Building a tech start-up in Silicon Valley: 'Not only am I Black, but I am also a former athlete.' (via CNBCMakeIt)
That program would change the trajectory of Brown's post-athletic professional career, and bring him, a Black man and former NFL-player, to and through the center of the start-up world, Silicon Valley, a notoriously white world dominated by technologists.
"I had never even heard of Silicon Valley, the tech start-up, none of that. It was so foreign to me," Brown, 33, tellsThe idea that there is a place where the culture revolves around raising money and creating businesses was intriguing to Brown. "I am from Houston, went to the East Coast for college and spent most of my time in the Midwest and other places playing ball," he says. "So I just wasn't exposed to what was going on out west in the Bay Area specifically — until 2013." Brown applied for and was accepted to the first official batch of students at Draper University that year. He was all in from before the program even started. "When I say I dove in, I tried to do as much research as I could on what Silicon Valley was at that point with a few weeks before the program," Brown says. "I just went in very green and knew nothing and came out finishing top of the class and on fire to get into tech and ultimately move to Silicon Valley."In 2014 he moved to the Bay Area, worked at marketing start-up and learned how to code. "Turns out I was the only Black male there. There was one other Black woman there who was an assistant," Brown says. It wasn't the first time Brown was the only Black person in a room, but "it was something I recognized," Brown says. He started trying to network. "A lot of the meetups and things I was going to, I typically would be one of the only Black folks there," Brown says. He sought out affinity groups and did eventually find communities of other Black technology workers and founders which helped him. There is "a network that you can tap into so that you didn't feel so isolated, and that's when I realized that okay, there is a good number of us out here that I wasn't aware of in various capacities." Being Black and a former NFL player, Brown is also accustomed to being the recipient of others' stereotypes. "Not only am I Black, but I am also an athlete," which typically comes up "pretty quickly" whenever Brown mentions he went to Duke University, he says. "Oh really!? Did you play ball?" Brown says he is asked, with people ignorantly assuming a Black man would only be admitted to such an elite academic institution to play sports. "People were so blown away by how smart I was," Brown says. "Like I said, I graduated early from Duke. I was a public policy major, I was always just as active off the field as I was on the field. I always told people that it just so happened that I know how to tackle people.'" People would say, "Hey, you are so well spoken," Brown says. "Well, what did you expect? There is usually some stuttering and stumbling and then we usually end the conversation from there." And then there are stereotypes about the academic prowess of athletes too. "For me, it felt like a double whammy at times where not only am I Black, but I am also a former athlete and so there are some preconceived notions that come with that." Brown was on the receiving end of such microagressions "definitely in Silicon Valley, because that is where I did a lot of my pitching" to investors and to potential collaborators," he says."I feel sorry for the people, you are limited by your own ignorance," he says. "For me, my experience of being in Silicon Valley and being Black, those [microaggressions and comments that result from unconscious biases] were happening — not all the time with every person I came in contact with — but it happened enough to where it stood out and you just learned to deal with it.", a technology platform that gamifies charitable giving by allowing users bet on real and digital sports events and then donate proceeds to a cause. Win-Win was part of early-stage accelerator 500 Startups in the spring of 2017, where Brown worked to grow the business. In its early days, Win-Win made money by taking a percentage of the money that users donate. But the start-up has pivoted its model slightly and now, it has shifted to a software as a service model, where it sells its software technology to operate the gamified philanthropy model to other businesses. "We've validated gamified giving the past couple of years through our athlete celebrity hosted campaigns and are excited to now provide our [business-to-business] customer segments with this new innovation," Brown tells CNBC Make It. Potential customers for the gamified philanthropy include pro sports teams and leagues, colleges and universities looking to boost their alumni fundraising, non-profits, and corporate brands, he says. Brown has raised $1.8 million funding for Win-Win, and of that, $1.5 million was from accredited investors and funds including
Please follow us on Google to support us United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
During pandemic, Black families put trust in Black doctorsResearch suggests Black patients have better outcomes when treated by Black doctors and nurses. Yet, only 5% of doctors nationwide are Black, and only 2% are Black women, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Read more »
Stop Scrolling and Start Following These Black Roller SkatersRoller skating has gone viral over the past few months. Support the Black communities who've fought to keep the sport alive.
Read more »
Beyoncé Donates $1M to Black-Owned Businesses Impacted by COVID-19For Beyoncé's birthday this year, the superstar is giving back.
Read more »
'We found a massive black hole collision that has never been seen before'We detected a very unusual signal, it was more like a bang. The signal was at such a low frequency that we knew that if it were a binary black hole, it must be really massive.
Read more »
Black Concert Promoters Want to Talk About Live Music's Exclusion ProblemThe newly formed Black Promoter Collective wants the live music industry to address longstanding racial inequality. “I’m not interested in just having a black piece of the pie,” s…
Read more »
UNICEF USA BrandVoice: Why COVID-19 Is Hitting Black And Hispanic Children Especially HardRacism and health care inequities were already making families and children sick. The coronavirus pandemic is making a dire situation worse.
Read more »