Successful Black founders share startup funding experiences - Business Insider

Conwell's first startup was basically an idea and a website: no customers, no revenue, no growth .

"There are investors who won't write a check unless the founder can get someone to invest $50,000," Conwell says. "I've literally heard them say that out loud. That's the way the VC was taught. That's a hard barrier to get over. That's the systemic part." Through grants and convertible notes, it seeds underprivileged founders who can't bootstrap the initial $50,000 or more from friends and family, giving them runway to build a prototype, find a beta customer, and obtain other key startup trappings to help them woo other investors. TEDCO also has later-stage investment funds.Raising venture capital is all about who you know, and that can hold Black founders back.

Williams tells Business Insider that landing these big fish was the result of decades of deliberate networking, hard work and luck. Harvard and his flipping-business led to a job at Goldman Sachs and that job, plus his real estate background, led to a job at Blackstone Group. And with that, his credentials and his network, became sterling.

"There were a number of meeting I went to where there was a sort of surprised looks on people's faces. In some cases, some of them asked 'where Ryan is.'"He shrugged that off and, after some of his Harvard classmates backed him, like Joshua Kushner, they introduced him to other wealthy real estate families who also invested.

"There's two people, two personas if you will, that you've got to manage. One feels more authentic and real. It's who I spent time with growing up and what I can talk about and feel safe," he says.

Business or politics or society, racism / communalism has done more harm to all than anything else.

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