“My biggest regret is when someone says “No,” not probing as to why.” -- Kevin Cadette

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ROB RICHARDSON
Yes, he's founded multiple startups. He’s a man about tech. He's a man about industry. And now he is in Miami, Florida… By the way, I wish I could come there. I usually go there several times a year, Kevin. But obviously, with the COVID-19, we’re [crosstalk] [inaudible - 00:35].

KEVIN CADETTE
This is the view I have almost every day. This is it…

ROB
Yeah. Well you're making me--

KEVIN
…right here.

ROB
Yes. I’m very jealous--

KEVIN
I wish. [Laughter]

ROB
Well at least you get to go out and see the view at some point.

You started an organization called “Black Miami Angels” which the goal is to connect more black investors to promising startups. -- Thank you for coming on the show and thank you for what you do.

KEVIN
Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

ROB
I want to get a sense about your path to entrepreneurship, Kevin. I know you're now helping entrepreneurs. You're now helping investors. But I want to get a sense of how this really kind of sparked in your imagination in your brain. How did you come to becoming an entrepreneur and know that this is the path that you wanted to go on in your life.

KEVIN
I’ve always loved technology. I think I had my first computer when I was seven. Undergrad and grad school, it was engineering. And then late ‘90s, wanted to be a consultant and build… you know, work for multiple companies and build. And I was lucky enough to be building during the dot-com era. So I got my feet wet. Saw the boom. Saw the bust. And even though there was a bust, I was just like, “Wow. This is what I want to do.”

And that evolved from building within companies -- you know, hands-on leading technology teams, being the architect -- to actually wanting to not define how to build it but what to build so I could move to the other side of the table. I went and did my MBA and then more startups after that. So yeah, always loved technology to this day. And I love what I’m doing now -- work with founders and helping them make things happen.

ROB
Yeah. So you've been a founder. I want to take you back to the times when you were a founder.

KEVIN
[I don’t want to do that - 02:37]. [Laughter]

ROB
I want you to think about what you see as your biggest failure -- some people don't like to say “Failure.” Let's call them “Hard learning lessons” -- that you've learned from and that you've had to pivot from. Can you think of a time of being an entrepreneur that was like, “Wow…” At that time, it felt like a total failure and now you've actually learned from that and it's helped you gain better perspective and be more successful in the long run.

KEVIN
Yeah. I think like a lot of naive founders that want to be the next Facebook... You know, everybody wants to have the big billion dollar IPO and home run and pop the champagne and… You know, build something big. We don't really talk about the people who don't quite get the home run. My biggest regret is I didn't make a home run. But only so many people make a home run.

ROB
By the way, how do we define a “home run”? That's also another [crosstalk] [inaudible - 03:39]--

KEVIN
In my mind, I think back--

ROB
Let me say it this way. I think people have the comparison. They’re like… Okay, when people want to go to the NBA, everybody's like, ”I want to be LeBron James. I want to be Michael Jordan.” If that's what it means to hit your home run, well, hell, that's like once in a generation. Hardly anybody’s going to hit that. To me, that's the equivalent of the Facebooks and the Instagrams of the world. Saying that you're going to get to that level is trying to almost hit the lottery, to my mind. But what do you mean by “hitting the home run”?

KEVIN
My definition of hitting a home run was always working for that one paycheck which would be my last paycheck.

ROB
Right.

KEVIN
Right? So you’ll never have to work for anyone again; be financially completely independent; family wouldn't have to worry about a thing. That was my definition of a “home run.”

ROB
Okay. Okay. So that's a pretty… And that's also relative, too, because for some people, that means $2 million. For others, that could mean $30 million or something. So that’s helpful to know.

KEVIN
Right. That definitely is relative.

ROB
Right.

KEVIN
Yeah.

ROB
But you look at this and said, “Okay, I want to not have to worry about money if I didn't want to,” and that never really happened for you exactly.

KEVIN
Right.

ROB
So I want to talk about like… So what was the failure or the learning lesson from… one that sticks out in your mind? And can you think of a way how that's helped you to be where you're at now or be more successful? Does that make sense?

