← The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
The Journey with Morgan DeBaun
Morgan DeBaun's 2024 Reflections: Motherhood, Milestones, and What's Next
00:26:25
Happy New Year! This week, Morgan DeBaun reflects on 2024, sharing both personal and professional milestones and exploring what's to come in 2025. In this episode: 00:00 Introduction and Yearly Reflection 01:00 Personal Milestones and Achievements...
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Morgan Deban
Welcome back to the Journey podcast. I am your host, Morgan Deban. We are going to do a reflection on 2024. I cannot believe the year is over. I feel like it went by so fast. It was crazy ride from personal milestones, you know, being on mat leave, starting the year on mat leave, to coming back to work, dealing with all of the unexpected challenges of managing a household as a mom, and then also getting engaged, and then also Afro Tech being bigger than we had so much going on in election year, this was a crazy year, and I'm really grateful for a lot of progress that I've made on a personal level and also some of the challenges that we were able to overcome. So today I'm going to share what I'm leaving behind and what I'm carrying into 2025, and also how I want to redefine for myself and rewrite my own rules around balance for next year. So this is a reflection podcast you do not want to miss. If you are really nosy and want to know everything about my life, this is the episode for you. Hey, everyone. I'm Morgan Debon, 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, let's start with personal milestones. Okay, so on a personal front, so many things went on. Like, this was a big year of transformation. I don't think anyone's ever prepared for their first year of parenthood, but for me, I feel really proud of myself for being able to center my son and a lot of the decisions that I made and to make sure that he was good, even if that meant pumping in an airport bathroom, which was disgusting, but just to make sure that he had the milk that he needed, even if I was taking a trip. Like, I feel really proud of myself, mostly, frankly, from the breastfeeding perspective, because it was really hard and it took a lot of energy as a working woman. Also, the world is just, like, not set up for mothers, let alone breastfeeding mothers. So I think I deserve 10 out of 10 for that. The other thing that I'm really proud of is that I feel like I maintained my relationships with my friends. I think a lot of times when you go into motherhood, really any parenthood, it's not even motherhood. I think dads have this too. But, like, you get sucked into this kid life. And I have a lot of friends who don't have kids. And I feel like I was able to see them, hang out with them, integrate them into my world, whether that was like, they joined me on trips or I joined them on trips or coming to Afrotech or whatever. So I feel like that was a huge 10 out of 10 for me. And then lastly, this is going to be. Sounds super niche, but Pilates. Like, I was so intimidated by Pilates, but now I could do everything. Like, your girl's core is solid. Shout out to solid core. But also just regular, regular degular Pilates with a regular degular transformer. I just had a great time with, like, class Pass. And I was so intimidated by that machine for whatever weird reason. I had, like, built it up in my mind and I was able to kind of get into it. And I think that was really helpful just in easing my body back into kind of working out and reclaiming my abs. I've kind of fallen off in this last few months, but I'm okay with that because my abs have never been stronger. So those are, like, the personal things that I feel like I've done really well as it relates to myself. And I think for next year, I do want to go back to weightlifting. I was lifting weights like three or four times a week before baby, and my muscle mass is, like, completely gone. I have mom butt. It's disgusting. Like, it's not disgusting. It's still really cute. It's cuter than most butts, but, like, it's not my normal butt. So I'm looking forward to getting back into weight training and going into the gym to kind of lift weights and get my muscle mass back up. And I think also on the personal front, like, I did have more of a health routine. I was really, like, light on myself, giving myself grace. But I was, I think, more disciplined when it came to my health and what I was eating before pregnancy. Again, that was like two years ago, you know, like, this journey is so long, but it feels like yesterday. It also feels like forever ago. So I just want to make sure that I am continuing to prioritize what I know works for myself, my productivity and my ability to be my best self, which is weight training, drinking water and just getting enough protein in. So I'm looking forward to just making more time to prioritize that in my wellness category and the relationship front and travel. I did a good job traveling this year. Like, we did a lot. We went to Costa Rica, we went to France, we went to Italy. We went to this baby got passport stamps. Okay, so your girl was outside. And I feel like I planned because I had mat leave. I was, like, planning all these things for my return. I have no things planned for next year in terms of, like, personal vacations. I have probably 50, 11 speaking engagements. Oh, my God. Y'all got me outside on the speaking engagements. For real. I just got invited to speak at Harvard. Hopefully gonna be able to say yes to that. I'll be at Cannes next year. I'll be at working on South By. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to swing south by, but, yeah, I've got a lot of companies that I'm gonna go speak to. Their women ergs and black ergs. And I'm excited to see you guys. I'm basically going on tour. I'm not a musician, I'm not a comedian, but I am an author, so we're gonna go on tour. So let me know if you want me to come to your city, speak to your organization, and especially if you're open to doing a book buy. Like, I would love to come to your city. And I have. I think I have, like, 10 cities already that I'm going to. So I am really excited to see you guys next year in person and kind of get back on the road from a work perspective as opposed to just personal travel. And I really look forward to meeting you and hearing what you have going on and helping, giving you some advice, some feedback so you can level up. What else am I looking forward to? My book launches in April. I'm obviously really excited about that. This book process was so long. It was like three years. It was really longer than three years. So I think I'm a little nervous about the release because you guys know I'm a really high achiever. And so I'm releasing the need to be a New York Times bestselling author because a lot of it is actually out of your control. I do feel like I will be a bestseller, but New York Times specifically is a really hard, challenging level to get to. So I just want to make sure that this book can get as many hands as possible, and I want to help people. And I really, genuinely feel strongly that the methods that I have in this book are different than what you guys have seen before. And there's not that many businesses, operators at my level who have written a book, like very few, especially women. So I really look forward to hearing what you all think and also, more importantly, seeing how the methods in the book, help you do whatever it is that you want to do in life and not be so defined by what society said was the right thing to do or your mom said was the right thing to do or what you think you should be doing. Like, just live a little. Okay, so I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys to get the book. What else is going on? We have a lot of planning. I feel like I'm really planning for a few years from now. Like, I'm really spending next year preparing and prepping for the years after. Like, I look forward to living in the present and basically getting all the rewards and momentum from the work that I've put in, like the book. But then I'm also feel like I'm in this inflection point in my life where I've done a lot of things. Like, you know, you know, I had the baby, the business is 10 years old. Like, I've done a lot of things. So I feel like I'm in the process of becoming into that next version of myself that I will then be reaping the rewards of when I'm in my early 40s. So, like, I want to. We've been collecting a lot of black art. Josh and I have been spending a lot of time just like on artsy and dming different black artists and like really buying at the level that, like at the beginning of their career. So like people who are still, you know, maybe their price of their original art is like $500 or like $1500. So buying pieces at that level, and I think that's so fun because I can be a part of their investment in themselves and them being able to sustain themselves as creatives and artists. And so next year I want to spend more time continuing to invest in black artists and helping support their dreams. And part of the reason I'm doing this is because I feel like in another world I would have been an artist full time. Like, I would have been a fine artist full time. But I just like, could not figure out how to make money as a full time artist. And I knew that for the life I wanted to live, I needed some level of being rich. And so in order to do that, I chose a different pathway. And I think if I knew back then what I know now, I might have leaned into being a fine artist. Like, that might have been a more realistic option for me in my career. So I just want to at this point in my life, be more supportive to people in the creative space and to use my wealth and not just the cash, but also the platform that I have to showcase more black artists and help them live their creativity dreams with patrons. I don't know. That seems ideal. It's giving Harlem Renaissance. Okay. And I think I will probably spend more time painting. I don't know that I'll spend more time painting next year than I did this year, since I'll be traveling so much. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm not gonna put too much pressure on myself on that one. So my other pillars in terms of. Of money, I don't know. I have to look at my taxes. I made a lot of money this year. Definitely working less because I was putting more time and energy into family. I said no to a lot of things this year, and I feel like I made a strong amount of money. Enough. Enough money that I didn't notice. We'll see. We'll see. I gotta. I gotta really do the math real quick sometimes. Y'all know I know this is the first world problem, so bear with me. But sometimes when you have money coming in from so many different places, you're like, this seems about right. I think next year I will make a lot more money. And so because of the book deal and speaking engagements and things like that, it tends to just, like, the more you're out, the more people think of you for booking, the more people think of you for brand deals and things like that. So I think next year I'll make more money. The question is, what do I want to do with it? You guys should listen to my episode with Terry from Trade and Travel. Terry invest with Terry. She's awesome. And we talked a lot about my stock portfolio, and I think I just need a new money vision. We've been thinking about if we wanted to buy a house and buy another house, because the house that I bought, I bought as a single woman. And