Michele: 

Everybody, welcome back. Yes, she’s she Yeah, you have to be backstage to understand what goes on to night. Oh my god, I cannot believe we are already halfway through the virtual summit this year. Tonight. For our fourth and fantabulous speaker, we have Francesca Scotto, I’m gonna get to her I promise, I promise, I promise, I want to make sure each of you are in the chat. And again, you’re connecting and reconnecting with more women of color in STEM. And you’re like, Michelle, I’m not in STEM, but I’m here. Great. And we’re glad to have you, Michelle, I’m not a woman, that is even better, we are so happy to have you. So what we’re looking for is for you to drop your LinkedIn profile link, and it should have the HTTPS in it, so that it’s clickable. And it’s easy for people to send you a connection request. If you’re like, Michelle, I went through everybody, I’m already connected. Sway, I am so happy you have done that. Because guess what that means you showing up showing out every single night. And some of you like Michelle, I don’t know if I want to connect with everybody. Okay, just just read the profiles. And I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at you. But I do want to give the opportunity for as many of you to connect as possible, because oftentimes, we’re the only Latina right in that department or in that division. You’re the only black woman engineer on your team. You’re the only native woman in entire organization. And this is going to be one of the few rare times that you have the opportunity, at least virtually to connect with others who understand what it’s like to be the only and as I told somebody on a podcast recently, I build a community of only, I said there are only one in so many different aspects, especially when it comes to their career. And it feels really great to bring them all together. And the other thing I forgot to mention is make sure when you do your messages is set in blue to panelists and attendees don’t do what I do. Do better than me and send it to everybody so you can see it. Okay, we are going to get started tonight, we have Francesco Scotto, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her guess what y’all in real life? Can we say that out loud, it was pre pandemic, I just I do want to add that disclaimer. But I love talking to her. Because the theme of this year summit is because of her and a discussion we had in the fall last year. So I’m really, really, really excited to have her here. While she has an industrial engineering degree, she was a tech founder in the 1990s, the late 90s. I’m gonna say the late 90s, not the early 90s, the late 90s, the late right. And so I want you to think about how many fantastic and outstanding things you’ve done that people don’t know about the same way you don’t know about Francesca. And I want you to think about that I really want you to anybody can do it. I don’t care about anybody I care about you. Let me say that, again. I don’t care about anybody I care about you. And I really want you to think about as Francesco is going through who will lead the revolution, I want you to think about the things that you’ve already done. They may have downplayed it in the office. But you know, nobody else in that workplace has done what you’ve done. They don’t have the skill set. They don’t have the know how they don’t have the tenacity to do what you have done, and you continue to do. And so hold on to that, because that is your superpower. And Francesca’s gonna help you figure out how you’re going to use that superpower to lead the revolution. So Francesca is all yours. And I’ll try to do q&a with you.

Francesca: 

