“Look at 41% of the country that does not have $400, 34% of the country that has zero dollars in savings, all of these numbers are pre-Covid. So with that said, Covid has only exacerbated the issue that already existed before.” -- Travis Holoway

ROB
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. On Disruption Now, we disrupt common narratives and constructs particularly around people of color and this is why we like to interview entrepreneurs that are breaking the mode, breaking the trend and breaking the construct and that's why we have Travis Holoway from SoLo Funds with us today. -- How you doing, man?

TRAVIS
I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited about this.

ROB
Well we're glad to have you, too. You're in sunny LA, right?

TRAVIS
Yeah. So we're in LA, the best place to be quarantined in the country, I believe. So yeah, it's been great.

ROB
That's good. Yeah, I’m jealous of you. I don't have 85-degree weather. But it's not been that bad. It was 75 yesterday in Cincinnati. [We're all stomping around - 01:12]. So that's not bad today.

TRAVIS
And no rain?

ROB
Oh there's been lots of rain. [Laughter]

TRAVIS
Yeah, that’s the difference. Usually, when it's 75 degrees in the springtime, it's accompanied with lots of rain so I’m happy to have the 85 and sunny over here.

ROB
Yeah, you're right, it's a great place to be quarantined. As we think about now in this moment, no one could have predicted what's happening right now. I mean the best of business planners and folks in the world couldn't have guessed this. You can guess a slowdown but you couldn't guess something would literally stop business full speed, halt, period. I mean I haven't seen anything like this happen.

How are you at SoLo? First of all, before we get there, I want to talk about how SoLo Funds is adjusting to the moment, what SoLo Funds is doing for its customers -- all those things.
But before that, I want people to know a little more about you. I was just jumping right in before we even warmed up. How did you get into SoLo Funds and your background and what is SoLo Funds for those who don't know?

TRAVIS
SoLo was really born from a personal experience that I was having. The pain point that I was experiencing with my friends and family was that they would ask me for money. They would ask me for $50 for gas. They would ask me for $100 for a utility bill. It might be an old college friend. Essentially, I’ve been lending money since I was in high school. And while I was in college and had just graduated, I would still have people paying me for $200 for a textbook.

And I realized that people were asking me for money partly because I was working in finance. I was living in New York City. People just assumed because I wore a suit and carried a briefcase that I had money to lend them.

ROB
Yeah, you made it.

TRAVIS
Yeah, exactly. I was fortunate to be one of the more successful people in my family at a relatively young age and because of that, the loan request would continue to come. Ultimately, I wanted to figure out somewhere else to send people to when they asked me for money.

ROB
[Laughs] Not to you all the time.

TRAVIS
Yeah, and not me. I started to look and… I was working in finance and I was hearing about peer-to-peer lending whether it was LendingClub or LendingTree or Prosper and all these different companies and I started to just kind of go one by one and I realized that none of them were options for the people that I knew who needed access to the type of capital they were asking me for.

If it was kiva, it had to be a business owner. And primarily, they were distributing capital overseas and emerging markets. If it was LendingClub or LendingTree or Prosper, they were doing loans above a thousand dollars only. But for things like debt reconsolidation, down payments on homes, things like that, it wasn't for the single mother who was living paycheck-to-paycheck who needed groceries or medicine for a sick child.

When I realized that, the only options that people had to solve that type of need was to either ask friends and family, which is what they were already doing, or they could go take a payday loan. And payday loans, for those who don't know, come with an average interest rate of about 400% attached. They're extremely predatory. They prey on communities of people that look like me and my peers and my friends and family. I said, “Hey, these businesses are ravaging our communities. They're creating debt traps.”

And I didn't want to send anyone that I knew, loved or cared about to go take a predatory loan so I said, “I think that there's another way to do this and there's a more equitable way to do this.” And for me, that was taking some of the experience that I had in my former career which is--

You know, most people who make under a $100,000 don't have a financial advisor or an investment advisor or financial planner but they're actively looking for places to earn returns. If you make $90,000 but live in Cincinnati, Ohio where you are, you actually have discretionary capital because the cost of living isn't what it is here in LA.

So if we're able to pair that type of capital to people who needs access to small dollar loans and actually create a way for that lender to earn returns, we could solve two problems. One, we could offer significant returns to the lender side of the market but on the flip side, we could solve borrower's short-term cash needs more affordable than ever before. That was really the birth of SoLo.

Since then, we've been able to do some amazing things. We're one of the fastest growing financial technology companies in the country. We have a default rate that's three times better than industry average. Recovery rate, it's four times better than industry average. When I was looking at overall total loan volume companies, like I mentioned “Kiva,” we actually process the same amount of loans in the U.S. last year as Kiva that's been around for over 10 years. So it's been exciting.

