. And two things I think were hallmarked. That was one, I negotiated for the girls to get higher rates. Like, so what? They were normally paying a little bit less, but I was like, no. I said, listen, this team, we're going to train them, we are going to always sell in total more than what we're being paid, right? So, like, if the girl's going to make 300 for two hours, we're going to move 11 bottles or whatever it is. I was like, but because of that, I want to pay for their gas. I want you to pay. Like, I was like a little union. I was like, I want to make sure they got their. They got to look cute, they got to buy their stuff. So I negotiated like more than was normal, but we also really delivered, right? And frankly, that's been a hallmark of the way I kind of work to this point. And that was my first introduction into the spirit industry. I don't even drink probably until I was like in my 30s. So it wasn't really about that. It was more just not even knowing it. But now I know there's this huge American industry, it doesn't matter whether you drink spirits or not, that we just don't participate in. That's about celebration and it's super fun. And there's accountants and lawyers and everything else that you find in any other industry. And that was my first entree into it. But I think when you fast forward to now having co founder Pronghorn, I'm like, we gotta be a part of this industry that we influence so much, right?
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Let's talk about Pronghorn. You know, recently we as consumers have seen Beyonce, we've seen, you know, LeBron James. We've seen. I mean, Kylie Jenner's got her thing going on. Kendall Jenner, not Kylie Fawn Weaver, of course. The extraordinary. So what is the tea? Why are all these people going into the liquor industry?
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Well, look, so two things, actually. I'll say you have three different things happening. You had some great successes happen, right? So I feel privileged. I've been part of building an incredible brand like Ciroc Baka many years ago. The brand that was going from not doing well to becoming worth billions of dollars.
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Right.
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And that was disproportionately built by the influence of culture. Right. And built in a way that was different than Brandon being built at that time. People were inspired by that, which I'm not mad at. And then two, there are economics around. This is a business that's high margin. That is also an interesting extension kind of naturally of your lifestyle. So if you're epicurean, you love gastronomy, you love hosting, you love holidays. Right. You love a good dinner, you love, like, it's kind of a natural extension for many of these. And the luminaries. Right. That we all see now, once you become a part of it, I think the third thing, and I would say I think this is what is actually driving it in combination with the appeal of the industry is you. We now have these appropriately empowered notables and luminaries where 30 years ago you had to depend on a media outlet. I sure hope ABC is going to get this word out. I sure hope NBC. But these individuals have the ability to impact audiences sometimes that are bigger than the population of the United States. So they have democratized media and they should. They should be appropriately incentivized, and they should be thinking about businesses that are not cannibalizing their art. They're not distraction from their art or their creativity, but they're opportunities for them to build their own legacy from their work for their own families. There's been this balance, almost a little bit of a negative halo of like, why are some. What do celebrities know about this? Why are celebrities different than any individual who is like, oh, I'm an electrician and I decided I want to open up a branch of Popeyes. Okay, you should. Nobody would judge them for doing that. Right? If you're a celebrity and you're like, I'm a great singer, but I want to figure out a great business proposition that's a natural extension of my life that my kids and my grandkids could benefit from. You should do that. Why shouldn't they do that?
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And why Go see how some of these deals are set up just at a high level. Are they joint ventures where they're owning 51% of the brand, or is it more? You know, we've talked to Tabitha Brown here on this podcast where we talk about, okay, you know, some things that she's doing with Target. Target is actually manufacturing them, building them, managing the, you know, all of the back of the house. She's doing the creative strategy, you know, the branding the marketing, et cetera, but they're also doing things as well. And then there's some people who are doing everything from end to end but their distributor is just Target. So walk us through just like how these different deals are set up or what people's options are when we're looking at it from a consumer perspective.