All right, all right. So you know salespeople pump themselves up before they go into a sales call. And if you any of you have watched the office or you know, comedy like that, like you, I can remember seeing some Dwight in the car pumping up music and stuff. Like I go through my same little ritual before I come to you guys and present and share. So I’m all pumped up. And I’m super excited to be here to share this. This is something I am very passionate about. There’s a whole story behind this presentation. I first share these thoughts back in 2014 at platform 2014 at Morehouse College and it was such a catapulting moment for my career when I actually own this story and decided that I needed to share this with people. So it’s a very tender experience for me every time I get to share this because I’m hoping somebody will buy into this idea that I’m going to present So just a quick background so that you know who I am and Why this is important to me, I came to the US from the Dominican Republic, Oh, goodness, 30 something years ago. So I’m a, an immigrant and my kids are first generation Americans. And I grew up between two worlds between like opulence where people would go grocery shopping in Puerto Rico, while I had never been on an airplane, and then I had a barbecue on the other end, where people’s homes were holes in the ground with like aluminum. On top, right, so I was literally within a one mile radius stuck in between two worlds. And it was so obvious to me that that was the world, not just my street, but the world that we lived in. And so from a very early age, I’ve been very aware of poverty, opulence, politics, corruption, and just the disparities, the injustice is not just at a micro level, but also at a macro level. So when I come to the States, I pursue an engineering degree more out of me than anything, it was the only school that gave me money. I got a full tuition scholarship to study engineering. So I was like, I guess that’s what I want to study. That’s what I want to be when I grew up. And so I went into engineering, ended up falling in love with industrial engineering, especially the part of it that is focused on automation and process improvement. The part of me that wants to make the world a better place really connected with concepts of total quality management, cycle, time reduction, statistical process control, and all that lingo. If any of you know it, then that’s the kind of stuff that I thrive on. So I graduated from college, I go to work for General Electric, and I was miserable. big corporation is not for me. I was just kind of running around, doing what everybody else needed me to do when I didn’t feel like I was connecting to that purpose to the part of me that really wanted to leave. I quickly started my first venture, which was developing software to track the performance of aircraft engines. And it was fun. It was a really fun ride. We were on track to make a million dollars. But my partners, they didn’t want to leave their jobs. I was a software chick. And they were the actual aircraft engine people. And so it was not the right time. And I learned a lot about growing too fast about choosing not only the wrong partners, but not being ready for growth. And then from then on, it was just an even more interesting ride. I have done everything I’ve been your Mary Kay lady, I’ve owned fitness gyms, I’ve done consulting, I’ve done web design. I have done millions of things. And so people sometimes look at me and they’re like, so what do you do? Today, I have settled on two things. And I’ve been doing this probably for the last 10 years. I manage software development projects. I currently have a j ob in the daytime I work, provisionary integration professionals, and I help manage and implement software for government agencies to improve government services for us, the people. So that’s one thing I do. And then the other thing I do is help startups launch and grow, especially startups in our communities, people of color, black and brown folks. I’m Director of Education for black and brown founders. And I’m director of economic development and strategy for the yellow powder, collaborative. Black and Brown founders is an organization that focuses on how do we say this?
Not fungibility, but profitability. We want people to bootstrap to grow their enterprises organically and to eventually go for capital, if that’s what they want. But we want black and brown people to own their businesses. So that’s the the effort that we do there. And then with the allopathic collaborative, we are very focused on fighting gentrification in a primarily Dominican neighborhood in Miami. And we are doing that through economic development, specifically preserving the Dominican owned businesses in the area or Latino businesses truly in the area. And doing that through coaching and initiatives to help them grow and own the real estate where they operate. And Brava management consulting is my consulting firm through which I do black and brown founders and some of the other initiatives that that I do. And I also do this work one on one with entrepreneurs that come to me and say, Hey, you know, I want to get your expertise. I want to work with you and whatnot. So that’s me. I’ve been a speaker at MIT Media Lab, actually a couple of times. It’s kind of humbling. I was just discussing with Michelle, before we started, that getting a PhD is like right there. with getting a tummy tuck, it’s purely cosmetic. It’s something that, you know, maybe I’ll do one day, but I don’t think I need it anymore. And it was after that experience with MIT, it was really validating for them to bring me on board and say, Hey, we want you to talk to our graduate students about entrepreneurship as a form of activism. And so it just, it happened after platform 2014. And it was, it was just a great way for me to feel confident that I have something to share with the world. So I’ve also been a speaker at Berklee College of Music and wapi Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers that, well, obviously black and brown founder events where some of you might have seen me, that’s how Michelle and I met, and other Oh, like South by Southwest and whatnot. So all of that just to say that, some people think that I have something to say. So I hope that you find it useful as well. And that there’s something here for you as we move forward. Okay, so that’s the background. Let’s dig in. As soon as I’m able to move to the next slide. Oh, there it is. This is gonna start a little awkward, but trust me, I bring it back to leading the revolution. Okay, I want to paint a picture of the world for you. And then we’re gonna dig into what the implications are for you and for me, and for anyone that is trying to be in business or make money in this day and age. So current situation in Sub Saharan Africa 59% of sub Saharan Africa lives in rural villages, 77.4% of Ghana, for example, those homes are experiencing a decline in income in 2020. And this is due to the pandemic we know. But I want you to kind of start thinking 75% practically have a whole country lost income, Ghana’s economy slowed down from 6.8%, and growth to just 1.5% for the first time in 37 years. So they were on an upward trend. And they’re still upward by 1.5. But it actually slowed down by I don’t know, six 7%.