KEVIN
Yeah. I’ve started or been part of multiple startups. Coming out of business school, I went to one… started a couple of companies. This was pre-iPhone -- right before the iPhone. I had this thesis that people are going to use phones in their idle time and monetize them.

ROB
Well your thesis was right.

KEVIN
My thesis was right but the timing was wrong.

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
Unfortunately, we didn't quite… My thesis was dead-on but the business model wasn't then because… The iPhone wasn't. I always say, if someone had taken a risk on us back then, I would have hit my home run because we would have figured it out. You know, if we spent that time in that space, we're going to figure it out. Now my biggest regret is when someone says “No,” not probing as to why.

ROB
Hmm.

KEVIN
Right?

ROB
Okay.

KEVIN
If you're raising capital and someone says “No,” okay, why is someone… Don't be afraid to ask why. If everyone says, “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” they're not helping you.

ROB
Right. And they're not going to, by the way. You've got to get 10 times, a thousand times more “Nos” than “Yeses.” -- Yeah, go forward.

KEVIN
My problem is, is that… Okay, let's say I have the best pitch ever. I could be as charismatic. People love you, right, and they don’t… People might say “No” but you want to probe into why they're saying “No” and then really challenge… Sometimes, people are going to say “No” and they're wrong, right?

ROB
Sure.

KEVIN
If you don't really listen to the “Nos” then you're not learning, right?

ROB
Agree. You learn the most from “Nos” because “Yeses” could be--

KEVIN
Exactly.

ROB
Yeah. You did it right maybe or you just got lucky.

KEVIN
Oh you got it.

ROB
I mean it was a good day but that doesn't mean everything you did was right. And the “Nos” doesn't mean everything you did was wrong but at least you can learn something from it. But it's hard. I mean people don't like getting… You don't like to have your whole concept essentially feel like it’s being shut down…

KEVIN
Right.

ROB
…as you go. And then you go and you think that you're having these leads and all of a sudden, it doesn't close which I think is even worse when you think it's about to close and then you get closed. And it feels like, “Oh well never mind.” Those are the hardest.

I remember you talk about a company that was a large company or maybe multiple companies that were almost at IPO stage and then they found themselves going towards a whole another direction. Talk about the feeling with that if you can because I know if you're at the stage where you feel like you're not only going to hit the home run but you're going to hit the home run and then everybody's running the base, you're going to win the whole damn series. You got the IPO.

KEVIN
My first job out of school… This was during the dot.com era. Basically, I had a billion-dollar level IPO and then the pop comes and then all the air is gone and you had every single school loan and all your debt… You know, you had that money ready to wipe out everything and be good and then that's all gone.

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
At that time, people were saying this was going to happen.

ROB
Sure.

KEVIN
And I said, “No. Look at… Everybody's doing great. Everything's going to happen.” Again, not listening, not taking a step back, not thinking about the risk. I mean if everybody thought on the flip side, if everybody thought about the risk of starting a company then they wouldn't do it.

ROB
Yeah, no one would start a company if they thought about the risks.

KEVIN
No one will start a company. But at the same time, if I had listened, I probably would have done things a little differently.

ROB
Well tell me what you would have done differently? This is a transition to a question I was going to ask you anyway. If you had to give advice to your younger self as a founder, what advice would you give yourself now with the knowledge you have now? And the second part, what advice would you ignore?

KEVIN
Well bulls make money, pigs make money… No, I’ve got that all wrong. Bulls make money, bears makes money…

ROB
Pigs get slaughtered.

KEVIN
…and pigs get slaughtered, right? And now I was a little greedy. That was more than half a lifetime ago. I probably would have sold. I would have done things a little differently. But I had never been in the marketplace before. I had never seen anything. All I had seen up to that point was “Up, up, up and up.”

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
Right? I just wanted to ride that all the way up to the sunset. And we all know, it's cyclical.

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
Things go up. Things go down. You know, I was naïve. What would I do differently? It's key conversations where I always go back to, that I can picture myself sitting right there right then and listening and saying, “What is this person talking about” and it didn't really register.

ROB
Sure.