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Yeah. So there's everything from a pure just a marketing endorsement all the way to an independently owned brand where you completely build it from scratch and you manage sourcing liquid glass labels, quartz all the way to getting it distributed. The nature of this industry is quite unique in that it is difficult. You can't have a good enough idea to just win. Talent in and of itself does not suffice. Right. You can have oh my Morgan's gin. Nobody could mess with it. It doesn't matter because you have to understand the regulatory whiplash that changes from zip code to zip code. You have to understand the distribution network that changes from state to state. And you have to think about the fact that this is the only industry that has a constitutional amendment dedicated to it. Right. So the reason why some of these other structures where they are more I like to call like a soar with your strengths model which are more joint ventures or strategic alliances or strategic partnerships are. Listen, what I'm great at is building interests, building velocity, teaching people about something they may not know about inviting people to be a part of a brand they may have not normally consider what I'm not good at is sourcing glass from scrap brand. You know, I mean what I'm not good at is I haven't yet got up to speed on the distillation process. Right. For a single mall. And that's okay, right. Like I think if you're the most brilliant people, you should find even more brilliant people to surround yourselves with, become a student of what you don't know and lean into shop the existence of what you do know. And that's why I think you see a joint venture where one party of a major strategic like let's take a major supplier. In the US there are 13 like big suppliers and you've heard of the Diageos, the Mo Hennessy, the Bakaris of the world, right? That is the tier of what is a three tier system that makes brands, right. Like actually makes a bottle that you see that distills and then they have to sell it to a distributor and or estate and I won't bore you with my TED talk on this, but they have to sell it to another and then that party sells it to a restaurant or a liquor store and then they sell it to you. So the nature of this industry is it is expensive because it's not as easy as I make a dope T shirt and sell a direct to consumer on a dot com. You have many customers you have to be in front of. So it makes sense for these celebrities or any individuals to have a partner that already has an extensive distribution system. And to be clear, some of these companies are families that have been in this for 80, 90, 100 years. It's not easy to be like, I'm open up a distributor tomorrow night. It just is almost impossible to do it quickly and with impact from a regulatory standpoint.
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Yeah, thank you for walking us through that. I think it's helpful to understand the nuances of kind of when we see these brands. Really what I challenge people listening is when you see something and you start to consume something, ask yourself, where did it come from? Who owns this? Who's benefiting from this? Who's taking a piece of this at every step of the way? Is it going straight from a Diageo? Amoy Hennessy? You know, where is it going? What I learned, because we throw events at Blavity and Afrotech, you know, we try to get liquor sponsors all the time. And it was, it's been fascinating to me. And it was really frustrating when I first started because people would be like, oh, well, this event is here. Well, where's the venue and what's the liquor license of the venue and what do they have in the venue? And oh, we can't sponsor this if this venue has this. And I'm like, what is going on in this industry? This is crazy. Just for you to gift us products. You're not even paying me, you're just giving me product.
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Like, what is.
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This is wild. And the obviously the bigger we got and the higher up in the kind of chain when we were trying to go, you know, even we even to this day have a hard time getting liquor sponsors because it is so complicated. I mean, shout out to Tito's for sponsoring one of our events this past year. But like, other than them, we've had very little like luck navigating it. And I know a lot of people who listen to this show are also aspire to have like liquor sponsors and stuff. So what would be the advice to someone like me or other people who are trying to have brands be a part of their event or be a part of their tour or whatever that they're, they're trying to put together what Advice would you have in terms of go to market and how to position those things?
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Yeah, so two things. And the second one's going to be more exciting. But the first part, the first thing is I. I've worked in very highly regulated industry, defense, pharmaceuticals and spirits, right? So you have to think about in your mind, like, you know, if I wanted a pharmaceutical company that sells heart medicine, what would they want to ask? Right? Like, so you gotta understand the spirits company. It seems like it's everyday part of our life, but we feel really responsible for having. It's not as far as a controlled substance, but a substance that needs to be controlled upon delivery. So we can't be casual about where is it going to be. We have to know who's selling it, who's check identification, who's making sure people get home safely, Are people going to consume food, are they going to have enough water, who's giving out the water, who's going to be walking around making sure people getting into Uber that night. Because we take the responsibility really seriously. As a. I just want to say.
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Those are the questions that y'all ask. I just want people to know, like, this is not just lip service. Literally, it'll be like, okay, no, but are they wearing wristbands? Are they carted at the door? I'm like, oh my God, never mind, give me 5k.
