Episode Transcript
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Jewel Burks Solomon: It said that less than one percent of venture capital funding goes to black founders and black founded companies, and we know that particularly black founders and black women founders are some of the largest growing segment of entrepreneurs. So there’s a disparity there that we thought needed to be addressed.
Rusty Rueff: Jewel Burkes Solomon is the founder of Partpic, which raised over two million dollars before being acquired by Amazon, and that was just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey. She’s been the head of Google Startups and now she’s a managing partner at Collab Capital, a group working to provide viable pathways to sustained wealth for the black community. She’s an incredible story, a fascinating entrepreneur, an investor, and someone we can’t wait for you to hear from Henry, take it away.
Henry Kaestner: Jewel. Very, very glad to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining us.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you so much for having me.
Henry Kaestner: So we’re going to talk all things Collab and the things that God has uniquely equipped you to do going forward. Really excited about the journey that you’re on as you start with Collab capital. But as we try to do with anybody we talked to on the show, as we try to understand a little bit about your background and who you are and where do you come from and and how is God worked in your life from the very beginning. So tell us a bit about your story, please.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I was born in Mobile, Alabama, which you may be able to pick up on a little bit of a Southern drawl, but more in mobile and raised primarily in Nashville, Tennessee. And I was fortunate to be born into a family of great people, entrepreneurs, both my parents. And so I always tell people I got that part on it because that’s what I grew up around, but was born into a family that was a really faithful family. And so I started my faith journey at a very early age. And I remember Sunday mornings were spent in church. My grandmother, I’m sure we’ll listen to this podcast. And she made sure that I was in Sunday school and always right there, you know, front row for service. So that was a great foundation for me. And then I think, you know, speaking about the faith journey, I was in a routine growing up of being in church. I grew up in First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill in Nashville, Tennessee, which is important because there was a lot of history in that church. It was a. Training ground for a lot of the civil rights leaders during the 60s working on the Nashville sit in, and so I think that growing up in that church planted the seeds in me that I didn’t even know were being planted. But it actually was not until I went to Howard University and started getting involved in the chapel at Howard that I really sort of developed my faith. So that’s a little background.
Henry Kaestner: That’s good background. So, you know, this is one of these unique times where we actually do a interview that is going to be released on both Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor. So much of your background is on the entrepreneurial side. And then also what you’re going to be doing now, what you are doing now is on the investor side. But bring us into the Faith Driven Entrepreneur part. Talk to us about Partpic. Tell us about the problem or actually the opportunity that you saw and how that worked out.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, so set that foundation to kind of let you know about my background and growing up. But as I mentioned, I grew up in a house where entrepreneurship was seen as a great thing. And so I always knew that I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I didn’t know what the path would be to get there, but it was on 12, 12, 12 that I had. What would be the idea for what would become Partpic. And I saw my mom in an email on that day and told her I want to create a technology solution for part search. And the idea came to me because I was working at a company called McMaster-Carr, where I was managing in the call center, and I was the person who received escalation and so basically got yelled at for the majority of the day and wanted to find a better way to help customers. And so I was experiencing the problem of people being frustrated with searching for replacement parts, industrial parts every day. And then I also had a personal connection where my grandfather, who was running our family farm in Reston, Alabama, he was in the middle of a harvest and his tractor broke down and he called me to help him find a part for the tractor and I could not find this part. And so that was, for me, sort of a sign to say I actually need to pursue a better way for people to find parts, because it was one thing for it to be my customers who were having the problem, but it was another thing for my grandfather to be also having that same problem. And so I sort of thought about, OK, what would be a better way to allow people to search for parts? And the idea just kind of hit me that you could do it with a camera search and leverage, you know, computer vision technology, which I didn’t understand fully what that meant at the time, but I learned a lot about it and set out on a journey to build this technology and build a company around the technology, which became partpic. And we had a really interesting journey in building that business, ultimately selling it to Amazon into twenty sixteen and then integrating the technology into the […] Mobile app.