KEVIN
I remember having a conversation and someone was talking about time. You know, I was young. I’m like, “I’ve got all the time in the world.” This was 16 years ago. “I’ve got all the time in the world.” Now many startups, companies, jobs, careers, shares, pivots have I had since then? And what I was working on at that time, she didn’t have the--

It was all about failing fast. That's what she was trying to say. Like validate and get it going and figure out if this is going to work or not. That didn't resonate the way she had said it at the time. But I've learned since then, especially being on the founder’s side, validate what you're doing and move fast.

ROB
So you were at a time where I guess you could have… I guess you have no regrets, only lessons in life is how I look at it. I mean people go back like, “Okay, had I sold my interest in those companies, would I have more money?” You probably would. But some of this is just learning lessons.

People look at like Google and… I forgot which book I got this from. But people say they applied all these lessons in how Google got to be huge. But here's the thing. Google was going to be sold for a ridiculously small amount and the people just didn't offer enough. I think they were just asking for like a million dollars. They would have given away everything. And they're a trillion dollar company right now. They would have given away everything they had for a million dollars. So some of it is timing and some of it is just luck. Now, there are lessons that can be learned and you can be successful from your failures.

Is there any advice you would ignore though because I think that's almost more important than what you would tell yourself because sometimes, it's the wrong advice that leads you down the wrong path than the--
KEVIN
I ignored some advice saying, “Don’t do it” and started coming--

ROB
You would still ignore it.

KEVIN
Would I still ignore it?

ROB
I’m asking you what advice you would ignore.

KEVIN
So in my mind, I’ll say, “I'm going to go for it and I’m going to go all in.” I would have tackled it differently. I would have said, “I’m not going to go all in.” I’m going to work on what I’m working on and I’m going to do this. And we'll sweat at night and on the weekends to validate it before jumping all in but I’m still going to do it.

ROB
Got it.

KEVIN
Right, instead of just jumping all in. Now everybody can find an example where they went all in and made it. But unfortunately, a lot of companies won't make it. They don't. And it doesn't matter what your background is. It's just the way it is. The numbers bear out. So I would have done things a little differently. But everybody can go back in their career and do things a little differently.

And I think, especially in what I’m working on right now at Black Angels Miami, helping… You know, we're trying to diversify the landscape of angel investing and get people of a certain amount of wealth into angel investing and reaching back and investing in people. Even then, you're still having conversations as to what, how and why people should be doing it.

ROB
Sure.

KEVIN
You know, this is under complete other end of the spectrum -- from a founder starting from zero, doing things and… It's those conversations and connections which helps people get from A to B which are important because you learn from mistakes and you can learn from other people's mistakes -- but only when you actually open your mouth and talk and ask the right questions.

ROB
Sure. And that’s what it is. The best way to learn is--

KEVIN
[Crosstalk] [You can’t just be able to do that part - 14:50].

ROB
It's good to learn from your mistakes. It's better to learn from others’ mistakes so you don't have to make those mistakes. So is some of that part of the reason why you started the Black Miami Angels fund?

And then I’d like to ask you this, too: How do you go about changing, I guess, the perspective… As you said, now it's still hard having the conversation with investors and others about why it's good to do this -- to invest in diverse founders.

And I like to say it’s not about what's socially responsible. That's good and it's important but what's more important, especially when you're talking to corporate and you're talking to business, is to show that this is a missed economic opportunity.

So how do you go about changing that mindset and how did the lessons that you went through as a founder… I guess it informed your path with the Black Miami Angels.

KEVIN
So Black Angels Miami--

ROB
“Black Angels Miami.” I’ll say it right next.

KEVIN
So I’m the founding executive director. It actually started, initially, by one of the chairman of the board, Barron Channer, in Miami. And I resonated with what he was trying to do and I said, “Yeah, I want to do this.”

So if you look at the landscape of angel investing, it's not diverse and by consequence of that, the companies that are invested in is not diverse. And it may not be on purpose but subconsciously, people see the companies which have worked in the past, which we should have invested in, and they want to do that over and over and over again.

ROB
Our intentions are irrelevant in this. But look at this, Kevin. Like what--

KEVIN
Yeah, intentions are absolutely irrelevant.

ROB
It doesn't matter if they got the best intentions in the world. If you look to see what happens, the result is the same if it's intentional or it isn’t. I’m just looking at what's happening.

