“I think all of this, actually, collectively, is the same. I think people are very adverse to taking risks. And because we have been restricted of resources for so long, that a lot of our parents will tell us, “Go get that job that's going to pay you X amount of money and be safe,” right?

ROB
Or “Get your education.”

TRAVIS
“Go to school. Go work for the government. Go get that job at Procter & Gamble or GE and you're just going to be safe. And just pray to God every night and thank Him the fact that you have that job and just hold on to it for as long as you can.”

ROB
Because from their view, that was seen as progress which makes sense if you come from that era.

TRAVIS
Exactly.” -- Rob Richardson with Travis Holoway

---------------------

ROB RICHARDSON
I’m sure you guys have seen the study. By 2053, if current trends continue, medium Black wealth will go to zero. Those are the projections.

We started Disruption Now really to disrupt these kind of narratives and constructs because I don't want to accept that. I don't think we have to accept that. And the only way to really change that is through entrepreneurship.

And there's a really great opportunity in this current climate when you look at the tech and you look at data. That's an opportunity that if you have the skill set, if you have the vision and if you have the drive, you can go and you can create that opportunity for yourself.

I believe this area is going to be the area that's going to help close the gap but we, as a community, have to be ready. That's why these conversations and that's why AfroTech and what AfroTech is talking about is so important.

So I want to actually talk more about that. I know, as a family, you guys have had generations of businesses which is… I would like that to be the rule instead of the exception.

KENTE SCOTT
That's part of the issue with our African-American communities. We don't have generational wealth even as back far as the Tulsa massacre. They call it, right -- the “massacre.”

ROB
Yeah, that was a massacre.

KENTE
We were building generational wealth and then outside forces came in and didn't want that generational wealth to pass down to the next generation.

ROB
It was a massacre and a robbery.

KENTE
Yes.

ROB
[That’s what - 02:07] they took.

KENTE
Same thing happened over in California. Our parents were a part of a collective of booming African-American businesses in the ‘80s, early ‘90s, mid-‘90s, right, when it was at the peak where Oakland was about to become the second chocolate city.

ROB
Right.

KENTE
Outside forces came in and shut it all down. So it's almost like they see us close to winning and they pushes us back because they know the power that we have that we don't even know we have.

ROB
That’s it. We don’t even know.

KENTE
We give away our stuff.

ROB
We give away.

KENTE
We give away everything. From culture to tech to entrepreneurial ideas, we give it away. Far back as the man who created… The man who created Jack Daniels Whiskey got the idea from a Black man. The Black man just gave it to him.

ROB
He did.

KENTE
We have graded ideas. They’re graded patents.

ROB
That's good.

SHONDA
There's a couple of things there. One, in that case with the Jack Daniels, he was not… Black African-American couldn’t have patentship.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
He was a slave.

SHONDA
Right, and he didn't have ownership. So a lot of the things that we created have been taken and taken credit with and built wealth on and we haven't been [crosstalk] [inaudible - 03:13]--

ROB
Shout out to the Black Bourbon Society. I actually had a podcast on them and talked about that, too.

SHONDA
But what's important as far as… It's fine to have entrepreneurship but if you have a business and people aren't supporting it, that's the problem. After slavery, we didn't have a choice. Everybody was about the community. When there was segregation, you had to spend money in African-American businesses because that's all you could go to. Now you have choices. Now we have to condition our generations that they have to spend money, strategically, in their community.

The reason why that number says in 2053 will be extinct financially because the way we spend. We spend $1.7 trillion as a culture but we spend six hours… Our dollar only last around six hours in our community where in the Asian and other community… Asian community is 30 days.

KENTE
30 days, yeah. [Crosstalk] [Good community businesses - 04:08].

SHONDA
So as soon as they get a dollar, it goes around for a month.

KENTE
Yeah.

SHONDA
The Jewish, no, it’s not. I think it's 15 days. And then the Hispanic community was 17 days and hours for our community.

KENTE
Right.

SHONDA
So we continue spending and not be strategic in how we spend our money. Like every business here should be overflowing... Every Black business here should have been overflowing with people here. 6,000 people just coming… New people coming without… And there’s 400,000 people in Oakland, so that's in addition to.

KENTE
Yeah.

SHONDA
We have to track and see how many Black businesses gain from that spend. So if we’re looking… could see the numbers in the businesses that are African-American-owned that are here in Oakland did not benefit to an astronomical amount from AfroTech then that is where we got to go back to the wheel because it's not just having the business, it's actually having us to spend in our businesses.

KENTE
A prime example is the Popeye’s chicken sandwich.

ROB
Oh lord.

KENTE
It exploded because everybody realized--

ROB
Black people started the trend. Black people start trends.

KENTE
Because Black people love chicken. A guy in Los Angeles was right across the street where they had an hour-and-a-half line and he went over with a sign. He said, “These people's chicken sandwich is not even as close as good as mine. I’m right across the street here and there's no wait.” So he had to go get some of the customers because--

ROB
They come?

KENTE
Yes, some of them came and some of them… But they didn't do the after part. Like they didn't #charlieschickensandwich. He didn't do that part so it never trended. Popeye’s chicken sandwich is okay. It's just chicken. It’s not better than any of the--

ROB
[Crosstalk] [Indiscernible - 05:35] that much.

KENTE
Yes. It’s not better than any of these mom-and-pop African-American diners that make chicken sandwiches forever, and you go, “Oh this is phenomenal” where Popeye’s makes it and we lose our minds and get behind it, wait an hour and a half for a $3 sandwich that's just a chicken sandwich.

ROB
I think it comes to changing our mindset…

KENTE
Yes.

SHONDA
Absolutely.

ROB
…because we, as a community, we're really good at protesting. I tell folks, “We could protest. We can have a march.” And I am for protest. There’s nothing wrong with protest. I think it's a necessary ingredient for systemic change. But one, we got to move past protest then you got a… Protest is nothing unless you have policy to actually implement something. But policy is not even sustainable unless you actually have economic empowerment.

KENTE
Exactly.

ROB
You own something. And really, making sure we align those as something we, as a community, still haven't done. And I think that's the next step -- understanding and changing our mindset because we've been told that the way we get saved, the way we get equalized is through education. That's also false.

KENTE
Mm-hmm.

ROB
Education is still important but what’s more important is to have a skill and understand entrepreneurship because that's how we really change narratives and we begin to change outcomes and then we begin to change our communities.

KENTE
Yeah. A couple of points on that. The protest has changed because we don't have a goal with our protest. That’s a protest target. Why?

ROB
And it’s reactive, too.

KENTE
And it's reactive. And what are we getting out of it? Colin Kaepernic has a great movement but what are we getting now, now that we have a platform? What is our message now? The bus boycott was, “We need equal rights. We're not going to use your buses until we're treated equally on your buses” and they stuck it out. Our protest now are, like you say, “reactionary.” And then two weeks-three weeks later, we're like, “Oh are we still protesting Gucci? I thought we were still mad.”

ROB
Right. Everybody forgot and then we get back to it.

KENTE
Yeah.

ROB
I actually want to bring Travis Holloway in who is really, I think, trying to disrupt an industry that has to be disrupted. Payday loans are really predatory to our community.

KENTE
My gosh.

ROB
They are, right?

