welcome to get in the podcast focused on the exponential growth in Innovation and the burgeoning tech Hub here in the Midwest I'm Matt Hunker CEO of powder keg and I will be one of your hosts for this amazing conversation on the show today is Emil ekayor CEO of Inno power cleaning in the pros the dollars that come with it obviously all of those things where I just just make you feel like wow you know and part of my goal was to get the rest of my family here my brothers and sisters so even though that wasn't my dream my dream was business but opportunity to play pro sports became my dream once I realized LJ this can happen Emil was born in Lagos Nigeria and came to the US when he was 15 years old with just a suitcase and a one-way ticket since then he's been a catalyst for change to those around him he played football at the University of Central Florida where he was a three-letter winner following that he continued to pursue his passion on the Gridiron with a seven year career in the NFL playing for the Atlanta Falcons Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders he eventually settled in Indianapolis where he was an administrator for the public schools a business owner and a non-profit leader as the CEO of innopower today he and his team use seed stage impact investing to drive Innovation and to accelerate economic prosperity in Black communities in Indiana and sub-Saharan Africa get in is brought to you by Powder Keg and Elevate Ventures and powder cake is the only private member Network focused on supporting tech companies and leaders in fast-growing communities Beyond Silicon Valley we love collaborating with Elevate Ventures which is the most active seed and early stage Venture Capital firm in the Great Lakes region be sure to follow their profile on powderkeg to learn more about what's going on at Elevate their latest Investments as well as some of their potential career opportunities you can do that at powderkeg.
com Elevate again that's powderkeg. com elevate I'm joined today in studio with co-host Christopher Toph day CEO at Elevate Ventures and Nate spangle head of community at Powder King great to have you here man you have a very impressive career and I'm excited about what you're working on with Inno power but I I figured we could actually start by taking it back a little bit to your early life in in Lagos do you mind talking a little bit about what that was like and what some of your earliest memories were there yes I tell people that there's no place like Lagos Nigeria it's like it's one of a kind 13 million people the largest population of black people in the world in Nigeria Nigeria has a population of 200 million that they count give or take growing up in Lagos right I tell like true capitalism right I say capitalism at this finest no bad things no safety nets every person goes out to work every day you pretty much hunt what you eat so entrepreneurship it's the basis of a lot of things there being able to start a business sustain a business and grow a business it's pretty much the way of life and like so I I tell people I was born with entrepreneurship in My DNA right to survive you just look at making a business I'm starting a business and growing a business and just growing up in that environment just informed so much I didn't know it back then but informed so much of my thinking going forward as far as what you want to do in life how do you get economic freedom not having the mentality of working for somebody I always had the mentality of having my own and then I say this as well right sometimes and the world would live in being black has a sale into it coming from Nigeria being black didn't have a ceiling to what you wanted to do everything I ever saw in my life with black president black doctors but black business owners so there wasn't a limit to what I saw myself doing in life so coming to the U.
S just really took that to a whole nother level and they told me I was coming to the U. S I was like I told my family I was sad in front of my mom and dad but I walked outside to all my boys and I was like yeah I'm going to the U. S and I'm standing for you guys in 10 years how'd that happen how did that what was the discussion in the family or how it happened that you decided to come to the U. S at the time the government had just changed from civilian rule to military rule so my dad just saw as far as from a landscape of opportunities right and and where you want to grow up to be exposed to Opportunities and he just felt like hey look I have a friend in the U. S and I just think the timing to go there and pursue opportunities is right they know what was going to happen in the country with the military rule so he said you know this is an opportunity to leave before things get too bad my half seven sisters and two brothers so obviously sad I was leaving my family but everything we learned everything we saw growing up was the land of opportunities right just get me there and I'll make it I don't know how but if I just get there I can make it you mentioned kind of growing up in that entrepreneurial culture and I imagine you brought a lot of the Lessons Learned when you came here to the U.