ROB
That's awesome. Everybody has to make money so I like to get to how that happens for SoLo Funds. But before we get there, I do like the fact that you’re seeing a problem, not only in the problem that you see for yourself but you see really a society problem that you're trying to do your part to fix and that's lack of access to capital.

And I see you doing these two ways from what I can tell from how you explained it. One, giving more people an opportunity to become an investor and a lender in ways that they normally don't have an opportunity to and then the other side of it, helping people day-to-day with some of their cash needs.

How do you prevent yourself from not going to that, I guess, payday industry loan if you're not making interest? These are really small loans. How does your industry… How does your organization, I should say -- not “your industry” -- How does your organization make its money?

TRAVIS
So we make money from a few different ways. I guess the number one way is a donation which is paid by the borrower. For us, it was very important… If you're going to disrupt something that's predatory, people are obviously going to peel back the curtain to see what you're doing. And if you're doing something, you’re predatory as well.

ROB
Sure. And people are going to assume that you're doing… Let's be honest, they're going to assume you're doing something predatory if you're doing this.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So for us, it was, “Well, how do we take that conversation off the table from the beginning?” And for us, we empower borrowers to create their own terms. There is no other financial institution that you could walk into today and say, “Well I’m going to borrow $100 to pay my utility bill. I’m going to tell you the day I’m going to pay you back which is the 15th of the month. And then I’m also going to tell you if I’m willing to pay anything in excess of the principal amount or that capital.”

So because we built a marketplace, borrowers create all of their own terms and then they submit it to a marketplace where anyone in the country can actually fund that loan. But it's the borrower who's created those terms and then accepts those terms once a lender has agreed to fund that loan. So the power is completely in the hands of that borrower.

So we get paid from a donation. The lender earns a tip which is effectively… Think of that as like the return that a lender is making on a transaction. But both of those -- both tip and donation -- are completely optional, number one. And two, are completely controlled by the borrower. So that's how we essentially have bypassed becoming predatory. And the only thing that we do do is we essentially have capped the tip rate at 10% of any given loan. So we won't allow--

One thing that was really interesting to me as I was looking at building this company was I was seeing people on chat rooms and people were saying, “Hey, my car broke down. I need $300. I’ll pay you back $500 next week.” One, that's a really, really, really bad rate. It's actually predatory. But they've created that because they don't know any better. And their back is against the wall so they're willing to say or pay whatever they have to to actually get their car fixed or to get those groceries and that's not fair.

So what we essentially did was we created a way that people don't financially harm themselves and create a debt trap for themselves just from a lack of “not knowing.” So that's the one real barrier that we put on a transaction is that we won’t allow borrowers to pay more than 10% for a particular loan transaction.

ROB
Wow. So how do you go about evaluating your borrowers? I take it you don't necessarily accept every borrower that comes on because it has to work. How do you evaluate your borrowers then? How do you evaluate your lenders?

TRAVIS
Great question. So from a borrower perspective, we believe that the FICO score is broken. We believe that the metrics that are largely factored today are not applicable to the underbanked in millennial demographic. When you look at overall just behaviors, it used to be normal especially for like the baby boomer generation to be 30 years old, own a home, own two cars, be married and have one and a half kids. That used to be life. That is no longer the case.

ROB
That's over.

TRAVIS
Yeah, it's completely over.

ROB
It was already over pre the coronavirus but it's really over right now -- but we'll talk about that in a minute.

TRAVIS
Exactly. Banks have really built their underwriting characteristics and tools around an old way of living. And if people are no longer buying homes, buying cars, using credit cards the way that prior generations have, how is a traditional bank going to underwrite the new demographics and generations going forward where they're going to need alternative data to do so?

And they're going to need to figure out a new way to tell the story of what a borrower's credit worthiness looks like and they're going to need companies like SoLo who has access to this demographic, knows how to market to this demographic.

So we know how to acquire them. We know how to underwrite them in an alternative way where we're actually looking at their cash flow. So rather than looking at their FICO score, we're actually looking at their ability to repay a specific loan on a specific date and time versus your FICO score which is looking at your ability to make multiple payments over a long duration of time.

So the SoLo score is really like a one-time per transaction credit score. And what we can do with that over time is basically take that information, provide that to a traditional financial institution -- what we call a “path to upward financial mobility” -- to where we don't need borrowers to be on SoLo forever. We don't want borrowers to be on SoLo forever either because the fortunate but unfortunate thing is that we will never run out of people who need access to small dollar loans.

ROB
No, you won't.