The Democratic Republic of Congo DRC, has millions of people that splayed this place due to suspend it humanitarian aid due to the pandemic. This is coming out of civil unrest and civil war and a lot of conflict and corruption in DRC. So the economy slowed down from 5.4 to actually negative 1.9. So that means increasing debt, and less production, probably more importing. Rwanda went from eight to 5.1%. So a little bit more resilient economy in Rwanda, which enabled them or you know, one might say, Is it because of their implementation of technology or what, but they were able to use robotics and drones, for example, to help with increasing testing during covid 19 pandemic crisis, and to deliver medications. And so their implementation of technology maybe is is an indication of why the economy is more resilient. I don’t know, I’m not making those conclusions. But in Africa, what we see is digitization is very important, domestic production of supplies and pharmaceuticals. And we’re gonna come back to that at the end of the presentation. And then support for women owned small and medium sized businesses. These are kind of the recommendations of where Sub Saharan Africa should focus. And this is from the Wilson Center Africa program publications COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. That was my source, the current situation in India, it’s the third country worldwide in COVID-19 cases after United States and Brazil. So India is actually doing a little better than we are. What’s interesting is point 55, or half a hospital bed per 1000 people. So for every 1000 people that need hospitalization, half a person is able to be hospitalized. 100 million people have been lifted out of poverty in India through a lot of efforts, and we could talk about those in another presentation. But that has been happening probably for the last 20 years, or a little bit more. But 100 million people lifted out of poverty through employments in the more metropolitan areas, so out of rural areas coming into the city, but now they’re out of work. And because they’re out of work, they’re displaced, because many of them are migrant workers. So that means that they are unemployed, sometimes hundreds, even 1000 miles from home. So imagine you live in Florida, but home is in California, and now you’re suddenly unemployed. How do you get back home when transportation is not as accessible as it is here in the US also Water Pollution simultaneously, is down as much as 90%, depending on the pollutant. So that’s that’s a positive thing that’s happening there, noise pollution is down 40 to 60 decibels depending on neighborhood, I’m in proximity to highways or trains and things like that, and medical wastes have increased by 500 kilograms per day. So because of testing because of medications, because of treating more patients, that’s the the waste that has increased parent situation in Latin America, and that might be closer to some of us. But Argentina’s poverty, for example, rose to 41%, from 36%. So we’re getting close to 50%. living in poverty. And when we say poverty, we’re talking about $5 a day in income. So this is not poverty, like, and we’ll get into this in a few. But this is not poverty, like people of color in the US, then we’re not the 1%. This is like the bottom of the pyramid globally speaking. In some countries, they’ve done price freezes, which now will require government intervention, if they want to increase prices in commodities and goods like food and medical supplies and things like that. In some countries, they cut rent by 50%. To help citizens that was Bolivia, I believe, was doing that, or Argentina, or both.
There’s a need to provide special aid for indigenous populations, which in Brazil alone is about 800,000 people, but throughout South America, there are various indigenous groups that live either in marginal areas, not not even rural. They they’re like mountainous or in the forests. And then debt, rice has been as high as 100% of GDP. So although for example, Brazil added, I believe it was like 400,000 jobs, it was at the expense of more debt. And so those economies, we’ll have to see how they come out of those situations post pandemic. Now, current situation in the US, which hits home, right, and this is kind of where we live, this is our space. My sister wants to join,
you need to register.
Sorry about that. Okay, so the current situation in the US 169% growth for zoom out, which is an online meeting tool. And I think we all know what zoom is at this point in time 300% growth for evolve, which is a digital plans review tool. I happen to know because I there in my world, and it’s part of the tools that I work with in my daily work environment. The Society of Human Resources Management says that enhanced performance and productivity, a better employee experience, and expanded talent pool and in some cases, potentially reduce costs is one of the benefits of remote working that has been realized throughout the 2020 pandemic experience. And so when we start thinking about what that means, some estimate that up to 40% of the workforce could remain remote, in certain industries post pandemic. So not only are we seeing changes in some industries just booming. But we’re also seeing that the future of work itself is being transformed. And how we work is also changing. Something that is interesting. And this by no means is meant to represent all that is happening because of the pandemic or the totality of the current situation. In the world. Obviously, I’m not talking about Europe, I’m not talking about Russia, Canada, I just wanted to start with a glimpse of the world we’re living in right now. Okay, but one of the things that has been super interesting to me is the mind blowing volume of activity and cryptocurrency and the virtual economy that is developing is not completely parallel. They do trend together. So like all capital markets, whether it’s crypto or I don’t know, New York exchange or traditional and they are trending together. There was a dip earlier in the week for example in crypto but there was also a dip in the stocks. So it’s it they are somewhat related. But the volume of activity and cryptocurrency it’s hard not to know that Bitcoin is a thing and that people are investing in Bitcoin and whatnot. So that in part was we saw that blow up because of the condition of the world right now, the pandemic, I think brought about the it touched on all the sore points of our global economy and our global infrastructure when it comes to how we define work, how we define success, making money, who gets to make money, who gets to succeed, right, all of that was kind of shaken by the year 2020. And so one of the things that has come out of that, is this understanding of full time employees and where they work and how they work. Right. So this is percent of remote workers, where we have, and I’ll just read it, it’s here, but I think it’s easier if I just share the information this week, over one third of respondents now expect that 40% or more of their employees will work primarily home 12 months from home 12 months post pandemic. And this was the question what percent of your us full time employees are working primarily virtually remotely, at least three days a week. And so, before COVID, it was 74% expectation one year after COVID, it would be 24% is that less than 10% of remote workers 10 to 20% of remote workers, they expect 17%. And if they have 20 to 40, remote employees, percentage, then they expect of those 26 will continue to work remotely. And if they have that 40% of employees, then the expectation is that 34% of them will continue working remotely after. So it’s an interesting trend, that is going to impact a lot of things I mean traffic. And when you think of transportation, whether it’s the use of Uber, the use of trains the use of like all that that impacts transportation is involved in this the price of gas, the sales of cars, that there’s so much that is impacted by this, and then the Home, home renovations home equipment, home space, making allocations for that home experience to be conducive to work. So one of the things that has come about and I am sharing it with you because I’m learning about it not because I know exactly what this is right. But one of the things that’s happening in the cryptocurrency world is just that reinvention of the concept of a business entity. And what an organization is what a corporation is, all of that is being reinvented in the crypto world. And one of the things that has come out of that is the decentralized autonomous organization or the DA o It is usually