S was there one particular entrepreneur or Mentor early on in Legos who taught you some lessons that you brought with you so my dad was an entrepreneur my dad did a lot of input export he brought in products from you know Europe to Nigeria sold cars different things just a way to fit our family right so he was deeply into entrepreneurship did a lot of import export work so I saw that every day and I didn't know I was paying attention I didn't even know those things stuck with me but I just saw that happen on a daily basis The Daily Grind of making that work the way that also provide not just for my brothers and sisters but my cousins aunts nieces everybody so I said while I was there I didn't I didn't think I was paying attention but you know as I got older those things just became natural to me right same opportunity he's um thinking out of the box as far the opportunities being able to see things differently than others saw it it just was just natural for me but thinking back now as far as where did that come from as you get older you start thinking how do I know this sure and seeing that growing up and seeing everybody around me so if you could think of this in Lagos right the average person in Lagos Nigeria has about two hours a day of power so if you're a market woman and you sell meat of fish right whatever you don't sell that night you either eat oh giveaway right or you try to sell everything but every day you start from zero wow so you when you talk about entrepreneurship and capitalism high stakes that is at this finest right here you know being able to survive knowing that hey look we don't have a lot of resources I have to find them so seeing that on a daily basis seeing the Daily Grind of people trying to make it and get economic freedom just stuck with me yeah yeah I read somewhere right in our vast research that you conducted your first transaction when you were six yes tell us about that no so growing up obviously young again seeing that environment everyone is doing a transaction you know if it's a market woman selling if it's the kid on the street selling drinks all of those things are happening and you're saying that and you want to you want to do your transaction you want to be able to share that hey I just sold this right so the same thing you know at school with my friends and everything else you know started doing those kind of things finding products that I can bring and sell and just make a living because I saw an opportunity you know knowing what your friends need and saying if I could get my hands on this I could sell it to them I could make this much profit doing it so that way of thinking started back then where you'll come to school and you have products that you can share with your friends you know they need it because they've already said that they don't have it so just having that mindset at a young age started that at six and then every year after that every day I can I can remember just different things I did Growing Up my brothers did just a conversation about entrepreneurship you know about making it and dreaming about making it um and we didn't dream about making it thinking about getting a job right it was like I want to start this business I want to be like this person he saw your dad doing work and grinding you wanted to do better but also watching TV and seeing entrepreneurs from the US right and saying I remember watching the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous that was our favorite show watching that Weekly right and seeing all of this and saying wow that you can really go make this happen so all of those things at a young age is really informed just the passion to do this but how much Western influence was there in Nigeria so whether it was arts or music or business how much of that was it on occasion you would see the lifestyle the rich and famous or were there a lot of things ingrained throughout the culture in grade throughout the culture right because the Western Way is the way right capitalism entrepreneurship free enterprise that is the way everyone wants to leave everybody I tell people this joke when I go to Nigeria people do a lot of business in China but nobody dreams about going to Shanghai like everybody wants to come to New York right because of that feeling of freedom and economic freedom and and those transactions and business so watching TV and watching this Western shows watching lifestyle reaching families weekly yeah you know we used to watch that rush to the TV weekly to sit down and watch that and there's a dream of making it right and knowing to do this you have to own your own business you have to do things that this other folks have done to make it that bit are there things that you tell entrepreneurs today related to what you learned early on just based on your culture there of dreaming and having a vision and not having limitations to where your dreams could go when you talk to entrepreneurs today is there anything that you suggest that they do yes so one thing that did hit me when I came to the states I remember Landon and calling home and saying most of my friends did not feel the same way as I did coming here so my black friends here I saw didn't have the passion and I was wondering like what they don't have the same like passion and desire for opportunity but didn't understand all the systemic issues different things that have happened obviously coming from Nigeria we had colonization and dealing with that but that hit me and that really stuck with me it wasn't two years later as I got older and understood so what I tell entrepreneurs today the only failure is not doing um right if you have an idea and you you have a passion for something you want to do the failure is not doing something when you do it even if you do fail and not succeed you learn from it absolutely yeah it informs the next move and the next move and the next move and in this country if you don't feel like you're one deal away one idea or where one connection away and you might as well stay in the third world country right that is the essence of being American I think is you're one chance away from making it right you just gotta keep swinging and having more and more at bats right yeah so that opportunity that feeling of opportunity is what we as inner power feel like have been missing in our black communities is the opportunity of feeling like you are one connection to have this great idea all I have to do is meet this person all all I have to do is get this much dollars in my pocket to make it happen so we feel like introducing that feeling of opportunity to everybody unleashes so much potential yeah and the question is always how do we do that yeah well talk about when you first got to the U.