TRAVIS
So it doesn't do us any harm to allow these individuals to get access to better more traditional financial tools and resources. It helps the economy as a whole. But our focus here is if we're able to provide that data to the traditional institution, they can now give that person a more favorable interest rate on a car loan or a credit card or eventually a mortgage that they wouldn't be able to underwrite them without that type of data.

So for us, it's, “Can you make this payment on a specific date and time?” But going forward, it's, “How do we use and leverage that data to make sure that you don't need this resource forever?”

And ultimately, if you can return as a lender and pay it forward… So you just maybe started off as a borrower but now that your financial situation has improved and you come back as a lender, you can now pay that forward. So what someone else did for you, you can actually now do for someone else.

ROB
I really like a lot of aspects of this and the fact that you saw that the payday loan industry is taking advantage and you're doing everything possible to disrupt what's happening there by offering a solution. The financial institution that you deal with, how's it been trying to convince them, I guess, that this is data they need to pay attention to? Old habits die hard. How do you get them to wake up to 2020 of how one should be evaluating loan applications and small loans and things like this?

TRAVIS
Yeah, depending on the banking institution, some are waking up faster than others. I think that the overall transition with this marketplace has birthed companies that are, not like SoLo but are in the space of like a SoFi or Upstart and these places that are now underwriting individuals in different ways. And they're doing that because they know if they continue… They realize the same thing that I realized but they realized it for a bigger loan repayments and bigger lines of credit and debt instruments.

But banks are realizing that they're losing a lion share of their potential future customers to the Aspiration, the Chime banks of the world because they're thinking more from an innovative standpoint.

And banks now are saying, “Hey, well, how do we not lose out on this market share? Who's doing this? Who's underwriting? Who's looking at the right things and who's actually having success in this market? Let's partner with them because they understand the tone and what to speak to this demographic.”
I used to tell investors, they would ask this question of, “Why do you think you're the one to solve this problem” and I felt like I was the one to solve this problem because I come from the same demographic that we're helping.

Fortunately, I’m not in a situation today to where I need to borrow a couple of hundred dollars but I have before and that quickly changed to when I got out of that situation, people came to me and asked me for a few hundred dollars.

So I know the needs of that demographic because I once needed it. Two, I’ve also solved that problem, personally. So I know how to solve the needs of that demographic. In short, these banking institutions are now waking up and are looking at who's doing this at a high level and trying to figure out how they can partner to have future success.

ROB
Yeah. Since you want to obviously get folks who are borrowing not to be, I guess, long-term users of SoLo funds…

TRAVIS
Perpetual borrowers, yeah.

ROB
...are you trying to introduce them ways to have new habits? How are you going about tackling solving some of their problems because it seems like it's how one views money. It's the habits you have that create the problems that most experience.

TRAVIS
Yeah, absolutely. And then just the lack of information, I think, is probably the other biggest piece. I always say I think they don't teach financial literacy in schools by design primarily because--

ROB
Probably not. Probably not because, listen, if the economy worked that way, if everybody actually operated that way and saved their money, invested wisely, actually, the economy couldn't work for a lot of people because people would be saving.

Particularly our community, they want us to purely be spenders -- to spend everything we have, to help make somebody else rich and to keep us in deficit. Hard to understand that when you're going through the process though. It's easy for us to say it now but hard to… It's been scientifically shown, it's very hard to change a habit.

TRAVIS
Yes, absolutely. From a financial literacy standpoint, teaching people about overdraft fees… which are just actually even more predatory than payday loans. When you think about you overdraft your bank account by $1, now they charge you a $36 fee. When you really start to look at that percentage, it is not 400%, it's like 17,000%.

So it’s giving information. Within the platform, we actually have financial literacy to where you can learn anything from how to create your first budget -- so Budgeting 101 -- all the way through retirement planning. And in between, you might hear information about, “What is a 529 plan” -- so for college educational savings -- or how to secure your first car loan or mortgage. These are the types of things that people don't know. And unfortunately, people are learning how to manage their finances by making mistakes.

ROB
Yeah.

TRAVIS
Those are some of the most expensive mistakes that you can make throughout the course of your life. So essentially, our goal is to, one, provide a tool or resource to get access to loans and also to lend money -- to earn returns and have a positive social impact. But on the flip side of that, if we can give information to allow people to navigate some of the pitfalls and potholes that they may have hit, we're doing an extremely good thing.

ROB
Yeah. I mean just learning that, like everything, this is a mindset money. How you view money, how you manage money is a mindset and thinking about it from the long-term point of view.