software that requires a vote from its owners to change the parameters and protocols. It’s owned by a distributed group of people, either through purchase or by earning your way into it through your collaboration, your technical contribution to the project. It now has like clear monetization plans with fundamentals in place that allow it to trade to charge fees to do all these different things. But it is on the chain, right? So it’s on chain. So it’s either on, say the Ethereum platform or the blockchain, sorry, or the Bitcoin platform. And in their data being there, makes it easier to calculate things like market capitalization, through transactions and the fees charged. But they’re not Knievel corporations, the way we think of like GE or zoom. It is community owned software. So think of it more as open source. For those of you that come from the software world, it’s open source software that exists sort of as its own entity, and it now is able to produce money to manage transactions and do all of that. So these new da O’s have fees, or options to collect fees, and they have monetization plans. People used to talk a lot last year, and the year before about how crypto assets don’t have fundamentals. You know, the question is like, how do you price them? And how do you trade on this new thing? And what is it right? So that’s, that’s the world right now, at least the world that I’m seeing and I am trying to make sense of the world I live in and these are the pieces of information that jumped out at me, that kind of give me little data points that I’m trying to make sense of that right. So This is estimated some fully diluted valuations of the top 2020 da O’s. And as you see, it’s an upward trend. So the valuations are going up, it’s becoming more and more valuable to own parts of this are pieces of this and you can get this information from coin Gecko.
You can get more details, I won’t even try to give you too much detail because I’m still learning this information myself. Now, here’s the thing. Where’s my next slide? Okay, so why is all of this important in how does this tie into was talking about leading the revolution, I want to give you a brief history of innovation and revolution. And, and it might be overly simplistic, but I think you’ll find it at least useful. Okay. The Industrial Revolution, Francesca’s, cliffnotes, this is the world’s one of the things that I struggled with was finding a map that was representative of true geography. Usually, maps show the continent of Africa much smaller, in the United States bigger. It’s just funny how we find those things to still be happening these days. Excuse me. But I this was the map, I thought was most accurate and shows the world as, as it is, the Global North has the capital systems. And I’ll show you what that is in a second. And the global south has natural and labor resources. And so what does that mean? It means that anything above the red line is the global north, we might be noticing that that’s also where we find more of white skinned people, then you have a global South that is full of natural and labor resources. And we know that the North colonized the South. This is historical truth, I’m not making anything up. Anything, you know, that is south of that line was colonized. And for those that don’t know the word colonized comes from Cologne, who is Christopher Columbus in Spanish, and he’s the one column. So it is absolutely the word that describes what Christopher Columbus did. So colonization is that process of taking over land somewhere else. And so Europe, colonized the Americas and Africa, the United States, for the most part, also colonized. Or, well, imperialism was the thing, then that was the name, but it was also impacting Latin America. And then we had Europe and the northern Asia, colonizing the lower countries here, Europe was just all over the place. So we can certainly talk about that. But here’s the important thing for us to start understanding about geography, and how it is a reflection of the story, right? We cannot separate economics from geography, we cannot separate development from geography, the two are very tightly coupled, and have a very real impact in policy. So if you think about it, it is when we talk about immigration reform, what we’re talking about is the South the global south is not allowed in the global north without massive regulation. So you can come from the north to the global cells come and go, you can come and take and you know, plunder or whatever, you cannot do the same going the other way. Okay, so that is a complete me a direct result of the Industrial Revolution, and well of colonization truly, but the Industrial Revolution being the time when the northern or the global north, invaded, took colonized imperialism, whatever verb you want to use, and they extract extracted goods and raw materials from the global south to be processed in industry, manufacturing and whatnot, which was taking place in the north.
Okay, I hope that that’s clear. So the Industrial Revolution had a context and a fallout. And what’s important is those things that I was mentioning, while according to me, that’s what’s important, because part of the challenge for us is to understand who we are in a global context. here when we live in the United States as people of color black and brown folks, whatever the adjectives are, we tend to see ourselves as minority and be as gonna say, victims of a process, but we need to understand that we actually live in the global north, and that we benefit from the privilege in a global sense of living in the global north. And with that comes a level of responsibility. So the context here is to understand geography, we are geographically positioned in a place of privilege, we, that have a meal every day, a roof over a head, and a means for production of income are in the top 5%, economically speaking, in the world. So I want you to think about that, that we are not the 1%. And the gap between us and the 1% is whatever that gap is. But we are still in the top 5% in the world, because of our geographic positioning, because of the blessing or the luck of the whatever of being born in one of the most powerful economies in the world. Okay, so the computing revolution doesn’t look any different. We’re still talking about the digital gap and the digital divide, and the distance between that global north and global south. And there’s still a dominance, because of industry, because of manufacturing, because of these things happening in the north. But even when they happen in the south, they are owned by the global north. And so there is a pattern here, that we can participate in breaking those statistics I was giving you earlier, it’s painting you a picture of what life is like in these global South economies, what it’s like to exist in those places that we come from, and that we have some ties to whether it’s emotional, affective, whatever, you know, however, you would want to describe it, that might be a place for you to start thinking about the impact you have in the world that you live in. So we are in a time of a revolution fusion, you’re like in the middle, you are somewhere between that industrial revolution that has been happening since the 1800s, and the computing revolution that we’re living in right now. But the world is still caught somewhere in the middle. We think of ourselves as an industrialized nation. And that’s what puts us in first world category, whatever that means, right? But there are, there is a global South that is catching up in the industrial revolution, they’re behind us, you can think of it that way. But the computing revolution is bypassing the Industrial Revolution. So people are caught in the middle, trying to make sense of the next thing when they haven’t done the one thing, right. So they’re like skipping third grade and going straight to fourth, or probably going straight to college, really, and trying to then reinvent what that future is, with new and different information. They don’t necessarily, they won’t go to middle school in high school, they’re just going to meet you in college. And they’re going to show up with their own set of knowledge, information tools, and they’re going to make sense of the world from their starting point, which is different from yours in mind. Okay, so that’s the really important thing here. So what is this revolution fusion about and I am going to be looking at my notes because I wanted to share all of this with you. In the global south, it just looks very different from us, right? 