“These are the times that make your character. You can look at this from two perspectives. You can look at it and “Woe is me” or you can look at it and say, “Where can I find, in addition to my business model, to adapt to what the future will hold?” That’s the great thing about entrepreneurs. If you are a really strong entrepreneur, you are pivoting constantly even when there is no pandemic.” -- Monique Idlett-Mosley

ROB
All right, welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. With me today is a special guest -- Monique Idlett-Mosley. -- Did I say it right?

MONIQUE
Yes, you did.

ROB
Okay, good. I’m glad I did. I was practicing. I wanted to make sure I said it right.

So she’s had an expansive career. She’s been involved in the entertainment world as the CEO. You probably know some of them -- Music Timbaland. She was the CEO of that company for a long time. Went certified platinum 64 times; a certified gold. Not too shabby.

And so she’s taking that experience now -- her experience as being an entrepreneur, her experience in helping others -- and she wants to now use all her talent and resources to help minority and women and women business.

Reign Venture Capital, which is what she started -- one of the larger venture funds -- they are focused on people of color and women, about $25 million and I expect it to grow. She’s doing amazing things.

She’s had folks we had on this show that she’s invested in -- Rodney Williams from LISNR, SoLoFunds, Travis Holoway. People, before they were big, before people believed in them, you did. So I want to thank you for the work that you’ve done and all the things you will do. And thank you for coming on the show.

MONIQUE
No, thank you. I mean that’s quite the introduction. [Laughter] But yes, thank you. It’s been an amazing journey. I have no complaints. What’s so amazing about it, every day, I’m still continuing to learn. So that’s like the beautiful part of all of this.

ROB
Yeah. So you are in Miami right now, right? That’s where you find yourself.

MONIQUE
Yeah. So I've been living here for quite some time. And I’ll tell you, you know, we have to be quarantined. I absolutely love being quarantined in beautiful weather. [Laughter]

ROB
Yeah, no complaints, right?

MONIQUE
No, none.

ROB
You got the pool out there you can be quarantined by. That’s not bad.

MONIQUE
I've been working on my tan.

ROB
I could tell. Looks good.

MONIQUE
Thank you. Thank you. It’s so crazy because I've lived here for so long yet I never had the time to actually just relax a lot. Usually, I’m traveling so much so when I’m home, I’m usually like doing stuff with the kids or errands so I never really have a lot of time to just kind of lay by the pool. So I've been doing a lot of that. I’ve been doing pool workouts, actually.

ROB
“Pool workouts,” okay.

MONIQUE
Yeah.

ROB
What are your pool workouts look like?

MONIQUE
I do a bit of resistance bands. I use them in the pool. I do a lot of laps. I do planks outside. You know, just a lot of outdoor workout just because I don’t want to… I worked out every day at the gym so I don’t want to like not--

ROB
Yeah, I did too. I was depressed when that happened, I got to tell you. But I saw it coming. I actually bought a home gym. My gym is decked out now. I’ll never have to go back to the gym. Because I just said, “You’re about to close down the gym.” This is right before. I said, “I just got a set.”

So I went and spent some money because to me, psychologically, like if I’m not working out then I don’t feel right. My whole day is off and I feel like my I won’t be as productive. That’s just me.

MONIQUE
No, that’s how I am as well. I just recently started being committed to working out every day -- about six months ago. And literally, if I don’t work out, I feel like something’s off with me. So I wanted to make sure that while we’re at home that I’m still keeping my health and wellness as a priority.

ROB
Yeah. So take me back to when you first got a start as a… Well you’re still very young. We’re both young.

MONIQUE
Yeah, I’m 21. I’m 20-something. [Laughs]

ROB
Yeah, you’re 20-something. But let’s take you back when you got your first sales job.

MONIQUE
Yeah.

ROB
I read up on it. And the person that hired you -- I think it was USA Today -- said that they think you’re qualified for the job but you did such a good job at being so bold. Take yourself back to that moment. How did you have that so much confidence to say like, “I deserve this job” knowing you really didn’t have the experience? How did you walk into that job and just say, “This is something that I believe I can do and is meant for me”?

MONIQUE
You know, even when I was a young child, I always had the audacity to ask for things that most people would maybe think about but not have the courage to ask for. And I always look at it from a perspective of, “The worst thing that someone can say to me is “No.””

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
And then when they say “No,” they usually say “Why,” so then you can flip that.

In high school, I was part of a business program where, for two years, we job shadowed. We had to do public speaking, and it was a national high school organization. And so I learned a lot of leadership skills and a lot of “getting uncomfortable to get comfortable” and to get where we wanted to be in life.

When I was in college, I worked for the director of Career Services. I always knew I wanted to work for a number one company so that I could then learn the number one ways and be a great entrepreneur.

And so when the USA Today opportunity came up, I chose… They gave me different markets that I could move to and I chose Atlanta because I felt like even though it was a national position, I still--

ROB
How did you get the opportunity? How does one right out 22 say, “Oh I applied for this…” It was like an executive level position, I think, or something like that.

MONIQUE
I was actually still at school when I actually did because you have to remember, working in Career Services, one of the things I did was I paid attention to all of the corporations that we were doing placement for graduating seniors.

And USA Today was always on my list as one of the top companies. They were a young company at that time. They were really disrupting the way people were looking at news and media and so I thought it’d be really cool. So I was like, “Why not?” And I actually did get hired. I just got hired for a junior level executive position.

So when I went there and they were interviewing for a very seasoned position where you had to have 20 years’ experience, I was like, “Oh I want that job.”