S you had probably no idea what your future had in store for you did you even watch American football before coming to the US never watched it watch basketball Growing Up played soccer growing up and never really played organized supports right so I got here and again the U. S High School experience is probably one of the best things ever hmm why is that because you get plugged into things right I didn't have friends but playing sports just plugged me into an environment to make friends to learn those lessons of if you believe in yourself if you work hard you can achieve right that basic principle doesn't exist everywhere you know I came from a place where you could you could come from poverty and work as hard as you want to and you'll never make it um but in this country you can actually if you work hard and believe in yourself you can make it yeah right and when you feel that way most people that I meet that have been successful have that feeling daily right so come in here and saying that wow you know the high school experience getting plugged into sports whole homecoming everything that came with it was amazing and I was like wow this is like this is it so getting plugged into that plain Sports meeting friends getting introduced to that mindset of man all I have to just put in the work so so you played the NFL so let's now let's go back in Reverse so then it goes to say that you obviously moved to the U.
S you went to this High School you started to play your first organized Sports and so the first time you played football no doubt you walked on the field and you were a superstar right huh that was terrible I didn't even know how to put on my pads right no no I was so bad my junior when I first went out just thinking back at it now but again I was plugged into an environment I went to school football was very successful so after my junior year again the mindset of the work right put it in the work just started training and I had coaches around me then my senior year I ended up starting Midway through my senior I had colleges coming to see me and I remember my coach telling me after my my junior night look you have the talent if you work harder through this off season you could go to college I'm like go to college for free doing this thing I really love it I love this card but again put in the work that off season and then you know getting one scholarship offer from University of Central Florida a guy didn't finish the sentence I took it I was like yes but you know when I first started I wasn't I wasn't any good right I had the physical trades I could run jump but just didn't know how to play football like little kids that were not as physical as I was just destroying me right because then you're out of the play but again it goes back to that and developing that mindset of the work right grind and I remember my football coach saying this to us as a team that hey hard work doesn't guarantee success yeah like it just gives you a chance right and I say that to so many people today because people feel like when I work harder I deserve no like doesn't guarantee that you're going to be successful but you have a way better chance of being successful when you put in the work it's the ante right like just to play the game you gotta you gotta work hard yep you have to get in the game and never have a shot at winning right what I also think is interesting is sometimes we all will look at people and perceive that oh my gosh they're so successful they have to feel like they're on top of the world or you know they've got it all figured out and a lot of times when you really talk to those people even behind closed doors in an intimate setting human to human that a lot of times those people don't even feel like they've accomplished or made it yet or connected to the right people when you really get to that human raw interaction a lot of times those people still but baby have you ever come across that in conversation oh so I think that's kind of what's missing today right there are a lot of misconceptions in our communities in our world as far as how people get successful on one side of the misconcept conception that some people are just born into success right like system has been created for you to be successful on the other side there's a misconception that certain people don't want to put in the work to be success and because we don't have those conversations to learn about people and when you do you start learning that wow the some individual stories and and lived experiences and shape people right and yeah you may not have been through what I went through well you still had to walk and overcome certain things to achieve what you achieved and when you learned out about people you respect right absolutely because you see that people have been through