4 billion people live on less than $5 a day, 4 billion United States, it’s about 350 million people. Okay? So if you think about that magnitude, the numbers of individuals if you can quantify that in space and time, it’s allowed, okay. So 4 billion people who live on $5 a day or less, of those 2.7 billion, which is still many times the United States live on $2 a day or less. So we’re talking about a level of poverty that you and I are probably not experiencing. Okay. About 15% of the US population lives in poverty, according to these numbers, right? guaranteed. We’re talking about Native American reservations. We are talking about people of color and very marginalized groups that live in very rural areas. Okay, but it’s about 50% of the US population. 70% of these individuals at work and probably owned but they’re definitely working in small farms of five acres of land or less. And so that you have an idea here in Florida, it’s very easy to have an acre home So I mean, I had a home that had an acre of land, I sold that thing, because I was not mowing that lawn.
But that’s it’s not, you know, when you think about that, and I’m like, you know, part of me is like, okay, but this land, I should be like planting something lettuce, tomatoes, I should be doing something with this land that I have, because there are people literally going hungry, because they don’t have land to farm. So something to think about as well. These individuals, these 4 billion people that live in this level of poverty are making a jump from industrialization to computing, they don’t have a car, they get around in bicycles, they might not have anything better than a dirt road. But they have cell phones. And that is changing how they do life. Because things that you and I don’t need the phone for is something that they can only do via phone. So if you start thinking about that, but then they don’t have electricity, they use solar power to power their devices, from lamps to phones to you know, the simplest thing. Almost non existent access to roads and transportation. And one of the challenges in the global south, is that what’s called the last mile, it’s that distance between where the road ends and where people live. Right. So it’s only a mile, but you have to be able to traverse that mile in any kind of weather, in any condition to go to school to go to the pharmacy to go to the doctor to go to the post office, any of that, right. We know that 1% of the world owns 80% of the global wealth. Here’s the thing, 100% of the people who own the 80% of the world’s wealth, live in the global north. So I want you to kind of sit with that. And this paints a better picture perhaps of what I was trying to say earlier. We were not that I know of nobody on this call is Mark Zuckerberg or Jimmy Buffett, or I don’t know, Jeff Bezos right. But we are still in a position of strength and power and privilege that equips us to lead the revolution elsewhere, to be part of a bigger global conversation that doesn’t just focus on our micro experience in the United States, which is also important. I am not even trying to say that we should shy away from that conversation, I’m saying we need to be aware of the fact that the conversation is bigger, that there’s more power in our numbers when we think outside of our geographic
limitation. So these individuals are going to go from no electricity to solar power, as well. or other forms of energy that either they will invent or, you know, we will bring technology to them however that happens. So that’s what this revolution, usually it’s about. It’s that gap, that gray area between the Industrial Revolution and the computing revolution. So who is this revolution for? And this is where I just like putting pictures and giving you stories and real people so that you understand this, this fella and fella is my I guess you can you can call him my aunt. My family. My grandmother took her in and Fela is this lady here holding her grandkids. My grandmother took her in from a rural area in Santo Domingo to raise her and to help her go to school and whatnot. And so she lived with us for a very long time, became more like a nanny to my mom and her siblings. This is my mom here who is visiting now. So in 2014, when I first made the presentation, her husband was still alive. He was disabled, you can’t see it in the picture. But he was missing half of an arm and had an injury many years ago, and so she was the sole breadwinner at home. And she made empanadas. If you’ve never had him bananas or pasta little you’re missing out. So make sure you get some, but she would make them bananas for local public schools and she would bring that to them for lunch. So during their lunch break, she would be the lady with a tray, walking around selling empanadas. That’s what she did. And she was a micro enterprise of business woman working from home to raise her children. And so the picture you see here is 2020 actually should actually say 2021 because this picture is from like last week, and this fella who is now dealing with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s, and now her kids and there’s kid one, kid two and kids three her kids are the ones that are taking care of her financially. But they don’t have enough funds to take care of her medically, as well as taking care of their own families. And so here’s speller, an entrepreneur who has worked her ass off for decades to raise her kids, and is at a point in life where she doesn’t have a way to support herself, or take care of herself in a medical way, moving forward. So this one here is Zarina. She is a mom of five living in Pakistan, and she gets fabric weaves fabric at times, then beads, the fabric and sells the decorated fabrics in town. Again, it’s women who are in the bottom of the pyramid who are working creatively making things to support families and raise children. And then we have Mr. diva, who is a Honduran sharecropper, she grows coffee as part of a cooperative, because it allows her to negotiate better pricing when selling to foreigners. And so he or she is in the same way. sharecropping means that you are kind of renting the land so that you can grow your crops, she doesn’t own the land that would love to see her owning land. But this is the work that she is doing in order to provide for herself and for her family, and whatnot. So what does this new revolution look like? It looks like dealing with access to clean drinking water. For people who live in very poor areas, one of the conversations in this investing group that I’m a part of is the fact that water is there’s conversations about competency, comma, dissertation, I probably kill that word of water of making water a thing that can be owned, and that you can buy stock. I don’t know how you own an ocean. But you know, these are part of the things that that humanity that we are doing. capitalism, I’m not saying capitalism is bad. That’s a whole other presentation, a whole other conversation. What I’m saying is, we as humans don’t have to be evil, right, you can allow capitalism to exist, but we can be human, we can start thinking about water in a very different way. Water is necessary for life, that’s like owning air, right? So who owns water owns the right to live? And when we start thinking about the fact that people don’t have access to drinking water in many parts of the world, then Good Lord, we need to really start evaluating what business is for what is the purpose of an enterprise that is bringing value to the people? Is it for that? Or is it for wealth?