Henry Kaestner: That must’ve been really exciting. Tell us about the journey up through that. Maybe just take a second before we end up talking about more on the investment side. Take us through some of the lessons that you learned at Partpic. And I’m going to presume that is close part because you probably didn’t go toe to toe across the negotiating table with Jeff Bezos. But if you did, I want to hear that story. But tell us about some of the lessons learned.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, I mean, there were so many lessons learned during my journey. One thing to call out is that I was twenty three years old when I came up with the idea and started the company. And so I was very young entrepreneur and I was learning a ton during that time. And I would say, you know, the top things that I was able to work with and perfect with. Really circulated around building relationships and trusting that even when things were difficult and they were often very difficult given the fact that we were building this kind of novel, new technology and particularly building it in an industry that is pretty old school, I would say pretty archaic as it relates to technology, or at least it was at that time. And so trying to convince the decision makers that large companies that they should trust a young CEO and also a CEO, that looked quite different than probably most of the folks that they were used to receiving pitches from. And that was a little intimidating. But for me, it was a huge learning experience and one where I would really have to rely on my faith to kind of push through some of the obstacles that I was encountering along the way. So obstacles, everything from, you know, how do I attract the right team to help me in building this and how do I want the right investors that actually believe in the vision and believe I can execute the vision. And then even to the point of selling the company is that the right decision is just the right company. Amazon is a huge […]. And going through that process of having to sell across the table from a more powerful and mighty entity was obviously daunting for me. So I had to really rely on my faith through all of that. And I was fortunate that that worked out, that I did not leave me at any point in the journey. So I’m really thankful for that. And I know that my faith was certainly increased through my entrepreneurship journey.
Rusty Rueff: So what’s really cool about your your background is, is that, you know, you go through the sale of the company and then you you know, you find your way not only to Google as the head of Google startups, but you also, you know, have been involved in venture capital yourself. And we’ve shared about Collab capital. But I want you to talk a little bit about Google startups and what you do there. But then I want to go into Collab capital because the problem that you’re trying to solve there is we know is an important one and we want to make sure that we dove into that. But tell us about Google startups.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I think about my role as head of Google for startups, for the US as a really big full circle moment for me. I started my career at Google 11 years ago as an intern summer of 2009. And at that time, I could only imagine that at this point I would be leading a team that’s focused in an area where I’m deeply passionate, which is around leveling the playing field for underrepresented startup founders across the country. And this year we have a special focus in Atlanta, which is where I’m based. And I was led to this role really because it was a bit serendipitous that I came into this role. I actually just went through the Google office to have lunch with a friend and ran into a member of this Google for startup team and started talking to her about how she was doing, what was going on, and she let me know that this role was going to be coming open. And when she told me about it and I continued to talk to other people and learn more about it, I thought, wow, this is exactly what I would be doing. Even if I didn’t have this job, I would be working with startups in early stage companies and trying to help them get the resources that they need anyway. So it’s really a blessing for me to be able to do it as my day job. I would do it. And we’ll talk about collabs, which is that can be done. But it does allow me to leverage all of the resources of Google and make sure that they are adequately distributed to early stage startup founders. And particularly we focus on working with black latino mix and veteran founded companies and helping them make inroads and grow their businesses so that they can impact the communities that they reside in.
