OPEN TRANSCRIPT

“So this idea that we are somehow playing to a small audience when the biggest companies in the world are consistently trying to capture that same audience is just absolutely ridiculous and we have to stop talking about it that way.” -- Ryan Wilson

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ROB
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. With me is Ryan Wilson who was the co-founder of The Gathering Spot. It's a space where African-Americans can get together, talk shop, talk entrepreneurship, grow and network. -- Ryan, good to have you on the show.

RYAN
Good to be here. I appreciate the invitation.

ROB
No problem, man. So you started The Gathering Spot, what, five years ago?

RYAN
We've been open five years in Atlanta but the process to start TGS really has been going on eight years or so. It took me three years of just working on the business out of... We started out of my apartment in Washington DC and so that was a three-year long journey before we actually opened.

ROB
Before you even opened. Walk us through that process because people say, yes, you opened five years ago but there was three years before that process even started.

RYAN
Folks talk about businesses coming about overnight and it's like “at night” but not “overnight” for sure. Our journey started in the summer of 2013. I was doing a lot of community organizing work in DC.

To make a long story short, after George Zimmerman was acquitted of Trayvon Martin's murder, I got an email from some friends that said, "Hey, what are we going to do" and I responded back to them with the idea of starting TGS.

For me, yes, physical space was important but we're really in the community business more than anything else. And I responded back to them with… It was an idea about community and how I thought that we could utilize that moment to come together.

I sent that email to one of my college roommates who is now my business partner, TK, and we started working in my apartment every night trying to figure out how to bring the business together while I finished up my law degree and he finished--

ROB
You were in law school doing this.

RYAN
Yeah. I mean it's funny--

ROB
I’m also a lawyer, too. What year were you doing this in law school, man?

RYAN
I started this right after my 1L year. So I had all 2L and all 3L while I was working on the company. It was surprising in one sense because… I had always planned on being a lawyer. I went to Georgetown for undergrad for preparation to eventually go to law school. I didn't know that I was going to stay at Georgetown for law school but I did. The idea that TGS kind of came in the middle of that process is still a little bit surprising to me.

ROB
Well you and I both are recovering lawyers. It's funny. I didn't even realize you and I had so much in common. I started the first college chapter of the NAACP at the University of Cincinnati. A lot of my spark came from my parents. But there was a really critical time, too, because the city of Cincinnati had racial uprisings, too, if you remember, if you go back to -- when was that -- 2001.

I was the president of the NAACP at that time. We were leading a lot of movements and protests because a police shot an unarmed African. "Timothy Thomas,” that was his name. I will say his name. That was his name. He was shot and killed for simply being black and pulling up his pants. He got shot and killed. He was wanted for traffic tickets.

I’ll just say that you and I are recovering lawyers. Since you were a lawyer, my question to you is, "What advice would you give your younger self thinking of yourself as a lawyer?" I became a lawyer because I wanted to help understand policy to change the law because I was also a community organizer. Speaking to your younger self at that time, as you're starting the business -- George Zimmerman was just acquitted for the murder of Trayvon Martin -- what advice would you give your younger self looking back now and what advice would you ignore?

RYAN
The advice that I would give myself is “It’s never too young to start.” I had to get over that hurdle mentally. I think in entrepreneurship, that, a lot of times, is the first major thing that you have to tackle which is really just getting past yourself...
ROB
It is.

RYAN
...and self-doubt about what's doable.

ROB
And you almost got to think opposite if you're a lawyer because a lawyer... I think like a lawyer last, I tell people, because lawyers, how they train you is all the risks to assess everything that could go wrong. If you're an entrepreneur, you never get off the damn ground because you'll be thinking all wrong.

RYAN
Yeah. Law is about trying to reason to the best outcome but it has a conservative, to me at least, perspective on how you get there. This was the exact opposite. I mean being an entrepreneur is like running towards a brick wall fully knowing that the wall is there and just believing that somehow you won't go splat and the wall will continue to back up as you move forward. You know, it’s different.

ROB
Wow, I love that statement. It's like you're going through the brick wall and you're hoping that you just don't destroy yourself. Did you ever feel like you’re right up against the brick wall during this process?