KENTE
Yeah.
ROB
We’re talking about 3-4-500%. So this brother, and also Rodney Williams who's also been on the show, too, they both came up with this concept. And I’m going to let him come in. -- Come on here, man.

SHONDA
Well while he's coming in, I want to just explain to the audience what's happening here. Because of AfroTech and it’s in Oakland, we decided What Sibling Rivalry to partner with Disruption Now and have a mash up show for AfroTech Weekend here in Oakland.

We're here at Liege Lounge which is a Black-owned establishment in Oakland filming this live, so we're on Facebook Live as well. All of that ties into Black entrepreneurship and cultivating it in multiple generations.

Our family is four generations of entrepreneurs. Our great-grandfather was out of slavery. He was a son of a slave and a slave owner and he became a developer in Denver, Colorado. In 1926, he built a cabin. It's still in our family this day.

ROB
Oh wow.

SHONDA
We did a show with our matriarch of our family and our dad and his siblings -- she’s 95 -- to tell us how they were able to keep that… just that piece of property in the family.

ROB
I’ll tell them [not to - 08:57] give up the property.

SHONDA
Right. And they strategically kept it, passing it down and passing it down. So it's all in the family for multi-generations, that they have to continue to pass it down in the legacy. So that's how we can, as a people, continue to--

I met a group of people in Chicago. They’re four generations businesses. They're like two families that have been in business in Chicago for four generations and they did the same thing. So it's a strategy that we have to have.

So you're going to talk to us about leveraging equity and--

ROB
Well beyond that, it’s about… because I think… And I’ll let Travis speak. But as kind of transition… You know, you are very fortunate. That’s a fortune.

SHONDA
Blessing.
ROB
That’s a blessing. And that's not a common story in the Black community. We should celebrate it. We should celebrate the fact that you were able to do that. I don't have the same exact story but my parents definitely built a legacy for me, for me to be able to be here. This is why I have that ability. I want to make sure more people have that.

One of the issues, and why you see that trend with Black wealth trending towards zero when it comes to medium net worth, a lot of it is because of debt.

KENTE
Oh yes.

ROB
A lot of it, right? This brother actually looked at that. He was a financial planner, I believe, before that. They're actually trying to create an ecosystem -- I’m going to let him explain that -- to disrupt all that and really disrupt the payday loan industry. I think that's really awesome. -- So you just talk a little bit about why you think SoLo… SoLo Funds, right?

TRAVIS
Yes.

ROB
SoLo Funds is the platform. Why is that so important and what do you want to change through SoLo Funds?

TRAVIS
I think that SoLo is important primarily because our communities have been ravaged by the effects of predatory lending.

KENTE
Yes.

SHONDA
Absolutely.

ROB
Absolutely.

TRAVIS
When you look at Black and brown communities, specifically, who are subject to an average of 400% interest rates--

ROB
400%.

TRAVIS
Yes. That’s the average.

ROB
Average?

TRAVIS
Yeah. The average is 400%. The problem is, is that that is one of our only options, right? If you need access to small dollar loans, it doesn't matter how long you've been a JP Morgan Chase customer or a Bank of America customer, if you had [indiscernible - 11:06] and get $300 short, those institutions will not lend you that type of capital.

ROB
And not only that, if you’re out of money, they’re going to charge you more capital.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So yeah, you talk about payday lending and then you also talk about overdraft fees. It cost you $36 to overdraft by $1. You're talking about thousands of percent…

KENTE
Oh yeah.

TRAVIS
…when you actually look at the effects of--

ROB
High cost problem.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So it's very expensive to be poor, to your point. With that said, my co-founders and I, we were having these experiences. What this company really derives from is that we were having these personal experiences where people would ask us for small dollar loans. And when I talk about the lack of resources, typically, friends and family are the top ways that you would solve a short-term cash, under $1,000, specifically. I’m sure we probably all know the effects of friends and family borrowing money.

KENTE
“Can I come to the cookout?”

ROB
That’s it. There's pressure when you're the first to make it and you're seen as… whatever -- rich, wealthy, relatively speaking, even if you don't feel that way.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
To people in your community, you look that way. And then there's pressure, kind of a survivor's guilt, to figure out how we get back. I’m not saying we shouldn't do that but then… Kind of like the analogy is, if you're going down the plane, you got to put on the oxygen mask first.

TRAVIS
Exactly. Exactly.

ROB
Right? So I think your ecosystem is helping to do that and figure out ways to empower people, too, because I’m sure everyone that's been successful in any way has gone through that.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
So reframing the narrative about how we do this and make people understand this is how we create long-term sustainable wealth for our community.

TRAVIS
Exactly. You know, one of the unique things about being an African-American is that oftentimes, especially with… How many of us are first-generation college students? You guys have a long family legacy which is incredible. It's also inspiring and something that I want to create for my family.

A lot of times, you can be 23 years old and be the most successful person in your family. And because I wore a suit and carried a briefcase every day, people would automatically come to me for these loans. I remember when my co-founder raised his Series B and I remember reading the tagline of how much he raised… Our communities aren’t very familiar with venture.

ROB
Exactly. They’re like, “$30 million? Oh wait. Can I get half?”

TRAVIS
In their heads, that means that you have that money in your bank.

ROB
Exactly -- that you have $30 million in the bank, yeah.

TRAVIS
That’s not how it works.

SHONDA
Now is it app that you have?

TRAVIS
Yes.

SHONDA
How are you raising money from the friends and... How does that work?

TRAVIS
Exactly. Essentially, we wanted to create a way for people to not borrow from friends and family because of how stressful and strenuous that is on personal relationships. So we said that there should be an open marketplace created to where anyone can lend or borrow amongst anyone in the country.

My background, again, is in financial planning and what I realized is that my average client was making between $250 and $500,000 a year and that no one was calling the person who made $80,000 or $90,000 dollars a year.

Now that person may live in Kansas City where the cost of living is extremely low and that person has a lot of discretionary cash. Those people are often looking for places to invest their capital to earn returns but they don't know how.

So what happens is those assets just lie dormant and they don't make any returns on that capital. So what we said is, “Could we find a way to unlock those assets in that capital and pair it with these individuals who need access to small dollar capital, where this person can actually earn industry-leading returns on the linked capital?” On the flip side, this person could solve their short-term cash needs more affordably than ever.

So we are delivered in a mobile application where borrowers actually set their own terms because, again, predatory industry that we wanted to disrupt. So we allow borrowers to create their own terms. So imagine a single mother who's living in Oakland who may need $100 to pay her utility bill, she can actually come in to this platform and post how much money she needs. She just needs $100 and she can repay on the 15th of the month because that's her payday. She needs the money for a utility bill. And as an appreciation to whoever helps her, she will throw in, let's say, 5% or a $5 tip. And then for the SoLo platform, we earn a donation -- so let's say that she does a $3 donation to SoLo or 3%.

So essentially, at the onset of the transaction, a lender says, “I’m going to lend them $100. There's a debit from the lender’s bank account and credit directly to the borrower's account. It happens real time. So that borrower now has $100 of real time capital to use. No matter if it's Sunday, Saturday, it's immediate.

SHONDA
And the lender has to agree to the terms of the borrower has--
TRAVIS
Exactly. It's a marketplace, right? So if the lender doesn't like your terms, they just don't fund your loan. They go to a different loan in the marketplace that are more favorable --maybe the terms are more favorable for that individual. So--

KENTE
Now… I didn’t mean to cut you. What is the difference between that and a crowdsourcing like GoFundMe?