ROB
[Laughter] “I don’t need 20 years. You got me. I’m Monique. What are you talking about?”

MONIQUE
Exactly. Sean McCarthy, who hired me -- She was a female, a very amazing executive -- she kind of laughed at it and then I was like, “Oh but I really want the job.” And she’s like, “Oh wait. You’re serious.” And I said, “Yeah.” So she made a deal with me. She said, “Listen, I can’t make that decision by myself.”

At that time, USA Today was still in Arlington, Virginia and so I went there and went through a whole week of interviews with all the top executives and they ended up giving me the job.

ROB
Wow. There you go. Hey look, you got to go shoot your shot. Why not?

MONIQUE
Why not, right? Listen, you know, the worst that can happen to us in life is that we go after our dreams and we dare to ask for the biggest picture. And then all you can do is go down from the biggest picture. I've never wanted to start at the bottom. I feel like, “What’s the difference between me and the executive that comes in besides being willing to learn?”

ROB
I completely agree with that. Do you think you can teach people that or is that just innate, like the ability just to say… Can you train yourself to be more uncomfortable or is it something that you think is just naturally in you? What’s your thought on that?

MONIQUE
I think it’s a combination of a lot. I think depending upon our circumstances and where we come from and what environment we grew up in. I think that most people don’t recognize that we can have whatever we want in the world. I think that most people’s standards are pretty low based on the circumstances.

For me, my mother raised us to never feel like we were our circumstances; to always see the bigger picture. But I do think that there’s a balance to all of this. I think that if everyone wanted to be the leader then how do we have balance, you know.

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
So I think that we need balance of different personalities, different career paths. I think that there is something that was never taught to me and that’s “Ambition.” You know, I just had it -- the tenacity and the audacity and the pursuit of something bigger. I don’t know that that‘s something you can teach people but I do think that we can give information to people and that can be a difference for people.

ROB
Right. Okay, so on paper, it seems like you’ve had this linear path. My guess is it hasn’t been linear.

MONIQUE
Oh gosh, no.

ROB
Yeah, right. [Laughter] But everybody sees that. You know, people are looking at Monique, 22. She came in and killed it early. There were many mistakes. CEO of a brand company of music entertainment, now is over a multimillion dollar fund, one of the largest. -- We need to get it larger. That’s another conservation we need to talk about to help people--

MONIQUE
Well I have no LPs in my fund right now. That’s why it stays where it is.

ROB
No, that’s a great-sized fund. Listen, I’m not disparaging. What I’m saying is we need more people like you to get to that level. We want to do what you are doing. I am not in any way dismissing the amazing things that you’re doing because it’s amazing. I just want to be clear.

MONIQUE
Oh yeah. No, I didn’t take it as such. Erica and I -- my business partner for the fund -- we wish we could have a larger fund. We are very particular about the impact of investing in women and people of color and the restrictions of always wanting it to look like charity.

ROB
Oh yes.

MONIQUE
And for LPs who don’t understand that, there’s a lot of adversity--

ROB
Speak to that. I was going to ask another question about your younger self but since you went there, I want to talk to you about a quote you said there that I read about. And I think this applies to not only women. You were talking about women. But I think we can make this apply to people of color -- black people.

A quote you basically said… And I might get you out of context. But essentially is what you just said there. You’re like, “People understand when they’re working with women and people of color and black folks that, okay, give the charity.” That’s easy for people to say. Like, “Yeah, we want to help. We want to give them some money.” But when it comes though you want to invest in their business, everyone looks at you kind of like, “Well what do you mean?” It’s like we don’t have an understanding of--

I think this is an opportunity for improvement. And you can speak more to women. But I've seen this with black people, too -- understanding the nature of working together, understanding what it means to invest in one another, that we’re not just looking for… Nothing wrong with charity, by the way. Charity is necessary. I’m not criticizing charity.

MONIQUE
Right.

ROB
But for us to grow, we have to be willing to invest in one another. Speak to what you see as the challenges there and how we can kind of change our mindset there. It sounds like you have some experiences and stories you can draw from. I could just tell from some of the stuff that way.

MONIQUE
First of all, it was pretty late in my career when the “aha” moment happened for me and realizing kind of how this whole system works. Right?

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
That’s been in existence way before we were even born. It was when I was getting my executive MBA and I realized, “Wait a second…” I was introduced to angel investing. “By the way, we’re millionaires. We’re successful. We have access to everything. We’re self-made yet we don’t know anything about angel investing.”

So when I learned about that, and I started becoming very active in the angel world, all of the founders were looking alike. And I was like, “Wait a second.” I mean I’m like becoming part of the problem. “You mean to tell me there’s no women? There’s no people of color who are trying to do start-up worlds?”

And so when I saw that that was really a problem, it was like, “Oh wait. This is how board rooms are made.” Your early investors is who makes up your voting board seat.

ROB
Yup.

MONIQUE
This is who decides what C-suites get to stay or gets put into place. No wonder we don’t have black and brown CEOs and billion-dollar companies and board rooms with us in it because we’re not investing early.
ROB
No, yeah.

MONIQUE
And so it truly became a real passion for me and purpose-driven on, ”We need to fix this.” But we have to fix it internally.

ROB
Amen.

MONIQUE
And we have to stop making people of color and women feel bad for being in the phase of startup worlds.

ROB
Or make them go through extra hoops that you wouldn’t make others go through. I've seen that play out, too.