it's a great house, particularly when it was just me. Now that we've got me, plus the baby, plus the nanny, plus Josh, like, one could argue we need a bigger house, but I kind of like it because I can just, like, yell and everybody can hear me. You know, like, what's up? Like, you know, everybody can hear me. If you have a big house, you got to be like, use an intercom system or something. So that's one thing that we've been thinking about is like, okay, if we're not going to get another house, what are we going to do with all this money? So I think investing in black art, I'm also going to pick up angel investing again. So I did a lot of angel investing in 2020, 2021. I kind of took a pause for a few years when I was reallocating those funds. But I really enjoy angel investing, particularly in fintech companies or companies that are founded by women or underestimated people. Because I just remember again what it was like when I was trying to raise my first 100k, 200k, and those 15k checks or those 25k checks go a really long way. But not just the money, but also the relationships and the advice that come with the money. Like, one of my angel investors, Michael Rothman, had a company called Fatherly, and he had started about two years before Blavity. And I just remember because he was two years ahead of me, I was able to ask him questions like, oh, all my employees are feeling this. Is it me or is it the stage of company? He's like, that's the stage of company. Or, oh, I'm thinking about this. But it seems like we waste a lot of money. And he's like, yeah, that was a bad operating decision. Like, you did not do a good job there. Like, he was able to give me advice and even people to potentially hire because he had gone through that stage. So I look forward to being able in a more, like, financial way. Of course, I give everybody advice and input. But there's something different when your money's tied into that company. I care a little bit more, you know, about the information that I'm giving you or the referrals that I'm giving you. So I've got a couple that I'm already looking at. I think we have like three that I'm in deal contracting diligence with right now. Next year, I would like to do at least five, maybe upwards of 10, just to get my portfolio back up. If I do 10 investments next year, I'll have over 20 investments, which will be a pretty strong portfolio. And it's just a good way to put money back into the ecosystem. And then freedom. I think that freedom and the concept of having more free time for myself is something I'm still managing. I think for Freedom. What I really want to get back to is, you know, Josh and I used to travel a lot together with the little one. We've been traveling separately. So, like, if he wants to go to something, I'm like, all right, cool, you go. I'll stay home with Langston, or vice versa. And I think that when we used to really enjoy traveling together a lot as A couple. And especially as an introvert, I'm like, oh, this is ten times more fun with an extrovert. Like, if it's just me, I'm just gonna go say hi and dip. Like, you know, if I'm with him, I'm like, let's go outside. Where are we going next? Like, I just have so much more fun because he's my best friend. So I think traveling as a couple, even if it's just like one night in Miami, one night in New York for a Broadway show, like, even if it's just releasing the idea that it needs to be a marathon, it could just be going for, like, one thing. Like, oh, let's go to art gallery opening in Chicago. Like, go kick it. So that I'm looking forward to. And I think from a freedom perspective, that will help me and our relationship, of course. But also just like my mindset of, yeah, you are your own person, you are CEO, your mom, but you are also just a girl with a guy that you love. And that's a blessing. So let's enjoy that. So that's something else I'm looking forward to. Okay, so Afrotech next year is back in Houston. And so that's something else that I'm really focused on is really making sure that we have enough space at Afrotech to accommodate the growth. We did our survey this year. We called it the Afrotech census. And part of the survey was basically like, will you come back to Afrotech? And it was something crazy. Like, 87 of people said they're coming next year. And I say, I'm gonna need a bigger boat. Actually, I don't need a bigger boat because Houston is ginormous. But we do need to figure out how to manage this space so that everybody can get what they're coming to aphrotech for. Because not everybody comes to apertech for a job anymore. Like, as we've gotten bigger, people are coming to be inspired. They're coming to network. They're coming to get brand deals. They're coming to get investors in their company. They're coming to, like, grow their business. And not even just the attendees, but also our clients and partners. So many more of our partners are like, hey, we're not actually hiring this year, but our clients are at Afro Tech or our leads are at Afro Tech. They're advertising consumer products. Like, banks are. Like, I'm advertising our banking services or bank accounts to black people. I'm advertising cars. Like, it is becoming a cultural moment at Afro Tech. And I really want to make sure that I am holding space for that to happen and that we are being really intentional about how that happens, because tech and innovation will still always be its priority. But tech and innovation are part of every single industry now. So what does that mean for someone who is a nurse who's in Houston? Because it's. Houston is a. It's an epicenter of, like, medical technology and has so many medical schools there. How do we create space? So we're trying to figure out, okay, we're going to do a. It's