TRAVIS
So the difference is typically with a platform like that, it takes a lot longer to get your money. Our average loan is funded within two hours because only one person is lending you the money. When you're crowdfunding, you need a bunch of individuals to commit to your specific transaction and it takes a lot longer. So on those platforms, it may take you days for your loan to be funded. We're talking about hours. And because we do transfer the funds in real time, you actually are able to go solve your cash needs the same day.

ROB
And I think GoFundMe is… I don't think those are loans either.

TRAVIS
They're also not loans.

ROB
They’re not loans.

TRAVIS
Yeah. Those are essentially gifts, saying, early on… That’s a good point. Early on, investors would say, “Travis, I don't think people are going to lend strangers money” and I said, “Well they're giving money away every day on GoFundMe” -- giving it away.

ROB
Yeah. And people said the same thing about Uber. “Nobody's going to jump on a stranger’s car.”

TRAVIS
On a stranger’s car, exactly.

ROB
Everybody’s doing it.
TRAVIS
Exactly. You talk about disruption and the fact that we haven't really put technology behind our ideas but I can go to the Pathmark 125th Street in New York… Actually, they just closed but I could go there or any other grocery store in New York City and I walk outside and there's some random person with a Lincoln Town Car who's going to say, “You need a taxi? I’ll give you a ride.” That was Uber before Uber. Uber put technology behind that but these gypsy cabs have been around forever. And it's unfortunate that we have these ideas but we never capitalized on the real opportunities.

ROB
Well talk about how that works because I think that’s the mind of an entrepreneur versus an employee. There’s two questions. One, what's your mindset every day in order to survive as an entrepreneur that's different from just being a worker? -- That's one. And then how do you go about moving forward and just executing on an idea? People have ideas all the time but there's probably something that's stopping them. What advice can you give them? -- So those two-part questions.

TRAVIS
So on the first part of that, I think that… I think all of this, actually, collectively, is the same. I think people are very adverse to taking risks. And because we have been restricted of resources for so long, that a lot of our parents will tell us, “Go get that job that's going to pay you X amount of money and be safe,” right?

ROB
Or get your education.

TRAVIS
“Go to school. Go work for the government. Go get that job at Procter & Gamble or GE and you're just going to be safe. And just pray to God every night and thank Him the fact that you have that job and just hold on to it for as long as you can.”

ROB
Because from their view, that was seen as progress which makes sense if you come from that era.

TRAVIS
Exactly. My father worked at General Motors for 37 years and it worked out for our family. It was very helpful. But the mind of an entrepreneur is there's so much risk and there's also… You have to be a lot more selfless, right, because when payroll is due and you don't have the money--

ROB
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SHONDA
Right.

TRAVIS
Who doesn’t get paid first, right?
ROB
It’s you.

TRAVIS
Yeah, exactly. So a lot of people aren’t willing to take on that type of sacrifice.

SHONDA
And I always say this, too. I mean I think it's important to cultivate entrepreneurship in our younger generation and then people for… Like if they can monetize their passion, that's wonderful. But everybody isn’t made for entrepreneurship and it's okay. You don’t want to take--

ROB
And most don’t, actually.

SHONDA
Right.

ROB
It’s okay, too.

TRAVIS
Right.

SHONDA
It’s a lot. Right. It’s just as fulfilling as it is stressful. Everything has stress but if you can’t deal with the stress that comes with owning your own business and be responsible for livelihoods and people's livelihoods and all the other responsibilities then it's fine. You go work somewhere where you feel… but don't go with the misconception that you have the security--

ROB
But everybody... That’s true.

SHONDA
This misconception of that being a secured place.

ROB
But everybody can be an owner. Everybody can’t be an entrepreneur but everyone can be an owner.
SHONDA
They could.

ROB
For example, you can have an opportunity to invest as a lender; you can have an opportunity to make… because that has to be the mindset. Change the mindset about wealth. You are not wealthy because you have a job that pays you a lot of money. You are not. You are only wealthy if you have assets…

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
…period.

KENTE
Even as an employee, you have ownership of your talents as you work for that company.

ROB
Exactly.

KENTE
We’ve been too long… Like, “I work for the company so I’ll just give these ideas away.” No. You can advance in that company by owning, “This is what I’m bringing to the table and this is how valuable I am to it.”

SHONDA
Or you could do both. You can all have a business while you’re working for another entity.

KENTE
Exactly.

SHONDA
So that’s what you may have done while you were first starting off.

TRAVIS
I wish. [Laughter]

SHONDA
Oh you just jumped all in, too?

TRAVIS
No.
SHONDA
I don’t think you would [crosstalk].

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [20:39]
TRAVIS
The real story is I didn’t really know how this world worked. I was in traditional finance. I didn’t really know what “venture capital” really was and how that system really worked. At the end of the day, I thought that we had this really strong idea and I would keep my fulltime job where I was making a very comfortable pay and I would go pitch to investors and they would say, “This is great” and they would just give me money and then I would leave.

SHONDA
They work that way? That sound like a perfect plan. [Crosstalk].

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [21:12]

TRAVIS
Not at all.

KENTE
All the credits.

ROB
Let me guess. There was a bunch of “Nos” before that, right?

TRAVIS
It was a bunch of “Nos.” And the “Nos” were very confusing to me because they would tell me they really liked the idea and that they would lean in and do it but then they would ask me one question and the question would be, “Are you full-time on this,” and when I would say “No,” they would politely say, “Let me know when you’re serious.”

It took me about a year and a half to really realize that, “Unless I do this full-time and I jump in, I give this everything that I have, it's not going to work out.” It took me a year and a half and I raised $0 and then after committing to going full-time, I raised $250,000 within like two weeks.

SHONDA
Wow.

KENTE
Before they invest in you until they see that you’re invested in your--

TRAVIS
Exactly. And I understand it because when I wasn't working full time, I would be excited about things that don't matter. Oh I have a redesign of a pitch deck and that was like a win for the week. You didn’t do anything, right? You’re not making any real progress.

And until my back was against the wall and I realized that, “If I don’t figure this out, I don’t eat,” it became a different level of cash… Not even cashing but just work ethic.

SHONDA
Let me ask you a technical question. Like you say, a lot of entrepreneurs -- some of us at this table -- have some great ideas. But how did you connect with the tech side -- the app side and all of that?

TRAVIS
I’m not technical by trade at all. What I realized is that I could explain what I wanted to happen very well. And I think that when you get into technology and you don’t come from a technical background, you have to be able to explain very clearly what you want.

You know, developers speak in very direct and black-and-white way. You can tell someone to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You put the peanut butter on a bread. You put the jelly in a bread. But someone could literally give you two slices of bread and put a jar of peanut butter on one and a jar of jelly on the other and say, “Well I gave you the peanut and jelly sandwich.” That’s how developers think. They’re like, “I gave you this,” right? And when you get the actual product, it’s not at all what you want. But they’re like, “But I gave you what you asked for.”

ROB
Yeah. Exactly -- A-B.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So I had to learn how to talk and speak to developers. One, it’s a very difficult thing to do but mentors and other people who have been doing this for a long time have really helped with that.