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Forget it. I was a promoter, right? And I threw gazillion events over the years. If you're a hosting event, these kind of gotta be things you think about anyway as a host or a hostess. You know, if somebody's coming to my house, I want you to have a great time, but I want you to get home safe. Even if I wasn't in this industry. So it's the right way to think about it, but it certainly is more hoops than you would be accustomed to for other consumer goods. The second thing is this is really what Pronghorn exists to serve. So we should talk a little bit about Pronghorn. But please, if you have questions about this industry, how to engage with this industry, how to get a job at this industry, how to start your own company in this industry, please. That is precisely why we exist. We are an independent company. We're a black owned organization from a majority standpoint. But we also work with the biggest suppliers in the industry, all 13 of them in the United States. We also work with the biggest distributors, we also work with the biggest retailers, right? So if you have questions. I just had this yesterday. I took my daughter to like one of These jumpy places. And the GM came. He said, I heard you know about spirits. And we want to throw parties. It's in daytime. It's for the kids, but in the nighttime, we want to do something different. So I was like, this is what you should call I twice. This. This is gonna get a promoter, get a caterer. Do you wanna walk with me over to this restaurant and see if they wanna do a pop up, come over here. They sell little extra food at another outlet, but they got the liquor license. Y'all do a 50, 50 revenue split, right? We wanna be your partner to think through how you participate and generate wealth for you and your family and your neighborhood. That is what Pronghorn exists to do.
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Yeah. So let's talk about Pronghorn. How long ago did you guys start it? There's some big numbers behind it. Walk us through Pronghorn and what you all are building.
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Yeah. So Pronghorn was established. We started the work on it. We really have started to work on it, at least in our minds for many years is me and two other co founders, Dan Sanborn and Aaron Hall. Kind of when this country was going through a racial reckoning a few years ago, that felt, you know, very old to some of us and new to some people, we started getting all the calls from the industry that we're in, right? The spirits industry, all the executives, to their credit, saying, like, what should we do? You know, we want to do the right thing. We know our industry is very insular. Even those who have the best of intentions are just like, I don't even know who to call. Right? And sometimes people have a backlash against that response. And my view is like, if you don't know who to call, I know who to call. I know tens of thousands of diverse things. Let me help you out. Let me make the connections. I just want to get the results. But to your point, around the level of investment, I was like, we are not the people to call to plan parades. That's wrong with a parade. But we like people to call, do murals. Call me when you want to change something for real, right? So in order to make a change, it cannot be given to a lady named Nancy to handle after her real HR job on Tuesday nights, Right? Real change, by the way, to the benefit of this industry and the benefit of the American economy will require investment, time, resources, and a real plan. So because it was Covid, we got a little time to be able to do real modeling and say, well, actually, I love this industry and I love black people, but how do we make this even bigger than this? How do we make this a template on how to effectively diversify any industry? Because I'm watching the news every night because I'm home more than I've ever been. And there's so much conversation about civil rights, which was refreshing, but it was about housing and it was about justice and it was about education. And I was like, nobody is talking about economics. This is, this is crazy. I was actually getting frustrated, like yelling at the TV like a, like my husband and the Falcons. I was like, no, no. Communities can solve a lot of their own problems if they're resourced to do so. Right? So how do we talk about wealth generation? Because none of this is going to change if we can't catch up for the last few centuries of inequity. So in short, we modeled out a way to drive in this particular industry, spirits industry as the first industry and with the black American community as the first community. How many people, how much money, how much time and how much information would it take in 10 years to change this industry to show pro rider representation of black Americans as employees from entry level to C suite? And I will share with you that the average employee in the industry makes about $100,000, but they affect $1.2 million of top line revenue. It is good for the community to be a part of this industry and it is good for the industry, right, to have more incredible talent. There is a significant gap of entrepreneurs in this space and again, you don't have to make your own gin. Your marketing company could do more in the spirits industry. Your janitorial services could do more in the spirits industry. It's just an industry that is ripe for more diversity. So we looked and said how many black owned brands have built a company and sold it or had any kind of liquidity event? So you guys might have heard about some of these big billion dollar deals. The George Clooneys of the world get your money, God bless them. But we looked and we look and we looked and we really do know that I don't know everything, but I know this part. We could not find one example of a person who built a spirits brand from scratch and got any kind of liquidity.
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I can't think of.
