Inspirational Black Men In Tech: Laurel Djoukeng of Sparc On The Five Things You Need To Know In Order To Create A Very Successful Tech Company
An Interview With Jamie Hemmings
If you do not know how to code, secure great developers, to join your team. Learn how to influence and inspire people. Secure great advisors. Have access to capital or understand how to fundraise. Cultivate a network of people that aspire you to achieve what you initially thought you could not attain.
As a part of my series about “Lessons From Inspirational Black Men In Tech”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Laurel Djoukeng.
Laurel Djoukeng received his bachelor’s degree from Hampton University and MBA from Duke University — The Fuqua School of Business. Born and raised in Washington, DC, his professional career began in New York City where he resided for 10 years. Working as an Investment Analyst in 2010 for PGIM Real Estate, a global private equity firm with $70 billion in assets under management. In 2012, he transitioned to the Carlton Group, an international investment banking firm with more than $140 billion in transactions.
In November of 2018, he Founded Sparc the people-centric marketplace that connects and arranges live engagements with people that have complementary interests. At their current stage, Sparc connects employers with college students and professionals for virtual and in-person recruiting events (interviews, info sessions, fireside chats) in addition to job posts.
Sparc has more than 2,000 users, 150 events and job posts, 15+ employers total more than $600 in customer revenue, more than 20 tutors with $900 in Gross transactional value.
Laurel also founded a 501(c)3 in 2011, called the Catalyst Network Foundation Inc. devoted to year-round professional development and college preparatory workshops for thousands of students which include: partnerships with 21 high schools, 35 community organizations, and 20 Fortune 500 corporations; fundraising corporate donations over $1600,000.00; and managing team of 16 volunteers, 8 board members, and 2 education program managers. Ranking Congressman Ed Towns awarded a proclamation to the Foundation in recognition of the organization’s achievements.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Well ever since high school I have always connected people based on some mutual interests. I would meet someone and through casual conversation find out what they are truly passionate about or working on and usually connect them with someone that is complimentary to them in terms of needs and wants. As I got older this evolved to connecting high schools with corporations, investors with real estate developers, community organizations with high schools/colleges, etc. After doing this for 20 years you began to realize that people can reach their full potential if they knew and were able to connect with the right person in the right setting… and you start getting tired of facilitating introductions all the time and being the unofficial consigliere and arbitrator when at least one party is disappointed in the outcome that was manifested because of the introduction that “they” wanted you to facilitate.
One day in 2017, I am walking with my friend in Bedstuy, Brooklyn having a casual conversation and then he tells me he was planning to ramp up his workout regiment and told me he went on Instagram and found a trainer and paid the trainer like $40 or 60 dollar to send him a meal or workout plan. Before he told me this, I was not aware of anyone who leveraged social media in that way. At that moment I thought of how much more money or impact the trainer could make if he could be found in a much swifter way and exchange his knowledge or expertise in a way that suited him. This was one of the conversations that helped spark the ingenuity for Sparc. Also, at this time I knew I wanted to create a platform that digitized what I was doing for the past 20 years and connected people based on mutual interests, and provide the ability for someone to monetize their intrinsic assets (energy + knowledge/expertise). I knew I could not start this while running my nonprofit and working on wall street therefore my goal was to work on Sparc when I was enrolled in graduate school full-time and use the school as my incubator to launch my product which I did when I enrolled in Duke University’s MBA program in 2018.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began at your company?
The first event ever held on Sparc led to one of the participants securing an Internship at BCG. Our first event on Sparc which I prefer to call “engagements” was hosted by Laura Derry on February 26, 2019, on Duke University’s campus. It was an info session on the difference between pursuing an MBA vs MD and the day and life of a Healthcare Consultant at BCG. One of the attendees was an undergraduate student (Jonah), he maintained contact with Laura which led to him securing an internship at BCG that summer. That is when we knew that there was something impactful with what we were doing at Sparc.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I don’t know if I would call this a “funny mistake” but one of the major mistakes I made early on was trying to outsource product development and believing that I could build a solid MVP without a CTO. Roughly 10 months into my venture with outsourcing my product development, I would often run into issues and hiccups with new product releases and fixing bugs. During this process, I realize how limited I was due to my inability to code and develop my product, it was and still is a shitty feeling. I spent 6 months in an attempt to secure a CTO. I had finally secured a CTO in January of 2020 and he is still on the team and that has been the greatest decision that I have made at Sparc to date. But there was still value in outsourcing product development, in the beginning, to have a product out in the market as early as possible in my opinion is better than not having any product out at all. So, I was able to release a bootleg version of Sparc a month from working on Sparc and was able to get customer feedback through the following 10 months and this created momentum for me and credibility which led to people assisting me with product development, legal, and strategy to help Sparc grow. These individuals would have never participated in Sparc’s growth if it was not for me having some tangible product. In addition to this, I learned so much about product development and software engineering during those 10 months and I had a tangible product for prospective CTO’s to view and assess, which helped them better understand my vision.
Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
I mean, we face hard times all the time, it’s inevitable in the entrepreneurship journey especially when you start off funding your venture for the first 24 months and cost steadily increases month over month. At the moment a story does not come to mind, and this is probably because I don’t reflect on those times too often during this journey. After all, it could probably lead many entrepreneurs to consider giving up. When you understand it’s part of the process and this is what you signed up for, you learn from the setback and take physical and mental notes of the experience, to minimize the probability of facing a similar outcome.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
If I had to name one person it would probably be my mother but as I mentioned in an interview several years ago. “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” I can honestly say that I have a great family, and I have met great people throughout my life. I have had great supervisors, coaches, and teachers, and when I look back, I have been fortunate in that sense.