KEVIN
You've got your paradigm of… You've got your blindness on, “This is what I’m looking for. This is what’s worked in the past. This is what I’m going to do.”

ROB
Correct.

KEVIN
And then you have someone coming in that looks different, may talk a little bit differently, you're not really used to interacting with them, you may have the best intentions but what bears out is that they're not getting funded.

And for a lot of startup companies, if the average Black household has 10% of the average white household, we don't have in our community the means to have as much friends and family to help get people off the ground.

ROB
Sure. Exactly.

KEVIN
So then you have less capital helping companies. So all of this comes together and you have less startups. This is like a perpetual cycle. How do we break through that? Well--

ROB
Let’s run down that a little bit and I’ll let you finish your thought here. As a founder of color, how would you advise folks to go about navigating what you just said? The truth is some don't have the ability… most don't have the ability to raise from their friends and family network. So how do you go… Because usually, before people get to even the pre-seed stage, they've had some friends and family network help them… or their own net worth be able to prop up what they have. A lot of founders of color don't have that.

How would you advise them about starting the process? If they have a great idea, they feel they have it, how do they start about getting that funding or going about the process knowing that additional burden that's there? That makes sense?

KEVIN
Yeah. What you really want to do is validate your thesis. Validate your idea as best you can. Oftentimes, it's not a matter of money to do so. So let's say you want to--

ROB
Can you think of any practical example of that when you've seen that work, when folks didn't have a ton to work with but they were able to do their proof of concept pretty well and then have some level of success?

KEVIN
Test the market. I mean advertise on social media. Advertise on Facebook. Let's say you're selling a product. See how many people are interested in that product before you even build it. It doesn't cost a lot to do some minimal marketing. Talk to people

Unfortunately, most, if not all, founders are going to hold their idea closer to chest.

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
Right? But at the end of the day, you've got to realize how many thousands of people probably had the same idea. It’s more so execution.

ROB
Yeah.

KEVIN
And that's why investors are already investing in the founder and their ability to actually execute.

You might have the best idea but an idea is a dime a dozen. If you haven't validated your idea, if you haven't got as much traction as possible, it's going to be tough to get financing. So you want to try and validate it.

In general, if you've got an idea or you've got a proof of concept and you have revenues, why run to give away part of your company and get financing? Take it as far as you can, do what you can, and then look for financing because financing is like… That will be a second job for you. Forget your company. I mean trying to raise capital--

ROB
It's a full-time job just raising money.

KEVIN
It's a full-time job. You cannot underestimate how much effort it is. And then once you have the money, it's a full-time job managing it. And then once you have money, you've got to accelerate and then you need to get more money because that's how it works. It's not a simple road but validation is key. [Crosstalk] [Inaudible - 20:58].

ROB
Validation is key. So let’s say you've got some validation level and… I guess that's relative to what it is. You've got at least a gauge of interest where you show like, “Okay, we're going to have 5000 users here that have already done it in the first two months and it's ramping up by X amount.” What is the process then? What is the right process to go about raising capital from there because you, eventually, are going to likely have to raise some capital from some people. What's the right approach to go about finding that? And how do you see entrepreneurs or startups get it wrong about how they view their business when they're seeking funding?

KEVIN
There's different capital for different companies at different stages, right? Not all capital is the same and everybody's different. For example, let's say I have a business in Miami and it's doing great. I’m making millions of dollars. That doesn't mean that venture capital or angel capital is the right capital for your business.

If you take a step back, angels are typically investing in high growth companies. They're looking for a 20x exit because there's a high risk. So if I invest in 20 companies, more than 10 may fail. A couple, I may make my money back. A couple, I may make a little bit of money. And you're hoping there's going to be some which knock it out the park; which covers everything else and gives me a great return.

None of us can predict which companies are going to knock it out the park. I never predicted Tesla stock would be over a thousand. I never predicted Amazon would become what Amazon is. And those are just the big public things which are right in front of our faces. Never mind a startup, an idea of a little bit of validation and a little bit of traction or a minimal viable product. You don't know how far that's going to go.

ROB
Which is why a lot of this comes to relationships.

KEVIN
Absolutely.

