Control What You Can Control with Arlan Hamilton

Deneen L. Garrett: 00:07 02:47 Welcome to season two of an intimate conversation with women of color. This podcast is a platform for women of color to use our voices. As women of color, we don't always have a platform to use our voices. This podcast is such a platform for women of color, LGBTQ+, and allies. I am your host, Deneen L. Garrett. Hey, some of you may be like me. I was in search of the perfect platform for my podcast and stumbled across Anchor by listening to my sister's podcast. If you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let me tell you more about it. First of all, it's free. Yes, free. They have creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor will also distribute your podcast for you, so you don't have to deal with getting connected to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more, because Anchor does it for you. You can also make money from your podcast with no minimum listenership. Anchor has everything you need to make a podcast in one place. How convenient. Download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm to get started. Trust me. You will not be sorry. All right, welcome to Arlan Hamilton welcome to an intimate conversation with women of color, how are you today.
Arlan Hamilton: 02:47 02:49 i'm doing pretty good, how are you doing.

Deneen L. Garrett: 02:49 04:06 I'm doing well. I'm doing well. So today's guest is Arlen Hamilton. Arlen built a venture capital fund from the ground up while homeless. And that's what really resonated with me, right? I read your book. It's about damn time. It's right there in the back. And it was a powerful book. It definitely demonstrated that a person can do anything that they put their mind to. takeaways is that you read a lot, which is obvious by the books behind you, your bookcase. And what really stood out to me and what I took to heart was the chapter on writing your own headline. So I did that for myself around my podcast and I happened to share it with somebody who was a potential guest and she was like hey. What about this what about that and then from that moment on I kept having what I call catch up to the vision moments and those were moments where people spoke. What's to come for me. Right. They were saying, hey, how about this. How about that. And it all tied into that headline that I created for myself. after reading your book. So I thank you so much for that.

Arlan Hamilton: 04:06 04:08 That is absolutely fantastic.

Deneen L. Garrett: 04:08 04:44 Yes. Yeah. And so there's so much that I can say about you. I will definitely upload your bio so that other people have access to that. And definitely for those that buy the book, you'll learn more about Arlen and her journey. So Arlen, you are the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital. which is a fund dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and are LGBT. Tell us more about you.

Arlan Hamilton: 04:44 06:38 Sure. I was raised in the South, so I was born in Mississippi, raised in Dallas, Texas, with my younger brother and my mom. And most of my adult life, in my childhood, didn't have much money at all. I always knew that I would one day, you know, like a lot of us, we know we are going to, we just don't know when it's going to happen. And around my early 30s, I got really interested in the startup scene and what that could mean for my future, and had a lot of things along the way. But it was really that startup scene, it was like, you know, what could I build? But I also learned at the same time that 90% of venture capital goes to white men in the United States. And as a gay black woman, I was like, there's a lot of odds against me there, and there's a lot of odds against a lot of people I know who are fantastic founders, and that doesn't make sense. So over a few years, I just made the decision and started working on, started with researching and reading, like you said, a lot of books, and watching a lot of videos, and just kind of researching as much as I could. But over the years, I decided I'm going to start a fund. I don't know how, but I will start one. And the book, It's About Damn Time, it really goes into how I was thinking during that time and what it took to go from essentially homeless. I mean, I had a lot of housing insecurity. I slept at many places that were not my home. Some days I didn't know when I was going to eat or if I was going to eat. And all of that was in my 30s, still in my 30s. And so to go from that to now I manage almost $15 million in assets for our funds, we've invested in more than 150 companies. You know, it's all happened in the last five, five and a half years.

Deneen L. Garrett: 06:38 06:44 Yeah. And you exceeded a goal. Cause I remember that you had that goal and I think you exceeded that early on.

Arlan Hamilton: 06:44 06:55 So, yeah, I mean, and it's huge. Yeah. We said, I said I was going to invest in a hundred companies led by underrepresented founders by 2020. And we reached that with my team in May of 2018.

Deneen L. Garrett: 06:57 07:38 That's wonderful. Wow. And that just speaks volumes, right? That especially speaks volume and it speaks to the point of this platform, right? So this platform is to elevate the voices of women of color, right? And so you're doing that through your fund, right? So you're elevating the funding of those businesses. As you said, some top talent that otherwise would not get funded, you're able to reach out and fill in a gap. And so you talked a little bit about the importance of that, but why is it important for women of color, LGBTQ women, to have a platform to use their voices and or to have your fund?