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I want you to understand that's batshit crazy. That actually doesn't make any sense, right? So we were like, okay, we gotta change that. So we looked at how many companies do we need to invest in, at what rate, at what times, when we determined in the end we needed to invest in 57 black owned founders, we needed to drive 1,800 new employees over 10 years. Right. About half of those are interns to have exposure to the industry. And the other half, how many did that mean? Pro rala against top line revenues against the companies in the industry. And then once they came in the industry, what kind of information do we need to be successful? So we built a supercharging unit which distills, Forgive the pardon, 11 different areas that are like this is hard, data is hard, distribution is hard, supply is hard. And got subject matter experts to say you're coming into this industry but cash is not enough. You also have to actually understand the industry. So we mapped that together. So it's entrepreneurs plus entrepreneurs plus supercharging. And over 10 years we are driving $2.4 billion of economic value. We are fully funded for $200 million over the first 10 years. We have already invested in 30 black owned companies. If you wanted to have an all black bar in your house or in your restaurant, go to Frank Horn and we'll make it easy for you. And also we have affected a 10% lift and black American influence in the industry already. And we are on record. You hit our number for year 10. So even when you look at the country, these big problems you wake up and see can feel very overwhelming. We got down to the map and the zip code of it and I just grew up in a house that was like how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? And made it like how many people, how many dollars? And we were able to convince the industry to be a part of it and everybody signed up for their pro rider contribution and we think we are now building a model that can be used in other industries and even in other governments.
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Yeah, well, I appreciate you breaking it down for me. And I think one of the things that I really loved about the prong horror model when I first heard about it, you know, I'd seen the brand sponsor different things but I didn't, hadn't taken the time. I saw the press release in Black Enterprise, I saw the things, but I didn't really sit with it and say wait, what are they doing? Because there's so many people who launch kind of these funds, right? I mean particularly in my world, every day there's a new black person deciding I'm going to raise a $200 million fund and I'm going to give it away. And you know, but really they're doing fund to funds typically at that level as opposed to your world What I appreciate about it is that it is actually more of a private equity blend. It's less of a venture, it's a mix of both, but it is, it is also private equity because the argument is when everybody wins and everyone's successful. Because we're trying to get exits and we are giving them capacity and we're giving them employees, know how relationships, I mean it's more of a wraparound business model that they are going to be more likely to exit because we are, we have now all put all this skin in the game. We got to get our money back.
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Oh yeah, and by the way, our mission is really to transform the industry and be a template so we don't have the same constraints that can be quite aggressive in the D.C. space. Right. So our point of view is that genuinely you just articulated this. You know, we often say it's not a game of musical chairs, right? It's about building a bigger table. We know. And I'm sure you guys have talked about this quite a bit when you look at the city fame study that shows like America is losing trillions of dollars on GDP because we just kind of can't get diversity, right? We have existing populations of consumers and internal teammates that we're not speaking to, that we're not inviting in, that we're not investing in training. No zip code has a particular lock or genius or ability. But some zip codes are so grossly underfunded and under resourced that is, it's just bad for the country, right? So we're coming at it with a different point of view than your traditional vc. And there's a little bit of that accelerator piece to it, right? Where we're also, we're matchmaking the skill sets, augmenting the skill sets for the individuals as investments, right? It's for profit, but also from the bridge building side to enrich the industry at large.
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But I think that's important because I think a lot of people, how they approach the black community and black entrepreneurships and intrapreneur is we're going to do a program and we're going to give you the information and we're going to tell you how to do it and we're going to give you the mentors and we're going to give you a trivial amount of money that maybe just frankly just offsets the time that you're putting in this program. And then you've got the VCs or you've got the financiers or you've got, you know, the CFDIs and the SBAs and the whatever. And they're like, we're going to give you the money or we're going to give you low interest loans, but we're not going to build your capacity. So then they're separate. And then I think what happens is that people go A or they go B and then they get stuck. So they raise the money, but then they can't raise the next round because they didn't hit their milestones because they didn't know how to get to the next level. And then they can't exit.
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You nailed it. It's a big cycle. And then by the way, the other problem is that drives disbelief in the program and we're held to a weird standard. So we're now on this crazy backlash where like, we tried dei, it didn't work. It feels like, no, we didn't. You can't do DI in the code. That's not how any of this works. Right. So you're not approaching this with the right inputs. And you're like, no, no, we gave some money. The people aren't getting it. And it's like, no, no. There's a level of discipline or rigor that's required. Right. To do this in the right way, you need the money, you need the mentorship, you need movement, like real movement, like you need a level of momentum. That is not a one time thing. It has to be a sustained relationship in order to truly make it an active and profitable investment.
