DAWN
“Either you do or you don't. People say to me like, “I’m trying.” I don't even believe in “Try.” There’s no “Try.” There’s “Do.”

ROB
I agree with that. I agree with that.

DAWN
Try or do, you know. I’m not a gentle, soft person to be like, “Oh well, the first thing you do is believe in yourself.” [Laughter] [Inaudible - 00:17].

ROB
You gave a good Jordan analogy so we’re going to call you… So you’re the “Jordan of tech.” Jordan has a quote that said, “I failed over and over again that’s why I succeed.”

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
He has made the most game-winning shots in history. He has also missed the most shots in history.

DAWN
Oh yeah. Of course, there’s lots of Ls but Ls are lessons.” -- Rob Richardson with Dawn Dickson

-----------

ROB
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson.

JAMES
And I’m James Keys.

ROB
We are honored to have Dawn Dickson on the show, a black woman that’s breaking barriers in tech. She's been a serial entrepreneur and really an entrepreneur for most of her career. She started off in 2002 with a business called “Flat Out of Heels” to help women. You know, when you're in the club and you’re having a good time and you’re just tired with those heels, well she actually created “Flat Out of Heels.” You could just get out of your heels and just going to flats right then.

She took that idea and is now into tech. She has a new business called PopCom. And instead of going to VCs to get the money, she started this smart retailing company which is a retailing company that can target you and say what you might be interested in using facial technology. I know it sounds a little scary but she's going to talk more about it.

She came up with that concept but didn't want to go to VC so they can take her business. Instead, she went online and did money through cryptocurrency and crowdfunding. So she went online through friends, through associates, through people all across the country and didn't have to give her business away.

We're going to talk about what that might mean for future opportunities for people that may not have access to VCs or may not have access to capital in the traditional means and talk about the new opportunities and the possible setbacks and things. You have to watch out for that. So I’m excited to have her on and I hope you really enjoy the interview.

DAWN
Hi.

ROB
So Dawn Dickson, how are you?

DAWN
Very good.

ROB
Very good?

DAWN
Very excellent.

ROB
So you are from Ohio like me.

DAWN
Oh okay. What part of--

ROB
I’m from Cincinnati, Ohio.

DAWN
Okay. I’m from Columbus.

ROB
Yeah. I saw that Ohio State…. I’m… University of Cincinnati so--

DAWN
Okay. That’s good.

ROB
I’m still from UC first…

DAWN
[No peace. No peace - 02:39].

ROB
…but I’m okay with those states.

DAWN
Yeah, [no peace - 02:42].

JAMES
Also the Buckeye State. I’m from Cincinnati as well.

DAWN
Okay. Nice.

JAMES
So original Buckeye where people are originating from Ohio. That’s cool.

ROB
Yeah, all Ohio love.

DAWN
Definitely.

ROB
So you’re a serial entrepreneur. You said that before in a few interviews. I want to just talk to you about your journey. What was your moment when you knew you were going to be an entrepreneur? If there was an “aha” moment, you can talk about it.

DAWN
No, it wasn’t really an “aha” moment. I’ve been an entrepreneur my entire adult career life since I was 21.

ROB
What was your first experience then as an entrepreneur? Let’s do that.

DAWN
I started my company, the “Urban Starr.” It was a tech company, 2001 -- very early days of technology. It was an online media marketing and events platform in Columbus and it did really well. Made our money from email blast, event listings, membership events -- so in the early, early days of email marketing. Before there was even a platform that existed, we were selling email marketing.

ROB
You were ahead of the game because, yeah, 2001 was the beginning of that.

DAWN
2001, yeah -- so market maker.

JAMES
Sending it to a bunch of AOL.com addresses, I guess, back then, right?

DAWN
We were sending our newsletter BCC and AOL until Topica came out. There was no such thing as management plan at this time.

ROB
Oh wow.

DAWN
It took me like five hours every Friday to send out… You know, it was at this point about 7,000 email addresses that we have for local people that we collected by hand.

ROB
Wow.

DAWN
You know, the good old [grass from state - 04:34].

ROB
Yeah, before you can buy a list online.

DAWN
Yeah, before algorithms and before social media and before apps -- just very organic natural engagement which translates today to my career, just me having that ability to build organic audiences.
ROB
Right.

DAWN
It’s helpful.

ROB
So what’s the key to building organic audiences if you’re giving advice to entrepreneurs and they want to build organic audiences?

DAWN
It’s always the human touch. It’s always the personal touch. You know, back then, I was actually in email addresses by hand, going through events with a clipboard. We don’t have to do that anymore but people, still today, value human contact, I believe now more than ever, when it’s so easy to just get on social media or get on LinkedIn or get on email. People are valued as… You’re making contact with them, individually, personally.

And even now they have so many bots and things that make contact seem personable. And they do a good job a lot of times but it's still nothing like a very custom message. So I spend a lot of time managing our relationships and always providing a personal touch.

There was a book that I read by Terrie Williams in 2005 called “The Personal Touch.” Those kind of things just never get old. That's still the key to it today even now with PopCom and us raising the money that we raised and me going around the country just talking to people directly, and that's how I was able to do it.

ROB
Let's talk about PopCom. Tell people what ideas… But before you get there, I want to talk about how you raised this money because I think it’s fascinating. From my understanding, there haven’t been a lot of black women that have raised the amount of money you have. I think the number is… I don’t think it’s over 20.

DAWN
It’s over 20. I’ve raised at this point $2.5 million. It could even be around 40 or 50 at this point.

ROB
It’s not a lot of people.

DAWN
When you compare that with the number of our peers of other races, it’s still a very small number.

ROB
So you’ve raised $2.5 million and you did that without going the traditional route. I want to have a conversation about that because one of the biggest barriers -- you know this -- to any business, particularly businesses of color is access to capital.

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
And you didn’t go through VCs. You went through--

DAWN
That money is from VC.

ROB
Oh it is? It is? Okay.

DAWN
Hybrid type of business. I have money from everywhere, actually.

ROB
Okay. Because I saw one article that said you went around that through crowdfunding and cryptocurrency.

DAWN
Yeah, for my second round.

ROB
For you second round, okay.

DAWN
Actually, second and third round. Kind of third round, I decided not to raise anymore. Yeah, you’re right on though. I raised my first million from accredited Angels and VCs. And then the next money that I raised are raised from the public in a crowdfunding campaign.

ROB
Well a couple of things I like to explore. Was it hard to get folks to take you seriously because you’re a black woman and people make assumptions that they shouldn’t? Did you have any challenges because of that? And how did you overcome navigating that space knowing there’s a few, unfortunately, African-Americans in the tech space? There needs to be more. There’s not a lot.