MONIQUE
Yes. Let me tell you, Rob, it was so interesting to me, sitting in the rooms with traditional white male investors, and the questions that they would ask the people that look like themselves -- meaning, a white male only -- were not the same questions they were asking women and people of color. I've heard women be asked, “Well how many children are you going to have?” You don’t ask men that.

ROB
Or “How many kids you got?” They don’t ask men. There’s a lot of men right around. But the kids-- [Laughs]

MONIQUE
Right. And the crazy thing is that I have personally witnessed and experienced a very risky white male with no paperwork, just an idea, leave with a check. I have seen women and people of color come in with a proven financial model, they’re just trying to scale now, and they don’t get the money.

ROB
Yeah. We can’t solve all that and we can’t always change other people’s mindset. Sometimes we can but we have to… What I was getting at, too, is changing our own mindset. I’m talking about the people that have made it that are women, that are people of color.

What I have seen from my experience… and I don’t have as much experience in your world. I’m just starting to get in to this world but I've seen it play out on the political end. People -- I’m talking about our people right now -- will ask you more questions. They have more requirements of you than they will out of other traditional male white politicians and not investing in people that you see who have talent.

These are people -- I can speak from my experience -- that I would know. But I didn’t have the same conversations with like… sometimes even my white investor -- well I won’t call them “investor” -- the people that are giving to campaigns and stuff like that, that have known me. Like, it was less of a conversation.

So I think it’s also changing our mindset to understand how we have to, as you say, investing each other before it’s proven. If you think that person has talent and has the ability and has a good concept, you have to take some risks, right?

MONIQUE
Yes.

ROB
And then knowing that we do have the talent just as much as everybody else. In fact, I would even argue that we have more talent. If you look at a lot of the trends going on right now like Babyface versus Teddy Riley -- bring out your ex -- you know, Timbaland versus Swizz Beatz, they are commanding attention.

MONIQUE
Right. Mm-hmm.

ROB
Commanding more attention than… They literally broke the internet.

MONIQUE
Yeah, literally.

ROB
Literally, right? So you think about it though and… They’re the exception to the rule. They’re making money. But honestly, they’re exception. That reinforces the rule which is money flows through us but not to us. We have to figure out how we can make sure we're capitalizing on our value. But we have to recognize our value first. How do you go about--

When you are talking to other women, people of color who have the ability to help and don't understand… I think a lot people don't totally understand they have this mindset. I think all of us, as you said, even you at some point, were like, oh you had your aha moment. I probably had it, too. How do we work day in and day out to make sure that we don't adopt the same mindset we say that we're trying to defeat?
MONIQUE
Hooh! So you've asked like the age-old question, right?

ROB
I know I've asked a lot of questions.

MONIQUE
I think that, first, understanding that we're dealing with hundreds of years of a system that was never put into place to progress people of color, right? And so we take all of these oppressions and oppressive behaviors that have been instilled. It's specially designed intentionally through communities, right…

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
…even based on how highways are separating areas and… you know, gentrification -- just all of these things. There's a lot of layers to this.

ROB
There’s a lot of layers.

MONIQUE
Yeah, and I don't pretend to know any of them. The only thing I can absolutely do is share my journey, share my story, let people know that it does start with the mindset.

ROB
Absolutely does.

MONIQUE
It really truly always is about the mindset.

ROB
It’s the only thing you can control, honestly.

MONIQUE
Right. So I have always chosen to have a positive mindset. I’ve always seen the glass half-full. I’ve always trusted my faith. I’ve always trusted God. And I’ve always known that I’m worthy of anything I want. It would just take hard work and it would take asking. It would take learning. I’m a constant student of life. I think that, in particular for our culture, we have a lot of learning to do.
ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
I think that in defense of all of those who have made it, that… We’re just getting to a digital age where everyone is understanding how to receive information. You have to understand, we all came through the same public school system. The history that we learned is inaccurate.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
So not only are we having to relearn what our true history is and what impact we've honestly had on this entire global economy, that's when you can start understanding your real value. But this is a process. This is a never-ending journey. And we have a lot of work to do.

ROB
It is.

MONIQUE
We have a lot of work to do. And the only thing I can do is take responsibility for what I go out here and do and share with people. And I’ve made it my personal business that we have to empower our community.

ROB
I want to take you back to your earlier career a little bit and ask you a question I like to ask people like you on the show. So take yourself back to a moment, your younger self -- it could be at any moment in your life -- that you made X decision and you're looking back now and you're like, “Wow, I had that wrong.” What would you tell your younger self now given the knowledge… You can pull from a situation. We’d love to hear it.

MONIQUE
So in complete transparency, I have made a ton of mistakes. I’ve never lived in my mistakes though. I’ve always thought of them as lessons.

ROB
Okay. Give me one that's come to your mind.

MONIQUE
Oh my goodness. Okay, so my leadership style. I’m a very like no-nonsense-go-get-it-no-excuses type of person.

ROB
I can tell that. [Chuckles] That’s what I like about you.

MONIQUE
Right. But when you're responsible for a company and you're responsible for additional staff and for different personalities, you realize very quickly that everyone isn't motivated by the same thing as you and everyone doesn't--

Some people just want to show up to work. They don't want to add anything more. They don't want to do anything less. They just want to be there. And I know early in my career, when I was responsible for a lot of people, I was always finding their best quality and trying to push them past where they were seeing themselves.

And it was one day where one of the staff said to me, “Monique, this is just all I want to do. You’re seeing me for a bigger picture. That's not what I see for myself.” And so I had to really accept that and I had to really learn how to figure out what each person was individually-motivated by because it's all different.