amassment is that a word? This revolution is about the folds of scope. This is a, an actual scope for lab procedures, so that you can examine blood samples and whatnot. But it’s actually origami style, it’s made of a type of paper, and you can distribute it very easily ship it very easily. It costs like $2, to print and produce. And you just take the pieces out, fold them, put them together and use it. And so it can be used for training in schools and labs. But it can also be used in labs for actual medical purposes. And so it’s it’s an example of extreme affordability, which we’re going to discuss in a few minutes. There’s also the light. It’s an ultra affordable study lantern. So it’s a lamp that is sought solar powered, so that kids who are having to study and do homework at home without electricity, have some sort of lighting device that allows them to study, get their work done, and then show up to school ready the next day. So what are some of the practical applications of this? Why am I sharing with you guys, all of this? I’m sharing this with you because it frustrates me when people come to me. And granted if that’s where you are. That’s fine, I’ll help you. But it frustrates me when people come to me looking only for an opportunity to make $1 instead of leading, what we solve leads the Revolution, the problems we choose to focus on lead the technological breakthroughs. And sometimes the breakthroughs have already happened. And all we have to do is take existing technology and apply it in new places and in new ways. I know it’s super sexy to say I invented a thing, or I have a patent for whatever You know what I mean? Good for you. I’m glad. But what is the impact of the work that you’re doing? What are you leaving us a legacy? A patent for things that, you know, I don’t know, like a new cooking device that is not needed? Or are you the kind of person that is more interested in building wealth through ethical and meaningful impact in the world that we live in, you get to choose the problems that you solve, and you get to actually solve them. To me that is so effing empowering and inspiring. I want to see more people going into ventures that are producing extreme affordability. Extreme affordability means that a person on $2 a day can afford this solution to a problem in their life. How do you do that? I don’t know. Because there’s so many problems to solve, right. But I can tell you that some of the qualities of extreme affordability and solving problems in the local level is manufacturing with raw materials. One of the things that imperialism and colonialism has done is made people dependent on foreign goods and raw materials. And interdependence in a global level is excellent. But when we become solely dependent, we create a mix of things, we create cultural, this dissonance, where you have, for example, in Africa, this is just a story I know of a missionary group brought toilets and irrigation to a village, right. But it is a village that does not have an infrastructure for water piping, and for sewer and all of that. So they build the thing that is not sustainable with materials that have to be ordered from elsewhere, at a cost that they can’t afford. So guess what happened with those toilets, X number of months down the line, they were not in use, right. So adapting technology is important. And so you have to think of local raw materials that can sustain that technological innovation in a way that does not disrupt the operation of that community. So you need to have a global market in mind, right? But you need to think of local sales and distribution. So there’s a solution that probably works in Ghana, as well as Colombia, as well as I don’t know, Pakistan. So it has a global impact possibility. But you have to start thinking about how does that become true and real in a local community?
reality in the United States, you know, something that sells great in Seattle might not have the same kind of impact in Austin, Texas, I don’t know. Right. So in the same way, the world is not that homogeneous. We want it to be, but it’s not. Here’s the cool thing, though. We’re talking about 4 billion people, if you do a thing, that helps a million people, and you can get $1 per person per year, that’s a million dollars a year with just the one solution. And you are making $1, and they’re making $1. And there is an opportunity for true Win win. business ventures, it is possible, it’s not insane. Okay. And then another thing that you want to start thinking about is a business venture that capitalizes on Women’s Entrepreneurship globally, women in the global south are making h happen in the United States. Latina immigrants are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs. And so there is something there is a phenomenon about women having to become self reliant, they would probably rather have a job, right? That gives them benefits that gives them a certain peace of mind. So it’s not that you don’t create jobs, but how can you partner with women in a global scale in different countries and different places to produce to bring some of that value and bring it in. And so it becomes a reciprocal relationship where you give and they give as well, I know that made in America is a thing made in the USA and nationalism and the pride of being American is there as well. So for those of you that really want to build that, I just invite you to think creatively about how you do that, and the ways in which you can achieve both. Okay, so some industries that are ripe for innovation and for your leadership, small farm irrigation, right, we’re talking about this global south, there’s, you know, 4 billion people that are working in little farms and they need to get water, distributed shelter being able to use 3d printing to create and build homes in super affordable ways. We also have drinking water, as I mentioned, right? Energy power, whether it’s solar, or nuclear, wind or whatever, by bringing energy to all these different places that are making the transition to computing but still don’t have power. So how do you get on the internet, if your computer doesn’t frickin turn on right? education is still an issue. Education is still a challenge. Educating the masses in any way. Traditional, non traditional online, in person, whatever, like all forms of education are still needed throughout the world, nutritious food. One of the saddest things that I see in the global south, especially when I visit my home country, Dominican Republic or other places, it’s just the same throughout the food that they eat. You see it here in Florida as well, with migrant farm worker communities. The people who farm are not the people eating the good food, right? So they produce the food and it leaves, they don’t retain any of it, they don’t get to enjoy the fruit of their labor with a proper diet. Okay, and then last but not least, and with this one we know really well right now is health care, all aspects of health care, from pharmaceuticals, to supplies to equipment, to access to health care, to all that has to do with that. Okay, so the innovation fuels the revolution, if you take one thing away from this presentation, is that the problem you choose to solve directs the revolution. We often think of technology as something that is happening to us, right? People say, Oh, well, robots are coming. They’re not coming. Where are they coming from the future, they don’t exist. We humans create the future when we choose to solve problems through technology. So the problems you choose to solve, and the technology that you create or implement in order to solve that problem is the revolution itself. So remember that and use that as your superpower. So that’s my question to you now is who is going to lead this revolution? I’ll open that up for questions.