ROB
Correct? Because it's not like you have a long period… It’s not like you’re trading on the stock market where you have a whole long proof of concept. Because even if you've shown some viability, as you said, it's still not going to be that much no matter what if you're talking about a startup because that's, by definition, a startup.

A statement that you said that’s very important to Black Angels Miami is that relationships are not transactional. Explain why that is a fundamental tenet for Black Angels Miami and why… I’m guessing that's a fundamental tenet for how you conduct yourself in life. Tell me more about that.

KEVIN
Yeah. I can talk to this as a founder because my mindset when I was looking for money was transaction. “Give me the money. Give me money so I can build my thing, make a company and do good things.”

ROB
Right.

KEVIN
A company needs a certain amount of money to survive and do well, absolutely. The real value is in the relationships that can be made beyond money. One conversation can change the trajectory of your company. One piece of advice could… or one introduction can change things significantly. If just writing a check to a company made things happen then plenty of companies out there will be doing well.

What good capital from great people does is bring in experience, expertise, connections, conversations that can help the company along instead of just being a transaction. That's just like saying, if you're a professional athlete and you make a million dollars, that everything's good. No. That’s just a transaction.

You then turn around and spend all that money in the wrong places and you didn't get any advice and then you're broke. It’s a rough analogy but the same things can happen with a business. Just getting the money is part of the equation. That’s just oil for the engine but that's not the rest of the car.

ROB
Right. It makes sense.

KEVIN
That's not going to get you from A to B. That will just get you down the road. What you need is a co-pilot. You need directions. You need somebody's expertise.

ROB
I think what you're getting at, too, if I could, is that a true relationship is not just a quid pro quo. Also beyond that, you've built up a level of trust. You built up a reputation that people begin to trust you so you can then extend that to really 10X, 20X because if people… People give you money but it's purely transactional. The minute that that transaction goes away, you won't be able to sustain that.

I’ll give you an example. I think about Apple. I think Apple is a good example of a company that… They're certainly transactional. They certainly made a lot of money. But they have a central “Why” in their mission. They're about disrupting the status quo to empower the individual user and they have always focused on that.

When they first started off -- Kevin, to your point -- it used to be that in order to have any traction in the market when you started with a mobile phone, you would have to go with the carrier. So they told the carriers that, “We want designed it this way.” And it was novel. It was novel the way that they designed the iPhone. And all the carriers said “No” except one which was AT&T which became the exclusive carrier. But had they gone with what you said -- just to be transactional, figure out, “Where is the best way we can get the most of our phones to go out there” -- they would have acquiesced and they wouldn't have been Apple. So I think it goes to, once you develop--

And Apple has a really loyal following. Those people that follow Apple follow them. And they, for the most part, follow their “Why” and their mission. So they looked at their relationship with their customers as not just purely transactional but as relational and as such, their customers are willing to overlook some things. Like sometimes, they charge more and do things. But they trust Apple, to your point. I think that's why relationships are so important.

KEVIN
In our first conversation, you talked about some of the things you're trying to do. You remember, I talked about the software products or this service. “Have you thought about X,” right?

ROB
Yep.

KEVIN
That just came out of nowhere but that was because you opened up and I was like, “Hey, you know what? Have you tried this out? Have you looked at this?” And that could then turn around and be really valuable to you, right?

ROB
Exactly.

KEVIN
Huge. Those simple little connections and conversations, that's not a transaction. That's not you saying, “Kevin, come on, talk” and then move on. Like, we talked…

ROB
Yes.

KEVIN
…about just being open. Now at Black Angels Miami, we're not just about just throwing… you know, just investing in companies. We’re trying to make a difference. And differences are not just… We're not a bank. We're a community and we're looking to help our community create wealth.

ROB
Kevin, pivoting a little bit, how do you think investors see this moment with COVID-19? Do they see some structural changes that are going to be a part of us or do they think this is just a temporary blip and then things will be back to where they were pre-COVID? How are they viewing this -- first question. The second question is, “How do you think entrepreneurs should be viewing this moment for their own long-term sustainable success?”

KEVIN
I've heard multiple different stances on this question so I’ll tell you what I think.