ROB
It's like having kids.

MONIQUE
Yeah. Oh my goodness. Right? But you didn't raise them, right…

ROB
No. True.

MONIQUE
…so you don't have your foundation. So now you got to figure it all out, right?

ROB
Yeah. Yeah, even different. Yeah, you’re right.

MONIQUE
And even when I was younger, I was just so… Even in college, I worked amazing jobs -- high-level jobs. I, even in college, helped build a startup company that's still in existence to this day. And so I never saw limitations. And I was never afraid to put myself in a risky situation, not realizing that that's not how everyone is.

ROB
Absolutely not. But how about a risky situation that didn't work out though? So give me a situation where--

You know, I had a feeling that I can become… I ran for office twice. Well I didn't win. I learned something, got better each time. I almost failed the second and the eighth grade but started doing better in school. Luckily, I have strong parents. And obviously, I graduated. I did fine.

Look, I’m an open book on my transparency in terms of… This has been a process and I continually improve. If you can think of a particular lesson that you, at the moment, it seemed like a failure and what you learned from that because I think that's… So I think people look at Monique, right, and as I said, it seems like it's a linear process and I know it's not.

MONIQUE
Right, no.

ROB
I think it's helpful for people to say, “Wow, she has bled just like me.” If you can think of a moment that -- whatever stands out first in your mind -- like this was, “Wow, I thought this was going to happen and it went the opposite direction I thought. It didn’t work out.”

MONIQUE
Yes, I’ll tell you. I was still an executive at USA Today and I took my savings… I guess I told you I’ve always been an entrepreneur. Even when I was at USA Today, I had started my own side business.

ROB
You were a hustler.

MONIQUE
Yes. Because I always knew I was going to be in the music industry so I was doing things in the music industry even as an executive at USA Today. And one of the things that I did was I took my savings and used it all with a “business partner” who put no money in. Right?

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
And it was such a successful event. But guess what? I got no money. I lost money and everyone else walked away with putting no money up and I know they took the money. And so I learned at that moment that I wasn't doing anything anymore where I was the only one with skin in the game. And I also learned that I didn't care if they were my mother, my sister, my best friend, everything for business was going in contract.

ROB
Oh well, there you go. Yeah, hey.

MONIQUE
Because I was the one who took the financial risk. And by the way, I was a single mom. I had a son in college. And then I was also supporting my two sisters because my father had passed. So I took my cushion and--

I don't regret betting on myself because I think we have to know we have to bet on ourselves. I made the mistake of not understanding the levels of what partnership look like. I went in very trusting. I went in understanding what my integrity was, not realizing that everyone doesn't carry the same integrity. It doesn't make them a bad business partner but you do have to legally protect yourself.

ROB
Yeah. I read that you don't invest in businesses that have one founder. So talk through that -- question one. And another question on top of that is, it sounds like you have some experience… Actually, answer this one first then we’ll get to the founder part because I think this leads into what you just said. How do you evaluate who you get into partnerships with because it sounds like, from that experience, you have some knowledge and you've probably had other experiences, too.

MONIQUE
Right, a lot of them.

ROB
How would you go about advising people about how to build the right team and right partnerships?

MONIQUE
Okay. So are you speaking from a start-up perspective and from Reign Ventures investing or just in my business life period since I have several things I do.

ROB
You know what, you can speak from both because I think both are still relevant. If you're going to be a start-up and you're going to build a team, I would imagine the same principles apply to building a business no matter what.

How do you go about choosing the right partner? What do you evaluate in choosing the right partner for you? How do you go about that-- because I imagine how you view it is how who you invest into. Is that wrong?

MONIQUE
Right. So it's twofold, right? When it comes to the comment of me not investing in solo founders, it was more to the perspective of an individual founder -- because I was a solo founder by myself, too. So it's not just about an individual founder. It's more about how willing is that founder to understand and know that they need an actual team.

ROB
Mm, okay.

MONIQUE
And even if you don't have financing at that time, you need to have an amazing advisory board. If you're not willing to have an advisory board, that means you're not coachable which means that you're only living through your lens. And I haven't seen any company be able to grow without the effort of a team. So that's what that reference is, is that we have had great founders but they come in knowing everything, needing nothing but money and we know that that's not true.

Even at this level, I still have a personal advisory board. I still have a professional mentorship board that direct me, guide me, give me information. And so when we come across founders who have great ideas but are unwilling to learn and to grow their team and understand how important… There's no way we know everything.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
I don't personally prefer operations. Yes, I have my masters so I understand the process but I have to have a good operations person.

ROB
You and I are on the same page.

MONIQUE
As I shared earlier, one of my things that I’m working on is that I’m a very matter-of-factly person. I don't bring personal business to my professional life and so I expect that from my staff. That's why I have to have a great HR person because I can't deal with that because I would probably irritate the employees. So there’s a great way for [crosstalk- 00:27:14]--

ROB
[Laughs] At least you’re self-aware.

MONIQUE
Listen, I’m very self-aware. I think that's part of the process, right, is self-reflection and understanding what you're good at, what you're not good at and what you can learn to improve on.

And so when it comes to investing in founders, automatically, if you're not willing to get an advisory board, if you're not willing to even speak to people to bet on you--

You know, there are qualified people who will take some skin from your company to build your company with you. If you're not willing to do that… I mean I tell founders all the time, “You want 100% of nothing or do you want 60% of something amazing?” And so you have to be willing to do that.