I want to just take this moment right now. We're in Covid-19, the coronavirus, and people have now hit a level of desperation or just reset that was not foreseeable. I mean you can foresee a slowdown, hard to foresee a hard stop because it's never happened before. At least with no one that's been living for the last hundred years, it hasn't happen. So what is SoLo funds doing in this unique moment? That's my first question. The second question is… Well I’ll give the second question next. You can answer that.

TRAVIS
All right. So one, the sad part is 78% of the country was already living paycheck-to-paycheck before Covid-19.

ROB
True.

TRAVIS
Over 40% of the country didn't have $400 before Covid-19. They would have to borrow from someone else just to get $400.

ROB
70% -- seven-zero?
TRAVIS
78% living paycheck-to-paycheck. 41%--

ROB
We're not talking about black folks. We're talking about the whole country.

TRAVIS
No, the whole country, exactly. We're talking about the entire--

ROB
Wow. Those numbers are higher with our community.

TRAVIS
Yeah, exactly. And then you look at 41% of the country that does not have $400, 34% of the country that has zero dollars in savings, all of these numbers are pre-Covid. So with that said, Covid has only exacerbated the issue that already existed before.

ROB
I like to say Covid is the symptom. It's not the illness…

TRAVIS
Exactly. Exactly.

ROB
…in our societal problems.

TRAVIS
Yeah, you hit the nail in the head. So if that's the case then these numbers are going to start to skyrocket out of control. And for us, we were uniquely positioned to actually thrive during Covid. And when I say “Thrive,” it's almost kind of a scary thing to say because you have so many people suffering, so I’m not sitting here saying, “Hey, I want to be one of the companies getting rich and capitalize off of this situation.” But the exciting piece of this is is that we do exist because--

ROB
Just to interrupt you for a second and get back to your thought, somebody is going to capitalize on it, one, no matter what.

TRAVIS
Right.

ROB
At least you have a space where you're mission-minded to know that you are working to try to empower people, not just to take money from them which is, I think, the current state of capitalism -- my opinion right now.

I think the issues we're having, if you look at how some of these loans were distributed, some of them gave the money back. But I think the fact that the LA Lakers… No offense to LA Lakers. But the LA Lakers, Ruth's Chris, busy large multinational organizations took money from small businesses because they could.

I say this to tell people like, “I believe we need more people that believe in capitalism but believe in helping people at the same time, too” because right now, how the system works is it’s set up to help those who are trying to exploit and those who have the ability to do so.

So the fact that you're disrupting that, yeah, I look at it as like… I’m sure you're not jumping down that people are suffering. But the point is you are providing a solution, that if you're not there, somebody else will provide a solution and it may not be one that's anywhere near… It's going to be a payday loan which we know what that's going to do.

TRAVIS
Exactly. That's exactly what it would be. So the game is rigged. But you have all of these people who are waiting for a $1200 stimulus check and many people still haven't gotten it. I don't know if you saw this but 33% of people who rent did not pay rent at the beginning of April. I don't know if that's telling that there's going to be a housing crisis later because of all these landlords who are not getting rent who will only be able to fulfill their mortgage obligations for so long before they get paid. But just to say that if people are waiting for $1200, they really needed it in April. For those who didn't get it in April, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow is May.

ROB
By the way, it’s okay the three days to get people their checks, just to show you the difference. Go ahead.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So you have Maize rent here on the horizon coming in a couple of days and the problem here is that if someone needed a loan for… Maybe they were $500 short of their rent. They can't go to Chase Bank or Bank of America or any other traditional bank and get a loan for $500. They're just not lending at those levels. So what either happens--

ROB
No. Listen, they're not lending to small business level. There's a reason why the LA Lakers and other people qualified, the banks work with, they say, “Hey look, you guys go get this. It’s good money.”

TRAVIS
Exactly.
ROB
“This is the money you can get essentially free. Go get it.”

TRAVIS
It’s free money.

ROB
This is the nature of banks. They're in the business of, “How can we make the safest loan and make the most amount of money?” And that's not individuals and that's not small businesses which is why [you’ll be in business - 24:17].

TRAVIS
Exactly. Exactly. So with all of that said, what we've done is we've continued to provide the resource that we already were providing primarily because… It was needed before Covid but this definitely needed now, post-Covid. But on the lender side, our whole focus was, “How do we continue to protect lenders, protect their investments or the funds that they deployed on the platform?”

And for us, what we realized because we have a default rate that is three times better than industry average and we have recovery rates that are significantly higher, up to four times better than industry average, we could actually put some skin in the game.

We listen to our users. We've had lenders in the past say, “Hey, when a loan defaults on this platform, I’m the only one who's taking any type of risk or loss.” And we said, “All right, well we're looking at the numbers and we can actually insure these loans.” So rather than you taking 100% of the default loss or the risk on this platform, we can actually reduce that from 100% down to 5%.