Michele:

I love it. Okay. See, this is why I bought it on the hour. We have some great comments. If you have not been in the chat, which I know you have it. And we have not. And we have a few questions. So we’re going to cut off questions in Actually, I’ll say 10 minutes instead of seven. Try to get out of here at a quarter after the hour. Okay. Okay. Question. How can I learn more about fundamental development as a college senior studying mathematics?

 

Francesca: 

Great question. I’m curious of what college you’re at. Because typically, universities will have a department of either economics, or usually an economics is where you’ll start finding things that have to do with sustainable development. You might find it in foreign policy as well, when you look at foreign policy, you’ll start seeing foreign aid agreements. And you’ll start understanding how those agreements sometimes countries up more than they actually help because of the way that they restrict the spending of the dollar. So say, for example, I give $50 million to Bolivia to deal with COVID pandemic, but I tell them that they have to use the $50 million to buy supplies from the United States. Right. So now I and I set the price, right? Because I am directing those dollars back to the American economy. So it was never truly an aid. It was more like a loan. And anyhow, I’m not gonna digress. But yes, I think that if you look in foreign policy, politics, or in economics departments at your university, you might find either groups out student groups, or you might find classes that you can audit if you’re not interested in actually taking it for credit.

 

Michele: 

Okay, thanks. Let me see if I can, there we go. All right. Next question. Is this why countries in the global south have caught a hole of the cryptocurrency and creating their own Silicon Valley’s?

Francesca: 

Yes, so one of my former clients is very much involved in high wonder companies out so I’ll share with the group but at another point, but she’s establishing an investment group of capital investing group in Africa. based out of Nigeria, she’s Nigerian and American herself. And one of the things that’s happening is really the creation of self sustaining economies. Right? People are hungry for an opportunity to be decoupled from the global north dictatorship, right? And so the crypto world allows for the creation of new virtual economies that yes, they kind of ride the same way. But they are self sustaining, you can create your own coin, you can create your own platform and create your own source right of that. Well, so absolutely, we’re gonna see more of that.

Michele: 

Great, great question. I took a class last semester on the subject of environmental activism that incorporated the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This is such an important topic that is definitely not talked about enough in America. I’m so happy you’re talking about this topic. It is so important.

Francesca: 

Yeah. SDGs are such a great for many reasons. So for anybody who doesn’t know what SDGs are their sustainable development goals set up by the UN. And I think they revisit those either annually, or like every so often, when they have metrics for World progress, right. And so the thing is that there’s resources earmarked for that there’s organizations doing that work. And if you’re starting a company, or you’re wanting to solve certain problems, there are places that you can hook up with, there are already you’re not starting from scratch, complete. There’s resources, there’s research, there’s money, there’s people, so definitely line up with SDGs, to see where you can plug in and make a difference.

Michele: 

Okay, if you have questions, go ahead and drop them in because I have a whole slew of discussion things I want to talk about. on that. All right. Next question, what grants or programs would you suggest for Afro Latinos?