called Afro Medtech Summit at Afro Tech. So that there is hardware biotechnology. People are actually talking about the innovations and products that are happening behind the scenes at these big companies. We're adding a robotics and hardware day at Afro Tech because so many people are inventing wearable devices. Like, if I see another Oura ring, literally, I feel like there's more Oura rings than, like, Apple watches out here. So let's talk about wearable devices. Meta glasses. Snapchat's got glasses. Let's show people. Give people a chance to play with this stuff and either A, decide they want to help build it, or B, decide they want to buy it. Right. Our book franchise at Blavity is also growing like crazy. We've got this new franchise called Blavity Book Club, and we are trying to figure out how do we integrate that into Blavity Fest, which is basically part two of the acquisition that I did a few years ago. Blavity House Party for R and B House Party, which then was Blabbity House Party, which is not Blabbity Fest. So bringing all of our brands together in one place, that's going to be in Atlanta this spring. So really trying to design that experience so that there's kind of a gap between Essence Fest and, I would say, like, everything else. You know, like Essence Fest has hundreds of thousands of people. And then when you look at other events besides Afro Tech, like, there's not that much at that scale. There's really nothing. There's music festivals like Broccoli City, but music festivals have had a really tough time. I mean, I don't know if you guys saw that J. Cole, you know, isn't doing his music festival again. I mean, the economics of music festivals are really challenging, but events with programming and conversations plus music actually are doing really well, right? Like CES or South by Southwest and things like that. So we're basically blending the best of both worlds from Afro Tech plus Blavity House Party and then creating Blavity Fest, a house where all of our brands. So Summit 21 is coming back. The girlies are excited about that. That'll be during Blavity Festival. Home and Texture will have content at Blabbity Fest. Afro Tech will have content at Blabbity Fest. And I'm excited to see kind of what comes out of it. We've gotten hundreds of submissions for speakers. The team's actively going through that right now for people to teach, workshops, do all different types of things, activations. And yeah, I think Blabbity Fest over the next three to five years can be another cultural moment where black intellectuals, creatives, business people come together to be in dialogue. You know, so working on that, I think from a team perspective, our team is pretty solid. Like, I love everybody that works at our company. They work incredibly hard. They've got great vision. They're coming with their own ideas. I feel like a lot of people, this is their second, third, maybe even fourth year working at Blavity. So people are hitting a stride and they feel like they own their domain, and that's a beautiful place to be. And that's also given me more freedom as the leader of the organization to really think about the future and to think about dreaming up these new experiences, because I'm not as much in the weeds, like, fixing problems or fixing holes. Like, they've got it. You know, our HR team's got it. Our legal team's got it. Like, they're kind of like, morgan, leave me alone. I'm like, great. Happy to leave me alone as long as you send me your weekly update. But, yeah, that's. That's, like, my only request is I need to see the data. But other than that, like, the team is in an awesome flow, so I really am focused on. I mean, obviously there's always some teams that are underperforming, don't get me wrong. But it's few and far between, you know, in comparison to previous years, where I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is so hard. You know, I'm like, all right, you guys have got it. Let me know where you need help or let me know where you need input. The economy is really. Was really tough this year. You know, I think we made a lot happen in a really rough economy, and. And everything was really expensive. So it also felt like even when we were able to get wins at the top line, our bottom line was still struggling. So next year, I think we're going to be in a better place where the bottom line and the top line are on track to be where we want it to be. I'm not saying we're not doing well. We're doing fine. But I always would like us to do better because that's my job, you know, And I also just want to be in a place where we have a little bit more breathing room. We spent a lot of money investing in like Blabbity fest and Blabbity house party and kind of get that brand up and going. So, you know those things. When I say a lot, I mean like millions, right? So I really want to make sure that the shareholders, which is everyone at my company, every full time employee at Blavity has equity, gets the return that we want. And that's going to take a few more years. So I'm excited. I don't sound excited because now I'm thinking about things, but now that we started, now I started down this train, my brain's like, here's all the 70,000 things you still need to do before the end of the year. Why are you filming this podcast? Because I'm trying to give you guys behind the scenes. So, you know, not everything is figured out. You all, that's kind of the beauty of life. And you got to take risks. Like, even at this level, 10 years in, I am still taking risks. I'm still figuring different things out. And that is part of life, right? So if you want to get to the next level, like the next milestone for us is like a hundred million in revenue. Like, that's what I'm working towards. What