The Black Founders conversation. Building conscious brands and global platforms.
A Conversation co-hosted by FaB and The Colors. Let’s share the takeaway of our first co-hosted conversation, more to come, we promise! This post is curated by Odile Roujol Fab in LA and Haweya Mohamed The Colors in Paris.
Guest speakers: Rahama Wright Founder of Yeleen (Washington DC), Alisia Ford GlorySkincare (Portland), Emmanuel Gamor (Johannesburg)
Fab community: 7000 founders community in fashion and beauty, with 15 chapters in America, Europe, and Asia. We host free webinars and clubhouse conversations to help founders expand their network and share content, inviting VCs. https://www.beautytechcommunity.com/
The Colors is a new initiative by Haweya Mohamed launched in Paris to support Diverse entrepreneurs in Fashion & Beauty who create products and services but are poorly supported, highlighted, and financed: https://www.thecolo.rs an online community, a program and events. The mission is to contribute to the future of Diversity and Inclusion in the Fashion and Beauty Industry.
As founders and inspiring role models, a few words about your journey, and what you are building, to share your story with your audience.
“As the founder of Shea Yeleen we connect the dots between shea producers in Ghana and consumers in the US. We help women with accessing capital, securing production equipment, and building processing centers. Through our business model and market access we create living wage jobs in Ghana. We believe that how a product is made is as important as the benefit to the customer.” Rahama Wright
“Glory is a skin health brand revolutionizing the way people tackle inflammation. We are now in product development, formulating clean everyday essentials to tackle inflammation from head to toe.” Alisia
“I live in Johannesburg, and I’m proud to connect founders with resources in Africa, including hubs, co-working places, mentors… I would call myself an Innovation management professional. I love building bridges between ecosystems. I have invested personally to create an ecosystem for creatives in Africa to give them tools to export.” Emmanuel
What are the difficulties and opportunities you see for African founders listening to us, in the continent and in the US, Europe.
Rahama: “Oftentimes people assume that because I am bringing a product from Africa that the quality will be subpar, when in actuality, because of our ties to the community, we are bringing a superior pure natural shea butter product to market. The shea butter handcrafted by women in Africa is better than the overly refined and chemically processed shea butter made in Europe and Asia. Telling that story of the difference in production processes and quality is the value we add to the marketplace. African entrepreneurs have to believe that they deserve to compete in international markets because the products we make, our ideas, and our stories is what sets us apart.”
Alisia: “ It’s Imperative we make an impact in the community. It’s what drives me. I created Glory out of my own experience of lack of representation and resources for melanin rich skin. I want others to have access to clean solutions to combat inflammation and resources to a holistic approach.”
Emmanuel: “ Entrepreneurs, stakeholders and business owners should look at the windows of opportunity policies recently adopted favor international, regional, cross-border, and international trade for fashion and beauty products and services such as the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement that creates a Single Market of 35+ countries. We must engage with foreign and local state departments (and their economic empowerment programs), economic offices and local partners in expanding black products from and to the African continent and the African diaspora in the Global North.”
Haweya: From the start, storytelling was important and we started with Afrobytes 5 years ago. Then, after building a solid network and expertise in the African Tech Ecosystem, it was time to develop a project more connected to our status of minorities in the West. So we introduced another narrative arc with The Colors. The two brands are separated but have strong connections. With Afrobytes, we explore how Agritech can be more sustainable for the environment, a social impact for the populations, and transparency to the consumer with traceability (IoT, Blockchain). And what is Beauty and Fashion if not Agriculture? Natural cosmetics like Coco, Karité, Hibiscus, Argan, and so on are 100% agricultural. Same thing for Fashion: environmentally friendly cotton, hemp, pineapple, banana fibers and all the new sustainable textile innovations are changing the fashion industry.
Do you focus on black customers or do you embrace diversity, welcoming all skin types?
“Black owned brands are not just for black customers! I believe that shea butter is for anyone with skin and the typical Shea Yeleen customer is a caucasian woman between the ages of 25–55. We did not intentionally target this shopper but because our products landed in Whole Foods as our first retailer customers reflected their shoppers. As we grow and expand the plan is to target primarily women of all ethnicities and races.” Raham
“When a company is Black owned, it doesn’t mean it is only for Black people.. We focus on formulating products for melanin rich-skin, but our products have benefits for all sensitive skin, dry skin, and oily skin.” Alisia
“The African continent is incredibly diverse for skin-types with all colours brown, yellow, white for example South African have a kaleidoscope of official languages representing a rainbow nation and many other countries that are the best test bed for globally competitive brands and products to service the world with access to sustainable resources locally on the continent.” — Emmanuel
(Thank you so much Kimberly Dillon GetFrigg, Troy Alexander Troy Skincare, Tiffany Broadway BoldSwim for your questions! #cbd #menskincare #sustainablefashion #LA)
Advice to the Founders in one sentence: Network, Team…and fundings.