So we're truly in this together because, one, we believe in the users that are taking these loans. We believe that we can underwrite them better than anyone else. And then three, we want to show you that this is the time to double down and continue to help people and that you're not going to suffer from the overall default.

ROB
I think I might become a lender. This is a good time to become one. [Laughter]

TRAVIS
Yeah, exactly.

ROB
If you're going to insure up 95% of the loan, well, why not?

TRAVIS
Exactly. This is exactly the time to become a lender to where you can do well and do good at the same time. And no disrespect or I don't want to dis-encourage anyone to not go and fund someone's GoFundMe campaign but you're giving money away on GoFundMe. Every time someone creates a campaign, you're literally just giving it away.

And this is a platform, speaking of SoLo, to where you can actually have that same type of positive social impact all while earning a positive return for yourself as well. It’s what we call a “double bottom line opportunity” to where you can do well and do good at the same time.

ROB
So how does it work in practical terms? You can only loan a thousand dollars but you can do more than one loan to multiple people? Is that how that works? Can you describe that one?

TRAVIS
Yes. So a lender can lend up to $10,000 per month. So they can deploy a lot more capital and because--

ROB
It's only $1000 to an individual though.

TRAVIS
To one individual, that's correct. So the majority of the loans are… Average loan size is just about $200, so you can actually help quite a few people, as low as $50. So someone deploys $5000, they can actually help a hundred different people with $50 loans.

ROB
So if I did $10,000 now, you're saying that 95% of that would be insured currently.

TRAVIS
Yes. So you opt-in to what we call a “SoLo Lender Protection Program.” Yes, we would insure up to 95%.

ROB
You pay premium for that too, I take it, right?

TRAVIS
Yes. So you'll pay--

ROB
It’s like paying for the insurance.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
That’s actually beautiful. That was brilliant.

TRAVIS
Yeah, I like it. [Laughter] So yes, that's essentially what we've done to protect lenders during this time. So that's SoLo’s Covid response, I would say.

ROB
What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who maybe aren't as fortunate as you are? And maybe I’ll come back to an example for yourself when you might have had a bump in the road you didn't expect or you failed at something -- if you can draw from that and think about what advice you may give to entrepreneurs who may not be as well-positioned for whatever reason. I mean they could be in a position where they needed to have person-to-person contact for their business and it was a brilliant idea until March 10th and then it looked like a horrible idea come March 25th because of how the world changed. What would you tell those folks?

TRAVIS
I would say, number one, “Don't give up. Just keep fighting.” I think the theme of 2020 is “Not how well you can do. Not how much money you can make.” Nothing about revenue. It's about literally making it to 2021. It's, “Can you stay alive to next year and fight like hell to make it to next year?” Become more resourceful than you've ever been whether that is you had a business that maybe you couldn't open, take that business online. So if you have inventory--

I don't know if you're selling hair, makeup, whatever. If you had a brick and mortar building and you didn't have a Shopify set up or if you didn't have some type of Amazon relationship or partnership, establish one. How can you still move that inventory without having your business open and continuing to find creative ways to do that.

The best entrepreneurs don't sit back and talk about what happened to them and how the world or economy or system at large failed them. They figure out ways around it. And this is the time to be as resourceful as you've ever been.

ROB
Yeah, because the world's going to fail you. Nobody's coming to save us, in particular.

TRAVIS
Yeah.

ROB
Black wealth is, I think, projected to go to zero by 2053 and we got to do everything possible to… I don't accept that, by the way, as a fact. I just say that that's the trend if we don't do something about it.

TRAVIS
Right, completely. And working together is probably the number one thing that can prevent that. I say this all the time, running a black-owned tech company… I realized just looking at other founders in the space, when… First of all, we raise significantly less money. We're under-resourced like you wouldn't believe. And when anything goes wrong, people are so quick to talk negative about the business or the company.

ROB
And assume the worst.

TRAVIS
Assume the worst, say that they will never use it again and that they tried to support it.

ROB
Yeah.

TRAVIS
But the next thing that I see, I guess on the opposite end of the spectrum is… I love sneakers. I’ve been like a sneaker head my entire life. But I see on Twitter all the time, people are like--

The Sneakers app which is where Nike drops their shoe releases on Saturdays or Fridays or whatever it is for a particular release, every time a shoe drops… If you go on Twitter and type in “Sneakers,” everybody on there is bashing Sneakers saying they'll never use it again. “It's the worst thing ever.” They never get selected for the new Jordans that came out and they will dog it.

ROB
They still buy the sneakers, I think.