And when it comes to my personal partnerships, and even in the founders, it takes time to get to know them. I have to know that you really have your expertise. That takes time with me getting to know you. We don't just meet a founder one day and just invest in them.

When we invested in Rodney… Yes, by the time SoLo came around, that was a no-brainer. We knew his work ethic. He put us in contact with Travis over a period of time. Second-time founder, that's a no-brainer. But when it comes to first-time founders, you have to have a great team.

ROB
Yeah, absolutely.

MONIQUE
We understand you don't have the financing, right? Everyone doesn't have access to… That's part of the reason why we started early the seed stage thing. We get in at the riskiest stage. So we're betting on the people.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
Right?

ROB
Yeah, that makes sense. A couple of points and I have another question. Something I look for in leaders is the ability to take feedback and take criticism and really be able to be… Like I said, the best advisors you can have are people that can wound you with the truth. Like they'll be able to wound you -- not try to hurt you but wound you -- to say, “Listen, this is how you need to improve” and then you being willing to accept that. And it is easier said than done for very successful leaders. So I think that's very important.

My question to you is, let's say you get the team together or you get a set of founders, how do you evaluate if the team is actually well-suited working together? What do you look for or what do you look at as you evaluate that?

MONIQUE
So as a fund, we still follow all the same guidelines. I mean there's still due diligence. The due diligence is no different than any other major fund.

ROB
Beyond due diligence. I’m assuming that. I’m saying other things like what characteristics things you look for -- you know, things like that.

MONIQUE
So Erica and I look for two completely different things and that's why our partnership works so well. She's more of the numbers person. She's more--

ROB
I’ve met Erica. I can tell.

MONIQUE
Yeah.

ROB
[Laughter] I love her but I can tell she’s very much--

MONIQUE
Yes, right? She’s in that numbers box. This is what she's done. This has been her entire career.

ROB
You and I are similar personalities. I’m the same. I have to have an Erica in my life because I don't like that stuff. I mean it's necessary but it's not my strength.

MONIQUE
Right. Me, too. So for me, personally, I look at the market opportunity. I look at the quality of the team, meaning, what is their social media like? And people think that's so like, “What?” That tells a lot about a person.

ROB
It does.

MONIQUE
When you go onto someone's social media page… And I’m not saying that that is like the end-all to be all. But if I’m seeing you partying every night, I’m not investing in you because I don't know what your discipline is like. So we start with the social media side.

We also go with them to a lot of places and see what their personality is. How do they talk to people? What are their meetings like? Are they on time? Are they early? Are they late? We truly look at finding someone with the “It” factor. And if we put up the bumper system for them, can they be successful through the bumper system? And it's a lot about character…

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
…because at that stage, we are investing in the people.

ROB
So can you think of a time… Obviously, we're not going to reveal names. You can just do the fact patterns of somebody who met you and got it completely wrong and maybe had the potential but they found a way to not make the most of their opportunities. Can you think of a story there?

MONIQUE
Yes.

ROB
And then someone that, initially, you thought maybe probably wasn't going to have a shot but then when you met them, you believed in them?

MONIQUE
So for the first one, yes. There was a young lady that a lot of people were speaking highly of. She is a solo founder to this day and I really loved what she was doing. But in our first meeting, the whole meeting, she was telling me. And so I finally just interjected and I say--

We're hour and a half into the meeting and I literally have no idea why I’m there at this point because you're a founder looking for an investment but you're telling me everything that needs to be done and you haven't asked me anything. You haven't asked me about how we invest, what we do, why would we invest in you -- you know, all of these things. And literally, any time after that point, I made a suggestion and she would tell me I was wrong.
ROB
Wow.

MONIQUE
Yes. It was unfortunate because so often, we do see this. And I get it though, right? We've been put in positions, especially as black females, to have to have this hard tough exterior and this idea of perfection but the reality is that there is no perfection and we're going to make mistakes. I still make mistakes to this day. Once we embrace that then we can work together because the reality is that none of us know everything. So that's one example of that. And I actually thought early on, before I met her, that I would invest in her but I ended up not. I’m actually glad I made that decision.

And then someone that I didn't think? Mm. No, I haven't... Even when I’ve met a company that isn't prepared for financial investment, what Erica and I have done, because we both believe in this, is we still support them. We'll fly them to the offices here in Miami, let them work out of it for a week. My team will come in and redesign their proposals -- anything. So it's never that I don't believe in someone. I believe in giving them information that can help make them better.

ROB
Right. This is obviously an uncertain environment. Pretty scary time.

MONIQUE
Yeah.

ROB
The world looks way different than we thought five weeks ago. You know, the world is just completely different.

MONIQUE
It is.

ROB
You and I are in pretty fortunate positions. I mean I can say that I had deals that were in the making and didn't happen but will likely happen sometime in the future. So I didn't lose money. I just lost out on potential current money coming in. But other people are in much different positions. You think about entrepreneurs that were doing everything right and the economy just shuts down, literally.

MONIQUE
Right.

ROB
What advice are you giving entrepreneurs in this kind of uncertain times about how they should go about approaching things?

MONIQUE
I think the first thing that I’ve been doing is checking on the mental wellness especially the founders that we have invested in. But one of the things that I have told founders, whether we've invested in them or not, is that these are the times that make your character. You can look at this from two perspectives. You can look at it and “Woe is me” or you can look at it and say, “Where can I find, in addition to my business model, to adapt to what the future will hold?”