served us at 40 million in revenue is not going to serve us at 100 million in revenue. Like, you have to think bigger, right? And like, I actually was just having this call with a girlfriend where we were talking about how our money mindset is so different now that we're operating at this level. And like, there would have been a time where somebody called me like, hey, I'm like working on this thing and you know, we got a budget. I'm like, oh my God, what's your budget? They're like, oh, we got like 20k. And we get really excited. Like now when someone's like, I got a budget, it's 20k. I'm like, baby, why am I on this call? Like, you could talk to somebody else on the team. I'm not saying no. I love 20k, but like, that's not a good use of my time anymore. You know, I want to work on projects and, and business partnerships that are in the half a million to million, two million dollar Range, because that's what it's going to take if you want to get to $100 million. Think about it this way. If I want to get to $100 million, we got to be making $2 million a week. Like, $2 million a week is our norm. Right. So if every week we're making 500, 700, 800,000, well, that's great. That's not going to get me to $100 million. So what are the things that we can do differently that will get us there? And there are weeks where we'll randomly. Not randomly, but I feel like it's occasionally random. Like, oh, well, we made a lot of money. Yeah. I'm like, oh, shit, we made a couple million dollars this week. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And I'm like, let me break that down. Like, what happened? You know, and oftentimes it's just timing, but, like, I think that being able to actually work through my brain and say, like, okay, what is worth that? What. What kind of value do you need to be creating to demand that kind of revenue every week? That's a different business. And so that's one of the reasons we've been investing so much in our experiential business. Because I truly believe that big events are able to get to that kind of scale. Like, once you get to that kind of scale, are able to demand that kind of price. Right. Digital and impressions and websites are changing dramatically because of AI and because of how information's going through the world. Will there be websites? Absolutely. Is a dot com the only way that people are getting access to information these days? No. And is that increasing or decreasing? It is decreasing. Right. So if we know that, then we as a team and as a company are thinking about new ways to get our brands in front of people. I mean, we still get a ton of website traffic, don't get me wrong. But it is not necessarily going to be the future of a media business for any media business. And any media CEO who tells you otherwise is bullshitting you. Okay? So you need to be. If you're in the media business, you have to be thinking differently about how you're reaching people. So our teams are thinking about events, our team is thinking about online content. Not necessarily long form, highly produced things, but content that can help you get the information that you would have gotten otherwise on a website, on social media. Then you got to figure out how to monetize it. We're investing millions of dollars in black creators. Next year, we did over a million dollars in spend with black creators this year and it's been really productive. Like one, it's in alignment with our vision. Right. So we've been able to like give money back to black creators who do fantastic work and speak to our, our audience. And sometimes we're not even posting it. Like you guys might not even know this is coming from Blavity because we're having those brand partnerships and they're posting it natively on their channels. They're not posting it on our channel. And then sometimes you will see it. Like if you go on Blavity, you might see a campaign we just did with Mrs. Kev on stage and OnStar and that was really fun. We've worked with their family for now two years with OnStar and promoting OnStar's awesome features and that's awesome. I love working with that family because they're black, they're creatives, they're building their family business. They're doing incredible work with Kevin Stage and his wife and his now his kids are involved in the videos and our clients love it, Our company loves it. It's a good fit. So how can we do more projects with black creators, support their work? Whether that's with branded content or not branded content you'll see on travel noir and home and texture. We're working with creators on things like house tours, you know, and figuring out how do we promote their houses that's not branded. We're financing that ourselves. But it's content that we believe in. So I think that's another angle for Blavity to continue to be able to grow organically and it not just be blabbity.com, you know. And also our newsletters are growing like crazy because people still want the information but they don't want to click to a website. So we're spending more time and energy on like, okay, how do you get that information just by opening your inbox, not monetizing that. It's much harder. But that's a problem for another day. So in 2025 I am focusing more on being a creative, supporting creatives and reimagining what this business will look like in the next 10 years. Focusing on a long term future and sowing those seeds now so that when we look up in a couple years from now we're like, wow, we really took that bet in the year 2024 and 2025 and it has paid off to get to 100 million in revenue for this company. It's gonna require me to be more aggressive and I guys watching me and being on this journey with me through that process. Bye. 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.