“No man is an island unto himself.” I have been very lucky in the sense that, whenever I’ve had an idea or endeavor I want to pursue, I have had talented people that are cool to work with who have been on board with me through many of those journeys.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“This too shall pass,” is noteworthy wisdom for me. It warns me to be wary of complacency and cautious about celebrating achievement. It also helps me avoid paralysis from previous mishaps or future consequences.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The United States is currently facing a very important self-reckoning about race, diversity, equality and inclusion. This is of course a huge topic. But briefly, can you share your view on how this crisis inexorably evolved to the boiling point that it’s at now?
When you never address the root cause of these issues and do not have the courage to implement real solutions and steadfastness to stay the course and to see if your realistic outcomes can come to fruition. Then you will never solve these problems and will always have the issues we are facing in America come to a boiling point time and time again.
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have a diverse executive team?
Based on your question I am assuming “diverse executive team” implies that the executive team actually has power. I am in move favor of a diverse ownership team or diversity amongst the principals. That way the diverse representation is the team that really has the power and can unequivocally exercise that power, and hopefully, the interest of the diverse team represents the best interests of their team and customers.
Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in more broad terms. It’s hard to be satisfied with the status quo regarding Black Men in Tech leadership. What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?
I believe the main thing required to change the status quo is more capital injected into Black people launching and leading tech companies whether through grants, venture capital, or favorable financing terms. Everything else is just salad dressing. If Black men can build their companies, you will undoubtedly see more black men in tech leadership
We’d now love to learn a bit about your company. What is the pain point that your company is helping to address?
We solve the marketing and pipeline issue for Employers; our platform allows Employers to seamlessly locate, build rapport, evaluate talent while leaving a digital footprint.
We solve the information gap and recruiting process problem for college students. Students effectively identify, connect, and develop a rapport with personnel at companies and pursue opportunities that are aligned with their goals and skill-sets.
Aside from the college students leveraging Sparc for career insight and job placement, they earn money on Sparc through paid tutoring engagements with High School students. Our platform allows frictionless scheduling of meetings, payment processing, and ratings and reviews scorecards which has created an environment where college students use Sparc to make money at their convenience.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Our ability to solve the two primary problems for a college student.
1. Career discovery and career attainment
2. Independence from parent or guardian
On Sparc, college students can discover and secure career opportunities that align with their interests and values.
The college students have the ability to improve their financial independence from their parents/guardians utilizing one of their greatest skills sets, high school tutoring, SAT/ACT exam preparation, and college consulting. They earn money on Sparc through paid tutoring engagements with High School students. Our platform allows frictionless scheduling of meetings, payment processing, and ratings and reviews scorecards which has created an environment where college students use Sparc to make money at their convenience.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
We are building out our tutoring platform, securing high school students and parents to our platform, and providing tools so that they can find the best tutors that are college students and access them, arrange high school tutoring or college consulting sessions, and negotiate compensation with them in a frictionless way.
What would you advise to another tech leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth or sales and “restart their engines”?
I don’t have general advice because I have yet to ascend to a level where I believe that Sparc has had successive growth. Get back to me in 4–16 months and I will be able to better answer this question.
Do you have any advice about how companies can create very high performing sales teams?
Not at the moment, let me get back to you on this in 1–2 years, lol.
In your specific industry what methods have you found to be most effective in order to find and attract the right customers? Can you share any stories or examples?
As it pertains to securing college students, we leverage college influencers and form partners with members of student leadership organizations to attract the right student population at particular schools. For example, we are currently utilizing Duke University Campus Enterprises to improve Sparc brand awareness at Duke University and convert student organizations onto our platform.
Google search to identify high school parent-teacher organizations and college counselors.
We leverage LinkedIn to identify campus recruiters working at the premier companies.
Based on your experience, can you share 3 or 4 strategies to give your customers the best possible user experience and customer service?
1. Customer support 24/7 and access to a live person
2. Call to action messaging and keeping the messaging concise and simple
3. Video explanations/tutorials
As you likely know, this HBR article demonstrates that studies have shown that retaining customers can be far more lucrative than finding new ones. Do you use any specific initiatives to limit customer attrition or customer churn? Can you share some of your advice from your experience about how to limit customer churn?
Yes, on Sparc we work on creating a social network of people that are seeking insight or expertise from someone else on the platform and we cultivate an environment on the network where the two parties can connect and exchange those “needs” and “haves” in a frictionless way. By doing this or customers realize that Sparc has more use cases that are valuable to them and therefore remain on our platform.
Here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful tech company? Please share a story or an example for each.
1. If you do not know how to code, secure great developers, to join your team.
2. Learn how to influence and inspire people.
3. Secure great advisors.
4. Have access to capital or understand how to fundraise.
5. Cultivate a network of people that aspire you to achieve what you initially thought you could not attain.
Wonderful. We are nearly done. Here are the final “meaty” questions of our discussion. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
The movement would foster more in-person engagements amongst one another but based on mutual interests. I believe there is too much tribalism and groupthink going on based on identity with politics, community, or culture. I believe that everyone in society can connect with someone else off of some commonality, we don’t do a good job in society highlighting those commonalities. The understanding of the commonalities can prompt an interaction that can lead to respect amongst one another. Then both parties can highlight their differences, and both parties can genuinely listen and understand each other’s point of view because both sides have created a foundation between one another based on mutual interests or commonality that was developed in-person.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
At this moment those prominent leaders would either be Reid Hoffman or James Currier, I have followed these two individuals for the pasts 3 years, both of them have shared a lot of wisdom and insight about building social networks and marketplaces that have been extremely helpful to me as I have built out Sparc.
Thank you so much for this. This was very inspirational, and we wish you only continued success!