ROB
That's what I want. [Laughter]

KEVIN
Just as I’m talking to this computer, I’m talking to a camera, this is going to be more of the norm, more than any of us could imagine, as opposed to meeting in person. I think that's going to open up new opportunities because you can be anywhere. You could be in the same city, you could be across the country or you could be across the world. So the world has just gotten a little bit smaller.

Do I think this is going to be, as far as COVID-19, a long term change and disruptive for business? Potentially. What I’ve seen is that people are being much more careful with their cash flow.

ROB
Yes.

KEVIN
So if you don't have… Forget 12 months. If you're burning through cash, you're going to need more cash in the short term. You've got to change some things and you've got to cut the fat now.

ROB
Yes.

KEVIN
We can't wait to see how things are going because we don't know how it's going to go. If you had told me where we're going to be where we are now in July back in March, there's no way I would have thought what would have been. Absolutely not.

ROB
No one would have thought in 2020, yeah.

KEVIN
No way.

ROB
Dude, I wouldn't have thought this in February.

KEVIN
Well in February… I mean I saw it coming. Everybody saw it coming.

ROB
You saw it coming but no one thought it would be lasting this long. They thought it would be… I didn't think.

KEVIN
But how we have reacted as a country and all the politics there and--

ROB
Oh yeah. Well we can we could go down… You can listen to one of my shows on that if you want to hear that. -- Go ahead.

KEVIN
Right. So when I look at it as a whole, I think that this is going to get extended longer just by the way we reacted to it.

ROB
Right. Agree.

KEVIN
Then I would have pulled back in March. So 2020, is this going to change by end of the year? No.

ROB
No. I agree with that.

KEVIN
It's just not going to happen. But how far beyond that is going to go? I don't know.

ROB
I would say I agree with a lot of what you said right there, Kevin. I have a little bit of a nuanced take on it. I believe that COVID-19 was less of a disrupter. It's definitely been a disrupter for the short term. But I think it's more of an accelerator than it was a disrupter. And I say that because people weren't used to having--

I’ll give you an example with this podcast. I used to do some in-person. I used to do some virtually. And people used to always say, “Well let's just wait till we can do it maybe in-person.” But that has gone away. So now the barrier or entry has been lowered.

We're having a virtual summit, which I think you're going to be a part of, in September. We've been able to get so many people because people are now accepting that you can do this virtually. You always could do it virtually. But now people are saying, “Oh I can do this. I can get just as much work done.” And now we can connect with more people. So I think it accelerated trends.

We were going to go digital. I mean there's already been levels of how the entertainment's going to be. We know there's going to be augmented reality. I think those things are being accelerated now. And now people are getting used to seeing that they can do business this way.

You know what? You can network this way. I still like going in-person. But you know what, I’ve been able to extend my network in different ways because people are more open to this.

So I think people have to see this moment and pivot for what it is. And I do think once people get used to something, it's hard to change their behavior which is why it was hard to get people use virtual events. They liked interviews. But now all you can do is virtual events. So people are like, “I actually don't have to leave my home and I can still get things accomplished.”

So I do think we will have in-person events. I still want to go out and get a drink, be able to go to events, particularly Miami. I love Miami. People will also be accepting of the virtual environment. So I do believe businesses have to be thinking about how that's going to look now that we've now accelerated fully into the digital world. That's my perspective.

KEVIN
Yeah. In different segments of the economy, it is accelerating; moving at light speed. I mean who thought that I’ll be and everybody be getting groceries delivered and… You know, would I be buying a movie as opposed to going to the movie theater? There's just so many little things that is changing in our day-to-day lives. But with change comes opportunity.

ROB
Absolutely.

KEVIN
So embrace it. We've got to keep it moving, got to keep living and make things happen.

ROB
Yep. Going back on a point we made earlier about getting investors to understand the economic opportunity and diverse founders, this is… Glad to see all these tech companies say “Black lives matter,” blah-blah-blah, and then all of them announcing all of this money. When it comes from the point of view of--

And I had this conversation with Will Hayes who's the CEO of Lucidworks. When it comes to investment in Black and brown founders, I think we have to get people out of the mindset that this is some type of charity, some type of social responsibility. This is an economic opportunity for you, for your company and for others for many reasons.