DAWN
There’s actually a lot more than people think. There’s just like a handful of us that are the popular ones, I think, at this point.

ROB
Yep.

DAWN
But there’s a lot working in tech if not to the capacity of a founder. Certainly, in IT careers -- you know, in the corporate roles.

ROB
I agree.

DAWN
But there are a lot of us just in technology in general. So at that point, I don't want that to be the narrative that we're not. It’s just the visibility-wise is just not there. Yeah, not a ton of black founders that are…

ROB
That’s what I meant.

DAWN
…at the level of visibility and success that I have and many of my peers. But nobody is going to ever look to you in the face and say, “The reason why we’re not investing in you is because you’re black.” I mean that’s not going to happen.

But they’ll definitely find other reasons or other criteria that they expect you to be able to meet that’s not realistic or the same expectation is not present for maybe a white male or a white female even though white females have a very challenging time as well. This is really a white male-dominated and driven industry. We talked about private equity and venture capital because those are the founding people of that whole institution.

So people, generally, including all of us right now, you tend to gravitate towards people that are familiar to you or your network or that you know somebody that knows them. So naturally, if you're talking about a group of people that are in small neighborhoods -- Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, San Francisco, the one city and they have the old Stanford and they have the same network -- I don't ever think it was an intentional thing like, “Hey guys, let's not give black people money.” There's none around. They're not in our media network. And who's going to vouch for them? I feel the same way. I want somebody to vouch for you.

So I don't take any of it personal. I never take it as, “This is about me, Dawn Dickson.” It’s more about like, “Hey, they're not familiar with me. They don't have experience or exposure to successful black women. They don't have a network of successful black people to even compare me to.” So the job of us is just to be the change we want to see and show and demonstrate that they exist.

There was an article in TechCrunch. I think it was like in 2000 and… It was between 2007 and 2011, in that range, because I know I started my company “Flat Out of Heels” and they said, “There are no black founders.” I mean they genuinely thought that that was true because they didn't see any because we weren't at the events they were at and we were not in the accelerator program.

So as you see now, the visibility… When we heard as a community that the reason why we don't get invested in is because we’re not here, we start popping out of the woodwork.

ROB
Right, which, by the way, is the excuse for everything -- why every position is not filled. And they use that excuse for fields that they have no business doing it. I just think it's easy to do--

DAWN
I think that it's also accurate. As a person that hires people, I intentionally went out looking for diverse candidates and they weren't easy to find.

ROB
Oh they’re not.

DAWN
No.

ROB
But they’re there. Like you said, you’re there.

DAWN
I think that we didn’t do better putting ourselves in the rooms and positioning ourselves on whatever platforms that jobseekers use being in the building. You can't expect anybody to go out looking for you. So the new diversity thing is like, “Go out and look for people.” Well you never have to look for me.

ROB
[Laughter]

DAWN
We won’t be like, “I’m tired of seeing her ass,” you know

ROB
[Laughter]

JAMES
Yeah. [Indiscernible - 11:55] still here, yeah.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
I think we ought to have that same mentality as like, “Hey, I’m going to show up,” you know. The thing that I feel technology has done is bring us closer as far as access but farther apart because you feel like you’re not doing the work.

You know, I've come from a generation where you have to mail your resume in the mail if you want to get a job. You have to go show up -- go knock on the door, go keep showing up.

ROB
I think we're in the same generation. [Laughter]

DAWN
I’m now 40. I’m 40.

ROB
So are we. Well James is a little short.

DAWN
They think that sending an email is showing up or sending a LinkedIn message is showing up. It’s not.

ROB
No.

DAWN
Not.

ROB
It’s not.

JAMES
No. It’s interesting in the sense that that’s… What you described is the plight of a trailblazer. You’re blazing through these trails, ideally, leaving a path behind that people like you can follow.
But I see, often times, in describing what you're saying, the lack of entitlement, almost. The idea that “the system is not there for me anyway” causes a lot of people to pull back in those scenarios. So how do you think that people of color can get over that and really take more ownership of, “Hey, if I want something, I have to just go get it”?

And not just in certain industries. Definitely, you see that in certain industries where there's a high level of confidence, that “Hey, I belong here.” But in other industries, you're blazing trails or you're following the path that not many have followed. Are there any tips you can… because obviously, we can see you're a go-getter. We don't have to push you along.

DAWN
I mean we're a culture of go-getters. It’s a matter of what we're going to get, right? For the same people that are standing in line for Jordan’s or the same people that--

We have the capacity and capability to do anything. We're very resilient as a culture. It's just a matter of what you’re going to get; where you direct your energy to. So my advice is like… You know, they have this saying like, “Keep that same energy.” The time you spend scrolling in Instagram, keep that same energy.

ROB
[Laughter]

DAWN
Keep that same energy and scroll in network. I’m on LinkedIn. I don't even have Instagram on my phone right now or Twitter. I deleted social media except for LinkedIn.

ROB
Talk about that. Why?

DAWN
Well because it’s a distraction, for one, and I just wanted a break. I had a very, very extremely visible and engaging campaign where I raised money from 2300 people and I need a break.

ROB
I understand.

DAWN
The constant engagement, constant messages, constant comments, constant DMs, I do respond to them all. Not at the exact moment but I do take time. I just needed to step away from it and really just get time to focus in on getting my product out and just taking some time for myself.

But at the same time, I wanted to spend some more time on LinkedIn. I had 2000 requests on LinkedIn. I haven’t looked on there in a while. That’s where I made my most beneficial relationships as far as business development. But at the same time, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook were very valuable for me when I was raising money. So it’s just a balance.

But I think a lot of us don’t really utilize LinkedIn the way we can, the way we should. I’ve done million-dollar deals on LinkedIn by reaching out to people in the inbox. It’s not an instant thing but it’s also--

Again, I talked about this. I did another podcast recently. I talked about it also on my Instagram, about networking intentionally. You know, I get it. I mean…. I don’t know. I get hundreds of messages on these platforms. People say, “Let’s chat” or “I love your hustle. Call me” or they’ll send me a 10-paragraph message and it’s like… You know, that’s just not the way.

I'm going to write something about this maybe in the next couple of weeks about how to network intentionally -- what's been my keys of success of getting responses from people that I wanted to reach out to. People respond to all of my emails and people respond to all of my LinkedIn messages because I just say exactly what I want -- keep it very short, keep it very brief and say what I want. If you want to hit somebody up and say, “Let’s chat,” about what?

ROB
[Laughter]

DAWN
They’ll say, “We should do business together.” How? Send me a proposal. Be exact. Give me two lines of how we can do business together where it makes sense for me to do business with you. Please, let me know that.

