Lakeisha Poole discusses growing up in the South Bay Area (San Jose), how to manage and launch in-person events, the Onyx meetup group, the Black Career Job Fair, how to engage event sponsors, and what drove her move to Dallas, Texas.

Shruti Shah is a former teacher, former MoveLoot Cofounder, Y-Combinator Alumnus, and now Venture Capitalist and Fractional COO/CSO. In this interview, she discusses growing up in Memphis, Tennessee with a Jewish Father and Hindu Mother, attending UNC-Chapel Hill, her experiences as a school teacher that informed her desire for creating financially inclusive tools, cofounding MoveLoot, joining Y-Combinator, and now being a venture capitalist at Symphonic Capital and serving as a fractional Chief Operating Officer. Enjoy!

Wanona discusses juggling parenthood, marriage, and entrepreneurship, trials and tribulations of being a Black founder, Bigg Dipp showing her love, living in a former Trap House, working with Nasa, New Atlanta, growing up in Atlanta, Young Thug’s Case, Trump’s judicial woes, Atlanta becoming a Rap Mecca, long term goal of creating afforable housing, and launching her startup, Mākhers Studio, transforming shipping containers into equitable living spaces.

In this interview, Wadnes Castelly discusses product marketing, not knowing anything about TikTok before joining company, product marketing making you a better entrepreneur, art and science of product marketing, Joel Embid’s marketing presence, his dad teaching him to write checks, how he scored his first internship via networking after skipping class from the VP of Marketing, using ChatGPT as a coach, advisor, or mentor, the 12 week-year concepts, importance of mentorship circles, sponsor vs having a mentor, the importance of remembering peoples’ name, his favorite speakers, and luminaries.

Abdul Foster talks about growing up in Albuquerque New, Mexico, his African American and Mexican ancestry, training his brother, Arian Foster, former NFL running back and other star athletes, what makes Trainers so valuable, practicing Tai Chi, adjusting to black southern culture, opening his own training facility, his son inspiring him to become a software entrepreneur and lastly, starting Trainr, business management platform for physical trainers, and product growth strategies.

Delida Costin discusses her inspiration for becoming a lawyer, bringing lawsuit against the State of Illinois, how she became Pandora’s Chief Legal Counsel and taking them public, taking Grove Collaborative public as a SPAC, the importance of volunteering, potentially being the only Black woman to take two US companies public as a General Counsel, SPACs, and corporate governance.

In this interview, Tierra Frost discusses importance of film making, the difference between filmmaking and storytelling, working with Kai Cenat and his attention to detail, working with DDG, the spiritual side of storytelling, character development, growing up in Seattle and impacts of redlining, her family’s history, and seeing the commonalities between their personality traits to now, the Rosewood massacre, the impact of “Not Like Us”, Katt Williams interview on Club Shay Shay, and AI’s impact on the entertainment industry.

Growing up in LA during Biggie and Tupac rap beef, working at a real estate company, Coldwell Banker at 18 years old, growing up as a single child, designing ads on a commodore, learning that age doesn’t matter, the origins of 40Tons, leveraging Clubhouse for networking, helping his best friend, Corvain, getting a pardon from Trump, juggling being married and running a business with her, cannabis industry regulation, and providing opportunities to people negatively impacted by unfair judicial system.