That's the great thing about entrepreneurs. If you are a really strong entrepreneur, you are pivoting constantly even when there is no pandemic because you always have to be five-10-15 years out when you're thinking of the bigger picture and the bigger vision. I encourage all founders to take a step back and see what real solutions can come out of this major problem.

ROB
Yeah. I mean a lot of businesses started during the last recession. As we spoke about offline… Look, if you weren't digitally prepared, you're behind. But you can't get digitally prepared right now and… You would be surprised the opportunities that are available now that weren't available pre-Corona, right?

MONIQUE
Right.

ROB
As you talk about a new normal and how can you prepare for that normal… You know, we're going to have the Disruption Now Summit. It was going to be the first one in Cincinnati we're going to do this event and it was going to be in-person. I had all these interactions but we're going to figure out a way to do it virtually. And that's just the world we're going to operate in.

But I think this current pandemic, we're going to get past it but I believe it's going to exacerbate trends that were already happening. Automation was already happening, right?

MONIQUE
Yes. So content was already being pushed upon us in different ways whether you're on Hulu, Roku or whatever -- all of these things, right? So content and digital has been in the making for years now.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
And if you weren't adapting to having technology be the main focus of your company, you are going to be in trouble anyways.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
For me, personally, I’ve taken the last five weeks to do a lot of reading, take online classes that are free, watch--

ROB
What are some books you've read and some opportunities you’ve looked in this quarantine moment while you there? What are some good things we can learn from, Monique?

MONIQUE
Right now, I’m actually reading The New Negro, the story of Alain Locke.

ROB
Okay.

MONIQUE
I think that one of the things that I’ve been trying to do is get back to understanding our history from the true perspective.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
Like I had never watched Hidden Colors. I think that came out like in 2012 or something. So I finally got to watch that. And in that, they referenced the book called “The Lost Treasure of King Juba” which is about the proof of how Africans actually hit North America first.

So I’ve been trying to do a lot of historical perspectives because I think when we understand our history, we understand ourselves and our power and truly the amazing culture that we really are.

I just finished watching a great documentary called “The Family.” It’s on Netflix. It's all about church and state and truly the history from a global perspective of how church has always been involved in politics, influencing it and pushing it.

ROB
Oh yeah.

MONIQUE
I think that people should watch these things and truly start learning even if you don't have… I don't always believe everything or accept everything. I think that there are some historical things that we just can't get away from though which helps explain our cycles and where we're going and what we need to do as a culture, and also just the love for ourselves.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
I’m taking a class on edx.org on history right now just so we can have a better understanding of things. And this is the time we're supposed to be feeding ourselves. You know, I get “bored” texts all the time. People are texting, “I’m so bored” and I’m like, “Listen, have your moment,” right…

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
…because we all have a moment of like, “Oh my gosh, I can't believe I’m still in this house” but the reality is that when do we ever get afforded a reset button?

ROB
Exactly. And if you're fortunate enough where you can say you're bored, that means other things are taken care of. There are some people that are not bored, that they can barely take care of the bills. We want to acknowledge that. But for people that have the ability and have more time on their hands--

I’ve seen extremes, Monique, like no in-between. People say, “I am bored” or “I’ve been busier than I’ve ever been.” And I think that's a choice because you're in this moment, people are--

MONIQUE
Yes.

ROB
Right? How you approach the moment, as you said, is the mindset of this moment.

MONIQUE
It’s mindset. Who we are in quarantine is absolutely who we are in real life, right?
ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
I think that people have gotten so caught up with this Instagram and these filters and these TikToks. I’m like--

ROB
Well that’s fake world. I tell people, every time I see Instagram, “Your social media world is your fake world. That's your pretend world” -- for most people.

MONIQUE
Yeah. People are like sending me these challenges and stuff. You know, my thing is that we still have an accountability and a responsibility for what we're putting out into the world and what we're receiving from the world. If you are spending hours making TikToks and scrolling on Instagram and taking a picture and putting a million filters on it for two hours, that says a lot about who you are and what's important to you -- and no judgment. But we can't then complain that we're not where we want to be in life. You are the master of your life.

ROB
Don’t tell me who you are. Show me what you do.

MONIQUE
Right. We own our time. No one else owns our time or our day. And we can choose to be productive or feel sorry for ourself. I have always chosen to look at the bigger picture. Even when times are hard and it doesn't feel good, I’ve always chosen to push myself uncomfortably so I can get comfortable.

ROB
Yeah. I mean you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. You're right.

MONIQUE
And it's not easy. Listen, none of this is easy.

ROB
Mm-hmm. To go to that point, the brain is wired to make you not want to do what's uncomfortable. Literally, there's a guard in your brain built up to prevent you from doing things that are uncomfortable. And if you've never developed that muscle, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, it becomes harder to do. Obviously, once you do it and you say, “Oh that was painful at first but I got past it,” you can do it.

MONIQUE
Right.

ROB
But if you don't, it's always built… I mean it's a habit built into your brain and you have to literally break down the pattern and do it. But people have trouble doing it.

You've talked about this moment of crisis reveals your character. I also think it exposes institutional weaknesses within our society, and I’m right now talking about America. What concerns you the most about what you've seen in the current environment? Just give me your opinion there. What concerns you the most?

MONIQUE
I’ll tell you the same thing that has been concerning me since I have kind of been aware and more conscious. I mean I did grow up in a house where my mother was always getting arrested when she was growing up as the white woman who was marching with the black people. So I grew up in a household where my mother raised us as black women only and knowing our accountability to the entire culture.