TRAVIS
However, they always go back next Saturday when the next shoe releases. Unfortunately, minority-owned businesses don't get the opportunity of not providing what you need every time and still getting the support every time.

ROB
We’d allow for some grace though.

TRAVIS
Yeah, we have to provide some grace because if Nike still can't get it right, and they're a billion and billion and billion times over a type of company, this company that just raised a hundred thousand dollars, they're fighting all types of fires that you wouldn't believe. So that's just one thing that I would say.

And then separately from that that I’ve recently just come to the realization of is that we don't really encourage each other to take risks in the black community.

ROB
No.

TRAVIS
We encourage people to be safe. I’m not saying this to say, “Hey, go quit your job tomorrow” but--

ROB
No because that would be stupid right now.

TRAVIS
Because that would be stupid.

ROB
[Laughter] I mean unless you got a good plan.

TRAVIS
Exactly. That would be stupid for sure. But rather than always seeking out that really safe cushy job whether it's at P&G or GE or Goldman Sachs or Barclays or any of these companies… even Twitter and Facebook because Twitter and Facebook and Google, Amazon, these are all tech companies but they're so established that the opportunity to really generate wealth is gone.

Those first 20-50 even 100 employees at those companies are doing so well that that employee, 15,847, they're not having the same type of wealth-generating opportunities that that first group of employees got.

And I think, oftentimes, I’m seeing people try to wait too late to join the company that they already know is hot versus taking a chance and really building something early to where when that company does have that exit or that IPO, now you're creating significant wealth for yourself and your family.

But now you have so much wealth, that you can actually pay that forward. You can now go start a black venture fund. You can now start to be an angel investor and create opportunities for companies like mine to get funded earlier, faster, in a more equitable way than some of our counterparts.
ROB
Yeah. I mean it's part of our mindset and actually understanding entrepreneurship, understanding what it takes. Communities as a whole like when… The Jewish community is obviously the example. They're successful not because they're smarter, not because of anything other than they support one another. They have a mindset that they're going to invest in their community; they're going to invest in their friends.

And all the investments don't go well. It does not. That's what people think. No, it doesn't but they still help again and again and again. It's a different mindset. It's a different mentality.

Look, I actually saw it play out in my former life when I was in public service. There was a different understanding with other communities in the need to invest in people you believe in -- very similar. Hadn't won any office but they say, “Look, I believe in you. I know you can do this. I believe you're going to go somewhere,” so they did it. And there was nothing there.

And this wasn't true all the time but it was true more often than not. That's why I’m talking about it. It was a much harder conversation, much harder lift for people that had the means. They just didn't understand this is what it takes for us to advance. Like we have to invest in each other before it's safe -- when we have the ability to do it, I’m saying.

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
I’m talking about people that have the ability to do it.

TRAVIS
Yeah, 200%

ROB
There are definitely that do.

TRAVIS
200%. And it doesn't matter if you have a nice cushy job at P&G and you're earning 2-$300,000 a year or if you're one of our celebrities that we oftentimes look up to in the entertainment or sports arena. On both sides, people still wait until someone else validates this company.

ROB
Yeah, you go to have a validator [that’s not black - 35:43].

TRAVIS
And too oftentimes, that validation does not come from someone else that looks us and then they want to invest.

ROB
Yeah.

TRAVIS
And then a lot of times, the check that they want to write at that point is so small that you're not even looking for that type of investment anymore.

ROB
But that's training though, Travis. We’re still, as a community, new to entrepreneurship. We're, as a community, still new to--

TRAVIS
Well I don't [agree with that - 36:09].

ROB
Let me say it like that -- as a “community whole,” like in terms of embracing it as a community-wide. We've had entrepreneurs forever, obviously, so let me make sure I’m clear on that. What I’m saying is really understanding as a community whole why we should support one another at a level -- you talked about it earlier, right -- and give each other grace. Having that understanding of community entrepreneurship, I should say. Okay?

TRAVIS
Exactly.

ROB
We shouldn't have to wait until you become Oprah to say, “Oh I want to invest in you.” That's okay. Great. Everybody wants to invest in Oprah.

TRAVIS
Exactly. You got it.

ROB
But there are people that have shown and have a large track record already enough to say, “Oh let me support that person. At least, let me take a risk.” And it doesn't mean it's going to work out all the time. That's the nature of risk-taking.

As we're seeing in Covid-19 world, there are people that are being laid off that have college degrees, that have done everything right, that have checked every single box -- “I do this. I work hard. I go to a company” -- still lost the opportunity.

TRAVIS
Exactly. Exactly.