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Absolutely.
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So we don't. We get that entirely. And then I fail to say no one knows what a pronghorn is. The reason why we called it a pronghorn is. A pronghorn is an animal mostly found in Montana. It looks kind of like a elk if Disney drew it. And they're actually the second fastest land mammal in the world. Second to a cheetah, actually the fastest in the United States. And if you had a pronghorn raising a cheetah, a cheetah will win in a sprint. But for a long run, right, the pronghorn will win every single time. And they could go 50 miles an hour for a long, long time. And we said, look, we have to catch up for centuries of inequities. We got a heck of a lot of ground to cover. We're impatient for change. And not only impatient for change, it's kind of an emergency. Like we have to get this right as a country.
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Right.
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So that means we have to go fast. And we thought this animal that follows a beautiful manifestation of what it means to Go far and to go fast and to go together because they're successful and they have evolved because they work together as a group.
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Incredible. I love that. I had no idea. Couldn't have pointed out a pronghorn if.
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It looked nobody, Only me. I do have a bit of a.
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Question because I think that the model that you've built, of course, you have so much social capital. And to your point, you've been working in incredibly difficult industries your entire career. So you. You are uniquely positioned to build this and to make this successful. But I'm curious what your advice would be for people who want to take this type of a model but apply it to a different industry like homeownership or the space industry. How do you convince the incredibly wealthy, insular powers that be in systems and structures that arbitrarily. I mean, I guess that from their perspective, I assume that they don't truly care about black people. Or, I mean, like, they care because they have to, generally, but they don't really care behind closed doors or to the extent that it's like, yeah, this is like charity. Like, you can have a half of a percent, you know, but you can't have a significant amount. How did you convince the coalition that you all put together? Like, what was that like?
- [29:23]
So, first, it's important people deeply understand that our boats are tied. Like, we're all tied together, right? So that's a gap. Like, that's a gap that has to be overcome that somebody thinks they can be successful on an island. This idea of that's just not true. So we gotta kind of take that out. I think, second, if you have a hundred people, right, in my experience, you may have 25% of those people who are not motivated just by money or by Goodwill. If 25% of people just have an aversion to diversity, not going to be involved. Cool. Just don't even waste your time, you know, they are. But what I have found is, and this is just the truth, me and my co founders are just like, I love this country. My family built this country. I really do want to do good things for all of us. It's not an exclusionary approach, right? It is a very like, hey, we kind of got to do this, right? You got to do it. Because if you actually care about your next 30, 40 years of life or you happen to care about next generations, for this country, we actually have to solve this. I'll give you one example that I have used over the years that I have seen people say, like, oh, the guy people Came up to you after you spoke. That guy was totally against this. Like he cut all his programs last year, but it changed his kind of point of view. I talk about when I was in radio in New York and I had all of the music labels as clients. And at the time you start to have music streaming taking off in a different way. And I would go to all the music labels and these brilliant minds and these executives will have these war rooms of how to defeat the Internet. And they meant it with their hearts and souls and they spent hours of time and money on it. And people don't remember this, but this was a thing. You walked into it. Everyone's like, what's everybody? And why was that meeting? It got consultants, calculators, food. They locked in, figuring out how to do you remember, you know what I'm talking about, how they're going to kill the Internet. Like it's not going to work.
- [31:09]
Yeah, I know.
- [31:11]
The music industry had a, you can look at this, the financials. The music industry had a precipitous decline. Lost hundreds of billions of dollars fighting an enemy for no good cause. It sounds so ridiculous in 2024, but I'm 49, I'm not 89. I'm saying I live through it. Diversity is only going one way in.
- [31:32]
The world and that's up.
- [31:33]
And my view is if you want your revenues to follow, you got to get into it. So, like, let me hold your hand and explain why it makes sense for everybody. But what are we really fighting? Like, it's inevitable. Get on board. You don't have to do it for your heart, to your point, but you got to do it for your wallet because otherwise you're just missing up.