something like they just didn't wake up and all of this was just presented to them and that has been missing from our discourse so much in our society right and we developed this conception the ideas of preconceived ideas about people without really knowing them and finding out about their Journeys so one of the things Kobe did was things like this podcasts and things like to learn about people's Journeys right and to learn about how people achieve what they achieved and then you respect people more so that's part of what I think has been missing in our community our society is today just learning more about each other having opportunities for civil discourse and when we start doing that you you start saying that there's so much commonalities with people right yeah so you're exactly right yes when did you realize when you were playing football that hey I might really I might really have something here you know obviously it got you into college was it before then that you're kind of like I've got this or was it more when you kind of started to realize you had some NFL prospects it was my like my junior year I think and calling myself when I had like 11 12 sacks right yeah and my coaches look you know and I was like you know what I could actually do this right yeah how did you feel I mean it was it was it was energized right I bet because you know playing in the pros the dollars that come with it obviously all of those things right just just make you feel like wow you know and part of my goal was to get the rest of my family here right my brothers and sisters so the opportunity to play Pro Sport to even get in even though that wasn't my dream my dream was business right when I want a business but opportunity to play pro sports became my dream once I realized that okay this can happen 12 sex is a sophomore it did did power five schools start coming and right did like other schools start wanting to to bring you on their team like you're succeeding at UCF well you so that's amazing by college sports right today those things happen back then you know it was For the Love of the Game and so you if you went to a school you stayed at the school right so back then you just you are UCF that was my family that was I wasn't going anywhere right Dante Culpepper and I were teammates in college you know so we were building something at UCF it was just starting back then we didn't have a camper Stadium we played at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando but all of those relationships that were built back then are some of my best friends today you know because we all went through something together and just the training and Brotherhood and football and you said that your goal was always to get into business right but what what skills did you pick up from your time at UCF in the NFL in high school football that attribute directly to what you're doing as an entrepreneur football and sports were really like like the best foundation I was a captain in College of the leadership skills of of sitting down with a coach and vision for the kind of team we wanted understanding okay what's our vision for the program having a Playbook right so all of those Concepts and say okay what's up I said that today in meetings I have is we don't have a Playbook what's the playbook for what we're gonna do what's our system how do we prepare daily to execute that system so when we practice in football we don't practice skills that you're not going to use in the game right and the same thing in business and life right is what's that system what's our Playbook how are we going to execute what's our organization who's my defense coordinate who's my offensive coordinate who are my position coach is how do we hold each other accountable how we developing the individual player right with the skills they need so they could perform at a high level how do we measure success right wins and losses how do we look at Stats and data you know how many rushing yards how many sacks are we giving up all of those things are things I use today on a daily basis I tell athletes that they're a lot more prepared for the world that they even understand because of all the things we just I just talked about yeah that's our that's our resident Sports guy right he's uh he's joshing me I I have very very little professional sports knowledge I can get around on a basketball court but that's about it you're a pretty good ball player yeah thanks man thanks so are you you got that you got that outside shot old man yeah make sure to mark your calendars for August 29th through 31st for rally the world's largest cross-sector Innovation conference featuring pitch competitions demo Arena interactive experiences and a whole lot more join us on August 29th through the 31st in Indianapolis and visit rallyinnovation.