So I think that just learning how to engage and… Again, that comes with a personal touch. We miss out on that. You can have access to fire off an email or fire off a LinkedIn message, that's all that you have to do. We have a long way to go in that area.

But going back to the basics is I think what we, as people, need to do -- be in building, show up, be present, network in person, follow up on email. But network in person. Go to conferences. Go to speaking engagements. Be in the building. That's how I was able to grow my brand and my businesses -- by just showing up.

ROB
Yeah. I also heard you say in the interview… You talked about integration and integration actually being something that, in some ways, I think hurt the black community. And there's been some evidence of what you've said. We had more businesses then and there's been a decline in the amount of businesses that were started by African-Americans. I'm not sure if that's where you were going but what's your thoughts on that? I heard you say there might have been misrepresenting.

DAWN
The comment around integration, obviously, it was necessary.

ROB
It wasn't meant to be a trap question. I think I wanted to get your thoughts about us being--

DAWN
Right. My thoughts were around, just that as soon as we were legally able to patronize other businesses, we abandon our own. We look outside of our communities and feel like the resources we need are outside of our communities or that the resource within our communities are not god enough or not adequate or the people -- the lawyers, the doctors, the dentists -- in our community are no longer good enough, that we want to get another race or another lawyer. “I don’t want black people be in my accounting.” Why not? Why? Why don’t we trust each other anymore?

ROB
My mother will love you. By the way, she’s an accountant. She has to go through this all the time, so thank you. [Laughter]

DAWN
When we were all we had, it was all good. But now, we don’t trust each other anymore. So that was my point. Instead of continuing to look outside of our communities for resources, for money, for anything, look within. And that’s what I did and obviously, it was very successful. I honestly don’t have to go outside the community for anything that I need. If I choose to is because I like the people. I want to but I don’t have to.

ROB
That’s great.

JAMES
That’s an excellent take. We always say here at Disruption Now that we like to challenge conventional thinking and so it definitely was… When we saw that, we were like, “Oh we got to get this out” because we've also talked about this issue in terms of also role models leaving the community in addition to the resource, the trust. I'm an attorney so I've dealt with the whole thing where people in my community may say, “Oh well, I want somebody who looks different because I’ll feel better about their competence at that point.”

DAWN
The programs you have.

ROB
Yep.

JAMES
You know, role models, people get out. So the people who have success are no longer around in certain communities. It’s a complicated issue, basically. But it’s something that people should think about and then try to see what we can learn from to try to improve. So I think that's an excellent point that you’ve made though.

DAWN
Yeah. I live in the same hood I grew up in -- a little nicer house but it’s still in the neighborhood.

JAMES
Nice.

ROB
Are you still on Ohio?

DAWN
Yeah. I’m based in Columbus.

ROB
Oh okay.

DAWN
I travel constantly. I’m probably home about five to seven days a month but this is where I’m at.

ROB
That’s great. That’s great. Well good to have you in Ohio. I have to do some type of big tech event. We’re going to have Rodney Williams on the show next week from LISNR.

DAWN
Nice. Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine. He's definitely been a great friend, giving me some great advice. He actually was the one who encouraged me to move back to Ohio. I was living in LA. He was like, “There's some money in Ohio. You need to go back there.” He was working at P&G and he started LISNR and was based in Cincinnati and he was like, “You’re from Ohio. There’s a lot of opportunity there.” And I wasn’t even looking to come back to Ohio. I’ve been gone for 12 years and then I came back two years ago.

JAMES
Wow.

ROB
That’s great. You’ve been an entrepreneur for a long time. How do you go from that step where you just take the ultimate step where you leave your comfort position and you say, “I am going to do this and I am going to lay everything out”? Instruct somebody about getting over their fear, their paralyzing feeling of, “This is something that--”

DAWN
I’m the wrong person to ask these questions to because I’ve never had fear. I don’t even know how to advice you because I’m like, “Fear? What’s fear? Get over it. Keep going. Move forward.” That’s how I am. So I don’t even know because I never had fear about anything and I don’t have comfort because comfort is complacency. I don’t want to be comfortable.

ROB
So you’re comfortable being uncomfortable.

DAWN
Yeah. That’s best way. That’s where the magic happens -- the part that I made it. I love having a challenge.

JAMES
Oh perhaps you can’t ask Michael Jordan to explain to you how he makes the fadeaway jump shot, basically.

ROB
Yeah. [Laughter]

JAMES
He does it.

ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
That’s how he’s going to teach you how to do it.

DAWN
Either you do or you don’t. People say to me like, “I’m trying.” I don’t even believe in “Try.” There’s no try. There’s “Do.”

ROB
I agree with that. I agree with that.

DAWN
Try or do. I’m not a gentle, soft people who would be like, “Oh well, the first thing you do is believe in yourself.” [Laughter] [Inaudible - 22:07].

ROB
You gave a good Jordan analogy so we’re going to call you… You’re the “Jordan of tech,” all right? So Jordan has a quote that said, “I failed over and over again, that’s why I succeed.”

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
He has made the most game-winning shots in history. He has also missed the most shots in history.

DAWN
Oh yeah. Of course, there’s lot of Ls but Ls are lessons.

ROB
Let’s talk about those. What’s your biggest L and how did that set you up for bigger opportunity?

DAWN
I mean I’m taking some type of L on a weekly basis.

ROB
Well give me the one that sticks out in your brain, the one that you’re thinking about--

DAWN
The one that sticks out in my brain that I’m continuously still dealing with is my product being in development for three years and running into many obstacles of manufacturing at scale. So I’ve built three different versions of my machine and every time something didn’t work or something wasn’t right or when I finally did… I thought I had it right last year and had paying customers and it was time to deliver in November, the manufacturer basically held my product hostage and I had to like… a legal battle which I’m still in today.

ROB
Wow.

DAWN
But I just was like, “Forget it.” And I went found a whole nother team to build this so that simultaneously, while I’m fighting for my IPs… Because I have contract who I’m fighting for my actual physical files in my hardware, I had to go pay a whole nother team to do it all over again.

ROB
Oh that’s horrible.

DAWN
I mean I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in development for a product that literally will cost $10,000 to build. So when you look at it like it cost, let's say, $300,000-$400,000 to build one and then after that, it’s $10,000… But you got to have the $300,000-$400,000 or whatever. By the time I’m done with this, it can be easily a half a million dollars in development just to build a product that you can build for $10,000. When I started the business in 2012, if you would have told me in 2019, it wouldn't be out, I would not believe you.

ROB
[Laughter]

DAWN
I’ll be like, “You are lying.”

JAMES
Would you still have done it though knowing what you know now?

DAWN
Yeah.