- [31:50]
Yeah, I wish that people were able to hear such a linear, non emotional argument of like, look, people are more diverse today than they were yesterday. And that will continue to be true in perpetuity for like the next hundreds of years. And the growing middle class, the rising discretionary income that's coming from a massive amount of global middle class that is going to be predominantly driven by people who are not white or Anglo Saxon descendants. So I wish that people like, could just be like, yeah, duh, you know, but it doesn't seem like they get that.
- [32:34]
I don't know that we have. I mean, I think the, the last point on the same track is there's also opportunity just to. Not that we should be in a position of power to prove anything, right? But ideally, some level of success breeds success. So when we built, prior to building Ciroc Baca as an example, there was even fewer. There was nobody in the industry and no one was going to take a risk. When that deal was structured at the time, it was viewed as almost like a crazy deal. Like Diageo, they were like, was like, that doesn't make sense. Why would you do that?
- [33:03]
Right?
- [33:03]
That generated thousands of jobs, billions of dollars, not just for within the group or the economy, but other places like Ciroc Peach was a revolutionary case history launch. So much so that when I would tour and do thank yous to stores, I had store owners say, individual liquor store owners say, I sent my daughter to college on my peach sales, right? Like, do you understand what I'm saying? And then after that, it unlocked hundreds of more of these deals. Some successful, some not. But nonetheless, even if they were up and running for three years, people made money, had jobs, spent their families. As a result of that initial undeniable success. It's not going to move everybody. But undeniable success is a great motivator for people to get over their fears and dispel their qualms and realize their that we all have their unconscious bias and have the heart to be like, let me try to fight this unconscious bias. Because they get money over there. It kind of works. It kind of works a little.
- [34:03]
I agree. I do think that's right. I think that the best way, I mean the easiest route to a more widespread just acceptance of the facts is success. You know what I'm saying? It's like, well, clearly this is working over here. I think the challenge has been that for a lot of the programs and things that were set up because the infrastructure wasn't there and the continued support wasn't there, or the resources and the know how to navigate all the things, wasn't there. A lot of things have failed and especially in these last five years. And that's just, I mean I'm watching every day a new startup that started, you know, five, six years, maybe they started a little bit before COVID They're like two years in, three years before COVID Tell me, no, we're not going to make it. You know, like every day I get tagged in a random TikTok of some black girl who is like, has a great brand that we all love. Being like, today might be our last day, we're closing our doors and I'm like, really?
- [34:59]
Okay, well, okay, first of all, the setup, sometimes it's a setup, but the other piece that we can actually affect now, and this is like a kind of fun word, plus Is I just thought to myself last year, I know, like, you know, a lot of people who are running funds, and they're either they are black or they're focused on like a diverse community, or they're focused on some diverse community. And I started doing the math in my head and I was like, now this is not a lot of money in the world, but I personally know people who manage a couple billion dollars in right now. And I was like, but they don't know each other. That's really stupid. So I just got everybody in one room in Atlanta and was like, we have to at least have some synchronicity, some information sharing around. Oh, we're gonna all go into this development, or we're gonna all support these consumer goods and. Or when you're supporting something, I want to know about it. Are you having. Can I get your electricity line? Can I. You started off saying this early on about the. You look around things, choices you make. This is the most important thing. When you look at your pantry and your bar and your whole. Your beauty, are you purposely looking to say, well, I should have probably 10 to 14% black owned brands, or I should have 50% women owned brands? We got to figure out and have more synchronicity on the investment side for those of us who are fortunate enough to be driving dollars in. And then we have to have more continuity on the investment side as consumers at this side of the funnel to vote without dollars. Because that actually is heard even louder. You know what I mean? That's actually what matters.
- [36:30]
I think that's one of our biggest weaknesses, dear. Because, I mean, I'll even speak for myself, like, I don't drink that much. But I think, frankly, Fawn Weaver, I think was the one who convinced me the most to say, like, oh, you know what? Maybe I should be looking at this part of my life like, I buy black art. I pretty much exclusively only buy black art. I buy mostly black makeup. I'm black hairstylist. You know what I mean? Like, there's certain parts of my life that I'm intentional about buying black, even pizza. You know, I pretty much only eat slim and huskies because that's here in Nashville, you know, black pizza. But I didn't challenge myself on the apparel side until I went to Harlem Fashion Rose New York Fashion Week a couple weeks ago. And then I was like, oh, my God, my bad. Like, if I'm gonna spend a thousand dollars on a beautiful suit that's tailored and all this stuff, like, I should be getting Sergio Hudson, you Know, why am I getting alc? But I just hadn't thought of it, you know, so part of it is just all of us questioning our own. Why are we just limiting to this one sector? You know, we could be spending a little bit more effort and doing it across all of our spend.