Arlan Hamilton: 07:38 09:26 Well, I mean, we have centuries of time to make up for. We have a lot of lost time to make up for. And this country is as much of ours as it's anyone else's. And I mean, I think we built the country and we also nurture the country today and absolutely have to have our voices heard. We have a lot of time to make up for a lot of other louder voices to override, if you will, just for equality. I'm not trying to have any sort of supremacy anywhere either way, but equality is great. It's a great goal. And investment, you know, I am the first person to say that if you can hold on to all the equity in your company by bootstrapping, that is my suggestion. Sometimes people get sad because they can't find investors. And I say, actually, you have the leverage when you can't find investors because you're holding on to the equity in your company, the control, the ownership, the leverage. When I start a company, I try to keep as much equity as I can. I don't try to take on investors. but for those of those of you who have either been doing that for a few years or know that your company is going to need a little bit of boost extra capital and you're not going to be able to get it from a bank and you're not going to you're not going to get it fast enough through customers um backstage capital is is a great option because um i mean we're incredibly uh it's incredibly competitive we invest in two percent or less of what we see and um you know every every bit of uh, resources that we have, it's, we earned it, you know, so it's not like we're going around throwing around money, but, um, we're definitely a friendly, friendly investor in this sea of kind of agenda driven investors in the VC world.

Deneen L. Garrett: 09:27 09:53 Yeah. So, I mean, that is so important right now, um, because that is, you know, investment investing obviously is, is a road to wealth and to generational wealth, which is, you know, you talked to already centuries to make up for. And so thank you for what you're doing. So you built the company to provide people of color, women of color, LGBT, um, a platform for funding. How else are you using your voice for women of color and LGBT?

Arlan Hamilton: 09:55 11:43 I wake up every morning thinking about ways of catalyzing other people. And the first wave of those other people is usually black women, just because I just want to bet all in on black women. Yeah. So a few ways. Sometimes, you know, sometimes it's as simple as sharing the opportunities that I have. So I get a lot of opportunities for speaking, paid speaking, sponsorship. trips, things, you know, just different opportunities. And for every one that I take myself, I make sure somebody else gets it too. You know, I'll send them, I'll send this, you know, press, people come to me with press every single day, I get a press request. And people say, oh, you're always in press. Well, you know what, for every one time you saw me in press, I sent probably nine forwards to someone else so they could get the press hit. I think that's important just because it's like getting that representation out there. My mother and I have established a scholarship fund that our first three scholarships are at Oxford University, which is the very first scholarship for a black scholar at Oxford. They've never had that before for an undergrad, so we established that in 2019 and it started in 2020. The one we did this exact same time, but it will start this year, is Dillard University, which is HBCU that my mother went to. And that is for a black woman, for a full ride scholarship. Both of these are full ride scholarship. And then the third one is, there's a black woman in Europe who we are making sure gets through pilot school. Because we want to see more black pilots. Oh, yeah.

Deneen L. Garrett: 11:43 12:15 Oh, that's awesome. And you know, it's funny, you brought up your mom, because I was just about to ask about your mom, because I know that you spend a lot of time and pretty much when you're front and center somewhere, your mom is next to you. So that that's beautiful. So some women of color don't recognize that power their voices, right? And when I talk about voices, I'm talking about any type of expression. So it could be creatively, it could be speaking, finding different ways. What would you like to tell those women who don't yet recognize the power of their voice?

Arlan Hamilton: 12:15 14:52 Oh, I mean, you know, I go into this in the book so much. I think the book, the biggest takeaways are from that, right? It's about the fact that It doesn't have to be something huge that you're working on to make a difference. It doesn't have to mean that millions of people, thousands of people see it. It can be in just a gesture. It can be in just you. I mean, imagine if you really thought about something that you said, something in your journey that you shared, whether that's having a podcast, starting a blog, public speaking, writing a book, all of those different things that most people think they can't do. But imagine if one person heard that, or read that, or saw that, and it was the right day for them to hear it, and they either stopped doing something destructive, or they decided today is the day I'm gonna go out and live my best life, or this person saved my life, or this person made me feel better about myself. Imagine what that feeling is like, if you haven't felt it before, just imagine it. And imagine that you can do that on a regular basis by sharing your voice. Because everybody, there's a few things I know. One is like, everybody is jealous of someone else. No matter who they are, like, you know, your person you're jealous of, or envious of, is envious of someone else, at least one person in the world. So at the same, that's the same vein is like, everybody is seeking, everybody is needing someone else to kind of help them see something in themselves. And I also know that there's only one version of you. There's only one you. That's a huge leverage point. We don't all have a lot of leverage in life. I know I didn't for 35 years that I didn't think of. But one thing I did have was that I was myself. I was authentic. We all have that. We're authentically ourselves. I wouldn't be in the position I'm in where I've raised $15 million, earned more millions in earned revenue, invested in more than 150 companies, been on the cover of Fast Company. You know, I wouldn't have been, any of that would have happened if I hadn't been myself and really dialed into me. And so it doesn't start with the biggest thing. It starts with, you know what it started with me? It started with me going on to Medium and I wrote a blog post. In 2015 and that's how this all really took.

