Ep. 12: Striking Out (Part 1)

So welcome to another episode of Black Girl Fly. I'm your girl Tenisha Nicole. And I'm Tashaunda Dixon. And today we're going to be talking about striking out. And what we mean by striking out is, really we're going to go into many of the ventures that we've had as serial entrepreneurs, like we've been at this thing for years, successfully, and unsuccessfully, yes. And we kind of want to just talk through some of the lessons that we've learned along the journey. And yeah, just really reflect on the skills that we've gained, and maybe the lessons we've learned the people we've touched throughout that process. Yeah, and I think it's greater than that. I think I would start this conversation really by by talking about the fact that I think today what I've noticed and what I've learned about all those things that I've struck out at is that they are commonalities that all of my experiences brought me to today. And it's all of those lessons that I've learned from that really have forged away from my next thing.

Yeah, like people like to say now you're taking “L”s, but I'm like you making lessons like you taking a lesson? Yes. So you can either win, or you learn a lesson. Yeah. In my book, you never really lose. Unless, you know, you stay there. And don't learn the lesson. Yeah. And don't try again. Right. So if that if that puts you out of the game, you're out. You lost. Yeah. Like, you don't want that to be you. But I know it can happen, right? And it can be easy to get stuck in that place. But we just want to share all of our failures. That that inspires all of our experience. Yes. So to show you that, like you can come back and you can keep trying and like every time you get back up and makes you that much stronger. Yeah. So if I had to About really the first time I was introduced to entrepreneurship, I would say it was with moms cleaning service. Do you remember that at all? Yeah. So we're cleaning. Yeah, labor, okay. I'm pretty sure was illegal for cleaning. I was a child, it was but for my mom, she had always kind of I think we we we inherited that really, for my family. My grandfather was the exact same way we are entrepreneurs in our blood. Yeah, we like to do many things. And we really can't settle on one thing and we don't like rules to create our own Yes. And so in that the first time to remember mom really starting a business was when she decided to do the cleaning service. And so in that I remember at the start of it was, hey, let's figure out how to get clients. So we made some like flyers on paper, and she would actually take me in Tunisia, and some of our cousins actually want to think about it in God's sister. Yes, anyone she could think of and she would drop us off. In nice neighborhoods, and we put fliers on all the doors. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. And not only that, I think that she really didn't show us the financial aspect of it. No, but it was it was more about putting in the work. Yeah. It was executing. So the highest quality that you were capable. Yeah. And so I would say that that was really the start of me seeing someone trying to create, yeah, a business. And I want to say I was actually in about second grade when this was happening, because I remember I was at school and they asked us what, you know, one of our assignments is like, what are your parents do? And I was like, my mom's an entrepreneur and I cannot spell the word. Okay, really, it's really a spell check. But I distinctly remember like trying to write entrepreneur and I had no idea how to spell it. The funny thing is, I never thought it that eight for me. I never thought of mom as being an entrepreneur. I was like, she has cleaning service. People stuff. Even though at the time though she had employees like she would do some of the work herself, but she also hired people to assist. Yeah. And I mean, from my vantage point is little seven, eight year old it seemed to be successful it was though by the time it ended and it will talk about why it ended, but she had cable day which is what a major radio station radio station in Minneapolis. She had some industrial contract. I remember going to this I don't know what they made, but it was like some kind of manufacturing industrial type. It was 30 and then she had a lot of like housing clients nice houses nice resident. Yeah, like we go to the house. I remember me going to my mom and going Why don't they want us to clean this clean cuz the people would clean before you came to clean? Yeah. Now I understand that. But back then I was like, but you hired a cleaning service. Yeah. And so she really I think at one time I remember her having like, 40 clients So I was like, this is a lot and she hired me. This was my sister's, my older sister's first job. And then my god sister, we worked and it was training. And I remember it being a big part and and her actually being pretty successful at this cleaning service. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, I don't really have the purview of why I ended or not, but so my guess might be of entrepreneurship was very rosy. Yes. Yes. If you work hard, you can make some money, right? Yeah. Yeah. If you're dedicated if you have a vision, you know, put together the team, it seemed pretty easy. And I think that's kind of how I approached entrepreneurship like as I got older, So at what point so that was kind of introduction for you as well. It sounds like so what point did you come back to that at what point did you start thinking about? I mean, we're talking about the very first time like I was trying to sell pencil shavings. I didn't realize it but you will. Little hustler, actually Yeah, like I used to sell pencil lace to sell candy even to like me, like, I want this. You're like, this is my inventory. But like, I feel like I've always been doing that though, like in little ways, but to me I never. To me it was so natural. Like it was just a part. Yeah, what