com to secure your tickets today after your time in the NFL why did you pick Indianapolis and how did you decide what you wanted to do wow great question so my wife is from Indianapolis so you know I promised okay when when football is done we're gonna move here and settle here and kind of grow family here plus I also had been in Indianapolis I felt like Indy was a place of opportunity right when I was here in late 90s um early 2000s you can even get like a great restaurant so I just saw Andy the cost of living was so low it was great so I felt like well this will be a good place to to raise a family and there's so much opportunity here yeah so we decided that once football was over we're gonna you know come come back here and settle down and raise a family here I love that what was your first impression of Indianapolis oh opportunity you know I saw that from day one I said the cost of living was low so much that time just meeting people the conversations about downtown in the future all of this property downtown was cheap you could buy stuff and kind of sit up so those just all this stuff happening here and it was nowhere close to where it is today and you just saw that hey the city was headed towards those kind of things right so we just we just felt like hey this is a good place to settle plus from a family structure right and the things to do with your family obviously my son playing Youth Sports and all of those things Indy had all those things in place yeah so it was just perfect for us to to come here and settle here and then raise a family here Elmo's shrimp cocktail had anything to do I think that was the one place I love that what were your first entrepreneurial Ventures obviously you grew up in this entrepreneurial culture and then you get here and I imagine you had some fun oh so once I while I was playing in the NFL and once I got done I always so import export was always right and for me entrepreneurship was keeping it simple stupid was hey there was there was an opportunity to take products from here to Nigeria we had contacts there that would buy the product so it was like changing dollars right yeah um plus the exchange rate and everything else made it so much more profitable so we just did a lot of import export so we shipped cars products if you were starting an office and you needed office supplies we'll take all the all the all the orders that were supplied there so we were developing Relationships by just those transactions and just keeping those transactions simple so I did that for so long I was almost I just got caught into it and I almost had to smack myself up here let's think of something different yeah because you don't wake up every morning excited about import export right so we started looking at other things and I started looking at products from Nigeria like how can we bring products from there and find markets for those products not just in the US but in the west as a whole so we switched our mindset too right because we also saw certain things on the ground there Nigeria doesn't have a production economy right so don't really produce too much so we felt like wow by just bringing Goods in that we contributed into the success of the economy there so we we quickly transitioned to okay how can we find products from there and find markets for the products and that just got us into engaging entrepreneurs yeah right so I realized a long time ago I never invent anything I never make anything I could barely fix things so by engaging Talent and plugging in with talent and helping create opportunities for those for that time we can all make money together how do you identify Talent again so the sports background too right that kind of helps that the one thing as an athlete like there's no sugar coating right everything in athletics is black and white yep you can either do it or you can yeah right it's on display there's no the world is different when I left playing football and started just we say living in a real life right we saw like that was just so different right in athletics it's all about getting better yeah it's all about dealing with failures because you're not going to be successful all the time it's all about getting knocked down and pulling yourself back up right and you can get you can develop Talent right if you have the right environment for the development I can plug you into it and if you're willing you can get developed now you may not be a five star but you know I think football especially one of the sports I think you can make yourself a better football player right yeah I mean what two years in high school full scholarship to UCF a couple years there and then you're in the NFL like that's the that's the path right there and that's the story but I have something to plug into right there was an infrastructure set here in the U.
S that hey look if you have the talent you're willing to work we'll plug into high school football you go through the work you go to college football this analogy you know and we lived there and saw that right so as we reach as I retire from Sports and started looking in communities right the one thing playing in Oakland playing here in Indy playing in Tampa all of these black communities that I walked into was just so similar you could take a black community on the east side of Indy and plug it in to open and it's like you never left in New York it was just everything looked the same yeah but I also saw just human capital people that were town just talented individuals right but the way they looked at opportunity in their communities was different so in Nigeria we started to see so many young people before technology and everything else so in Nigeria when I left Nigeria only about 40 of the homes had landlords wow right today almost 95 percent of people have smartphones so they skipped the whole evolution of Technology they didn't go through beepers and the big phones yeah this went from no landlines to smartphones right wow but what technology also did it accelerated the process of going from poverty to wealth