ROB
Your co-founder said something on one of our prior shows -- he probably told you this -- Rodney Williams of LISNR and of SoLo Funds -- that the most important thing entrepreneurs have is learning how to learn. So that’s what you’ve been doing.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
That’s your most important skill. If you can do that and solve problems, you can be an entrepreneur.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

SHONDA
How does the lender find you and how does the borrower find you?

TRAVIS
So primarily, our acquisition strategy has been social media. Facebook and Instagram have been two of our biggest acquisition channels and also the most cost-effective. So social media is very big to us.

SHONDA
What are your social media?

TRAVIS
We are @solofunds -- so S-O-L-O F-U-N-D-S. @solofunds on Instagram, Twitter…

KENTE
That was going to be [inaudible - 24:30].

TRAVIS
…as well as Facebook. We’re on Facebook as well.

SHONDA
So like someone looking to find money will go to you and then if I’m interested in lending money, I’ll just go to that and you’ll link me up.

TRAVIS
Yes. So download the app. We’re on iOS currently. So you go to the App Store and type in “SoLo Funds.” It will pop up. But essentially, if you’re a lender, you come in to the platform and you’re able to lend with really no barrier to entry. The smallest one in the platform is $50. So essentially, your barrier to entry is having $50 of discretionary cash to lend.

KENTE
Is there a ceiling on--

TRAVIS
There’s a ceiling on loans, currently, which is $500. Eventually, we will go up to $1000 for these loans. But currently, we’re capped at $500.

KENTE
And how do you protect the lender in terms of securing their funds and all of that? Is there a way that you do that?

TRAVIS
Yeah. So currently, it is a one-to-one transaction. On the agreed upon repayment date, there’s an automatic debit from the borrower’s account. Typically, when you lend money to friends and family, they have that convenient amnesia when it’s time to pay.

SHONDA
Right.

ROB
“What? I owe you? Really?”

TRAVIS
Exactly. There’s no terms around any of that. There’s no structure around those loans in most people that you know. Basically, when they select those repayment dates, it’s automatic.

ROB
So the next time you want to make your cousin a loan, go through SoLo Funds. -- Go ahead.

SHONDA
Yeah, right.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

KENTE
I’m going to back up a little bit now.

TRAVIS
Yeah.

KENTE
How do we do it… because you’ll have folks that will be like, “Yeah, I got into this account” and then they close that account. So in that case, how does the lender get their money?

TRAVIS
We’re essentially looking at seasoned accounts. Essentially, what we’ve created is a one-time per transaction credit score. We believe that the underbanked demographic and the millennial demographic, specifically, and also future generations to come, are being mispriced from a credit standpoint. And it's primarily because traditional institutions are looking at historical data of, “Have you ever bought a house? Have you ever bought a car? Do you use credit cards?” And if you don't fit that demographic or you don't fit those metrics and qualifications then typically, you're unable to borrow.
And when you live in large metropolitan areas, especially as expensive as the Bay Area is, as you can see, Los Angeles, people usually don't own their own home. Then New York doesn’t need a vehicle. And people aren't using credit cards the way that prior generations have. So with that said, it used to be normal to be 30 years old and be married, have a home, two cars and one and a half kids. That's no longer the case.
So if an individual grew up in New York City and now lives in Kansas City, they may come there and not have any of those traditional metrics that you'll be looking for -- never bought a house, never bought a car, didn't use credit cards.

We're looking at their borrowing activity within our platform to look at their ability to repay those small dollar short-term loans, really with the angle of providing a path to upward financial mobility to where they can now go get a traditional loan from a traditional institution and be able to say, “Travis is more creditworthy than you believe because he's been taking loans in this platform, paying them back on time for the last year. Give him his first credit card with a small dollar credit limit” or “Give him more favorable interest rate on a car loan because he is more creditworthy than you actually think.” So that's essentially how we look at the opportunity here for SoLo.

ROB
Final question: What does success look like for SoLo Funds 10 years in the future? What does look like?

TRAVIS
For us, I think it is the ability to graduate people from this platform. Fortunately but unfortunately, we're dealing with a demographic that we will never run out of. There will always be people who need access to small dollar capital.

KENTE
Right.

TRAVIS
It does us no disservice to take you from where you are today and get you to a better place financially to where you actually don't need to borrow from SoLo anymore. In an ideal world, you would leave this platform as a borrower and come back as a lender and pay it forward which is exciting to us.

But essentially, what we are is a data company and we look at our ability to be able to take this demographic of people who have been essentially deemed un-creditworthy, even though we believe that they are, and essentially give them a voice and give them a financial picture to where we can actually say, “Hey, this person is more creditworthy than you think.” And using that data to empower our communities to continue to move forward from a financial perspective is ultimately the goal.

ROB
Well look, we appreciate you being on both Disruption Now and What Sibling Rivalry. By the way, we’re going to have Travis Holoway, eventually, at a more in-depth, about an hour-long interview on Disruption Now sometime in the future. We’re working on that date. Looking forward to it. And we appreciate you coming on.

TRAVIS
Awesome. Thank you so much.

SHONDA
Yeah. Thanks for coming to Oakland, too, and hear about your project.

TRAVIS
Of course. It’s amazing. Oakland has a very strong culture that I wasn't aware of until I got here. You got it. Don’t lose it.

SHONDA
That’s what I tell everybody. I said, “They say New York is what you need to make it there, you can make it anywhere, really, it’s Oakland.” Oakland doesn’t have all the other stuff but if you... Even AfroTech, they blew up so much being in Oakland here than even in San Francisco because San Francisco conference like this size is like, “Okay, we have that all the time.”

TRAVIS
Exactly.

SHONDA
Oakland will put [??your - 29:46] arms around you. It’s like, “Come to town.” It's like everybody's focused on… So much media and attention. That’s what happens with everything that happens in Oakland.

TRAVIS
I’ve never been here for tech the last three years and this year seems so much bigger -- the number before.

KENTE
Because all of the East Bay will come. Like all of Oakland, they tell all their friends, as far away as any I can… Pittsburg and Stockton because it's the opportunity. Well if Oakland has it…

TRAVIS
Yes.

KENTE
…we’ll check it out.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
Absolutely.

TRAVIS
Exactly. Well thank you so much.

SHONDA
You’re welcome. Thank you.

ROB
I appreciate you coming on.

TRAVIS
All right, bye-bye.

ROB
By the way, you ca catch us on YouTube.

[Applause]

KENTE
Oh we have a live audience.

SHONDA
We have a live audience, too.

ROB
It’s live. Oh everybody out there. I love this.

SHONDA
We’re not going only on Facebook Live, we also have a live audience here at Liege Lounge. You could still come down. And they’re open all throughout AfroTech Weekend.

ROB
Keep it going. By the way, as we transition to What Sibling Rivalry, I just want to tell people, the example of what Travis Holoway showed us, is that… You know, nobody is coming to save us. Nobody is coming. Superman is not coming. Ironman is not coming. The Hulk is not coming. Wakanda is not coming. Nobody is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves. We have to create these platforms. We have to create these opportunities because it’s not going to happen any other way.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
I think that’s one example. But there are more than one Travis Holoway. If he can do it, others can do it, too. We just got to get past this mindset. We got to get past the fear and we have to change how we go about these problems and change our perspectives and I know we can.

SHONDA
Also these are where we air in our podcast. What Sibling Rivalry podcast is on Apple podcast and Spotify. But also on our YouTube, you’ll be able to see it again if you’re having a hard time hearing it on Facebook Live. We’ll be able there to air it again.