JAMES
It’s something that drives you… But I mean there's a lesson though in which you're saying though. To me, it stood out in the sense that like… As you said, Ls are lessons. Like things didn't go according to plan so you try again or you try something slightly different or you try to fix it. It's that relentlessness. You just have to keep going.

DAWN
People will say, “What would you do” or “I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life,” I'm like, “What would you do if you didn't have any money? That's what you do.”

ROB
There you go. That’s great advice.

DAWN
This is what I do now. We ran out of money several times in the development process and I still got up every day and worked on this business. I never stopped because I love it. I actually love it. I wouldn’t have believed that it would take this long but I still wouldn’t have quit because I still don’t believe like… You know, I wouldn’t have believed it anyway. Even if they show me a crystal ball, I would be like, “I’m going to do that.”

ROB
Yeah. “No, I don’t feel it--"

JAMES
I love it. I love it.

ROB
Love it.

JAMES
I love it.

DAWN
So there’s like nothing anybody can tell me to discourage me or there’s nothing anybody can say to make me believe that it’s not going to work. I mean they’ve already tried that many times.

I’ve been told there wasn’t a market for what I’m doing. When I first started, they told me, “Actually, there’s not a market. There’s no customer base.” I was like, “Okay. Whatever.” And then just two months ago, the 2019 CB Insights Retail Trends Report came out and voila, everything I’m doing is the trend of the future. I’ve been through that six years ago. So sometimes, you just got to wait for the market to be ready for which you’re building.

I’m selling technology. I’ve created a vending machine to sell software. You know, Edison, even though he stole it, said, “I created the lightbulb to sell electricity.” You know what I mean?
Selling something is innovation -- a tool to do that. So I knew eventually it would catch up.

You got to just really have that burning desire within you then no one can tell you that it’s not going to work. Even if it doesn’t work in front of your face, like, “This shit will really not work in front of my face,” make it work. It’s going to work.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
It will turn around and work. And my team love that about me as well. I never take “No” for an answer. “No” means “Not right now.” I mean it just means “Not right now.” It can be in five minutes from now.

ROB
Yeah, absolutely. So what’s your “Why” though? Why are you passionate about this? What’s your guiding kind of… You know, Simon Sinek, he’s one of my authors that I’ve--

DAWN
“The Power of Why,” yes.

ROB
“The Power of Why,” right?

DAWN
Yes. Everybody can watch that. When they’re doing my team, they watch that.

ROB
Oh good. What’s the “Why?” What’s your “Why” then?

DAWN
For everyone on business, the “Why” is different. My overall life mission, the “Why” is definitely…

ROB
That’s the one I want.

DAWN
…building wealth for my family, for my community, demonstrating being the change, you know.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
We talked, in the beginning of this interview, about there not being black women getting money or being in ventures and maybe didn't see anyone that look like them. So for me, to demonstrate an example of what a black woman can be successful being in venture -- put a product out, raise money, get a return, get an exit… It’s called “Pattern matching” in the VC community. So the pattern is being shifted. So “Be the change you want to see in the world.” That’s really my “Why.”

ROB
Okay.

DAWN
Everything I want to see different, I just embody that in my day-to-day life, whether it’d be through my vegetarian lifestyle or being a good person. Everything that I want to see, I just work very hard to be that across the board.

So that’s my “Why.” But specifically for PopCom, and the reason why I keep going, is because I know it’s the future. I've seen it in Asia. I know it is. And even though the U.S. is behind--

ROB
Yeah, they are behind in that.
DAWN
I know for a fact that it is the future. For the first time ever, it's a published report that says, “This is the future of retail” and I've been doing this.

ROB
Right. I want to get back to talking about your L a little bit because I think it’s important that people understand the process of going through Ls to get to their next lesson. But I want to switch directions for a second. As you talk about your “Why” being empowering -- it sounds like “empowering” -- to see what’s possible, when you look at facial recognition technology, there’s been a lot of data out there that shows that it’s actually bias which is interesting.

DAWN
Yes, it is.

ROB
Yeah, of course, it is, right? And now a lot of your business is based upon using facial recognition. Correct? Am I wrong on that with--

DAWN
Definitely, yeah.

ROB
So what role do you see in disrupting that industry to make sure it’s actually inclusive, that it’s not bias anymore as it’s starting to not only use more but it’s going to be the future as you said.

DAWN
I mean it says “bias” because it doesn’t have widespread adoption yet. Everybody using it in testament are white males or white people. I feel like we need to quit taking stuff so personal. Nobody built a tech and says, “Let’s just build tech for white people.” No, it wasn’t that. It’s just they’re the ones using it. They’re the ones around it. It’s in their environment. So by me putting it in larger locations where there’s a wider variety of demographic profiles and individuals, the algorithm gets smarter. That’s what it is.

ROB
Right.

DAWN
It’s called “Machine learning.” It takes time. You have to see a lot to be able to filter through that data. So of course, having more black people, people of color using it, it can distinguish between who’s who better.

ROB
Right.

DAWN
Well it’s not yet ready to be used in law enforcement--

ROB
Well that’s exactly what I was getting to. But it is being used in law enforcement. That’s the scary part.

DAWN
It is but it’s not ready to be. It’s wrong. That’s wrong. It shouldn’t be happening. But a lot of things are wrong. I’m not here to debate that.

Luckily, we’re not in charge of anybody’s likelihood or wellbeing. It’s just we are reporting sales data so we’ll just be able to tell people, “Is it male or female” and the approximate age of those shoppers.

We’re not even breaking it down to ethnicity because, honestly, while I was testing the ethnicity feature myself, three times it said I was Hispanic. Only one or two times that I was black, depending on how my hair is. They don’t even know like a black person [laughter] [inaudible - 31:22] hair or I have straight hair, it would think I’m Hispanic. That’s the thing. So it does not know yet. But it doesn’t know--

ROB
Or it doesn’t even recognize you completely, sometimes, I understand.

JAMES
It’s a good point though, that because there are flaws in something, that doesn’t mean you throw it out. It has to develop.

ROB
I agree.

JAMES
The initial samples, the coding is being done from a certain perspective. And then it’s going to evolve--

DAWN
The testing is being done in that perspective.

JAMES
Exactly.

DAWN
And I’m not saying that’s right. It’s just facts.

JAMES
It is.

ROB
It’s facts but I think the part where I like to see in the question where I was going towards is how do we make sure… because you can develop technologies to have the same biases that--

DAWN
We use it.

ROB
Go ahead. I’m listening.

DAWN
We use it.

JAMES
Yeah.

DAWN
We use it. We put our face in it. People of the 23andme who had done ancestry.com, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, why are you giving your DNA up? They’re going to use your DNA.” Well how are they going to correctly judge the makeup if they don’t have enough samples? How are they going to go?