hmm if I create a product that could support the masses I make it at a price point as affordable to the people because of the shared numbers right I can reach more people so people young people especially solving decade old problems from food scarcity to education or leveraging Technologies are doing and it was scalable yeah so we saw this in the last 10 years just accelerate so we plugged into that to say okay how do we start identifying talent I just started looking for great ideas and then how do we plug them into a system that develops that idea didn't provide some Capital to support so we saw that in Nigeria first and then here in the US we said how come this isn't happening in our black communities the 50 million African-American there's huge problems in this community is how come how are we not leveraging technology to solve these problems and doing it from an entrepreneurial Focus yeah what was one of your favorite businesses that you identified and invested some Capital into tell me that story so in Nigeria there was a time where Farmers used to have to get their products get it to the market transported trying to find markets for all of those things one of the companies we saw created an app that allowed Farmers to be able to go on the app and say okay my products are ready then the transportation came to pick up the products found markets for the farmers right something that simple supply chain right there right yeah change the game for so many farmers right but the inventor of that product went from just an idea to wealth because they scale the product not just in Nigeria but in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole so it solved a huge problem for food waste right Nigeria is one of the largest exporters of tomatoes but one of the largest importers of tomatoes because of the waste and the byproduct right so when you don't have enough energy you don't create the byproducts of tomatoes so one of the Indiana companies does a lot of business Nigeria Red Gold yeah right which is one of the largest tomato sauce and paste companies in the world so solving that problem and just saying I'm creating an app the farmer goes on the app because now everyone has smartphones they let you know when the product is ready we'll be there to pick it up soon as they come to harvest so it doesn't sit for so long the farmer makes more money because now he's not spending the money trying to transport the production Market so something that very simple took the young entrepreneur from having an idea to wealth selling company making money Uber for Farmers right I did that entrepreneur start investing in other ideas that today in Nigeria that's taking up so much right because there's so many of these ideas leveraging technology but that entrepreneur becomes a model for everyone in his community to see so those things we see are missing here in the U.
S right and so as inner power was saying how do we create opportunity to solve problems in a different way well how do we do it with the entrepreneurial Focus right what we've seen is a lot of great ideas on how to solve problems even here in India a lot of people stock companies or businesses and solve this problem that's in that community but for so long right the way organizations have been able to get capital or even dollars in this community have been through the grant process right yeah that process does not encourage generating Revenue it encourages spending money right and it's needed because we need a safety net right yeah so as we look at that process and say the hundreds of millions that have been invested in that if half of that was invested into startups or business ideas how many more jobs will we how much more wealth will we have in certain communities today right so we see all of these things and we're saying at innopah how do we encourage this so we knew in the U.
S we couldn't just come in and say let's wait and get the best talent from this community is right right because the norm is not to create this Talent right so we have to be involved and have skin in the game in the development process to say what is the system that encourages this kind of business mindset how do we get people and here in the US as well so what's happened for so long inside the community it is don't take a chance because you can't afford to miss go to safer I'll go to college get a job work at a company for 30 years get your retirement and that has been the way a lot of black communities and African-Americans have looked at the path to success because I can't afford to take the entrepreneurial path because I can't afford to make a mistake I don't have a net worth I don't have Capital I'm just going to go to school I'm going to get a job work at this company for so long today we're trying to change that mindset in this communities to say that okay there's opportunity opportunity exists how do you do that for one person like if you're just talking to one person and they say you know all my my parents said you know go to college get a safe secure job try to find a big company that you can stay with for 30 years I'm not saying that's bad but if if you were to kind of encourage them to do entrepreneurship how do you change that mindset and that is that's such a good question right because what you have to also have to show back to the what we said about Athletics so many young people and communities grow up every day feeling like I could be the next LeBron James right because they see it yeah the infrastructure is set for them to plug into if I'm a kid in Indianapolis I want to play bass if I want to make it to the NBA AAU basketball little league basketball Middle School basketball High School bats the infrastructure is set places where you go get training yep all of that is set from a young age but for to be an entrepreneur that that hasn't been defined so today with all the energy around equity and creating opportunities for more African-Americans to start and grow a business it's great but what we miss is what is that system what do I plug