00:05inspiration can come from any direction but how do you take that new concept and
00:12make it a reality in advance of the ink women's summit I'm meeting up with some
00:17of my favorite entrepreneurs to talk about what empowers them on a daily
00:21basis you have all created businesses from out-of-the-box thinking what made
00:28you veer left when everybody else was going right Bobby when I moved to New
00:33York it was the 80s and everyone was doing the you know over made up contour
00:38look I know it's back I still don't like contour so I would make up the models to
00:43make them look like they weren't wearing makeup and that was my calling card but
00:47there was no makeup available that allowed you to do that I met a chemist
00:50one day at a shoot and I said I can't find a lipstick that didn't smell wasn't
00:54greasy and I wanted to match lips then I realized wow this is something for me
01:00entrepreneurship it wasn't something that I aspire to I always wanted to be an
01:04inventor if I can be the perfect balance between Beyonce and Bill Nye the science
01:07guy every single day now we're installing our technologies around
01:12different countries in emerging markets turning everything from floors and roads
01:17to baby strollers into energy generating solutions you guys both touched on this
01:24idea of identifying problems that existed in your life and looking at ways
01:28that you could shape an industry rather than looking at the industry itself I
01:33started a fashion technology company with my co-founder we had no fashion or
01:38technology experience we knew what it meant to buy a dress for a thousand dollars
01:42wear it once and then be photographed on social media and feel like you could
01:46never wear it again right so we're like well that doesn't make sense renting
01:49dresses made sense if you thought too far down the road it could be easy to find
01:53all the why-nots versus the how can you make this happen I want to hear Angela's
01:58story talking about how you are helping young entrepreneurs so I started new me
02:05which isn't is an accelerator for minorities in 2011 we focus only on the
02:11technology industry which at the time it was young technical white guys club I
02:18did not really start new me as a business it was a problem that I wanted to
02:23solve and I thought it was going to be like a one-time project what do you see
02:27is standing in between these women and the dollars that you know they need to
02:34succeed when I work with men they are not scared to ask for money even if what
02:40they are working on is mediocre but women can have something phenomenal but
02:45it's like we hold ourselves back so a lot of the work that I do in particular
02:50with women is confidence building is getting them comfortable with asking for
02:56the money Priya I want to talk about the impact you are having on actual people
03:00helping them create wealth in a way that they've never even thought of before
03:04historically financial planning has been reserved for the wealthy and when I
03:08was working on Wall Street my clients were old and rich and all of my friends
03:14at the same time were wondering where do we go for the answers there is this
03:17completely underserved kind of ignored demographic that we call Henry's high
03:22earners not rich yet I so often hear young women say I just want to be paid what I'm
03:27worth I don't even know what that means and I very rarely hear young women say I
03:32want to make a lot of money right it's as if we all sort of internalized this idea that
03:36the budget's not there research show that men are four times more likely than
03:40women to ask so it's stash wealth salary negotiations come up set it as a goal
03:46though and it has to be a very concrete goal like I want to buy a $250,000 house
03:49in three years so I want to get a raise and like let's back into what you need to
03:54do today to be on track the flip side that Millennials have to be very careful of
03:59is entitlement for example one kid said I feel like I really need to make X I'm
04:03like oh that's interesting for this job if you do all of this research this is the
04:07highest you can get paid and he's like yeah I didn't really think about what the
04:10job was I just kind of thought you know New York what I'm saying I don't think
04:14women talk about comp and salaries in the same way men do women I advise some of
04:18the most valuable help I get them is actually talking in a real way about
04:21what should you be making but like getting the data out there that's hard
04:25especially amongst women because there are fewer women who are in leadership roles I
04:29find younger women are much more transparent with their salary and for
04:32them it's not TMI it's cocktail talk and I think that that lifting the veil is
04:36gonna get us all closer to equality in the big life I have an entire chapter
04:41devoted to the side hustle secret to success how do you know but it's time to
04:46make your side hustle your main hustle I fully believe in the side hustle and in
04:49fact when I worked in finance because I was not passionate about finance I would
04:53spend whatever time I had doing college essay editing which I kind of made a
04:57little business around but ultimately went to business school and co-founded
05:00Rent the Runway in business school so I was kind of side hustling it I was
05:03taking classes but I'm a pretty risk averse entrepreneur so the whole way I
05:07had a timeline of milestones that we had to meet and I think it was helpful for
05:11me and my co-founder it kept us honest ultimately one of those milestones was
05:14raising money and for me raising money was another way of checking myself on was
05:19this a good concept that VCs would put their name behind so I very much
05:23like that parallel processing and kind of always having a little bit of a
05:26safety net and then just being honest with yourself if something's not working
05:29and forcing that brutal honesty it's hard you need to be able to sell something or
05:34it's not a business don't quit your job don't do anything until you figure that
05:40out and then even after you figure that out you got to do a deeper dive into the
05:44customer and try to find more customers like the ones who gave you a dollar when
05:47I'm talking to young women they will ask me how do you get ahead in a male
05:51dominated industry if you're a woman the advice I always give is to forget you're
05:55a woman right that you are a person with a good idea just say it that was
06:00exactly the advice that I gave myself was just to remember that you're there like
06:05any other employee and to speak up when you have a great idea I did get called in
06:10once my boss told me that my attitude with my colleagues was abrasive and I
06:16wasn't sure if it was because I was a female I've been in rooms with investors
06:21who are supposed to be investing in women and people of color and have the
06:25investor say so who's the tech lead on this I'm like it's me well who came up
06:30with this I'm like ask me a question first and see if I don't have the answer
06:34and then all of a sudden they're just like so did your father help you that did my
06:37father what I actually disagree that you should forget that you're a woman every
06:41single day I get up being like Jessica you are a black woman you go you're gonna have to do
06:46three times as much to get half as far as anyone else besides me been called
06:50difficult oh yeah when I was younger I didn't like it maybe I should you know
06:57not say stuff back as much but the older I got up like I kind of like that about
07:01me we all know that we can't just be like one of the boys that but the good
07:06news is that we have a special perspective you embrace the difference
07:09right I don't think a man could have started rent the runway there's this old
07:12idea that when they're in competition with each other that there's back steps
07:16that there's only room at the table for one woman but I've been so inspired by
07:21how millennial women have replaced competition with collaboration being
07:26someone that's been in the industry for a long time when I was first starting my
07:30company especially with other makeup artists you would never give any advice
07:33never would they ever tell you because everyone was it right I was just right
07:37everyone was a competition and now as I'm reinventing myself and need some
07:41different things they're saying here call this person do this this is where you get it's an
07:44amazing change it is this year I turned 60 and I started a new lifestyle brand
07:49there's more and more opportunity and there's a million things you're gonna
07:52end up doing on your own terms on your own terms be the entrepreneur of your life
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