Rusty Rueff: And then I know a lot of our listeners know Google Ventures, right, because they want to raise money from Google Ventures. Just distinguish a little bit between Google startups and Google Ventures.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. But Google Ventures, which is now known as GV, is one of the investing arms of Google. There’s actually a few investing teams, but GV is probably the most well known and they actually sit outside of Google proper. So they’re part of Alphabet, which is the parent company, but they are completely separate from Google, whereas Google for Startups sits inside of Google and it’s not an investing team. So it is really about getting resources, connections, you know, connections to the right products and people, mentorship, working with partners throughout the country. So we do a lot of work with organizations and coworking spaces that serve entrepreneurs in markets throughout the U.S. and actually globally. The team is a global team. And prior to me joining in back in December, the focus actually was in emerging markets outside the U.S. So there are campus locations that serve as kind of startup hubs in places like Sao Paulo, Brazil and Tel Aviv and London. And so when I joined, this is actually the first time that there has been this concentrated effort in a whole team focused on US based startups and particularly looking at what we consider to be an emerging startup ecosystems within the US. So the role that I have is not an investing role, but I do get to get resources to founders that are in need of them the most.
Rusty Rueff: That’s fantastic. I mean, here we are on a Faith Driven Entrepreneur Faith Driven Investor podcast trying to equip both entrepreneurs and investors. And we have a Faith Driven Entrepreneur who’s equipping a lot of investors and entrepreneurs through Google. And it’s it’s great work that you do there. But you get the investment side on Collab Capital, so take us through that.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes. So we started Collab capital because we felt that there was a pretty wide gap and need as it relates particularly to black entrepreneurs. I’m sure you all have seen the statistics, but it said that less than one percent of venture capital funding goes to black founders and black founded companies. And we know that particularly black founders and black women founders are some of the largest growing segment of entrepreneurs. So there’s a disparity there that we thought needed to be addressed. And instead of just saying, OK, we’re going to invest in black founders, we really wanted to explore what is happening. Why is it that. Black founders are not receiving the same rate of funding in relation to how many of them are starting businesses. And so when we thought about that and we really explored our own journeys and also took the data from all of the conversations and meetings and mentorship sessions that we’ve had with black founders over the years, what we came to see is that actually we think there is a need to create a new vehicle and a new structure that is designed with black entrepreneurs in mind. So we created what we consider to be sort of an alternative capital structure that really thinks about the alignment between the entrepreneur and their goals and as the investor and also considers this kind of macro problem around the wealth gap in this country. And so we think that is very important for entrepreneurs, particularly black entrepreneurs, to maintain equity and ownership in the businesses they start, because that is one way that we can start to counteract this gaping wealth gap that we have in this country. And so we built this model so that black entrepreneurs don’t have to raise a lot of rounds of funding and therefore potentially give up quite a bit of equity and perhaps lose control of the companies they start. But instead they can have an option to maintain ownership and those companies pass them on to their families if they so choose and then start to create real wealth in the black community, which we think can kickstart a lot of other solutions to the problems that we see in those communities.
Rusty Rueff: You know, that may be one of the most fascinating and impacting insights that I had never thought about around investing in black and minority owned businesses, that when traditional venture capital goes and invests, it’s one round after another, another, and it’s just dilution, dilution, dilution. And by the time you’re done, that equity could be little to nothing. And there’s nothing to carry on. That’s awesome. That’s just awesome. So if you look ahead 10, 15 years, if we can look that far. What do you hope is true for black entrepreneurs and investors in America? And what would it take to make what you see? As a vision, a reality.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes, so I think about this a lot, I want there to be access and options for black entrepreneurs and what we present at Collab we consider to be an option. We don’t think that it is an all encompassing solution, but we do think that it will help jump start and hopefully there will be many more funds and people who are thinking about entering the community that need the resources the most. So that’s a vision for 10 years from now, I think about what the change will be and the impact will be on the communities where the businesses that we invest in are located. I think about something that we’re already seeing happening just with our first investment. We invested in a company just a few months ago, and the entrepreneur recently posted a picture that showed her and five of her family members in her warehouse where she’s shipping out her orders. And she said that this is really changing her family dynamic because she’s now in a position to hire the people that she knows and trust, but also that may not have had that type of opportunity. And so we are already seeing it. And we just think that in 10 or 15 years, we will be able to showcase a whole plethora of entrepreneurs that have done the same things in their communities and in their families. And we really are excited about the fact that in our mind, this is all for the kingdom and all for glory of of God in the end. And thinking about that society that we want to live in, where people have access, they have opportunity, they’re able to realize their potential. So that’s the vision that I have worked in the 15 years down the line. And I think to get there, it’s going to require people to think differently and to invest in different ways and to be open to new ideas and new models that would break the norm of what we’ve seen up until this point.