ROB
It will be on Disruption Now. You can go to disruptionnow.com. It will be on YouTube. Anywhere you listen to podcast, we are available. Please subscribe.

Look, we want to really disrupt these constructs and narratives particularly around Black people and people of color because we have to do this. Actually, it’s not just best for African-Americans, people of color, it’s better for America. When we close the racial income inequality gap, it’s going to help the whole United States. The GDP goes up for everybody.

SHONDA
Oh right.

ROB
It’s a win-win.

KENTE
A win-win. Everybody wins.

SHONDA
But then [inaudible - 31:55] with African-American… anything that has helped Black people has helped everybody.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
Yeah. Correct.

SHONDA
I can’t think of anything that’s helped just Black people and no one else has been helped. I mean everything that has helped us, everybody has benefited from.

ROB
I would argue others have benefited more.

SHONDA
[Crosstalk] [Indiscernible - 32:10]. In the case of integration, right.

ROB
Yeah. So rights movement--

SHONDA
It actually opened up doors and benefit others and hurt ourselves.

ROB
Yeah. Something you said, I can say, really kind of moved me earlier when you were discussing the Popeye’s chicken. My mother used to own a restaurant. She owned a restaurant right here and then right across her restaurant was actually a nightclub and it was a white-owned establishment and Black people go to it.

KENTE
Of course.

ROB
Every night, Black people will line up, blocking the door--

SHONDA
To the other place?

ROB
Yes.

SHONDA
Corridor?

ROB
Yes. And wait and then not getting [entertained or food - 32:49] which is crazy because a lot of our clients -- actually, it was the first job I had as a waiter there -- were not Black. They were white. We have to value us.

KENTE
Exactly. And we put these astronomical ideals on what we think Black business to serve us that we don’t accept anywhere else. Like if you go to a Black beauty supply store, you expect them to come to the door, never have attitude, be perfect and all their prices to be half off.
ROB
Right.

KENTE
But you go to another beauty supply store, they can talk to you in any way. It’s documented on social media. They can cuss you out. They can spit at you and you will go back [crosstalk] [inaudible - 33:28].

ROB
And you accept it…

KENTE
Yeah.

ROB
…because it’s learned…

KENTE
It’s a learned behavior.

ROB
…learned behavior, learned helplessness. We have to learn to support each other. We have to learn to support our community. -- We have a lively crowd here.

KENTE
Yeah.

ROB
We have to learn to support our own community and understand our values. We talk about trends. Black people really do create trends. Nearly everything -- hip-hop.

KENTE
Yes, everything -- rock and roll, jazz.

ROB
Yeah -- all that stuff. Hip-hop started in New York and now is a global pheno… There are kids in Asia that are making multi-million dollars.

KENTE
Can’t speak a word of English but know every rap song lyrics word-for-word.

ROB
Yeah. And some of them are artists there.

KENTE
Oh yes.

ROB
You know, emulating something that they shouldn’t like… A lot of them say the N-word, stuff like that. That’s the [inaudible - 34:10] of the podcast. But we start trends but it’s about making sure the money comes to us, just doesn’t flow through us.

KENTE
Through us, yeah.

ROB
And that’s what we got to figure out how to change and change our mindset and change how we really go about entrepreneurship.

SHONDA
Now that’s the tradition be a tag -- about the money that comes through us. What is it? “Money that comes…?”

ROB
Instead of “flowing through us,” it comes “to us.” That’s what it is.

KENTE
Yeah, that should be, exactly.

ROB
That’s what happens. There is -- because that’s really the key. We change that, we change everything.

KENTE
Right. Now that we’re switching up a little bit, tell us a little about what you’re doing in Ohio to kind of make this happen in your community?

ROB
Beyond the podcast, I do have a media company. I believe media is so important. It’s a media and tech company. If you get a chance… I encourage everybody to go on, if they have a Netflix account, to watch “The Great Hack.” The Great Hack is the true story about how your data, my data, our data was taken and weaponized against us and used against us in a way that people didn’t see.

In 2016, people know what happened in the election. A lot of people don’t appreciate the fact that that data was pulled and that was used to algorithms and other things to influence behavior.

I’ll give you a quick example. Cambridge Analytica, which is the data company, they worked all across the world. But where it really mattered was they worked in Trinidad first. Trinidad has the Indian population and the Black population.

KENTE
Right. Correct.

ROB
Long story bearable, they worked for the Indian-side. And the only way the Indian candidate could win is if enough Black people didn’t vote.

KENTE
Yeah. They [chose to - 35:50] stay at home.

ROB
So they started a fake campaign. It went viral and it worked. So they took that same strategy and they applied it here and that worked and that influenced people not to vote.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
And they actually were trying to anger white people. They would pay Black martial artists to go on to say, “Okay, as long as you post in the neighborhood… Take those posts and then send them to certain white people to make people think like, “Oh Black people are coming to get you”” and that really got people angry and sparked. I say all that to say we have to understand media and how it’s working, particularly in this new day and age, how Facebook works, and that we live in a world where you get to believe whatever you want to believe.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
If you want to believe that Barack Hussein Obama came from another country and was implanted here…

KENTE
Was a Muslim.

ROB
…was a Muslim, you will have content come to you over and over and over and you will believe that and that will be your reality. We have to disrupt that.

SHONDA
Oh this is, okay, disruption we’re talking about.

ROB
And that’s what we’re trying to do because we have to disrupt tech and disrupt media if we’re really going to talk about changing the narratives and changing the outcomes. So that’s what we’re looking to do.

KENTE
That’s great.

SHONDA
Now we’re switching.

ROB
How are you doing?

MARCUS KING
When l you said “Disrupt,” I wanted to come right here.

SHONDA
Then you came right here.

ROB
Yeah.

SHONDA
But of course. That’s how the script is written. So our next guest is Marcus King. He is from Oakland as well.

KENTE
Oakland is all.

SHONDA
Oakland-native, also an award-winning executive producer. He produced the film “Ray” -- Jamie Foxx show.

ROB
Oh wow.

SHONDA
He’s done great stuff in entertainment, to put Oakland on the map in ways we hadn’t been on the map before; always thinks about Oakland. But now he’s moving his expertise into tech. And we want to talk about that because we’re talking about how artists and people who have passion aren’t monetizing their content. So Marcus is going to talk to us about a concept called iStar which will help people start monetizing.

So this will be one of the last few shows you’ll see on us for YouTube because of that reason; because once you put your content on YouTube and Facebook, you actually compromise your ability to control it. You now have shared it with the entity that could use your content and actually monetize it for their benefit and not give you anything from it.

KENTE
What she had shared, we’re breaking news right there. We’re moving on.

SHONDA
So in What Sibling Rivalry, we’re talking about all things Oakland but we’re also about entrepreneurship. And also, since this is AfroTech, it’s tech, Black entrepreneurship and also cultivating that in the next generation.

KENTE
Marcus, you’re like all of that. You’re like Black entrepreneurship and tech all rolled into one. So I want to ask -- I’ve never asked you this and I know your fears -- how did you get into being… You started as an entertainment manager. What drove you to that?

MARCUS
I really was a concert promoter.

SHONDA
Oh that’s where he started.

MARCUS
I really was producing my own shows… my own live shows. And I had to be a manager in order to kind of level my talent up a little bit so they could, you know, please the audience.