I was looking to so so let's talk about that. So I think was natural to because my mom was very much that way. My grandfather from the age that I can remember. He had TNC saw never forget this. He had TNC variety store, which was like a little above $1 store. Yeah, it was like a bunch of random stuff. The most random, but it was as a kid a great place to live. Yeah. And my older cousin, my cousin was like two years older than me. I was so mad because they let her work there as a job and I was like, I want to work here and they're like, you're too young. You can't work yet. I think I was like 12 they were like in two more years. You can work there and then by the time I got there They closed the store. And so he did that. That was first of all remember that I remember him having an auto mechanic shop. I don't remember the auto mechanic shop. Yeah, him and his best friend who was mechanic. So granddad was like the brains in operation and he had a best friend who was the mechanic. And so they opened auto shop. And then I remember he bought the mini like the mini donut. Our grandfather had a food truck with four food trucks. Yes, so he had a mini donut maker. He also has some other equipment, but I especially remember the cars that we had an assignment for eighth grade at our school where you had to make a business Yeah, with a group of friends. I sold fruit tarts, because well, we've made many donuts and we sold the mini donuts and it was a hit. It was an absolute hit. Yeah. And like, you know, it was it was very fun. I enjoyed it a lot. And I'm like, that was such a great concept for a school to have, first of all, yeah. We had to learn about how to create a business and how we so our thing we failed an inventory so we did we sold out. We sold out within like hours of like we didn't know was gonna be this popular. Oh my god, but yeah, it was like we didn't realize how much went into it so like we had to find the bags like we had to come up with the name we had to have a budget. We're good friends in high school. We shout out. You hear this? But she was like, organized she's like got it. We had all that down. We literally are fruit tarts were cute, and it tastes good. But we sold out. We didn't have enough, right? We made a lot more money. That's funny. That's hilarious. But yeah, I yeah. What about you? What was your first like foray into business? So quite honestly, I think I deviated from entrepreneurship because of all the hard work. So when I went to school In high school, I did that little business day thing. And then when I went to college, I was like, my way out is a good job. And so I really didn't go back to entrepreneurship till after I took a stab at a good job. So I graduated, I got my first job. I told you guys before I was making 41,000, and essentially, it was just a customer service rep for a financial company. And I was excited, right? I'm like 41,000. And partly because I've never had a conversation about money and people didn't make a lot of money where we're growing up. But I was like, this is it. This is the way through. And then when those bills started hitting me when college loan, you know, Sallie Mae, Listen, my loan payment when I graduated was $1,000 a month. Yeah, like that was equivalent to my rent. And so when I think about it, though, my voyage back to it partnership was out of necessity for cash to make sense tribe dig my way into not even I wasn't even taking my way out of debt to pay my monthly expenses every year lifestyle. Exactly. Wow. So how many years in Do you think you were into like working a regular job? Yep. So what happened was and I remember this distinctly because I knew that I had to make money. And so my first thing I went and got, so when I got my job, I kept I had a side hustle. Yeah, I want to talk about that because that was really the bridge for me like into, you know, really actual dwindling, actually doing my own thing. I will always have like many jobs. Yep. That's I was gonna do so actually. So this could be long. But so when I was working when I so I moved to Dallas, right out of college, I didn't have any friends, no family, and my college roommate now. decided we're going to move to Dallas because it was easy. They had a better job market cost living was still low. We had done all this analysis, right. And so my, my college roommate actually graduated a semester after I did. So we had looked for apartment together, we found an apartment, but I was to rent the apartment by myself for that semester that she would still be in school. And so my mom actually moved down to help me with the transition because she knew I got an apartment, I didn't have a job like candy. And so when I was job searching, I took random gigs. So I was like, at the airport holding up signs. I was at a baseball game. First of all, I don't watch baseball, handing out credit card applications, trying to get people to sign up. I was really doing a bunch of gigs. And one of the gigs that came up was actually you know, those Costco feeder sampler people. Yeah, that's that'd be delicious. And it paid pretty well. So I really liked it because I Couldn't make a commission. So we had a sales goal. And if we made over sales go, we will make bonus and it was a tiered bonus structure so we can make more money. Yeah. So I actually when I got my 41,000 I kind of kept a good relationship with those guys. I was like, Hey, you know, I still might be doing this. And so I actually was working both jobs trying to pay my bills. And what happened was, though, is one Saturday, I was working at this food display in Costco. And one of my colleagues from my main job, why? Costco and was like, you should see the look of devastation on his face. He was like a mix of like, fearful and like, sad for me. So he comes up to me, and I'm like, I'm wearing a hairnet. I'm like, and comes up to me and he's like to Shonda Is everything okay? No, yeah. You know, he really thought he was like, did we fire