- [37:42]
Absolutely. And like Morgan, even just you and I and five of our friends, even if we just were to say, just generally, even beyond that, to reward and refrain when it made sense. Oh my gosh. As an example. Oh, dumb's doing the thing. We all. Everybody. He doesn't have to even be all the time. Everybody. Next week we go on about shampoo. Everybody we know, right?
- [38:03]
Like tell everybody.
- [38:04]
You know, because just reading our groups, we can literally affect tens of millions. Make a lift. Yes, we know how to do that. But then on the reverse, it's got to be like, oh, hold up, wait. That's what. That was a good idea. No, we all even. Just for one week, One week. We just all not buying it. That's the quickest way to affect it. I'm a big believer in being a. You gotta vote, you gotta be part of your local community. You gotta do all that kind of stuff. But frankly, those things take a long time. Stopping buying something for two weeks, it works. Something that we can do, we can all control it. We can get the word out on social media and it actually has a fast effect. And that's. I'm not doing that coordination. I challenge your point. I want to challenge myself to be better at this. But it's something that actually sits in our hands there. There are certain groups, there are certain, like segments of like country music and certain segments. Like, there are certain sub segments of the population. There are certain black American groups that like, it's nothing for we, you and I were like, tomorrow we gonna get 25,000 people on a call. We could do it. So like, we just got to be more coordinated about affecting the changes we want to see.
- [39:03]
I agree. I think one person who's done that well that we all could learn from is Jotaga. From a black woman. I mean, the consistency that she had for four plus years and then being able to, when the time was right, when it was appropriate, evangelize everybody to have momentum to change from that. But it's because she was super clear about what we were trying to do over many years. And I think not enough of us. It is a self sacrifice, you know, to be an organizer in that way. Right.
- [39:33]
Like, by the way, like, everybody doesn't have it. So the People who have it have to use it and other people who don't have it have to be willing to be deployed with their skills.
- [39:42]
Yeah, you're challenging me right now because I'm working on my keynote for Afrotech where every year I kind of like give our little challenge for the group. And this year I'm really thinking about like, AI and making sure that we are all using AI, that we are AI first. Like in the same way that the world was at one point desktop and CD ROMs, you know, when you had your TurboTax, you like went into Costco, bought the TurboTax CD and then went home and like filed your taxes, you know, like, so you had to go from CD ROM to the Internet and then you went from the Internet to mobile. I remember working it into it and it was like, we're social, mobile, global. And like that was our theme for the year. And it was like, we're multinational and we're mobile first. And if you're going to look at a product, don't look at it on your computer, look at it on your phone, because that's what the average consumer is doing. And we really had to do change management to think mobile first. I need us to go do change management to think AI first, you know, And I think though, my secondary theme is going to be to be a consumer of black products and black technology. And not just, yes, of course, consumer products, but also like understanding the business behind how these things are working. And that is, to me, that's more of a motivator to support. Like when I hear the economic impact to your point on spend, if we all just buy black spirits, or if I hear the economic impact, if I just switch to black apparel, like, is that a Lululemon? I'm buying, you know, actively black. Like just that switch.
- [41:14]
Crazy. Crazy. And by the way, I'm not even. No one's suggesting, like, I know it's just 100% of the time, it's hard now. We don't have the infrastructure yet to do 100% of the time. I don't even know I'd like to buy black orange juice. I don't know where to get it, honestly. Yeah, but the reality is we can just do it more than we're doing it right now. It's nearly absent, to be honest. So if we just doubled it, or you pick two categories to start off with. Oh, we just need it all this year we're all doing this. And you look back at the way the Morgan JP Morgan family and the Rockefellers and those films were very coordinated and like, I'm in oil, I'm in trains. Like, we could as a community align and say, like, okay, we have a chance to really get behind AI from a business standpoint, right?
- [41:59]
Yes.