ROB
Yeah, that’s a great point.

DAWN
You have to give up the information for them to even be able to tell what’s what. If you’re like, “Don’t scan my face,” but no, you got everybody black wrong. You got to scan your face so you can [laughter] [show - 32:38] what a black person looks like. [Laughter] We have to use it. And then if we don’t want to use it, throw it out then boycott it.

ROB
Right.

DAWN
But it’s not going away, by the way.

JAMES
But that’s not an option.

ROB
No, you’re not going to boycott. It’s coming. It’s coming.

DAWN
And the reason why I really got into it personally is because… Again, I’m from a generation where it’s like every time you get your fingerprints taken is when you die, you were born and you go to jail. And I’m like, “Don’t be taking my fingerprints.” And then they’re taking my face. But I’m like, “Well this is where technology is going. I might as well either be a consumer or be a creator of this.” I said, “I’m going to just, once again, be a part of the change and get involved to try to shift it in the way that it’s more aligned to where this bias can eventually be eliminated as much as possible.” If they’re going to use it then--

If you don’t want to be misidentified by the police, give them your actual face. That’s it. Give it to them or you’re going to be mistaken for somebody else. I hate to say it like that but this is the answer.

JAMES
Mm-hmm. Rob, you know what that sounds like.

ROB
What does that sound like?

JAMES
That sounds like Andrew Gillum. What Andrew tell us, he said, “If you’re not at the table, you’re going to be on the menu.”

DAWN
Absolutely.

ROB
Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much, yes.

JAMES
That’s what it sounds like, yeah.

DAWN
That’s how I feel about it. And so we’re continuing to create our own systems and… But right now, Amazon, they’re the strongest one.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
So it’s like, “Yeah, take a picture of me and know what Dawn Dickson looks like so you won’t mistake me for somebody else.”

ROB
[Laughter] I don’t think anybody mistake me either but… I don’t know. You never know.

So speaking about going outside the line and doing things that are new… Cryptocurrency is not really new but still, most people, I would argue, don’t know what cryptocurrency is. Still probably thinks it’s some weird thing. Some people think it’s a fraud. Some people think it’s not--

DAWN
I hope that’s not the case.

ROB
No, no. You don’t think so but I think a lot of people still have that. Believe me, my parents, when I tried to talked to them about it, they’re like, “What? No, I don’t get it. Where’s the money? Where’s the bank? Who’s holding it?” Could you answer that question for folks? They got to understand what cryptocurrency is and what the potential is.

DAWN
That means it’s a digital currency. It’s like saying, “What’s a debit card?” It’s all fiat invisible money, anyway. There’s no exchange. It’s the same thing when you go get a mortgage. No money is exchanged from the banks. Cryptocurrency is just a digital currency and it’s secure in the ledger. It’s on the blockchain.

I’m a cryptocurrency investor but I don’t have a currency. That token was a security token which is essentially is a tokenized security. Traditionally, when you invest on a stock -- this is traditional-traditional -- you get a stock certificate paper and that’s the stock certificate. If you lose that, there’s no record that you have a stock. Now it’s a digital version of a stock certificate. It’s just a digital representation of a share and that’s what a token is. That’s what a security token is and it’s on the blockchain. A blockchain is a ledger.

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that is developed on the blockchain which is a ledger so it has accurate record of how many… Let’s say the dollar bills were crypto. They print a certain amount of dollar bills every year. You can throw them away, tear it, burn it, it’s gone. But you can’t do that with a token because it’s there. It’s stored on a digital ledger and the transfer of it--

JAMES
There’s no physical embodiment.

DAWN
If I give it to you, it’s locked in. If you give it to him, it’s locked in. It can’t be destroyed. It can’t be changed, manipulated. It’s just on a digital ledger. It’s more secure; a more secure way of tracking things.

And then also the weight, it’s easier to transfer it from person-to-person without needing a bank; a third party to be the facilitation of that transfer or transferring it overseas. They talk about people that are on banks. It's a solution to getting money that use Western Union or MoneyGram. But it's really just a digital representation of what we usually would have a piece of paper for or a coin. It’s all fiat, you know.

ROB
But you can take it right now and leverage the money into real money. You can do that right now -- real money, I say it like that.

JAMES
With value.

ROB
Value.

DAWN
It can have value. So it’s an exchange value, the same way that [crosstalk - 37:05]--

ROB
It’s an exchange like a stock.

JAMES
Exactly.

DAWN
It’s an exchange value. You can say, “I’ll give you this and this ball is worth $100.” That’s what it is.

JAMES
If somebody’s willing to pay a hundred for it, they must as well pay.

DAWN
Now, the demand for this phone is $1000. But I bought this Google phone which is way better than that iPhone and it’s $400 because somebody said so.

ROB
Yep.

JAMES
Mm-hmm. Well I thought the ledger piece was an important piece because we inherently are okay with… and for whatever reason, don’t question the bank ledger. You know, the banks run these ledgers with debit cards and bank accounts. And they’re not sending anything tangible back and forth. They’re sending signals and that’s their ledger whereas the blockchain is just not a bank-centered ledger.

DAWN
As people of color, we should have learned a long time ago about ledgers and banks to the Freedman's Bank [laughter] [inaudible - 37:59]. They’re gone. Gone.

JAMES
Yeah.

ROB
I agree.

DAWN
Why are we so hesitant to deal with crypto when it’s secure? And you can’t take it unless you’re hacked which is a whole nother story.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
Anything can be hacked.

JAMES
Banks can be hacked, yeah.

ROB
Your account can be hacked.

DAWN
Banks gets robbed. I get compromised. Every week, somebody’s database got my email, you know.

ROB
I guess that’s the most important question to ask. This is still kind of an unregulated market. If you lose your money in a bank, as long as the United States doesn’t inflow which who knows--

DAWN
I see only secure $250,000.

ROB
Sure -- per bank, correct.

DAWN
If you got a million stolen, you got 250 back.

ROB
Yep.

DAWN
That ain’t no fair exchange. [Laughter] It ain’t.

ROB
But you won’t get any of it back right now, technically, with crypto, right?

DAWN
No, you won’t get any back but you also have full control over it and sure are protected. And nobody else can go in and take it from you the way that bank can or charge you fees for it. Of course, it’s a money system so like platforms like Coinbase, something they make their money by charging transfer fees is… converts your money from… you know. The same way stock exchange, stock broker, they have that system in place. You know, every single thing you do is a risk.

ROB
I agree.

JAMES
Yeah. [Crosstalk - 39:16].