One, the world is trending more diverse. Two, people that come from these backgrounds, you got to overcome more. So you know if a person has gotten to this level, they already have that certain level of grit because you have to go through more to be a diverse founder or to be in the position.

How are those conversations and mindsets being changed? Do you think people are starting to get it? How do we get people to understand from this point of view that “You're not helping us to give charity. This is not your charity handout. We're looking for an opportunity to help you make money and we want to make money in the process”?

KEVIN
Yeah. I mean what we do as an organization… We're not maybe a non-profit but we're not a--

ROB
And nothing wrong with charity. I’m not against charity but it’s not what this is.

KEVIN
Yeah, it’s not charity. Diverse leadership teams are more successful than non-diverse teams and that's just a fact. Woman-led companies always do better, right?

ROB
I believe it.

KEVIN
That's the fact. You can talk all of that talk but people have to actually be purposeful in making it happen. I think as more and more of it happens, your trend in the right direction, people get more comfortable with it. But many of the funds, companies, people are purposely saying, “I need diversity on my team” whether it's a person of color, whether it's a Black person, whether it's a woman. Hopefully, it's all of the above. Diverse teams do better.

And I think that people with different points of view come together and make better decisions as opposed to having groupthink. If everyone thinks the same then you're probably missing something. There’s strength in diversity. To ignore that is silly.

ROB
Yep. I’ve said this many times, “Diversity of thought, diversity of perspective and diversity itself is a strength” and people have to learn to embrace that. Again, if everybody thinks the same way, you are definitely missing something because everybody in the world doesn't think that way, right?

KEVIN
Yep.

ROB
Anyway, I want to have a final question as we get ready to wrap up. What do you feel success looks like for Black Angels Miami? What would success look like five-10 years from now?

KEVIN
Miami has become a sleeper haven for the startup community. We have, I think -- and this was probably March -- 38 different co-working spaces. There are many, many startups, many tech startups here, a lot of resources here.

When people think startups, they’re thinking San Francisco, the Valley. They’re thinking about New York, thinking about Boston, Austin, Atlanta. There's a lot of cities. But we're right there.

So as we rise, I want to see Black Angels Miami as part of that conversation. I would like to see us investing in companies in Miami. And we’ll invest anywhere in the country. But I want to be part of the ascendance of companies in Miami. And people say, “Whoa, what’s happened here--“

ROB
Especially outside of the west coast. I mean we got to go--

KEVIN
Yeah.

ROB
I love that fact that we got to look beyond the west coast. All the talent is not in San Francisco. All the talent’s not in LA. There's a lot of talent in Florida. There's a lot of talent here in Cincinnati, too.

KEVIN
If you're not in San Francisco and you're maybe not in New York or a couple other cities, does that mean you're stupid? I literally had a conversation lately saying, “When I think about Miami, I do not think about smart people.”

ROB
Wow.

KEVIN
That’s just like, “Wow. Okay.” You may not have the density of some of these other places but there are a lot of people down here, a lot of smart people down here just as there's a lot of smart people in the Midwest and all across this country. To dismiss a startup or a founder because they're not in a couple of places where it's more culturally ingrained, let’s say, it doesn't make any sense. And for anybody that's investing and only working in those places or only focused on those places, you're missing out. You're guaranteed to miss out.

ROB
I agree.

KEVIN
So why not take advantage of the opportunity and change your paradigm and look somewhere else? So for Miami, why start an investment group here -- because there's a lot of high net worth individuals. There's a very high percentage of Black people making up Miami.

And we want to get capital going to work because if you’re sitting on the sidelines, we're missing out. I think there's opportunity to create more wealth in the community by investing in more diverse founders who in turn will create great things and become angels themselves. Let’s turn this trend around a little and get more of us leading companies.

ROB
Amen to that. Innovation at its core is a rebellion against the status quo. And we need to do everything we can to disrupt this construct that is not inclusive of women; that is not inclusive of people of color.

It's the right thing to do and it will help more. It will disrupt more. We'll get more opportunities for more people. So it's the right thing to do and it will actually create great opportunities.

I appreciate having you on, Kevin. -- And until next time, we continue to disrupt common narratives and constructs. I’m Rob Richardson. -- Kevin, it was pleasure to have you on.

KEVIN
Happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

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