RYAN
Yeah. I've been... I was going to say "inches" -- whatever is shorter than that. We faced a lot of challenges. You asked me the question, “What will I ignore?” I would ignore the people early on... Again, I'm fortunate that we did this. I would ignore the folks that said "No." I mean there were 97 people that said "No" before the first person said "Yes" to invest.

What was also happening during that time was that the amount of money that we needed to raise was changing. At first, we thought it was a million dollars then we thought it was two, ended up being over three million that we needed in our first round. We were inches away from that brick wall, truly for years, where it was--

I remember one time, someone asked me, "What's your burn rate" and I looked at them and I wanted to cry because we didn't have a burn rate. We needed to go and figure out how to make money this week to survive or we'll be out of business. So the business has been profitable since inception but the business had to be profitable because we didn't have the resources to burn early on.

ROB
Interesting. So you're at that brick wall. You feel like that moment. Let's go to know number 90 when you're feeling at that time because I’m--

I like to take people through this process and I feel like I go through this process a lot, too. I've been at your stage. I’m at your stage again because to me, it's not linear. Walk us through when you're at your 90th or 94th in your approach to doing the pitch. How did you go about, first of all, getting past yourself and not just being discouraged?

That's a lot. People could say it's easy to do but it is not. Did you learn anything from... "Okay, how can I approach this better? Am I approaching the right people? Do I need to improve my methods?" Talk about when you were on that inches from killing yourself on that wall.

RYAN
We were definitely getting better at the pitches as time went on. I would say when we started that process, we weren't very good at articulating what the business was and we certainly were not good at articulating how we were going to drive a return on folks' investments.

To us, early, we were very concept-driven. We wanted to talk to you about our passion for what we were doing. That's all well and good but I would encourage any entrepreneur to get very, very well acquainted with your model to be able to explain it to folks in a way that gives them confidence that they're going to get their money back.

As simple as that sounds, that wasn't something that we put on the table early in conversations or demonstrated a command of. I think it led to folks not having the sort of belief in some instances.

Now in others, I felt we did a really good job. And as we got kind of down the stretch, we were doing well there. The thing about this more than anything when you're pitching is that you've got to get into the mindset that it is really the investor that is crazy, not you.

ROB
Mm, that's good.

RYAN
I even started to hunt for those no's because to me, the more--

ROB
"It's the investor that's crazy, not you." I like this. Go ahead. Say more.

RYAN
Yeah. The reason why I looked at it that way is that if you look at anything disruptive, almost by definition, folks do not or should not understand what you're talking about early. If they get it fast then they've probably seen it before and you've got to figure out how to differentiate yourself in a different way.

But if you're getting like hard no's and folks saying, "That just absolutely doesn't make sense," those are the opportunities that really end up becoming meaningful because, again, folks haven't seen it before, and you're right, then you're creating something that will drive real value.

So we, collectively as a team, had convinced ourselves of that. When folks would tell us "no," it was not, “We weren't seeing it” but like “They weren't seeing it and they would regret later.” I’m proud to say that now, years after we went through that part of the journey, several of those people have come back and said, "You saw something that I couldn't see." We're the largest city club in Atlanta of any category.

ROB
Awesome.

RYAN
If you go back to those conversations, folks were telling me that there was no way that we would even make it through the first couple of months. So you almost need those no's in order to really be on to a bigger yes, is how we framed it.

ROB
And your membership centers on black folks, right, I’m sure.

RYAN
Yes.

ROB
I've heard this, too, because as we walked through my platform, it’s going to feature black and brown artists and creators and I've got some pushback like, "Well is there enough dollars there to support that?" I’m sure you heard that, too. So walk me through when you had those conversations. Like, "Will black people invest in other black people? Will people of color invest in other people of color?" Walk me through those conversations with people because you're also helping me give me my motivation for the day. I’d like to hear what you're saying.