ROB
In order for us to come out of this and not continue the same trends, we have to invest in us, too, and we have to value what we actually bring to the table. So I am very appreciative of what you did and what you are doing and the fact that you did take the risk because taking risk is hard.

TRAVIS
Yeah, absolutely.

ROB
But I went into a rant. But what I’m saying is we are still, in terms of having the mindset… Let me change about entrepreneurial collective mindset of working together and understanding it. I believe we're getting to that point now in 20… I think we're now entering a phase that we haven't entered before and I think we are further along in that mindset because--

At least I feel it more when I talk to people, understanding like, “We need to support entrepreneurship. We need to support each other.” I’ve heard people more comfortable with being forward to say, “I’m a black entrepreneur.” People used to, in order to be successful, would have to hide their head and maybe let others be the lead and still… Right? I see less of that now. What's your thought on that?

TRAVIS
I would agree. I would agree with that. I have seen… Did you watch the movie, “The Banker” by chance?

ROB
I haven’t.

TRAVIS
So the banker actually touches on that, to where they tried to get a deal done, couldn't do it and had to find actually one of the white employees to go in and close deals.

ROB
You should check out another show of mine -- the show I had with… Why am I forgetting his name -- a brother in real estate now. I’m just losing his name. The show is from “Zero to a Billion While Black.” That's the episode. He talked about the fact that he had to do just that. And he had to do it all the way until he secured about 200 million. This was in the ‘80s and some of the’90s. But having that mindset can be traumatizing. So you think if you do that, whether you realize it or not, you start to believe some of that. There's no way if you don't do that that you don't believe it.

TRAVIS
200%. Yeah, I’ve seen it. I’ve heard it firsthand. That movie, I just watched it recently which is why it's top of mind. Actually, it's a true story. I actually live two blocks in LA from that building that they're talking about. I won't spoil the movie for anyone listening but I definitely recommend watching The Baker. It’s phenomenal.

ROB
All right. So a couple rapid fire questions. What’s the moment you had where you felt like you failed? It seemed a failure then but now looking back, you would tell yourself, “This is something that actually helped shaped and actually made me a better person”?

TRAVIS
Mm, I would say… It depends. Are we talking about SoLo?

ROB
It could be SoLo. It can be your personal journey. Go through it, however you feel.

TRAVIS
Got it. I would say one failure that I had early on is having too much faith in people based off of their potential versus what I was actually seeing. When you build a company, one of the best things that you can do and one of the most exhilarating things is that you have this idea and you decide that you want to do it and then you actually convince like that first or second person to drop what they're doing to help you do what you're doing. And because that person drops what they're doing--

ROB
Because it takes a long time to get to that first person. I already know.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So when you get that person, there's this sense of like loyalty that you feel to them and they most likely feel to you as well. But when you ultimately realize that they're not the person that you need… I made a mistake of continuing to find ways to keep them around because I felt so indebted to them for believing in this journey.

ROB
Yeah, I can see that.

TRAVIS
But the truth of the matter is is that they were continuing to find ways to hurt me and the company, and not on purpose but they just weren't the right person. You know, some people are really good for you at a certain stage of a company or a certain stage of your life but they're not good for the entirety of it. They're not supposed to be at the end of the story but they were a main character in the beginning.

ROB
Yeah.

TRAVIS
You know, one of the things that really, I think, hurt the development of the company in that first year was that we could have gone a lot stronger… we could have built a stronger product if we had a different talent earlier than what I allowed us to do. That set us back in some way. But I’ve learned so much since that point and it's probably one of the best lessons that I have learned as an entrepreneur.

ROB
All right. To add to that question, what do you think is the most important skill set for an entrepreneur?

TRAVIS
They need to be relentless. They need to not believe in the word “No.” The word “No” needs to be “Not yet” or “Not now.”

ROB
Because you're going to get “No” more than you get “Yes” like 10 times.

TRAVIS
Exactly. You have to be very comfortable with the word “No.” And then lastly, I think you have to be resourceful. The resourceful founders, the resourceful entrepreneurs will always find ways around the hurdle. Those who are not will oftentimes struggle or give up.

ROB
Yep, agree. If you had a committee of three, living or dead, to do for business advice, for personal advice, who would those three people be and why?

TRAVIS
Mm, business advice and personal advice? That's interesting.

ROB
Or personal advice -- and/or.

TRAVIS
Yeah, okay. So for business, I’m going to go Jeff Bezos. He built everything store like a marketplace. Everyone told him that he should not build everything store. All of his investors said, “You can start with one thing.” And ultimately, he was able to break through that and built literally what he originally wanted to build. He’s now the wealthiest man in the world. So his idea was a good one but if he would have listened to “No” then he would have never built it.