KENTE
Okay.

MARCUS
So I got kind of good [inaudible - 38:47] into managing.

KENTE
You got pulled in.

MARCUS
Yeah, a little bit.

KENTE
Okay. Well it worked out. [Kind of neat to me - 38:51].

MARCUS
Are these cups really?

SHONDA
Yeah. Yeah, you can take one home.

ROB
Yeah. Look, they got us this cup. They’re awesome.

MARCUS
A souvenir.

[CROSSTALK – INDISCERNIBLE] [38:55]

ROB
What Sibling Rivalry, yeah.

SHONDA
Branding, right?

MARCUS
All right. I thought it was like--

KENTE
You didn’t [inaudible - 39:01] which you’ve always been.

SHONDA
You’re right.

MARCUS
And the bar is like… It’s like you’re in an island and you see land right there because the bar is right there but you can’t reach it. -- I’m sorry. Go ahead.

KENTE
You got to use your tech. Tech somebody.

MARCUS
Automatically have the one--

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [39:16]

ROB
So you’re paying creators… This interest both of us because we’re both content creators, so I’m curious to see how that will work. I guess YouTube isn’t your competition because YouTube is… You’re giving your stuff away for free. But they also have, I guess, a certain amount of users. How do you overcome that?

MARCUS
Well conceptually, I think it’s more of if you think your content is worth something, people that really want to follow you and like you and love your content, should they pay for it? And it’s a nominal fee. Our platform is $1.99 so it’s palatable for the audience. YouTube, the only problem with that is… And I’m always artist-friendly. That’s how I started in the business is being an artist-friendly and that’s why a lot of artists exploit me but that’s another story.

SHONDA
That’s a whole new film.

MARCUS
Yeah. That’s not for AfroTech. But the great thing about it is you want to own your content. If you create something, [we in the world know - 40:14] that we don’t have to give our content away to the studios and the big corporations…

ROB
Yeah, true.

MARCUS
…is that we can own our content and monetize it ourselves. So it’s disruptive in a sense that you’re going to have millions of corporations out there that are starting their own businesses. And then that’s disruptive, not that we’re trying to put the big dogs to rest but we’re trying to give the puppies a chance to grow.

ROB
But I see a challenge, and I’d like to ask you about, because it seems like the world is so used to free though. How many podcasts are there? Like 700,000 now?

MARCUS
Mm-hmm.

ROB
So there’s so much your competition, I’d say, as a content creator, that people are giving their content away for free. How does your platform compete with that? I love the concept because I’d love to not give away content for free. So I’m all ears.

MARCUS
I don’t think it’s a competition. I don’t think it’s… In terms of the two platforms with iStar is no competition because… No disrespect to YouTube but YouTube basically is--

ROB
You can. It’s okay.

MARCUS
Can I say it?

ROB
Yeah, you can say whatever you want. [Crosstalk]--

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [41:19]

SHONDA
This is a podcast.

ROB
This is Disruption Now. Go for it.

KENTE
[Inaudible - 41:24].

SHONDA
We want you to be honest.

MARCUS
So being here from Oakland… You’re from Oakland as well?

SHONDA
No. He’s from Ohio.

ROB
But [inaudible - 41:28].

MARCUS
Let me tell you… From what part of Ohio?

ROB
Cincinnati.

MARCUS
Cinci-nasty-nati.

ROB
Oh wow. I’m impressed.

MARCUS
Come on, man.

SHONDA
Well he’s a promoter. He’s been all around the world.

MARCUS
So since we’re talking about the nasty-nati, let’s talk about Oakland--

ROB
Shout out to UC. By the way, homecoming, we won the day. -- Go. Sorry.

MARCUS
Don’t do that.

KENTE
Don’t do that, man. [Laughter]

SHONDA
You’re in Oakland. [Inaudible - 41:49].

MARCUS
This is kind of like the pimp game. If you want to continue to be pimped out by YouTube and give… because you’re desperate and you just want to be seen and you just want somebody to notice you then go home and get a hug. But if you want to monetize your content and leverage it in a way that is valuable… because when I used to go to the movies or wherever I went, I had to pay for it.

ROB
Right.

MARCUS
And I wanted to pay for it and I wanted to be a part of something that’s growing because that’s the expression of art that I appreciate. So if we want to pay for these artists… They don’t always have to starve. And they have to get that concept out of their head that they’re starving artists.

ROB
Yep. Hey, I’m with you.

KENTE
How can an artist who doesn’t have a lot of followers… because, you know, we are looking for “Likes” as artists in social media. How do they use those “Likes” to convert them into subscribers?

MARCUS
You know what? I’m the furthest from tech. This is so weird that I’m leveraging a tech business. But I’m the furthest from a tech person -- the “Likes” and all that stuff. I just think people pay for your content. So if you go to the theater and see a movie, are you a “Like” to that movie or you just want to see the movie?

KENTE
Yeah.

MARCUS
So I don’t believe in… I think they’ve put a lot of words around “tech” to make it complicated for us to access.
SHONDA
Right.

ROB
Yeah.

MARCUS
So when you talk about… people say… No disrespect to the podcast but what is a podcast? It’s not a new medium -- radio or television or film. It’s just content that you put on a device. I’m sure Apple is happy.

SHONDA
Right.

ROB
They must be thrilled.

MARCUS
What’s Jacuzzi? If I say, “Let’s go jump in a Jacuzzi…” Jacuzzi is a hot tub.

KENTE
Yeah.

MARCUS
Jacuzzi is a brand.

KENTE
Right.

MARCUS
So Apple is happy that everybody is calling it a “Podcast.”

SHONDA
Right.

MARCUS
So it’s all about branding and it’s all about trickery of the mind. I want to take content and just make it clean. And with iStar… I’m not like a salesman or anything but I’ll just tell the truth. With iStar, it’s clean and transparent. If you come in and people pay $1.99, you get a dollar. It’s simple. And you can see your analytics. There’s no algorithm and “Let’s see if you hit a certain…” Like what do you get paid for YouTube?

SHONDA
But get this Marcus, it’s almost like you can really see how much someone really likes you on iStar. If you’re that likeable then they’ll pay a dollar for it to see your content if your content is that valuable. And then also in a sense of you’ve been giving it away for free. If you hit a dollar for 10 of them and you gave a hundred for free, you still have more money than you did for the hundred you gave for free. With 10--

ROB
And there’s also another way to look at it. You could also have… because I still think there’s going to be a need to be on the billion platform but you can use that as the entry and say, “This is for the exclusive audience.”

SHONDA
Absolutely. That’s what we’re saying.

ROB
There you go. “I can pay [right away - 44:33].”

MARCUS
Exactly. But it’s not for everybody. If you want to--

SHONDA
It’s like the breaking content that you have. You know, you have that interview that you don’t want to have on YouTube and don’t want have it free but people want to see it.

MARCUS
Everybody won’t come and we don’t want everybody to come just like everybody… If you do a concert, everybody is not coming but you just want to fill a place with the people who do want to come.

ROB
First rule of marketing is “Know your audience.”
MARCUS
Know your audience. When I started… -- I’m sorry. Let me cut you off.

When I started here doing comedy shows, I was worried one night because Eddie Murphy was going to be at the Coliseum arena. My place held 500 but the Coliseum held 25,000. If 25,000 people wanted to come to my little-500-seat place, you couldn’t get in anyway. And I sold out and he sold out and everybody was happy.