William Norvell: William here, thank you so much for sharing that story. I’ve gotten to hear parts of it from you before. And it’s just it’s encouraging every time. It’s exciting every single time. And it brings something new as you think through your faith. It sounds like a little bit all encompassing for you and your founders as you think through your faith in the work you all are doing it Collab Capital. How do you see those intersecting each other in your investments? You do and the way you’re raising money right now, all the different facets of how you’re going to run that organization.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yeah, I mean, I think that because of how we’ve started in a little bit about our origin story of myself and two other partners, and because of the fact that we started in a way one that was kind of driven by conversations that we had outside of church, and when my partner Barry and I shared with each other sort of the experiences that we had starting companies and actually being depressed after we finished our startup journey and then using that moment to come up with this new idea. And really, the idea is steeped in the notion that we don’t want founders to go through some of the same things that we went through. And we want to think about how do we make it so that they can achieve their goals and achieve whatever success looks like for them in a way that is well supported and where they have safe haven as they are going through all of it. And so the fact that we started with that kind of central idea, I think has blessed the journey so far. And we think about how do we continue with where we started and how do we grow it. And as we bring new people in, how do we make sure that they have that same conviction and passion about what we’re doing? That’s the challenge that we have today, is thinking about the growth of this and how do we just continue on this path that we’re on. But that’s where we bring in great folks. Like I know you all look great on the podcast and other people that we’re surrounding ourselves with who we think share our vision and share our faith as well. And we think that by doing that and bringing the right people into what we’re doing and finding entrepreneurs who also have a passion and conviction for doing the right thing for their communities, that for us is really kind of what wakes up every morning and helps us to continue on doing this work.
William Norvell: I mean, that’s amazing, and as our listeners are here from both communities, how best can we support the work you all are doing right now? What are some ideas?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Well, I think one of the things that we are really big about is access to networks. We believe that access to capital is incredibly important, but it’s actually being able to walk into a customer that we’ve been trying to land for a long time or have someone we can call who knows the right decision maker. That for us is a huge part of our model as well. So we really invite people, and particularly folks that are faith driven in these corporations who understand the vision and see the benefit of maybe taking a risk on an early stage entrepreneur or, you know, putting their neck out for someone who is building something great. We invite people to let us know if they’re looking for solutions, technology, solutions to problems that their organization is facing or if they would be willing to mentor a founder or if they have expertize that they can learn. We’re open to talking to folks about how they can get involved with what we do and also, more importantly, with what our founders are doing, because we think that there is so much that can develop and grow from these little seeds that we’re planning. And we just want to continue that growth as we go march toward that bigger vision that we talked about in 10 to 15 years.