into yeah as we try to encourage the mindsets of CNE meter need right those are young men here in the Taylor Simpson some you guys probably know hello app and Taylor yeah so Taylor created this app that he saw the need with check cashing places and black communities and so that so many people were going in this check cashing places and pretty much getting ripped up and there was a time a couple years ago where the state the Obama administration had a law that capped interest rates for check cashing places and then the state of Indiana pretty much enlisted that cap and people were in Opera about that so what I said was you know we shouldn't create policy to stop that well it does create business opportunity so create a check cashing place with with a low interest rate and more people come to you so Taylor created this app and his vision was if I could get more people to use this and do peer-to-peer Landing you know this is a Marketplace for it so when he created this in Indy back then it's funny how time flies and two years later today in the end of three years there's so much more happening than it was four years ago when he started he was trying to plug into something right trying to get people to listen to historian and where do I plug into how do I get support how do I get people to understand my idea right so what happens in this space is if you don't have the lived experience to understand what Taylor was seeing in the community was coming from there'll be so many questions around how valid is this idea right yeah well four years later there's been three or four apps created to do something similar and tell us the sins moved out of Indy and he's in Charlotte now but that's an example right of of someone who saw a need in his community created a product a technology solved that problem but then where do I plug into how do people who want to start for-profit Enterprises and get plugged into Inno power plug into your programs what are what are some of the best entry points so what we what we try not to do is is programs we want to we want to leverage Elevate right and and what they already have right because again what happened what we've learned from mistakes of the past is the sustainability of this kind of program you really don't get the right Investments to do the work it's the hardest work and we're talking about generating wealth right in community so those things don't generate wealth right right but they're needed because the people that you want to develop don't have the dollars to pay for the services so what we try to do is be a conduit to say okay Elevate has Origins we want to develop this type of entrepreneur normalize this right how do we sustain this right what does that ecosystem what do you what do you plug into so what we try to do is not look at it what happened post George Floyd was there was such a desire for for something like and rightfully so like everybody was energized to do something we didn't take time to think through the process the progression we jumped right into activity right training for black businesses Capital so today as we look back and say in the last three years what infrastructures have been built yeah and how do we plug into it and we see that we haven't really spent time to build those infrastructures that if I'm a young person in college if I'm a young high school student I'm developing an entrepreneurial mindset if I'm in college and I have an idea I want to start a business there's a place to plug into so for us right we think the biggest opportunity is to create this infrastructure so on the back end you have an influx of talent that you can now invest in and make money together yeah if we don't build this infrastructures today 10 years from now we'll be sitting there having the same conversation the other thing that people don't do is what kind of business can I start on the east side of Indy what is the market research and Analysis say whose role is it to do that so the state and the iadc will say to me Emil we have the ability to do this we could tell you from 38th and Meridian 38th and German Church what kind of businesses should be created based on earning what the people earning that what's missing so those kind of things right and that kind of infrastructure and progression is what we haven't what we missed right we missed it because there was so much energy around we had to do something which we did but let's not miss the opportunity to to really say you know what if you're going to start a business on this side of town or in Gary Indiana here are the kind of businesses that would succeed based on true market research and Analysis those kind of things have never been done in this communities right and those are the things that we have the opportunity so it's not just saying let's train entrepreneurs like I tell people all the time it's like practicing all the time now playing the games everyone wants to train the entrepreneur but where is the entrepreneurial opportunity so in black and brown communities today right this is the first time in American history that the focus has been on this right on economic empowerment right economic freedom entrepreneurship in this communities so what does the market research what what are the opportunities in this community today the huge opportunities in the state of Indiana Supply diversity and procurement right the state does a disparity report every year that shows you know the disparity and contractual opportunities right so if you're a minority if you're if you're a black and brown person in America I say Indiana is one of those places that there is opportunity right because today more and more people are saying that differently I mean sitting here with tofin having this conversation man there's a conversations we've had if you're a landscaper and you're doing great business in the opportunities to scale your company to Fort Wayne and Gary right um those opportunities exist guess what you could be doing the Ivy Tech Campus in Fort Wayne you know but what do I plug into yeah and