KENTE
Yeah.

MARCUS
So I see it the same way. You’re going to have an exclusive audience that really wants to see your material, maybe that’s bigger. Maybe that’s smaller. And for people that don’t have as many followers, I don’t get that because it’s like if the people… If you think you’re an entertainer, if you think you have great content… If you can’t get people to like you or if you can’t get people to consent your content then maybe you’re not that good. Maybe you should spend some time developing your content versus… because if your friends… You can’t even get your friends to come move [crosstalk] [inaudible - 45:51].

SHONDA
Right.

MARCUS
So that’s how it works.

KENTE
Because YouTube is not paying you for your content. They’re paying you as a conduit for advertisers. If you have a--

ROB
They don’t pay you. [Inaudible - 46:04] make any money.

KENTE
Yeah, they just make money. So they’re almost… “Here’s a little money back to you for allowing us to use your content to sell what we want to sell.”

ROB
If you have enough followers.

KENTE
Yeah. It’s a threshold. So they’re using your stuff for free until you meet a threshold of subscribers. And their subscribers on [iTune - 46:22] is just free.

SHONDA
But they’re using ads on there for you. They can put ads on any of your content if they want to and not give you anything.

KENTE
At $1.99, people are asking how… Apple music is $9.99. [Indiscernible - 46:34] is $9.99 a month. If people are doing that just to have access to music, they already had in their phone. Like you said, if you have content that’s valuable, $1.99, nobody is like, “I’m not going over here because YouTube is giving it for free.”

MARCUS
Well just to clarify, when you say “YouTube is using,” YouTube owns your content. Once you put it on there and they can do whatever they want with it, you don’t own it anymore.

KENTE
Right.
SHONDA
Right. That part of--

MARCUS
You’re using your content at that point but they’re monetizing it and they own it. So with iStar, you know, it’s that $1.99, you get the dollar. You own your ads. You own your channel. Here’s a channel. What will you do with all that? “I need the opportunity and I need…” Well here it is.

KENTE
That’s a good one. That’s the sales pitch right there.

SHONDA
The mic is dropped.

ROB
Yeah. I don’t know what to say.

SHONDA
Okay, Marcus, let’s just go about AfroTech in Oakland because we were talking about… This was Oakland 24/7. Now we have this AfroTech here so this younger generation is seeing what we grew up with here in Oakland. Let’s just talk about some Oakland stuff here -- AfroTech.

MARCUS
I think it’s kind of dope because--

SHONDA
Yeah.

MARCUS
What’s crazy about it is I was driving down the street and I’m used to seeing… Can I say this?

ROB
Just say it, man.

MARCUS
…a whole lot of white people with strollers and art music. And I hear come all these Black kids. They were like, “What’s up, man” and they look like they have some consciousness even my man, [indiscernible - 47:55], who was here with his app for AfroTech. I don’t know how he got in the tech business because… That’s another story.

SHONDA
Right.

MARCUS
Even he is here. So it’s really invigorating audience here that I think that of all places in the tech atmosphere in the Silicon Valley… Let’s get out of the valley and get up on the hill, and I think [Owens - 48:16] can be the hill but we have to memorialize it ourselves. It can’t just be AfroTech for one event.

KENTE
Right.

SHONDA
Right.

MARCUS
So what do we leave behind? So even as a concert promoter -- when I did that back in the day we toured -- I said, “Well we can rape and pillage the country. We can get in and out and we’re done. But what do we leave behind to keep the fans invigorated for the next time we come back?”

ROB
Right.

KENTE
Right.

MARCUS
So what is AfroTech? Maybe you guys can tell me because I don’t know. What does AfroTech really… What are they drilling down on that we can build on until the next AfroTech and when it comes back and just grows?

SHONDA
Well we can find that… One, we’re part… I’m the chair of the African-American Chamber of Commerce, and we’re on there--

MARCUS
Excuse me.

SHONDA
Thank you. [You thought I’d be mad at you - 48:52]. [Laughter]

MARCUS
Madam Chairperson.

KENTE
Oprah Oakland.

SHONDA
So we are one of the community advisory partners in this. We could follow up with that question about what… because they committed to two years. So they’re going to be back next year. So this is a relationship that will be ongoing. So visit Oakland. Everybody’s been committed with them for these two years. So they came in and said, “We want to come to Oakland and we’re going to be here for two years.”

MARCUS
Is there a founder or a board or--

SHONDA
Yes. There’s a young woman. Morgan is the Blav--

ROB
Blavity.

SHONDA
Blavity?

KENTE
Blavity, yeah. Blavity.

SHONDA
Her Blavity company.

MARCUS
A lot of Black stuff going on, huh?

SHONDA
You should know it because it’s entertainment, too. She does all this one. She was from the tech world. She did it in San Francisco for like three years, realized like, “Why am I bringing this to San Francisco? This is all Oakland. It’s Black and tech. It should be in Oakland,” which put her on a whole ‘nother map for… you know, Oakland and us.

MARCUS
Is she from Oakland?

SHONDA
No, she’s not from Oakland. She’s from… But she worked in Silicon Valley.

KENTE
[Inaudible - 49:44] ground here. You know, even as artist, they would have… [Indiscernible - 49:49] isn’t really from Oakland. Not born and raised but he’s from Oakland. So he’s attached to Oakland. [Inaudible - 49:55] not from Oakland. He’s from Toledo but he’s attached to Oakland because Oakland has a viable…

SHONDA
Has a history.

KENTE
…history to it. So if you say you’re promoting, I’m like, “Oh he got credibility on this [set - 50:04].”

MARCUS
Yeah. It does give you some--

KENTE
And AfroTech--

MARCUS
I’m really from Oakland.

SHONDA
And we are, too. And we know how that goes because that’s our first question to anybody. And then once you say you’re from Oakland, the next question is… What’s the next one?

KENTE
“What part?’

SHONDA
That and then, “What high school did you [crosstalk] [go to]?”

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [50:18]

ROB
You sound like Cincinnati. Cincinnati does. That’s Cincinnati, too.

SHONDA
That’s Cincinnati.

ROB
They don’t even care… Seriously. They don’t even care what college you went to. People ask--

[CROSSTALKING - INDISCERNIBLE] [50:27]

SHONDA
Yeah, everyone I’m talking to because that’s when you know you’re really from Oakland.

ROB
Wow. That’s good to know.

MARCUS
I’m actually going to see the Isley Brothers. They’re from Cincinnati.

ROB
They are.

SHONDA
Well now the music… There are a lot of music from Ohio. Were the Ohio Players really from Ohio?

MARCUS
Yeah. I hope so.

SHONDA
Okay. Was [Lakeside - 50:42] from Chicago? Not to deviate but… I just thought about it because I was in Chicago and I’m like, “I wonder if [Lakeside - 50:47] from Chicago.”

KENTE
I think [Lakeside - 50:49] is all over.

SHONDA
I know.

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [50:51]

SHONDA
Yeah. But I don’t know anyway.

ROB
10 years from now, what does success look like for the platform?

MARCUS
For iStar?

ROB
Yeah.

MARCUS
Oh 10 years from now?

ROB
Yeah.