ROB
Exactly. The only thing I would add to that is I agree with how you characterize cryptocurrency. And I’ve tried to explain to people and they still give me the blank look. I think the only risk is what happens when there’s a couple of bad actors that make it… And this kind of happen for a period. They make it look bad. And then all of a sudden, you got regulators and you got the threat of the banks because--
This is the threat I see for them. They see somebody taking their market and they want to control it and so they’re going to look for anything they can to find a couple of bad actors and force regulators--

DAWN
The banks are already all involved into it. There’s bad actors in everything.

ROB
Absolutely.

DAWN
There’s the Bernie Madoffs. I mean there’s bad actors in every single thing.

ROB
But what's the risk though? Let me ask a question real quick. What’s the risk of saying like if somebody… one or two actors then this industry tries to force that to bring in crypto to try to bring down your value? Do you think there’s no chance of that happening or if you… Do you see what I’m saying? That’s the only thing I can see.

DAWN
I don’t think there are people doing embezzlements and fraud have made the U.S. dollar anymore valid. And it’s the same thing for me with crypto. It’s not going anywhere. Bitcoin is not going anywhere. If that didn’t go up and down but it’s been around for 10-plus years, it’s not… People are too deep. It’s not going anywhere. Again, I don’t have a cryptocurrency. I have a security token. That is just making value of my company and it’s a digital share. It’s not affected at all by any of this.

JAMES
Just the direction Rob was going, as these scandals hit… Like cryptocurrency right now, the establishment, let’s say, is not comfortable with it because they don’t control it. They control some of the other things. Like the banks control the money system. If the government wants your money confiscated, it can be confiscated where these cryptos, they can’t do that. Do you have any concern that at some point, there will be a commercial entity or government entity that is trying to take it all? I don’t even know how they would really do that with the anonymous nature of it.

DAWN
Not take it over. No, not take it over but tax, yes.

JAMES
Yeah.

DAWN
They’ll start taxing it. They monitor your movements of the money from your crypto wallets to your bank account. So it’s very hard… It’s called KYC -- Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering -- AML. They run KYC and AML in everything that you do now.

JAMES
Okay.

DAWN
The days of using cryptocurrency and bitcoin to do transactions with drugs and large sums of money, that's over. The regulator is around chain. The regulators came last year that's why I changed my offering from ICO to STO -- so “Initial Coin Offering” which is essentially a public sale to a Secure Token Offering under SEC regulations. That's what I did last year.

So it is regulated now. It's very regulated. And banks are already involved. They have Ripple which is... XRP is definitely not decentralized and it is a government-backed coin. Chase has a token. Now Facebook have a token. So it’s not going anywhere.

ROB
Talk to people about what this… because it seems like it’s another opportunity to raise capital from people that you know versus having to go the traditional route which is often been limited to us. Talk to people about how you did it because I think there's a law that was passed during the Obama administration that made this easier to do -- crowdfunding from multi people.

DAWN
Yeah. [Crosstalk - 42:38] around cryptocurrency. There’s law. I mean this is a law from the JOBS -- Jumpstart Our Business Startups -- started in 2012, signing a legislation by Obama. Took about five years for it to even get into motion -- the regulations around how do you do it and the filings that are required through the SEC. There are several different categories you can raise. I did a Reg CF which is $1,700,000 every 12 months you can raise from general public, accredited and non-accredited investors; do a public solicitation. So normally--

ROB
It's credited for folks. You got to have a lot of money. You’re just basically rich and then everyone else--

DAWN
Exactly. Accredited is $200,000 a year as an individual, $300,000 as a married couple and then another accredited is everybody else or a million dollars’ net worth or income. So it goes by million net worth or $200,000 a year income.

JAMES
And that affects the level of disclosure and then things like that in terms of what has to be turned over, correct?

DAWN
Yeah, yeah. Actually, it’s a lot easier to raise money from accredited investors because they’re sophisticated and they're wealthy and they understand. But if a non-accredited is in an assumption that they're… you know, gets to a lot more reporting. And for me, even though I’m a privately-held company--

ROB
You still have to do that with this stuff, too? Is that still the job because that can change. It’s still required to do it for unaccredited investors?

DAWN
For the Reg CF, it’s a very extensive paperwork required, very similar to any other due diligence for [inaudible - 44:12].

ROB
Oh wow.

DAWN
It’s not any different. Like I said, I raised a million dollars from BC and Angels. It was easier. All I had to do was do offering memorandum and do a subscription agreement and have them sign it and then just take the wire and then they self-verify. But when I had to do a filing with the SEC… It's an SEC filing. It's very expensive. I had to have an agent and I had to have escrow agent and now working with broker dealers.

So it's SEC and you're dealing with the transfer… basically, private equity, private security trading. With a good lawyer, it sounds hard… And it's not easy but nothing's easy.

ROB
Yeah, nothing in life is easy but you've done it.

DAWN
Yeah.

JAMES
And you bring professionals aboard to help you do that. I mean there are people who do that who… I’m a patent attorney. People, they don't need to understand all that stuff. When it's time to get a patent, they come and talk to me or the securities attorney or anything like that.

DAWN
Yeah, exactly. Well I have a securities attorney. Exactly. I have a securities attorney. I work with a platform that handles tax offerings. And they know what they were doing – start engine and we go through the process.

But I also have my stuff in order. Ever since we started, even when we weren't making any money, even when we were losing money every month, I still did my monthly P&Ls, balance sheets and cash flow statement. I still was filing taxes on losses. So when it was time to raise money, I didn't have to even get--

I only had to do a one-year audit because my financials were so in order. And then I have my projections and I had all of my intellectual property assignment agreements, all my employment agreements.

So having your business in very organized order, it makes it easier because then if you don't, you scramble and try to get the other documents together. But I always have my stuff together. I’m ready to do due diligence at any time. We're very organized.

JAMES
That saves you a lot of money then because the people that come in, they didn’t have to set it all up. All this stuff is all set.

DAWN
I want to do my filing. They send me a checklist. I had all of it right away. “Oh you want my [inaudible - 46:29]? You want my board resolution? Do you want my business licenses? You want my EIN? You want my…” You know, everything is there -- Employment agreements for everybody, whatever; all my P&Ls, historical financials, taxes. Have that one day at all times.

JAMES
Yeah, that sounds great.

DAWN
I just audited myself. I just went like, “Let's just pay for audit just in case anybody want to come back and say something. I don’t want to waste people’s money. Just audit me.”

ROB
No, that’s really smart. Someone told me, “To be successful, you need to be productively paranoid.” Right? It seems like a contradiction but the truth is, you got to have a little bit of paranoia. I want to talk about that.

DAWN
I mean almost like preparation. I’m not paranoid about nothing. I’m ready. Whatever you got, hey, let’s go. Bring it.
JAMES
You know what they say, you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready.