And separately from that, I would say… hmm. Oh, I’m wearing a Marcus Garvey shirt right now. I would say Marcus Garvey because… You know, I often kind of look at Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Garvey and… It would just be really interesting to ask him some questions that I have.
ROB
What would you ask them? What would you ask him?

TRAVIS
So hindsight, we're so far advanced but like, “The things that we're experiencing as our communities today or as the African-American or Black community today, did you foresee this and was this part of your thesis? And if it was, what do you think would have been our reality if we would have decided not to live in the current reality that we're living in and we would have actually went back to Africa?”

ROB
Mm, that's a good question. All right. Who's your third?

TRAVIS
Oh I’m sorry. I’m thinking me plus two.

ROB
[Smiles]

TRAVIS
The third would be… Mm.

ROB
It could be living. It doesn't have to be someone that's dead. It could be somebody you know, too.

TRAVIS
I think the third would be Obama…

ROB
Okay.

TRAVIS
…because the level of scrutiny… First of all, I’ve never seen anyone so squeaky clean in my life.

ROB
Yeah, he was pretty squeaky clean, bro.

TRAVIS
Yeah.

ROB
He's the squeakiest cleanest brother I’ve seen ever.

TRAVIS
Exactly. So that would just be really interesting to kind of hear some of his stories and his background, the things he's seen and experienced. But separately from that, the level of scrutiny that he's had to deal with throughout just his presidential term itself, how was he able to have the mental toughness to keep pushing through and not to say, “You know what? I’m just going to let you go and I’m going to let you end up with the same type of leader that we have today and then see what happens.” He suffered that.

ROB
He’s got more pictures than me.

TRAVIS
He fought through it. That level of patience and drive, I think, is as commendable as I’ve ever seen and it would be awesome to get some advice.

ROB
What's an important truth you have that very few people agree with you on?

TRAVIS
Important truth -- because that's relative because I was going to say that--

ROB
That’s why it's your truth. I didn't say “The truth.” I said it’s “your truth.”

TRAVIS
This is very unpopular, I’m sure. And as I’m about to say, it becomes more unpopular as I think about it. Tupac, I think, was an overrated lyricist. I think that the impact that he had as a rapper was significant, probably arguably the biggest that any rapper has ever had, however, from a lyrical standpoint--

ROB
Who do you like for a lyrical standpoint? Who's your person?

TRAVIS
One, I would say B.I.G. over Pac from a lyrical perspective.

ROB
You're from New York though, right?

TRAVIS
Yeah.

ROB
You’re a little biased but go ahead.
TRAVIS
I’m a little bit biased but--

ROB
No, you’re in LA saying this. That's interesting.

TRAVIS
But lyrically, I would say that Ice Cube was better lyrically than Pac. But separately from that, I would say my top three lyrical rappers, in no order, are Jay, Nas and B.I.G.

ROB
Okay. All right. You have a billboard or Google ad that symbolizes your belief. What would that say and why?

TRAVIS
If I had a Google ad that says what?

ROB
A Google ad or billboard. It has a saying, “This is Travis Holoway saying…” What would that say and why?

TRAVIS
Mm. It would say… Mm, that's a really good question. I’ve never thought about that before. Hmm. So we’re thinking like a quote? This is like a quote, right?

ROB
It could be a quote or it can be… However you want it. It’s you're saying. It doesn’t have to be a quote.

TRAVIS
I think it would be pretty simple and I think it's something that's very applicable to the current state that we're in right now. It’s simple. It's just literally, “Never give up.”

ROB
Yeah, that's a good one. “Never give up.” Life is simple but it's not easy.

TRAVIS
Yeah.

ROB
That’s really saying “simple.” Like, you don't give up. It’s easy to give up and it's harder to keep fighting. It's harder to have perseverance.

TRAVIS
Exactly. It’s never as bad as it seems. And another thing that I would probably say is like… which is a true testament to the company that I’ve built and why I thought that it could be built this way and it's, “The world is more empathetic than the news will allow you to believe” because you turn on the news and everybody is against each other. You think that people aren't willing to lend a helping hand. You have a lot of different thoughts based off of what we've been programmed with.

ROB
We’ve been “programmed.” That’s the right word.

TRAVIS
Yeah. But when I see people who are literally giving their money away every day, not even on SoLo but across the board, to help other people in need… I think Covid is giving us a little bit of an inside into that but that is how the world already was. We just don't glorify it. We don't publicize it and it doesn't get the media coverage. We're actually all in this together and people do care.

ROB
Travis Holoway at SoLo Funds. It was good to have you on, brother, and we definitely got to do it again.

TRAVIS
Definitely. Thank you so much for having me.

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