MARCUS
I think it will evolve into actual bigger entities leveraging the platform because there are some intellectual property and there are some new tech that exist in the platform that will continue to evolve. And I think that because there’s no limitations in terms of the content you could post, I think that there will be larger platforms like other networks and other entities taking advantage of the platform.

ROB
By the way, I think you’re on the right path, too, because data… People are calling data the new oil. It actually surpassed the price of oil, so it is very, very valuable. That being said, I do believe there will be a hard turn at some point. Given how much data and how much people have put out there, people are going to want to both protect their privacy and want to know that they’re getting value for their content.

I don’t know when that turn happens but I do believe it’s going to happen particularly with this new generation who have already seen what’s happened and don’t want to give away all of their data, all of their content for free, just to be exploited to use by others.

MARCUS
One downside of this generation, I think, even though they’re mavericks in the space, they’re still operating, somewhat, in fear because they think, “Oh I have to do it. If I’m doing a podcast, I have to do a podcast.” And they call it that and they memorialize it at that and they brand it as that. They’re just branding Apple’s technology. So if you’re doing, “Oh I got a YouTube thing” or “I got a…” They’re branding these companies and they’re just companies.

KENTE
Right.

ROB
Right.

MARCUS
They’re just companies. I think the upside of iStar is iStar doesn’t want to be in the front. iStar wants to be the Uber or the Airbnb. Uber, they are the biggest transportation company in the world now but they own no transportation. Airbnb is the biggest real estate company in the world but they own no property.

KENTE
Right.

MARCUS
iStar will be the biggest platform for intellectual property but it will own none of your property.

ROB
So if people want to learn about you, where do they go?
MARCUS
They go over on 98… [Laughter]

KENTE
Not too far. But good question before we go--

SHONDA
But wait. The iStar part… You got to say because [crosstalk] obvious as you think.

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [53:19]

MARCUS
Well you can go to iStar now but it’s still in the beta. We’re still developing some new things.

ROB
What will it be? Istar.com? What is it going to be?

MARCUS
It’s istar.com right now… Actually, istar.io because that’s the new tech thing. We have to do the--

ROB
So it’s beta, so we’re… before it’s even released. Okay.

MARCUS
Well it’s out there but it’s still… You know, we’re kicking the tires on it. We’re actually going to… I call them the “Big domino” that I can’t talk about right now.

ROB
All right. All right.

MARCUS
But we’re landing the big domino and I think all the dominoes will fall.

KENTE
[Inaudible - 53:53].

ROB
Yeah.

MARCUS
We’re going to make our announcement. You guys, you got to have me back.

SHONDA
Yeah, of course.

MARCUS
That means you got to have some water in these cups.

SHONDA
Champagne. We’ll have champagne for that one.

KENTE
I’m the Big6 to the board. [I’m just waiting on my share - 54:04].

MARCUS
You’re the Big6?

KENTE
Big6.

MARCUS
Okay.

KENTE
Yeah. But is there a limit on the minutes that you could put because some of them, you can only do in…

SHONDA
YouTube.

KENTE
…YouTube… With iStar… I mean iStar…

SHONDA
Oh Instagram?

KENTE
…Instagram started, you can only do 60 seconds then they got up to 5 minutes then they got to unlimited.

MARCUS
Well it’s kind of cool because it’s a dual platform. It’s kind of a social media type platform that you communicate back and forth and you can record up to 10 minutes on that platform. And on the… Let’s call it the “YouTube platform,” you can record endlessly up to… Well not “endlessly” but up to five hours as many times as you want.

KENTE
Okay. So you can have there feature films.

SHONDA
Right.

MARCUS
You can have War and Peace on there if you want and do a million War and Peaces if you want. So there’s no limitation to it.

KENTE
Oh that’s… All right.

MARCUS
That’s why some propriety tech is kind of cool than… you know.

KENTE
Yeah.

MARCUS
We want to make we leverage.

SHONDA
Mm-hmm, and equality.

ROB
If you want to really change things, we have to get more people in the tech. We have to really begin to disrupt these industries.

MARCUS
Yeah.

ROB
As I said often, nobody is coming for us. And no matter who is in the White House, State House, we have to do more to make sure we’re empowering our own community and recognizing our own value. When you talk about artists, a lot of artists are Black. I can argue, I think we do that better than anybody.

KENTE
All right, we do everything better than anybody. I already [indiscernible - 55:26].

ROB
Yeah. So we got to at least… but we have to recognize our value and value each other and recognize that value. So that’s what we’re about -- trying to disrupt the narratives and constructs. And I thank you for what you do in What Sibling Rivalry. This is fun. We have to try this again.

SHONDA
Yeah.

KENTE
Yeah. Thank you for coming out. And Marcus King, always thank you for coming on.

MARCUS
Can I ask a question since you guys… What’s the rivalry? Do you understand the rivalry?

KENTE
See, that’s the thing--

SHONDA
See the “What”?

KENTE
Tell him.

ROB
Definitely. What?

SHONDA
The “What” Sibling Rivalry, it depends on what day it is. It can be a question mark. It can be an exclamation point.

KENTE
That’s why folks are drawn to it because they’re like, “You guys don’t have a rivalry.” That’s what it is. But you don’t know this all the time. We do rivalry by something.

SHONDA
But… yeah because we’re family.

ROB
I have rivalry with my sister but we still love each other.

KENTE
Yeah. Every siblings has some type of rivalry.

SHONDA
We have moments. We’re close. So people always say, “You are family is so close so there’s no rivalry.” But of course… We did a fun one last month. We did a 30-day challenge -- a weight loss challenge. We’re all in this challenge. And it was like the men… you know, sister against brother.
MARCUS
Can I ask who won?

KENTE
I think I want to bring those scale.

SHONDA
It was a great equalizer.

KENTE
She did the challenge while I was going to Nashville, New Orleans and Atlanta in the same 30 days. I was like, “I’m just trying not to come back fat.”

MARCUS
So you went to those things and she’s--

KENTE
And she’s staying here with [inaudible - 56:42] and everything.

MARCUS
What kind of [inaudible - 56:45]?

SHONDA
But what we did come about is about wellness. It was about mental wellness. This was about feeling good about yourself and not being so worried about the scale, like in that point in life.

KENTE
Shonda, go tell him, What Sibling Rivalry is really what?

SHONDA
It’s all about love.

KENTE
There is it.

MARCUS
Okay.

ROB
Okay. It’s a [inaudible - 56:59].

SHONDA
And that’s how we close it out.

ROB
Okay. Mine is pretty simple. It’s all about disrupting the constructs that are [paving - 57:04] out there, period.

MARCUS
Okay.

KENTE
We need some cups because [inaudible - 57:07] you.

SHONDA
So yeah, what’s in What Sibling Rivalry--

[CROSSTALKING – INDISCERNIBLE] [57:10]

SHONDA
And we’re closing it out. You know the final word is, “It’s all about love.”

MARCUS
Oh my god.

KENTE
Thank you, Marcus, for coming, too.

MARCUS
And thank you for having me.

SHONDA
Thank you. Perfect.

MARCUS
All right. Thanks.

SHONDA
Thanks, Ram. We made it.

KENTE
Thank you all. Live studio audience.

SHONDA
Thank you, guys.

[Applause]

MARCUS
Oh that’s the studio audience?

SHONDA
I feel like we’re in tears.

KENTE
[Making it out Live - 57:28].

SHONDA
Welcome to Oakland.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]