you? And I was like, No, I do this for extra money and he was like, Oh, okay. And I was embarrassed. I have a similar story. My first job out of college, I was making maybe $20,000 in Washington DC. Well, I already told y'all my loan. My student loan bill was $1,000. My rent was like 1000 or 800. somewhere around there. And so I had some pretty high expenses. Yeah, I was y'all. I was traveling the world. Also, I was traveling abroad like solo like just living my best life. It's so I in order to be able to do all that I also had a side job. And I worked at a restaurant. Yeah, and I tried to get a job as a server for like the longest time here I am with the frickin engineering degree. I can't even get a job as a server. I could only get a job as a hostess. Okay, and so I get a job as a hostess at this like really cute little neighborhood restaurant and like, it was a little, you know, it was in a gentrifying area of town ish. Yeah. But the neighborhood was still changing, but like they were trying to bring it up and so it like the meals were a decent price. And so like, I would make decent money there. And so, I was the hostess and the, the director of my office. Okay, go ahead. The director of my office came to the restaurant, the restaurant was packed, okay. And like, she, you know, saw me and was like, Oh, hi. And she's one of those women that like she don't care. She has no filter. So she was just basically like, so we don't pay you know, like, obviously that otherwise I would not be here. This is Washington, DC people. If so did she had To nerve not to have a reservation. But no, I'll have to tell my boss, my restaurant boss. I'm like, Look, this is actually my real boss. Like we need to find her table right now. It's so we literally found her table. The restaurant was packed, but she's just looking at it. I was looking at her. I was dreading going into the office. Like I saw embarrassing, but the reality was, they weren't paying me enough. I wasn't making enough money. Yeah. And so I mean, people actually were generous to me after that. So yeah, I remember talking to you about that. And you were like, I think they gave me a raise because I really do think they did. They felt so bad. Like, what this is my you know, I was doing that out of necessity. Yeah, but I also thought the job was a great opportunity. And I hadn't even graduated yet. They had offered me a job before I graduated. So, I don't know, I kind of fell into it. But that's hilarious that we had a civil war. Yes. So is that what led you to entrepreneurship in? Um, so for me, I think it actually was trying to find fulfillment. Okay, so when I was exploring entrepreneurship, it you know, while after I had graduated college and working a nine to five, it was because my nine to five wasn't fully satisfying me. Yeah. And I was trying to, you know, figure out like, why do I still have this void? And so, you know, it was nice to have some extra income, but I was trying to pursue things not just for the money purposes. Yeah. Like my restaurant jobs. Like, I loved those jobs. Like, I actually look back. I'm like, I would go work in a restaurant a hot minute. Because I loved interacting with people like that. I love food. Anybody know? Yeah, you have like her Instagram. Yeah. Love food. And so it was like the best of both worlds for me. But I wanted to explore entrepreneurship to explore some, like passions that I yeah, yeah. So my first one was photography. That that's funny though, because I would say that I have a similar story in that. So I was looking for additional income, which is why I was open to it. At this time, I'm struggling financially. And I'm trying to figure out, you know how I'm going to make it. So what I did was really twofold. So I, somebody I forgot to mention, my undergrad degree was in finance. And so everybody was like, reaching out to me, they're like, Hey, you know, cuz everybody graduated together, and we're all in debt. And so instead of reaching out to me until I actually, this is when I found Suzy Orman, and I was like, let me figure out this, and I got into the different principles. And I was like, Oh, this is actually cool. This is the stuff I wish they would talk to me about in college with my finance degree, right. And so I really got into it and I know so I started, like talking to my friends about what I was reading was like, Hey, did you know this And hey, if you do this, this will work. And the biggest Come there was people were trying to figure out where to consolidate student loans and stuff like that, right? So I was really into that. And so I can't remember where I was. But somebody said, Hey, I think you'd be really good in this business that's in financial services. And I was like, I need the money. I'll check it out. I need the money. I don't really know about it, but I'll check it out because I need the money. And so I got into it because I needed the money, but I stayed in it because I loved it. And that would be something that I went on to do for about seven or eight years as a business. And I realized that I loved teaching about financial principles and and different things like little stuff like things that would permit me would go on to change your life. I'm when I learned about credit scores, and the fact that most black people have bad credit, but they have bad credit because they forgot to pay a $15 payment. You know, like like that, to me really allowed me to help people and so it was two things that I love that I figured out. One is educate hating people and the second one was helping people really just be better in life. Yeah, that's dope. That's dope. Yeah. I kind of want to save the rest of this conversation for another episode. Yeah, we cuz we have so much more to talk about like all we did was Yeah, but stay tuned because we'll do another episode a part two Stay tuned. All right yeah so until next time y'all I'm Tenisha Nicole. I'm Tashaunda Dixon and we are Black Girl Fly.