RYAN
This notion that you can't have a business that support black and brown folks is beyond ridiculous, and we have to start to call it that. If you look at the numbers… Forget my feelings about this but just really look at the numbers and understand--

Where I live in Atlanta, I would argue that our greatest export is our culture more than anything else. So if you believe that I’m right, in that we export more of our culture than anything... We're the culture capital of the U.S. If that's true, if that's driven by black culture which is kind of--

You could kind of view through the prism of hip-hop. Hip-hop, if you look by the numbers, it’s the number one genre of music in the world. Almost by definition, again, engaging black people or black culture, is not niche at all.

When I was growing up, there were pop stars. There were legit people who were seen as mainly white pop musicians. You don't have that anymore. The biggest artists in the world are people like Drake and Lil Baby and the Migos and Cardi B, right? So what are they engaging -- black culture.

So this idea that we are somehow playing to a small audience when the biggest companies in the world are consistently trying to capture that same audience is just absolutely ridiculous and we have to stop talking about it that way.

ROB
And the key is we're not Kat Ryan. The key is we're not capturing the equity that we bring in. The equity flows through us, not to us. And that's what I appreciate about the Gathering Spot. It's flipping the model back to where it should be. We need to invest in us and understand the value that we are generating and creating.

RYAN
We absolutely do. But we have to also, while we're doing that, understand that... Like, Coca-Cola and Nike and any company that you could imagine right now, they are trying to get to the audience that other folks are trying to tell you is small. So if you're engaging in something where the context is black--

What I say TGS is, "Look, everybody is welcome to come in to the Gathering Spot but we have a perspective. The club has been curated by us for a specific community. If you're okay with that..." which I imagine many folks are... Again, hip-hop is the biggest form of music in the world.

ROB
Yeah.

RYAN
I’m not engaging in a small endeavor. I’m engaging in, frankly, the largest opportunity that exists out there.

ROB
Amen.

RYAN
I think that the clubs that are focused on 60-plus year old white men, that's niche, not me. [Laughter] I just think that we've got to just look at the numbers, take a step back and realize that a lot of those arguments are made to continue to discourage folks to get in the game and they're not based in any sort of reality.

ROB
Yeah, I completely agree. So talk to me about how you honed the model because you have the passion, right, and you honed the model for the operations part of it, like, "This is how we're going to make money." What were the just basic tenets for how you were going about it and how you go about it now in terms of creating a passion that is centered on great things but also making sure you have a revenue model that you can make money and that your investors could get a return on? What were the couple of tenets that really made the difference and really moved Gathering Spot from your passion and concept to a functioning, thriving, sustainable business?

RYAN
To the model piece, it takes a tremendous amount of time to understand and sometimes, iterations on models in order to get to the best one. For us, we did a lot of study of businesses that were adjacent to what we were doing. So what we saw in those businesses were that membership dues and fees were an important part of the model. We saw that in many instances, they had a restaurant and bar. That was a part of the model. And then what we added was event space.

So those are the core components of what we do. We host a lot of experiences. We operate a full restaurant and bar. But the primary way that folks engage is through our membership model and that, ultimately, is how the business has been sustainable for our entire time.

ROB
Awesome. So let's talk about now how... What you just described makes total sense to me, specifically, pre-pandemic... pre-COVID-19. The world changed a lot with COVID-19. And also, we had the disruption for some but reality for black people in terms of the uprisings that happened after the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor... We can be on the rest of the show naming people. So talk to me about how, if you have an event space that seems like it was definitely heavily dependent on having people present and then you had this pandemic where you couldn't have people present, how did you pivot?

RYAN
Funny enough, actually, we didn't pivot. It's important for me to say a couple of things about this. First, and this is specific to our context, the Gathering Spot, if you look at it through the prism of space then yes, we have event space. Again, we have a restaurant bar space and that is a part of the offering. We look at the space though as more of a tool to do what--

My job is mostly about each day which is connecting people and building community. When you look at what happened last year, our setting had to shift like a lot of businesses. We couldn't do things in-person. We had to go online. But the community aspect of TGS which is, again, something that we had established pre-COVID in a way that was really a real thing, that didn't change. Our retention rate last year was 99%.

ROB
Awesome.

RYAN
So said differently, less than 1% last year of the membership left given what was going on. And I’m extremely grateful to an internal team but then also a membership community that understands that, at the end of the day, our associations with one another and what will get us through this storm is staying together. So that's what we were able to do last year.