DAWN
Absolutely.

JAMES
Now I have a question for you. I know it comes up with a lot of entrepreneurs and people who are trying to step out of a corporate existence or anything like that. How do you vet the people that you hire to help you, like the professionals or anything like that? How do you hire the right people? The professional help you get in any scenario is going to depend heavily on the skill of the people that you bring on -- their expertise, their knowledge and so forth. So how do make sure you hire people--

DAWN
You run across some scammers and some misrepresentations but I think--

ROB
I figure that’s part of your Ls. Excuse me. This is a back on him because I thought that was connected to the L.

DAWN
It’s the main L.

ROB
I thought it was and I want to talk about that.

DAWN
Ls are associated with people that say they can do something and they can’t do it.

ROB
Yeah. [Laughter]

DAWN
That is the number one L. It’s never been me. Like it’s been me making maybe not having the discernment that I now have. But now it’s gone for referrals. Like, “I don't even work with you so nobody can vouch for you.”

Let’s go back to the very first thing I said earlier, why people don't get people money they don't know. They want somebody to vouch for you like I said. It’s understandable. It’s human nature. You know, it’s not discrimination to want somebody to be like, “Yeah, this person is a decent person.” There’s nothing wrong with that.

ROB
No, I completely… So it sounds like, as charging as you are, as passionate as you are, you also have an empathy soft side -- nothing wrong with that.

DAWN
Yeah, definitely.

ROB
And it seems like people and some folks take advantage of it. It sounds like one of your business partners or folks or somebody took advantage of that. How do you keep yourself, I think, from moving forward and not being jaded because some people would take that and just say, “Screw everybody. Everybody is out to get me and I just need to stay focus.”

DAWN
You know what? I really think that people overestimate themselves. I don't think anybody who's ever burned me was like, “I’m about to go burn her.” They tried really hard, just they did not know what they were doing or they thought they can just learn on the fly. You overestimate your ability or misrepresenting your talent, your skill set.

Again, I don’t take stuff personal. Everybody is doing things for their own gain. And even the people… like they meant well. When I sat down with them in the beginning, I could look in their eyes and I could tell they really believe they were going to pull it off. But then when they realize they couldn't do it, that's where it came in where they wouldn't be honest to be like, “You know what? I thought I could do this, I really did, but I can't.” They're not going to say that. They'll just try to do it anyway and then mess it up and then [inaudible - 49:56] missing.

That's when the scammy stuff happens because they’re like scared and fear to admit that they failed or that they can’t or they don’t have the money to pay you back when they already messed the money up.

But honestly, I can’t name a single person that just came out of the gate trying to scam me. It was like, “Oh I can do this.” Then like, “Oh shit. No, I can’t. But now I got the money and I messed the money up and I can’t pay her back so now I got to…” You just want Peter to pay Paul. It's like an avalanche, you know.

ROB
Yep. Okay. Sometimes people don’t realize it though. I think, something that I look at for folks is, “What’s their self-awareness? What’s their judgement?”

DAWN
Not all people are self-aware.

ROB
No, most people aren’t. I hope I’m self-aware. I say that because I’m sure I have plenty of blind spots but I try my best to really analyze myself for all the flaws that I have. And I try to see people are not perfect but if they have a motivation outside themselves, that’s the first thing I look at.

And two, “Do I think they have some type of self-awareness?” I used to chair a university and I had to interview a lot of people for these positions and I would always ask questions to discern, “Do they have any sense of their flaws?” If you ever get some folks to say like… They couldn’t answer questions that require them to look inwards, that they never made a mistake and they figured out a way to gloss it over, I’m like, “We’re not hiring that person.”

I got someone -- not hired, very proud of this -- and we found out a lot of stuff about this person later. But everything was great on paper. And then when you asked a few follow-up questions… Like you said, you look at those references and you ask people real questions. Like I don't let people give me BS like, “Oh…” They give him a seven evaluation. I said, “No. You get to give me a five or you give me a nine. Which one is it?”

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
And then tell me why. And then stuff starts coming out about people. You'd be surprised. People always say who they are.

So I’ll just tell you, I can tell it was… It’s hurt me before, let me just say. People have hurt me before that I've been close to, that I was partners with and they did some things that… you know, lost money, lost things from it. I didn't become jaded but I did learn about what I saw because sometimes I saw things in people that I wanted to see. So I also engage my self-awareness like, “Oh--"

JAMES
Objection.

DAWN
We’ll see potential and not see what’s in front of us today.

ROB
Exactly.

DAWN
That’s just important to do in general in life to see what's in front of you today.
ROB
Yeah, it is. As we kind of close, I want to just kind of get to some rapid questions I like to ask. So you have a podcast -- “BARS,” right?

DAWN
I do.

ROB
You like to rap, huh? You could rap?

DAWN
You know, I’m not a rapper but I know--

ROB
You like rap though.

JAMES
[Kanasor - 52:34]?

ROB
[Kanasor- 52:35]?

DAWN
I’m definitely a [Kanasor - 52:36].

ROB
Okay.

DAWN
I definitely know my bars. But I’m not a rapper. I don’t have the rap voice.

ROB
Neither do I. Who do you like though? Tell me. Give me a couple of your favorite rappers and why.

DAWN
Tupac always.

ROB
Oh yeah.

DAWN
I love his realness.
ROB
Yeah.

JAMES
Yes. Yes.

DAWN
You know, he inspires me. Even his life story, I wish it could have went longer because I would have loved to see him come out of that death row area, like emerge as a better person.

JAMES
I agree.

DAWN
But what gets me hyped up, I always loved listening to Rick Ross. I love Rick Ross. I lived in Miami for years -- six years -- so--

JAMES
Oh nice.

ROB
Yeah. I didn't live there but I partied there a lot. I know you worked and lived… We probably saw each other once or twice but we’ll keep that between us.

DAWN
I’m a Meek Mill fan.

ROB
All right.

JAMES
Okay.

DAWN
I love the Migos. That’s like my studio, get [crosstalk] [inaudible - 53:32].

JAMES
Okay. All right, Migos.

DAWN
And I listen to the new stuff. I like Lil Baby. Lil Baby and Gunna, they got some hits. I love “A Tribe Called Quest.” I mean, you know, I listen to a lot. I listen to everything a lot.

JAMES
It sounds like you are very well-rounded.

ROB
It does.

JAMES
Yeah.

DAWN
A lot. I listen to a lot. It’s hard for me to say a favorite because it’s like different music makes me feel a different way. I have my little emo mode throughout the day. I’m listening to Dre because he's super emo. So it just depends.

I love all the new female rappers these days just like the resurgence of the female MC. Remember like in the ‘90s, there were so many rappers.