William Norvell: That’s amazing. Well, as everybody is listening, we’ll obviously be posting links to what they’re up to. So just hopefully we can rally around them. One thing I want to jump back to, I know we’re kind of coming to a close here, but I want to jump back to use a big word earlier when you talked about selling your company, use the word depression and you said one of your co-founders shared a similar sentiment and you may have gone through that, could you go through that journey of selling a little bit and the emotions that you went through? I think it’ll give our audience an amazing idea, both of just how they can approach something like that, how they can live with someone who may be going through that. And then also just further empathize with founders and how they go through these varying sets of emotions that maybe someone like me who’s never founded an operation like that maybe can’t quite figure out.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes, it is a big word. And I will tell you, I was afraid of the word for a while. And it wasn’t until I sold my company and found myself in a situation where, you know, the day that I was supposed to go inside and the next day and the next day, I really had a hard time getting out of bed. And I was crying and it was just such an emotional time for me. And I did not understand what was happening. And I had to go to the doctor because it was weighing so heavily on me. And I did not have the language or the tools to deal with it at that time. And it wasn’t until the doctor said, you are clinically depressed and encourage me to go to a therapist and to think about my diet and exercise and really examine what did self care look like. And for me at that time, I didn’t even know what that meant because I spent so much of my life, my time, my energy, everything pouring into this company. And I did not know how to look at myself without having this title CEO of Partpic attached to my name. I just didn’t know how to deal with all of those emotions. And so I had to do a lot of things. I had to pray. Of course I had to pray about it. I had to ask God, who am I? Who am I to do? What is my life about now? What am I here for? I had to ask these really big questions and seek guidance on how to step forward and realize that actually I’m purpose for life you what I built. And so that was that first year going from this bill and in my first year at Amazon, that was a really challenging year for me. But I just had faith through it and I use the tools that God gave me, as well as the tools that the doctor gave me. And I was able to get into a much better place and so much so that I could be in a place where I could actually recognize it in someone else. So whenever I had the conversation with Barry, who was my partner in the it came about because I recognized that. Something wasn’t going right with him. I knew that there is something a little bit of and so I just asked him a simple question of how are you? And that’s what started him sharing and me sharing. And I think for everyone who’s listening, if you have people around you, and especially if you are in the presence of entrepreneurs or in a relationship with an entrepreneur, I think that periodic check in just to ask, how are you? Is there anything that I can do to relieve some of the pressure that you may be feeling? That is a great thing that you can do. And also, just checking in with yourself, if you are the entrepreneur who’s listening, really trying to understand, are you OK? What is happening with you? Have you checked in on yourself recently? So these are all things that I learned and unfortunately, I learned it when I hit a pretty big wall. But I’m just grateful that I had that experience because now I think it’s powerful to talk about it and also just to have the tools to deal with it, especially in a time like we’re in right now where there are so many things happening, we’re having so much loss and we’re having to deal with things that we’ve never had to deal with before. I think it’s very important for us to talk more about what does it mean to be depressed, to go through emotional turmoil, to feel lonely, to feel lost? I think it’s important for us to, in the Bible, talks about lamenting. And that is that is something that is actually encouraged. And I think we shy away from it a lot. So I’m very open to having this conversation. I thank you for asking the question. And I hope that it encourages the listeners to talk, to seek guidance, to seek help and to not be afraid of having these types of conversations.
Henry Kaestner: It’s such a powerful aspect and one that we haven’t explored as much as we should on the podcast, we did have a really neat interview with Max Anderson in which he talked about mental illness in the life of an entrepreneur. And we’ve also talked about different addictions with time, but really haven’t gotten to this concept. And I think it’s really it’s a post-partum type of depression. I’ve had two questions come after that. And you partially answered one of them already, which is the part about limitations. But you mentioned the fact that you did seek professional help. You did look at things like diet, but also that there is an aspect of your relationship with God and maybe his word that walked you through it. Once you spit out a little bit, then I’ve got a follow up question on that as well.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes, I really had to dove deep into the word, I had to dove deep into my practice of spending time with God because I had gotten away from it, even though I was faithful throughout the entrepreneurship journey, I was not spending the right amount of time on my relationship with God. And so one of the things that helped me to get to a better place as far as my mental health was making it a daily practice to spend time with God, to spend time in the world. And I really did work on that relationship. I think that sometimes I know in my life I’ve taken it for granted and I’ve always known that God will be there, but I haven’t necessarily been the person that I should be for him. And so one of the things that has helped me and to this day still helped me and has helped me honestly through the time that we’re in right now is just making sure that every single day I am spending time with God and and thanking God and being full of gratitude for the fact that, you know, I’m waking up each day. I’m getting to do the things that I want to do and live in what I think is my purpose here and be helpful to people and all of these things. That is just amazing to me, all the blessings. But that for me has been really, really critical as far as my journey is concerned. The whole thing has been recognizing when I am not spending the right amount of time and trying to get back on track and then having people that can hold me accountable for that as well.