We hosted far less events. I mean in 2019, close to 2400 functions. So I can't say that it wasn't meaningful, that we weren't able to gather in-person but it was not devastating in a way that it could have been. And we focused the business on access to space and not prioritize the people aspects of what we do. And given that, that, again, was kind of a long-standing practice. COVID didn't force us to shift our mission but mainly just our setting.

ROB
You really said it well, that you realized the business that you're in, you're not in the business of event hosting or just to having space or running a restaurant. You're in the business of community and people. And as long as you kept that perspective, you’re just, "Okay, so we didn't really pivot. We just made sure we were still reaching the people in a way that they needed to be reached," and that says a lot for why you were able to sustain.

RYAN
I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, staying wedded to the why you guys started, what is the mission of the organization, it starts to change this question of what a pivot is especially during crisis because for many of us, the mission can't really ever change.

ROB
Exactly.

RYAN
Circumstances will change all around us all the time which will require us to move a little bit differently but you don't have to really change your "Why." So the "Why" for us didn't change last year.

ROB
The "How" did. That's all.

RYAN
The "How" changed. The "How" was always going to change to a certain extent. It’s how I looked at it. And look, I am not trying to downplay the significance of what COVID brought especially for black-owned businesses last year.

ROB
Yeah, no question.

RYAN
But if there's a group that is prepared to be able to weather and come out on the other side of that storm, it is black entrepreneurs. We know crisis.

ROB
We live crisis.

RYAN
Yeah. We know hard circumstance. There are really other communities outside of the financial resources piece of this but just like mentally, having the wherewithal to get through, we have that because we do that on an ongoing basis. So contextualized that way. I think that, again, COVID was very, very rough but I think that we will see a resurgence of our businesses in a way because… We didn’t think possible last year because... I mean, look, we know how to do this.

ROB
Yeah, we do. You and I talked about this offline. But this moment right now, the COVID-19 and also the combination of the awareness for Americans... I mean we're always aware that we're black. We're always aware that we don't have the same level of justice. But right now, there is more attention to it than it has been in my lifetime, I can say, right? I mean we're young enough. We didn't live through the '60s and '70s. So in our lifetime, this is a really pivotal moment.

And I tell people, that, in combination of just the moment of what's going on on the internet... Like the internet is having a moment just like it did when it first started in 1999 when people really got into it, just like around 2010s when there started to be this centralization of social media networks. Now we're in that third stage.

And I believe COVID-19, Ryan, was a disrupter but I believe it was more of an accelerator of trends. We were already going to go virtual. I think it just got us there faster.

So I’m telling people right now, “This is a moment in time. And if you're not in it, you're not looking for the opportunity, it will go past you and then the door will shut.” This is a unique moment to me.

Talk to me about what you see as just the landscape because of COVID-19 and how... I think it changed perspective. I do think we are going to be different now. There's a next normal. Things are not going to be exactly like they were before the pandemic. What are your thoughts on just like this moment? Speak a little more about how you think black and brown entrepreneurs should be viewing this landscape in this moment right now.

RYAN
Yeah, man, I agree with you. This is a really unique time and there are certain things that will forever be changed. But I would, again, categorize most of those changes in the "How" bucket and not the "Why." And I think that what black folks are really good at being able to do is to come up with creative new ways on how to do things, right?

ROB
Yeah.

RYAN
That's why we're going to be able to meet the needs of this new moment. But I would question the folks that believe that the "Why" is going to change.

ROB
The "Why" never changes.

RYAN
The fundamentals are going to stay -- the fundamentals, right? And the trends that we're seeing, they're not... There are new modes of communication and doing business with one another but I don't think that they're fundamentally revolutionizing our need for connection and community or creativity.

ROB
I agree.

RYAN
These are all enhancements on those things which, again, I think black folks have proven over time to be extremely well-prepared to meet the needs of new trends. So I look at it as an amazing time to be black for that reason alone...

ROB
I agree.

RYAN
...because we know how to create and do new stuff and ways that leads up to the [fall - 29:14].

