Black Narratives: 3 Quotes From The Investor That Changed My View Of Success
The Story and Wisdom Behind the All Black VC Group Changing Diversity & Inclusion
Introduction:
There’s lots of noise out there about what it takes to become successful in business.
Not that I have all or any of the answers, but I think that its easier to get lost in an information overload than it’s ever been.
Readers are crying out for concise real-life experiences that demonstrate what’s required instead of being sold farfetched ideas in “3 Hacks or 7 Tips [Insert Here]”.
I sat down and spoke with Andy Davis, Co-Founder and Angel Investor at 10X10, a community of leading black founders in the UK, to understand his story and what he used to build his first businesses and 10x10.
Andy’s Story:
Andy was born and raised in Barking and developed an entrepreneurial spirit at an early age.
His Sierra Leonian mother worked three jobs and instilled the hustler mentality into Andy. Before long, he was selling sweets he’d bought from the supermarket for a mark-up to local school kids because vending machines couldn’t meet the student demand.
At 18, Andy started at UCL and began his first business, an online football platform that allowed users to guess the winner of the premier league for a chance to win £100K.
(No, the website isn’t up anymore!)
The ecosystem that exists today, supporting aspiring founders to learn more about entrepreneurship and gain investment, wasn’t established when Andy was building his platform, so he got creative.
I used to leave submission forms on the mirror of the elevators at my university halls and wait for someone to arrive on my floor before running to ask them if they’d fill out the form that I had hanging on the wall in my room.
After gaining a few thousand monthly users, Andy and his Co-founder called friends and family looking for investment. Together they raised £10K to keep going, working with engineers and developers from UCL to iterate through versions of the platform.
Over the next ten years, Andy built ten more companies and found his niche diving into problems that had repeatedly surfaced in interactions with other founders and CEOs.
Noticing the lack of equal opportunity to receive funding and solve problems through building valuable businesses, Andy began working closely with founders and investors of colour to even the playing field.
Focusing on solving the problem and taking deliberate action, Andy’s v1 of 10x10 was a WhatsApp group focused on enabling and empowering black early-stage founders.
Though I spoke with Andy about 10x10, much is still unknown.
There’s very little on their website. No Instagram. No Twitter. All done deliberately to keep the group’s focus on the group’s problems and how to solve them.
Two solutions that have surfaced are “The Black Report” and “10X10 Fund”.
10X10 Fund is an open invitation fund for investors to make a minimum contribution and support exceptional black founders.
The Black Report was created by 10x10’s and Google for Start-Ups surveying 60 black-owned asking questions about team composition, funding and problems that they face to close the national gap of diversity in business.
Some key insights include:
- 46% of businesses surveyed were founded by women
- 22% of companies were able to raise money fro family and friends
- £166k was the average amount of funding raised
- 32% of investors were black, and 25% of investors were female
Andy’s story is intriguing, but the simplicity around his business approach is what really resonated with me. Andy’s compassion and bias towards action have been the driving forces in his success.
Here are the key quotes I took from our conversation:
#1 — Be Compassionate:
Andy:
“What we do more than anyone else is care. You’ll struggle to find someone in this town or ecosystem that cares more about black entrepreneurship than me. Yes — you can argue that my skin is fairer than others or that I’m mixed race, but I identify as Black through my experiences and care about the cause with my heart and my actions.”
Caring deeply about the problem faced by other groups helps you better understand the role you have as a business owner.
As you empathise with their frustrations, you’ll gain an understanding of the actions they might take to overcome those issues. Understanding consumer or community behaviour will help you find resources to help your community or customers reach their goal.
Andy:
“There’s no stopping until Black Entrepreneurs can get funding and achieve the things that they deserve. There’s no stopping until black investors can make great progress and become check writers and break every barrier towards building infrastructure that benefits people from our communities.”
#2 — Have Ambition:
Andy:
“Kobe joined the NBA at a very young age and was asked, “How will you manage to compete with the other players?” Kobe replied, saying, “I want to be the best. While everyone else is going to college, partying, drinking, all I’m going to do is play ball. How can I not be the best?” If I’m taking 5000 shots at improving a product, how can I not solve my customers’ problem?”
I like this quote because it shows what it takes to compete at the highest level — Ambition.
In Kobe’s situation, he took an unconventional route to the NBA and invested his time in drills to perfect his craft for the game.
In Andy’s case, he unintentionally left UCL to invest his time in building products to ultimately help other founders do the same.
Mini Takeaway:
You may have to take paths towards your goal that might seem wacky at the time. So long as they make sense to you, it’s worth the bet.
#3 — Listen and Ask Questions:
Andy:
“Once I see the initial signs of a good product, I immediately dive deep and ask questions. I want to know who’s expense is this?
How you’ve lived with the problem?
What alternative solutions have you tried? What worked and what didn’t work?
What does the ideal solution look like?
What absolutely needs to be done to solve the problem?
Over time I keep asking these questions and do an excessive amount of listening. I’m looking to find areas we can adapt to improve our sense of direction. As we iterate, we’ll get closer and closer to a more impactful product.”
The benefit of asking questions is that you gain a better understanding of your audience’s challenge from multiple perspectives.
Seeing the issue from varying angles helps to understand what weaknesses exist in your current approach and how to address them.
On top of that, you can identify leverage points to compound your efforts in fighting your challenge.
Andy’s decision to spearhead The Black Report helped tackle diversity and inclusion and built a business case for Black Founders. Data revealed from the report helped the black founders and helped freelancers secure higher-paying projects.
Takeaways:
Andy Davis is a leading voice for diversity and inclusion and is building a community for Black founders, challenging the status quo with his story.
His story demonstrates that there are unconventional paths to success that lay open to you if you’re willing to bet on yourself.
Listening carefully, having compassion and ambition are worth their weight in gold when it comes to building a business.