- [42:00]
It's actually quite hard to change existing industries. The chance to do something new is when something is new, we can build the right infrastructure, the right things from the beginning, the right community, the right investment. So when we have a chance like this in technology or in any new business opportunity, it is a unique chance for populations who are typically to jump in and lead it forward. So I can't wait to hear your keynote. I know it's going to be inspiring.
- [42:25]
Thank you. I'm working on a couple more weeks. Well, dia, I guess in closing, my brain is on a thousand right now. But I think what I really want people to understand and to be inspired from your journey is the fact that you have been able to switch between industries, to take the best of different industries. And then, I mean, you're not 80, like you said, you're not even 50 yet. So you've got a long way to go in terms of your impact. And for the women and for the people who are listening to this call that are 10 years into one industry or 10 years into, and they're top of their game. I mean, they're executive directors, they're VPs, their SVPs, their P and L owners, like, there's still a risk to what you're doing now. What would you say to that person who's like, I have a vision, it's ambitious and I also have golden handcuffs. I'm really comfortable right now.
- [43:21]
I mean, you have to redefine risk. In our initial work on FAR, we found that the average white American is worth 13 times. The average black American at that time may have changed now 13 times. What's interesting is when you pull out any kind of business owners, anything not have to own Amazon, own a nail salon or a robust, that multiple drops today to 3x. Right? That's with nothing changed. Because really nothing materially has changed yet in the United States. Right. So that's, that's now and then, sorry, we double click that. In that subgroup, right, of black American business owners, they are typically worth 12 times what the average black American is worth. So you think it's risky to leave your job, but it actually might be risky to stay if you just follow the math, right? So I just, we got to own things and you maybe you stay at your job and you and four friends get A Airbnb. Or maybe you just do a better job managing your investment portfolio and follow what's happening with AI. Or maybe you go to the bakery on time and you go walk back and be like, I know, I feel like y'all would do better if you added this. I put a little money in, but I got to put the dinners with you. But own something, right? Because the way we pour into these jobs that, you know, you are important, but there is no long term roi. Our families don't benefit, our communities don't benefit in the long term. For the most part, in an evil way, I've been really fortunate. I've learned a lot from those jobs. And then you take those learnings and put them back into community, into things that I own.
- [44:53]
That's right. And if you are going to be an employee, make sure you get equity in the company. You know, that's what I would also say, like, as much as you're, yeah. Like you're an employee at Nvidia, you should stay. Don't go, don't go anywhere. Stay there. You know, there's, there's, there's, there are ranges to what we're talking about now. If you're an employee in the government, you're not going to get equity in the government. So there's no upside for you. Right. So take everything we say with a grain of salt, y'all, don't go quit your job at Nvidia, please. But yeah, I think that's so right. I think ownership is key. And I think in terms of leapfrogging yourself, leapfrogging yourself for your next generation, in terms of your income, in terms of where you're going to be able to have assets and balance sheet that the next generation can actually leverage, then investing and ownership has to be a part of your story. It just has to be so and.
- [45:50]
More than we're investing. So just say plainly, we are investing in companies at Pronghorn. So we're starting anywhere from 50,000 to $2 million. We're writing checks. And as I said, the cash is the least of it. The community, the investment information. And he does it. So if you are sitting around like, I've been thinking about this, I want to make these glasses. Or I've been thinking about, I want to do my own ad agency or I'm at a firm, but I want to start my own law practice. Like, please, seriously, from a. Call us. Find me. It's just my name on Instagram. Just dsins. We are looking for you. We were looking for incredibly talented people to invest cash and information behind.
- [46:25]
Incredible. Well, y'all, don't be shy. So she said it. She just gave you the invitation. She gave you the permission. So reach out to them. I've met many people in the Pronghorn team. They're all incredible and they all deeply care, and I think that goes a very long way. So, Dia, thanks for being on the show today. So fun. All right, y'all, I'll see you next week on Here the Journey. Make sure you go to YouTube and subscribe. I looked at our data. You guys are watching the YouTubes week over week, but not subscribing, and that drives me nuts. You know how I feel about that. So go ahead and press subscribe and I'll see you soon next week right here. Thanks for listening to the Journey podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you leave a review and head to our Instagram and YouTube to leave a comment. I look forward to hearing how this podcast has made an impact on your own journey.