I mean I remember when I worked for USA Today and I would have to travel or work on Martin Luther King Day, my mother would go ballistic. So I’ve always been aware of the problems that we have internally in our culture and what we're not standing up for.

And so to see what's happening right now, to read the news and see these Instagram stories where strippers are doing horrific things for cash apps and the fact that our culture… because I’m talking about our culture right now. The fact that even at the scariest time where we are--

Black people are dying crazy right now with this coronavirus at an alarming number, okay? Underserved communities are being impacted and affected. And the fact that people are choosing our culture to use their time for entertainment purposes that don't progress us further at all, it hurts my heart. It's no judgment but we have to do better. We have to start doing better.

To see a million people want to come into an entertainment landscape… But when you have informative information of how we can progress and move forward as a culture, we're fighting for a hundred or a thousand people to come listen--

ROB
Yeah. Believe me, I know. It's what I do. I get it.

MONIQUE
It’s heartbreaking to me because before, we could actually say maybe we don't have access to the information. But we are in a technology age where access globally… to any information that we want. And yes, in the underserved communities, they have smartphones. And so we have to figure out for our culture how we can start being more responsible for our culture.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
No system that was put into place, not for us, hundreds of years later… It's never been for us. Why do we keep expecting that this system to eventually one moment be like, “Okay, we're coming to save you now”?

ROB
No. Captain America is not coming to save you.

MONIQUE
No, that's not happening. That’s not happening.

ROB
The Hulk's not coming. There are no superheroes or for the comic books. Got to save yourselves.

MONIQUE
It's not happening.

ROB
No.

MONIQUE
And to read reports of murders still happening in Chicago during a quarantine, it's like, “Where is our empathy? What happened to our culture?”

I grew up in North Jersey close to the city -- lots of culture, lots of life. But I remember being at both sides of my grandparents’ houses and strangers being there to eat food or just a whole community… You felt like people felt they needed to support you too, no matter what it was. They didn't have to know you. When is that coming back?

ROB
Well we got each do our part. How are you talking to your kids through this process? You have two boys? I can’t remember.
MONIQUE
I have two boys and a girl. My oldest, he lives in LA but he is here during the quarantine.

ROB
Okay. How are they doing through this and how are you advising them?

MONIQUE
So we're still running on a calendar schedule as if they were leaving. So they still get up early in the morning, eat breakfast then they're doing their virtual schooling. Then after that, they still do their virtual tutoring as if… because the tutor would come with them every day for an hour.

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
Frankie, he's a basketball player so he's still training. We're cooking together more. I’m forcing them to--

ROB
You’re a good cook?

MONIQUE
Oh yeah.

ROB
All right. Say “Yeah!” Okay. I’m a good cook, too. Okay, that’s good. You’re quick with that.

MONIQUE
Yeah, I love to cook. Yes. [Chuckles] -- I’ve never been one to shy around the truth with my children. I think that when you give children truth then they can work from there. When you hide things from them, they won't know, right?

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
I think one of the worst things for me was not knowing information all the way.

ROB
Sure.

MONIQUE
So we've been talking from a political perspective. We've been talking about why November is so important and why our votes really still do matter.

ROB
Absolutely.

MONIQUE
And we've been talking about a lot of local stuff because since… You know, this administration is giving the governors more power right now. We've been having conversations on how the mayors and the governors are disagreeing. Look, whoever you're putting in office is making decisions on your health and your safety, right?

ROB
Yeah. That’s good. That’s important.

MONIQUE
Yeah. So we've been talking a lot of politics and a lot of faith and a lot of just, “How are you feeling today?” Like, “What are you afraid of? What are you thinking about” because my son is a junior, like a lot of his friends, don't get to graduate. They’re seniors and--

ROB
Yeah, I can’t imagine.

MONIQUE
Mm-hmm.

ROB
They don't have the same experience you and I took for granted, frankly.

MONIQUE
Yes.

ROB
You have to allow our kids and particularly our black young men to be vulnerable because they're not allowed to be vulnerable in most environments.

MONIQUE
I have a foundation, “Always Believing,” and we have a partnership with Boys and Girls Clubs. We have a community garden that we put in there and yesterday, even though the clubs are closed down, my sister and my daughter went and did the garden for over three hours.

ROB
Awesome.

MONIQUE
Yeah. And rain was like… Oh my goodness. But we've also planted stuff during this quarantine at my house. I believe in being sustainable -- you know, growing some fruits and vegetables just in case. And so we've been doing a lot of planting even though I grow stuff already. I’ve made them be a part of the process now so that they can understand how important it is to know how to grow food.

ROB
That’s awesome. Amen. Yeah.

MONIQUE
Hey.

ROB
Hey. Look, that's a good idea. We're getting towards the end. I want to ask you a couple of rapid-fire questions. But before I go there, one more question about the quarantine. Do you have any funny stories that have happened during the quarantine or things that you could share that's happened? And if you don't, I have another question for you on the quarantine.

MONIQUE
Funny things on quarantine? Besides my dog jumping in the pool every single day, [laughter] getting on my nerves, like… I think my dog is getting on my nerves more than anything else. She’s like so excited because we're not always usually home all day long with her.

ROB
Yeah. “You’re here all the time. This is great.”

MONIQUE
Yes. You know what? Dogs are not supposed to have chocolate. So I had bought this like dark chocolate bar and I put it up high. I have no idea to this day how she got it. It was not even open. She ate the entire chocolate bar. So we were wondering like, “Is she about to die?”