Deneen L. Garrett: 14:52 15:22 Yes, so starting starting small starting where you are and just building from there, and I really like what you said about when you're doing you do that one thing, and the feeling that you get from it, you know intensify that right magnify that just continue to do it. when you're reaching out to other people. So my sister wrote a book, she's a poet and author, and she wrote a book about dreams deferred. Have you ever had any dreams deferred? So dreams delayed, and if so, what did you do?

Arlan Hamilton: 15:22 16:08 I mean, I think my whole first 35 years was that because I honestly, since I was about five years old, I thought I'm going to be, I didn't want to be famous. I've never wanted to be famous, but I thought I'm going to like, A lot of people will know me and I'll know a lot of people. And they'll know what I do. I'll impact people. And I've felt that my whole life. I've always felt my whole life that I would be a millionaire. And when I found myself at 34 years old, 35 years old, sleeping at the airport, nobody taking my calls, I was like, hmm, this is supposed to happen. But now so many of those things have come true. And so I think my whole life is a dream deferred.

Deneen L. Garrett: 16:08 16:40 Yeah. And you know, and I remember again in the book, the things that you did, there was that one band and I think the band was overseas and you reached out to them and you're like, I'll be your booking agent. And just, you just went for it. Right. You, you, it was things that you wanted. You said, I want this and you made it happen and you figured it out. Right. So kind of going back to the moment that you just said, 30, age 34, 35, and you knew what you wanted for yourself, it hadn't happened. What kept you going?

Arlan Hamilton: 16:40 18:28 What kept me going specifically is that I knew the backstage capital, this firm, this fund and firm that I wanted to exist. I knew it had to exist. I had spent the previous three or four years talking to founders who look like you and me, who had either fantastic ideas or who were already in their company making money, who could not get into a room to talk to an investor. And it was, I just thought, what a missed opportunity for so many people if we don't do this. So it was like the, the, the, the genius of the founders that I was surrounded by that kept me going. Yeah. This is going to work. so it wasn't so that may not be relatable to everybody listening but you you may know uh this is how i measure it so i said this in the book if you can imagine you're working on something right now and you're like should i keep going with it right that's always something we're wondering wondering if you can imagine the world in five years where the thing that you're working on doesn't exist and you're okay with that then it's okay to maybe pivot, leave it. But if you imagine the world five years from now and you can't stand the thought of the thing you're working on not existing, like it has to exist, then you found something that you need to work on. Now here's the kicker, if you found it, if you can't imagine it, but it needs to exist even if you don't make it happen, even if you don't get, I should say it like this, even if you don't get to see it happen, then that's your calling.

Deneen L. Garrett: 18:28 18:30 Yeah.

Arlan Hamilton: 18:30 18:38 And that's how I felt about backstage. I'm like, Oh, it has to, there's no way it can't, even if I don't get the credit for it.

Deneen L. Garrett: 18:38 19:05 It has to exist. I love that. I love that. So as we wrap, I want to kind of pivot. So, you know, this month, February is black history month. It's also when we celebrate Valentine's day. So thinking about, um, historical figure, black figure, um, What is love? Who represents love for you?

Arlan Hamilton: 19:05 19:35 I think love is, I mean, you're saying all those things. I think love is all the people who, who, who I just described, who didn't get to see all of this. You know, there's that phrase, we are our ancestors. That's love is, is what they endured for us. And our love will endure for our offspring and for the next generations. I think, you know, it's a love of a people.

Deneen L. Garrett: 19:35 21:19 I love that. I absolutely do. That really touched me on the inside. So I thank you so much for your time. This has been, yeah, absolutely. This has been such a great conversation. I greatly appreciate you. And Arlen Hamilton, thank you for lending your voice on an intimate conversation with women of color. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Hey, an intimate conversation with women of color listeners. What did you think about my intimate conversation with Erlen Hamilton? I really enjoyed it. So many nuggets. My goodness, where do I start? I absolutely love the ending. Love is all the people who didn't get to see this. How powerful is that? I am my ancestor's wildest dreams. And what I do today is to impact those who come behind me. And it's all because of those who came before me. So thank you so much for listening. Please continue to listen. Subscribe if you haven't done so. And share. And if you are an iPhone user and would like an invite to Clubhouse, Send me an email. Send me an email anyway and just let me know what you think about the podcast. Reach out on social, Twitter, Instagram. Just let me know your thoughts. Until next time, I am your host, Deneen L. Garrett.