“Collect the information and data about your customers. Be surrounded by the right people” “Make sure you use the right data as you define and determine who your customers are. It’s also incredibly important to surround yourself with the right network of advisors and supporters.”
“If you are fundraising, understand the different types of capital and investors. Not all money is the right fit and finding smart capital will make the investment experience much more positive. Your first round of capital determines your additional rounds so choose carefully”. — Rahama
“Build your business with the community in mind. New ways of thinking. Co creators . New ways to invent partnerships.”
“We have the chance to create sustainable business models embedded within our communities that benefit from historically beneficial products, ingredients and examples. We should look to sources of local and indigenous sharing of information, in my sector of tech, 4ir and digital economy, look beyond the Techcrunch,Venture burn and Global North magazines as the only sources of information, we must be innovatively curious. We should look at angel investing, crowdfunding, sustainable community partnerships and resource accumulation and not focus only on Venture Capital funding opportunities that are exclusionary especially for marginalized communities that espouse diversity in the fashion and beauty space.” — Emmanuel
“You will feel stronger with a network of folks, great friendships, partnerships with other founders. I’m lucky enough to have met a lot of founders and we help each other in the beauty and wellness space.” — Alisia
“Building a consistent and virtuous ecosystem takes a lot of time, but we believe it will be a very profitable bet in the end, so be patient.”
“We are in a momentum, and the discussion we have today is a significant example of this momentum. The Health crisis has accelerated the collaborations and actions. We discussed today a lot of natural ingredients coming from Africa and I deeply believe that these ingredients and all of you are going to change the relationship between the African continent and the rest of the world. Thank you Odile for helping to build this.” — Haweya
Bios of our Speakers.
Rahama Wright Yeelen Beauty, Washington DC
Rahama is a social entrepreneur who works at the intersection of policy and economic development. After serving in the Peace Corps, she launched Shea Yeleen, (www.sheayeleen.com), a social impact company that creates living wage jobs for women in Ghana through the creation of shea butter based body care products. Her entrepreneurial journey spans bootstrapping to landing distribution with Whole Foods Markets and MGM Resorts International. The products have been featured in a variety of media outlets including O, The Oprah Magazine, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, Washington Business Journal, MSNBC, and CNBC Africa. A leading voice on African women’s economic and business development she has completed 150+ speeches and panels globally including the United Nations Thematic Debate on Entrepreneurship for Development, the U.S. Secretary of State Global Diaspora Forum, the World Bank Africa Region Growth Dialogue, and the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. During the Obama Administration, she was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa and is currently serving her third term on the council. Rahama received her BA in Political Science and International Relations from the State University of New York at Geneseo. An avid traveler she has visited and worked in 36 countries.
Alisia Ford. Portland. Founder of Glory Skincare
Alisia is the Founder and CEO of Glory, a skin-health brand powered by crowdsourced data to create everyday essentials to tackle inflammation from head to toe.
Before starting Glory, Alisia, a licensed attorney, led negotiations and managed license agreements for the dedicated advertising agency for Apple and Nike. Prior to that, she managed legal compliance for Mazda, worked for several law firms, and held various roles at some of the most premier sports, entertainment, and marketing organizations.
Emmanuel Gamor
E. A. Gamor is a consummate professional with 15+ years of experience in youth engagement, digital & managerial innovation, and entrepreneurship through leadership education.
Currently: USB-Executive Education “Digital You” Faculty, Urithi Labs, Unpacking Africa podcast, and Eliu Gift Innovation Hub.
Formerly: Google, YouTube, Now Available (Executive Strategist), Impact Hub & BBG (Director), African Leadership University (Faculty), World Economic Forum, and multi-stakeholder management in government and non-government organizations.
If you want to contact Haweya https://www.thecolo.rs/
And for Fab next events https://www.beautytechcommunity.com/
Thank you to Antonia Opiah, Rokkaya Diallo, Ange Bouable, Kindja Muongo, and Noelly Michoux, guest speakers, fab Founders and inspiring leaders at the first Fab Africa meeting 2 years ago.
And Thank you to Alisia, Rahama, Emmanuel for taking the time to share your experience and entrepreneur’s journey with other founders.
Stay tuned for new webinars/ meetings and Clubhouse conversations with Fab and the Colors. Thank you all! Talk to you soon! Odile and Haweya