ROB
“Because you ain't going to the vet. You got to be careful. You got a hold on.”

MONIQUE
The fun thing that I’ve been doing… It's not funny. But the fun thing is that, as a single woman, I’m always so busy so you don't really know how single you actually are until sitting at home for five weeks. But I’ve been doing a lot of cool like virtual dating stuff, like reading books together, working out together. So it’s allowed me--

ROB
Oh you’ve been working out with the dates on Instagram?

MONIQUE
Yes. No, not on Instagram. Oh no, no, no.

ROB
Oh my bad. What are the virtual date sites? I don't know what these are.

MONIQUE
Just like FaceTime. You know, just FaceTime.

ROB
Okay.

MONIQUE
People I know, of course. I’m just saying that, where most of the time you're in a person's face and it can become about so many different things but when you're forced to build a friendship, you get to really see who should be in your life and who shouldn't.

ROB
Mm, yeah. It's a way of narrowing the choices.

MONIQUE
Narrow… Yeah, absolutely.

ROB
There you go. All right, a couple of questions. If you had a committee, living or dead, of three to advise you on life or business, who would those three be and why?

MONIQUE
Mm, okay. Maya Angelou. Her wisdom and her experience and her world travel and being one of the ones early on to go to Africa and lived there and truly experienced how amazing we are as a people, like to me, that wisdom that she had is unbelievable.

Nelson Mandela. His discipline… Because to me, part of our process is how disciplined are we willing to be, right, because that really makes the difference. His discipline and his leadership and his ability to care more about humanity than himself… He was selfless. I mean who wouldn't want to be like that?
Now he's passed on, my father. If I could have him on my committee now, I would. I lost him when I was 21 in college. It's such a vulnerable age for a young woman. I would have him definitely on my committee. And I think a lot of things that I went through from a personal relationship experience, I know I wouldn't have went through it had my father been around.

ROB
No, it makes sense.

MONIQUE
Yeah.

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

MONIQUE
You know what's interesting is that a few years ago, I was speaking and I made this quote and I said, “I know our ancestors had to do this and at that time, that was absolutely what they had to do. But it's a different time in life now and we no longer have to force our seats at the table. We can create our own tables.” And surprisingly enough, people were actually offended by that saying, “No, we have to be at a table.” And then last year, Tyler Perry said it and the world embraced it.

So I was really happy about that because at the time that I said it, I actually got into a lot of arguments with people especially who were civil rights activists because they felt like I was downplaying what our ancestors did. But the reality was that I was trying to transfer an understanding of power.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
Right? Because Alice Walker told us that the worst thing we can do is pretend like we have no power, right?

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
And I wanted us to understand that we are powerful and that guess what, we can create our own tables and who believes in it can come sit with us. But my timing for it wasn't received very well. At the time I said it, I meant it and I still believe in that. It doesn't mean to not have a diverse and inclusive table. We have to. But we can be the examples of that.
ROB
Well you can be the example that we can be the building where we invite who comes in the table because--

MONIQUE
Exactly.

ROB
Here’s the thing, as long as we're depending on being at somebody else's table, there's only going to be one or two seats because that's all they're going to give.

MONIQUE
And traditionally, it's been one, okay?

ROB
Yeah. It’s been one, yeah.

MONIQUE
And by the way, I was that checkmark, too, in corporate America, right?

ROB
Yeah. All of us had been, at some point, the checkmark.

MONIQUE
It does.

ROB
The goal is to not be just a checkmark.

MONIQUE
That's right. So for me, I truly believe in that. I feel that we have so much power. We don't know our power and we keep using our power wrong.

ROB
Yeah.

MONIQUE
So we need to get our tables together because there's no reason for us to still be in these horrific situations.

ROB
Agreed. Two final questions. One, if you had a billboard or a Google ad that symbolized your saying, what would that say and why?

MONIQUE
It would say, “No means it's on.”

ROB
“No means it's on.” You've already explained what that is. You don't accept no.

MONIQUE
I do not. I never had. Even as a child, I never had. In fact, my mother, a couple years ago -- I’m the oldest, right -- she said, “You know Monique, I wish I would have understood at that time that…” Because I was curious about everything and I questioned everything. You had to explain to me why something made sense because I wasn't just going to believe something just because you said so.

ROB
Right.

MONIQUE
And my mother took it as kind of disrespectful, not realizing that it was my real personality. I needed to have real information and I needed to understand why we needed to do certain things. And I’ve been able to use my voice because of that because I have questioned everything. And it's okay to be curious.

ROB
Yeah, it's okay to question. A lot of people aren't used to black women questioning and being comfortable and not backing down and doing it in a… yeah.

MONIQUE
It’s a mess. It’s a mess.

ROB
Yeah. Hey, just keep it up. Keep it up. We need you. Final question for you: In this moment of corona craziness, what gives you hope for the future?

MONIQUE
Ooh, humanity. I think that right now, we are seeing people, no matter what political party they sit in, understanding that humanity is the only thing that progresses us forward. So I think that even in a horrific time as such, to see that there's no color boundaries right now, that if someone's hungry, people are going to try to feed them, to see the hospital and the first responders being so vulnerable and humans trying to protect them, for me, that shows the sign that, you know what, maybe we're not so bad after all. And maybe we just needed a reminder that we all rely on each other and that everything each of us does impacts everyone else.

ROB
Amen. Monique Idlett-Mosley, thank you for coming on. I look forward to having you on some more.

MONIQUE
Thank you.

ROB
Thank you for all you do.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]