that's kind of where we are today is back to the sports analogy like what is that progression that you plug into if you're a young person or if you incorporate that you want to jump and start a business but I just don't want I'm making 200k I just don't want to leave that I want to start a business but I can't take a chance well we're saying hey there's an opportunity to come plug into this I'm so glad it exists you know yeah but it exists from trying an error right we didn't know to elevate that this is something that but in the past there was not a willingness to even try things like that yeah I love it well I know we're a little bit over time do we have two more minutes for a lightning oh yeah I'm fine I've got three questions for you first one is this outside of the amazing entrepreneurs what is Indiana known for basketball I love it second question what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana that you really love Long's Donuts I told you okay so we do have to dive in on this one right so you briefly you like brushed over the fact that your son right is is gonna be drafted potentially right and we were watching doing our research we saw that his favorite thing of Indianapolis was also longstone right so yeah I almost went and got a Baker's Dozen to bring to this podcast my son played Little League here obviously right so every Saturday Little League football long zone right the whole team win lose draw dozens right so we just kind of has been part of everything and there's nothing like a fresh hot owner so here's a question that has Long's Donuts made it to the Alabama Crimson died today so last year the national championship part of the deal was if we won the whole we were just gonna load up lungs to everybody right Windows no winning so but the goal was win and before everyone got on the plane to leave Indy the whole team staff everybody we're just going to supply lungs and we didn't win it was a long night we all said maybe the next one maybe the next game last question who is someone else that we need to keep on our radar someone who's doing big things obviously Kelly Jones absolutely and being able I think what Kelly did oh well she was able to accomplish with just creating the fund people really really underestimate the power of Optics right her doing that set the tone for others to feel like they can like this can happen yeah right a black female 20 million dollar fund all her energy around entrepreneurs and developing entrepreneurs so the power behind what she just did even for us as a state yeah really put a Indiana on the map for people to say because that never happened so there were funds created but no one from Indiana person of color had ever created such a fund and the fact that she did it really was I think we'll look back years from now and and look at that as a lightning rod right and there's still people that don't understand that right because they're just not from the business mindset and everything else that downplay what you did but people who know no oh yeah so she already made some great Investments that are already paying off so much fun like that yeah it's hard for anybody absolutely it's amazing it's awesome future guests of the podcast yeah sure yeah so she'll be on so Kelly is definitely like right up there another person that um definitely need to get on the podcast is Jalen Smith I don't know Jalen that'd be a sports thing man let's see so Jalen grew up in Fort Wayne went to bishoplers he ended up going to Notre Dame playing football and Notre Dame was projected to be like a top five pick and his last game in college hurt his knee uh against Ohio State still got drafted got drafted in the late first round that was the second round I think went to the Cowboys prove themselves right end up getting a 40 million guaranteed contract wow about four years ago two years ago got inside the blue last year it got released but his contract was guaranteed so he said I just nice so he ended up going to Green Bay but now he's with the Giants so when Jalen got his contract he committed 2.
5 million dollars to support great capital for black entrepreneurs that's amazing so he started this pitch competition as a partner with Sagamore Institute yeah Sagamore was also able to leverage the social impact dollars to support that's right so Jalen ended up putting this and then getting other entities to match so he has 13 portfolio companies All Tech focused um trying to really establish more here in Indy a lot of those companies are not from Indy so he did a pitch competition in Dallas and so you imagine there's an NFL player NFL support pitch competition and you're talking about Talent and unleashing talent from Dallas he did one in Tampa same thing all from all over Florida so General is really looking and been talking about trying to really establish things here where there's the capital to support businesses that businesses are formed but also plug it into the info the training infrastructure so that's what most people are looking for is yeah because there's no money to make in the development process right so whose role is it to create that infrastructure to develop the tap so jailen is someone that I think will be great who's doing really humbly he's a great rep that General is 28 years old yeah if he retires today he's gonna have 40 million dollars in his account yeah right and his his Ahuja barnabray believes in Indy but is an entrepreneur all the way as well yeah we'll make that happen for sure that's great well Emil thank you so much for being on the show today it was really great to have you on and I love your story and what you're building with inner power thank you so much I really enjoyed if you guys I think you hit a home run with it this is gonna be fun listening to looking forward to it so thank you and anything I can do to support the show let me know this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for our guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powderkeg.
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