Henry Kaestner: So that’s really important. The accountability part and bridges into actually the follow up question, too, is that as you’re invited into relationship with entrepreneurs that you invest in, in a community with them and have some level of accountability and investor holds the entrepreneur accountable for things like keeping them in a loop with how things are going on in the business, among other things. What does it look like for you, having had that experience to be able to talk about things like identity and mental illness? If you and your partners at Collab talked about what it might look like to be able to love on your entrepeneurs, knowing that these are things to watch out for and knowing that an entrepreneur’s life is full of anxiety and I’ve told it to somebody the other day, feels like an entrepreneur is always selling something to somebody. You’re selling to your customers, you’re selling to your investors. You’re selling to people who are going to join the team. You’re selling people to stay on the team. And then when you think you’re finished with selling for the day, you come home and then you talk to your spouse and they’re asking how to go because they’re wondering why you left that really good job at Google or Apple or fill in the blanks and you feel like you have to tell them about things through a glass half full type of lens. And that really just weighs on somebody having come out of that experience yourself as an entrepreneur, how are you all thinking about loving on your entrepreneurs and being really conscious of that and looking out for that?
Jewel Burks Solomon: Yes, I think this is one of the things that I enjoy the most about the seat that I mean, where I have a chance to spend time with both the entrepreneurs that we have invested in, as well as the entrepreneurs that I meet through the various roles that I hold. And one of the things that I’ve really spent a lot of time with over the past six months is checking in on those entrepreneurs were our Google program. We’ve even made therapy available and free for the entrepreneurs in the program that we run. So it’s something that I’m very open to talking to them about. And I know because I’ve experienced it, what it can look like to just pour everything into the business and not care for yourself, lose connection to God or whatever higher power you believe in. And so I make it a point to make sure that I’m checking in on entrepreneurs regularly and probably more so right now, because I know that it’s very tempting to just pour everything into the work and leave and forget about yourself. But for me, it’s very important to be entrepreneurs and make sure that they are OK, because, you know, the business can’t be successful if the founder is not operating from a space of wholeness. And so that’s something that I’m really committed to. And I think my partners are as well. And we practice it with each other. We’ve all had some level of personal pain over the past several months. And so I’ve really been stepping up when one person is down or going through something, you know, taking the reins and carrying a bit of the load. And so we do the same thing with the entrepreneurs that we work with as well.
William Norvell: Thanks so much for walking us through that as we come to a close. Will highlight one of the pieces you mentioned. We love to always ask our guests where they are, God’s word, and what God may be telling them today. And the season could be something you read this morning, could be something you’ve been meditating on for a while, if you would mind. Just letting our audience into where God has you and the scripture and how it’s taking you further on the journey.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Sure. So I have been doing morning devotion around anxiety because it’s something that is still very real for me. And so I wanted to share a scripture that was just in I think maybe this week I wrote it down and have been meditating on it and it’s John 16:33 and it starts I’m not really alone for the father with me. I said these things to you so that you will have peace in me in the world. You have the strength to be encouraged. I have conquered the world. And for me, that scripture is encouraging, especially helpful right now, the notion that as lonely as things may feel, I can’t think into that concept because God is with me and that for me, it’s been a big comfort.
William Norvell: It’s great words. Great advice. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for spending time out of your day to come tell our listeners a story that God has you on and the one you’re trying to encourage. And I always really appreciate it.
Henry Kaestner: Jewel, thank you. Thank you very much for sharing your story. Excited to see what God will do through your Collab.
Jewel Burks Solomon: Thank you so much.
Even though we all deal with craziness when we must, most of the time we easily settle into our current environment, whatever it may be.