ROB
You're right, the "Why" hasn't changed. But there are more opportunities, I would say. When I did my interviews, a lot of people wanted to do them in-person, like, "I’d rather meet you in person. Let me know when you come to Atlanta" because I would come to Atlanta or other places and tape. But now I can do this and I’m still going to go in-person.

But the thing is you can now take advantage and network with people in an additional way that has now been socialized. You now don't have to necessarily go out and meet with an investor in San Francisco, spend $2000 to go down and sit with he or she. You don't need to do that. You can now have a Zoom, have that presentation and get the funding without having to do any of that. I think there's an advantage there. I think there's an advantage to the democratization of this process.

As you know, we're building out an NFT platform. You can now build out platforms and it's not so cost-prohibitive where... You don't have to have a million dollars up front in order to build things. That's not the entry point anymore. You still got to have some capital, you still got to have connections, you still got to build, you still got to do the basics but there's more opportunity now. At least that's how I see it.

RYAN
I don't disagree. Again, the fundamentals are going to stay but I do think that this moment provides new opportunities and certainly is going to reduce the price point for access to entry which will have even more creative people be able to get in across the finish line which is actually cool.

ROB
Exactly. So I want to talk a little bit. You started off in Atlanta. Atlanta was your central point -- Atlanta as your central point as the ecosystem. Why Atlanta? What's going on in Atlanta that is so unique and special? It seems to be now from the center of the political universe, too, right, of the country at this point more than people actually even realize. Talk to me about your love for Atlanta as an ecosystem or where you see Atlanta in terms of the, I would say, global perspective that's happening across the world.

RYAN
With respect to everywhere else, Atlanta is the most important city in the country right now. There's a couple of reasons for that. If you look at what's happening here, there are very few places where you have colleges and universities at a level that are significant; sitting next to a very legit startup ecosystem and a lot of amazing companies being started and grown here. We have I think the third highest concentration of Fortune 500 headquarters in the city; sitting next to a creative community that can take those ideas and bring them all over the world. That is extremely a dangerous combination of variables.

When you add the importance now of politics, nationally, on how Atlanta can play a role in our political environment, all of that makes what's happening down here extremely important to really everywhere else.

I don't think that there's any other city where two 24-year-olds can come with an idea and have the city embrace us in a way where... TGS in Atlanta, our youngest member is 21. Our oldest is 89 -- Ambassador Andrew Young. The idea that there is a place that... Again, the newest entrepreneurs in the city, the most seasoned executives and legacy, almost institutional figures like Ambassador Young all call “Home” is what Atlanta, to me, can only provide.

ROB
Awesome.

RYAN
Yeah, I’m really bullish on all things Atlanta at the moment. I think that this is a very special time for the city and folks should be connected to this city. I’m not saying you have to live here but it is important to be connected to some of the activity that's coming out of Atlanta given the moment that it's happening.

ROB
I completely agree. I want to ask you one more question about the Gathering Spot then a few kind of legacy questions before we wrap up. What is the future of the Gathering Spot you're seeing five to 10 years from now? What do you envision the Gathering Spot? Where do you envision it being at in its impact and its scope and its scale?

RYAN
We're going to continue to build clubs throughout the country. So Atlanta was the first club, DC was the second. Los Angeles is on its way. We're under construction. We'll make some announcements here soon about other cities.

ROB
I saw you have connected cities, things going on, too.

RYAN
Yeah, you have the opportunity to join the community. We haven't built clubs in these cities yet but in Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Charlotte and Houston, as cities, we're building communities there with the goal of building physical locations in those cities in the short term. So my job is just that -- getting people together and then giving them some space in order to be able to connect with one another.

ROB
That's awesome. All right, a few legacy questions here. So what's an important truth you have that very few people agree with you on?
RYAN
That people don't agree with me on? That's a tough one.

ROB
It's meant to be. [Laughter]

RYAN
I don’t think I’m pretty agreeable. I don't know if this counts as a ton of people not agreeing with me but maybe. I think the group that disagrees really... Hopefully, they change their mind here soon. But I think--

ROB
If not okay, it's fine, too. Go ahead.