ROB
MC Lyte, yeah.

DAWN
Nobody was beefin’. It was so many like Queen Latifah, Monie Love and MC Lyte and Emilio and… I mean there are just so many. And then it became like, “Okay, you can only have one at a time.”

ROB
[Laughter]

DAWN
There’s so many in these younger girls between, of course, Cardi B and Nicki and there's Megan Thee Stallion and there's Saweetie and there's Rapsody and… I mean there's just so many female hip-hop artists right now. I have a whole playlist, just all female records, which I love to see just that in general. I mean I’m not saying the content is--

JAMES
Yeah. [Laughter]

ROB
Hey, you’re talking to hip-hop fans. You are the judge but we like it perhaps.

JAMES
We got the City Girls down here in Miami.

ROB
He’s in Miami, by the way, right now.

DAWN
Yeah, the City Girls, [inaudible - 55:02], you know, once you get out but… Yeah, I’ve always been a big fan of hip-hop in general.

So BARS! is the podcast that I believe is a hip-hop bar to describe any situation in life. And a lot of times these poets, these people--

A lot of these guys are drug dealers which is entrepreneur. They're running full enterprises. And the way they phrase things, I can relate to because it translates into things that I deal within business. Everything we talked about today is in the drug game. You know what I mean -- talking about your business partners not doing right and people taking your money and things didn’t go well. I believe that a lot of times the messages that we need to hear as a culture in our music, we don't really translate it.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
So I’ll translate the lyrics in hip-hop to business language and [crosstalk] [talk about it - 55:59].

JAMES
Well it’s exploiting an opportunity. At its core, the drug game is exploiting the opportunity. Drugs would not be valuable if it wasn't for the legal framework that was in like--

DAWN
Absolutely.

JAMES
Cocaine should not be worth more than gold by weight but it is.

ROB
It is.

JAMES
It is the way the laws are set up.

ROB
Yep.

JAMES
In business, it’s the same thing. You got to find opportunities and exploit. I got cosign completely on the lessons that you'll hear there. You have to translate them. You have to translate into whatever it is that your hustle is but it's the same lessons. It’s the same stuff because that's business. That’s what it is.

ROB
That’s exactly business.

JAMES
Yeah.

ROB
And you look at those… I saw straight out of Compton and what it initially struck me is that all of those geniuses you got -- you know, the Dr. Dre's, the Ice Cubes, all those folks… Eazy-E has been caught that one time when his house was being raided. None of that probably would have happened because they didn't get their opportunity. People didn't get a chance to see their genius because the opportunity wasn't there.

DAWN
Yeah.

ROB
And what it says to me is if we are more intentional about our community… We have more Ice Cubes in the world. We have more Dr. Dre's. We have more Don Dixons.

DAWN
I was talking -- not to get off-topic – briefly about even the hip hop stars of my generation, they have levelled up so much. I mean look at Eve. Look at Jay. Look at Ice-T, Ice Cube.

ROB
Rihanna -- all of them.

DAWN
Just the hip hop… Like look at where they've turned into moguls. Diddy's… these were the hip-hop--

I remember when Delores Tucker was saying rap is bad and now all these same guys are… You know, they're millionaires and billionaires and they're actors and they're doing such big things. I love how it shows where you can grow to and where a lot of the older guys… Not even older but you know, the guys from the ‘90s.

ROB
We’re not aged. We’re not old. We’re just seasoned. [Laughter]

DAWN
I love getting older. You know, so much wisdom that comes along with it.

JAMES
And it beats the alternative.

ROB
It always beats the alternative.

JAMES
I’m here for it.

ROB
Yeah.

DAWN
Absolutely.

ROB
Yeah, I agree. Two more questions. You have a committee together, living or dead of three people. They get to advise you about everything -- life, business. Who are those three people and why?

DAWN
Dang, that’s a good one, too. I’ll just say what comes to mind. You just say your first thought, right?

JAMES
Exactly.

ROB
Yeah, exactly. We want you to be… yeah. It’s just you, me and a thousand people.

DAWN
So my first thought, “Mansa Musa.”

ROB
Okay.

JAMES
Oh nice. Nice.

DAWN
He was a king of Mali and was able to build an empire. I really want to figure out and learn how to bring my people together in that way and reclaim the wealth that was ours as indigenous people -- just recently, less than a thousand years ago.

Then I think of the next person was, in my head, the Buddha just for me, always my personal spiritual journey and just ascending and being more aligned. It's just somebody that I would love to meet and have as my advisor.

And then would definitely love to have Steve Jobs. What I strive to build is kind of like the Apple of automated retail, just the way that they’ve innovated in Apple chains the way that we do everything today. So I just love to get inside of his head a little bit.

JAMES
That’s good.

ROB
That’s great. That’s a great answer.

JAMES
You were the quickest on your feet…

ROB
You were.

JAMES
…[indiscernible - 59:41] question.

DAWN
That’s okay. Also I was like, “Mansa Musa?” I’m like, [inaudible - 59:45]?

ROB
No, we want you to say… Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

JAMES
Yeah. No, that’s good.

ROB
That’s a great answer. Hey, that’s great. Final one: You have a billboard, Google ad… I guess let’s just be more 21st century. You have a Google ad or a digital ad that describes you. It’s a saying, a theme, whatever. What does it say and why do you say that?

DAWN
My favorite quote of all time, I would say, “First, they ignore you then they laugh at you then they fight you then you win,” and that’s by Gandhi. It definitely has been just a great way to summarize my entire journey as an entrepreneur just in general, definitely, as a black woman, and just in this life conditions.

You get ignored a lot, overlooked, and then they laugh at you because they think what you’re doing is silly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Oh you didn't go to school for this. You didn't come from this kind of family. How are you going to do this? How are you going to shift the culture?” And then they fight you, going to be like, “Oh shit, she’s really doing it. Oh my god, we got to stop her. Wait a minute. She’s doing it.” And it’s like, “Well I’m winning now.” So that’s the story of my life.

ROB
Look, we are proud of you here on Disruption Now. We love to have you back, figure out ways we can partner because… I know you are already doing big things. I see bigger things happening.

DAWN
Thanks.

ROB
I just want to tell you that I’m proud of you and I look forward to see what you do next.

DAWN
Thank you. Things are coming. Get things on the way. So I will definitely keep [inaudible – 01:01:10].

ROB
I believe it. All right, thank you so much.

DAWN
Thanks for having me, guys.

ROB
So you heard what she said, “Keep moving forward, Keep fighting. Don’t stay where you are. Don’t accept where you are. Stay awoke if you want to stay free. I’m Rob Richardson…

JAMES
…and I'm James Keys.
ROB
…and we'll see you next time.

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