RYAN
I think black folks are over-mentored and under-resourced. I think a lot of people agree with me on the "under-resourced" piece but not the "over-mentored" piece. I think we've got to start to shift that narrative, understanding that… The real crux of the conversation for me is about the "under-resourced" part of it and not the "mentorship" piece.

I've been in a lot of conversations recently where there's a lot of disagreement about that and that folks really believe that it is indeed mentorship or education. Talking about in the context of entrepreneurship, that is the barrier to success, and I disagree with that. I think that it's about black entrepreneurs and small businesses, just not having the resources [crosstalk - 36:01]--

ROB
How do you think they define "mentorship" -- the people that would disagree with you? What's their beef or your disagreement from your conversations you've had on this?

RYAN
I mean they like to meet a lot of the challenges that we have with, to me, what amounts to coloring books, to a very patronizing--

ROB
Yeah, I actually agree with that. I think if we're talking real, a lot of folks will say, "Oh we have a support program for black entrepreneurs" or they have these... I'll be real straight with you. I think most of the diversity and inclusion efforts, most of them are bullshit, right? They're just to say, "Okay, this is what we do. We held a good party." Okay, whatever. But then when you look at the results, nothing has really changed. So I agree with you.

RYAN
A lot of them presuppose that the reason why black folks are not being successful in one way or the other is just that there's a knowledge gap. And I’m not saying that for some folks there isn't a knowledge gap but I know that there's a lot of folks that have the knowledge necessary and still can't get the resources.

ROB
Exactly. There's a resource gap.

RYAN
Yeah. Look, the question that we have to ask ourselves is that once you go and acquire all this knowledge, do you have access then to the resources? And if you do then where are they, right? Because if you look at the numbers on this, we are disproportionately underfunded. And I’m not just talking about venture capital. I'm talking about the traditional bank capital -- you know, traditional debt. We don't have access to those platforms.

So yeah, again, I think that a lot of folks disagree with the perspective that we have to spend less time lecturing black folks around what information they don't have and more time trying to figure out how we're going to get them resources so that they can get those ideas in the marketplace like everybody else.

ROB
I completely agree. The only thing I can see is if it's... To me, I don't think it's real mentorship. A real mentorship is someone giving you connections and getting you the resources you need. It's often capital but it's not always directly capital. Well sometimes, you can partner with a corporation. That can be your back support for something. They can do all your advertising. So that saves you capital or they can give you support -- not always knowledge you need but sometimes you just need the infrastructure that a larger organization can give. But if your network is not providing you more net worth, it's not a real network.

So to me, when people talk, it's this false sense of what it really means. And it is kind of patronizing like, "Oh well, we have a program where we just talk to folks." "Okay. So how was the program? Tell me how it's connected to opportunities. If it's a corporation into the supply chain, tell me about how much dollars you've invested because if your programs don't do that, they don't count." I think you and I agree there.

If you had a team of advisors -- you get to pick three people -- living or dead, to advise you on life, business, personal -- again, they can be living or dead -- who would they be and why?

RYAN
We'll start really close to home. I’m fortunate my parents are entrepreneurs. My dad has been an advisor through this process the entire time. I’d add to that Reginald Lewis. I think his mindset was the one that is needed... I mean he was extremely successful in business.

And the third one is tough for me. I would get a different perspective in there outside of business and add someone like Ta-Nehisi Coates, like a writer, someone that is deeply interested in talking about issues that are important in our community and how we ultimately will overcome.

ROB
All right, final question. You have a billboard or Google ad that summarizes or says the theme of who you are or you're saying in life. What is that and why?

RYAN
That I’m a community builder. That's it.

ROB
Yeah. And you spoke why that is and who you are at this moment. Look, we got a lot of things we need to build so I appreciate what you guys are doing at the Gathering Spot. Look for opportunities where we can hopefully collaborate because I do love what you guys are doing.

And I do think as folks, our ecosystem, building for black and brown entrepreneurs, artists and creators, Atlanta has to be at the center of it because that's just the center of the universe right now in terms of that and I think it will be for the foreseeable future. I appreciate what you're doing. I look forward to the future collaborations and thank you for coming on the show.

RYAN
Thanks for having me.

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