Francesca: 

Like, for college for starting a business for Why? Because there’s a lot of different programs?

Michele: 

And if you can be if it’s a tech product, is it a consumer product, e commerce, that helps you but business they said business?

Francesca: 

Okay, so business? There are see the thing is so All right, let me organize my thoughts. There are a lot of government opportunities for people that are solving problems that are important to the government. So for example, if propone making this up, but if they were trying to work on increasing or improving the state of farming in Iowa, and they were putting dollars behind that, then you decide you want to pursue those dollars, and you would start a company that is in some way improving farming in Iowa. Right. So the thing with government dollars is that they’re usually earmarked for certain types of projects. There’s all kinds of projects and all kinds of dollars, it’s just you needing to first decide what you want to do, and the kind of work that you’re interested in, and then connecting with the right programs. The government is involved in everything. I mean, think of like, personal protective gear in 2020. Right, but all the way to the defense projects where you could be building rockets to land on Mars. I mean, the gamut is there. Is it earmarked for Latinas? No, I can tell you, for example, in California, the speed rail project did have we’re probably still has, I think it’s 20% of their budget is supposed to go to minority owned enterprises. So you would have to have an enterprise that offers the kinds of civil engineering services that they need, and that you are a registered minority owned women owned enterprise, according to government guidelines. So again, it depends on your industry what you’re trying to do, but chances are there is an opportunity.

 

Michele: 

Okay, and she said perfectly, preferably a woman based business marketed to single working women. I’m not sure what ABS is. Single ABS working women. So yeah, it sounds b2c. Yeah.

Francesca: 

I don’t see the government sponsoring a lot of b2c. They’re usually more interested in research technology, and then the facilitation of services, but not necessarily to consumers. I, I would need more information to answer that question. Sorry.

Michele: 

Yep. And so Francesca has up her LinkedIn profile late. So you can go connect with her there for sure. So definitely, definitely do that. And I have some questions because while I’m Michelle, and I happen to a long time ago before I did construction, before I did technical sales, I had a short stint in technology transfer. So I got Actually, I’ve been to WP I HLC graduate from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts, which is I did, I was there at one of their worst winters up until one like five or five years ago. But anyway, I worked for one at NASA’s their North East Technology Transfer Center, which at the time was in a building that had GE on it, and it was on technology drive if you Westboro. So.

Francesca: 
Was it in the it wasn’t in the late 90s? By any chance? Were we there at the same time? Oh, this is Oh, two. Okay.
Okay,
I was gone. Yeah,

Michele:

Ijust miss you. But I’m just saying,

Francesca: 

Oh, yeah, yeah, no, this no one was there, I’m sure. Okay.

Michele: 

So let’s talk about how to find somebody technologies that women can utilize, to create ate this innovation, or take the innovation and change and bring about revolution to us and our communities. And I want to start with national labs, it will look like when you’re looking at national because I’m not that far from from those. Um, so can you talk a little bit about national labs and, or what is the National Lab so they can kind of go out and seek out that information.

Francesca: 

So national labs are basically producing technology they’re creating, they’re innovating. And in some cases, they’re doing what you were mentioning, transferring, they’re adopting existing technology, modifying it, and either applying it for in some cases, NASA, like JPL, or, you know, whatever, in some cases is the opposite as well, like it’s technology that that was created for government operations. And then they’re deep classifying it, in essence, and making it useful to civilians. And so I’m going to go a different route. However, and I’m going to say, if nobody here, if anybody has not visited the US Patent and Trademark Office website, that is an excellent source, because you can go in, look at the frickin patents, you can download the patents. And if you switch a thing, it is a new patent. Okay, and so in some cases, you’re able to look at existing technology, existing inventions that are working in the marketplace, and you can just adapt it to your needs. So you can look at a gadget or device and you’re like, Okay, this is the blueprint, but I want it to be smaller, and I want it to open to the left instead of the right. And I want the key to turn the other way. That’s it, those are like minor tweaks instead of having to start from scratch with a brand new invention. So get super familiar with the US Patent and Trademark Office and just browse man.

Michele: 

I love it, I love it. I live not too far from a DMV facility, okay, I’ve been into the facility is like, Hey, we have this thing that we think would be a good project management tool. And they’ll talk about, you know, it took $60,000 to license it out. But you could sit and spend $600,000, right, trying to develop a fully functional platform. Um, so sometimes it’s just you like, Oh, my God, I could really implement this in certain places. So it’s really, really interested in doing that.

Francesca: 

And let me add something to that. Say, for example, you find a blueprints for a thing, you can find out who manufactures them. And you can go to them and say, I want that, but I wanted him blue and I want it smaller with a lid that opens the other way. And they already have the frickin infrastructure to develop your thing, because they’re already doing it for someone else. Right. So there’s just so much that it’s easier than people think.

Michele:

I absolutely agree. Um, universities have have some technology you can check out as well. I was just gonna website my alma mater two nights ago, like What do y’all have going on? like okay, Mackey. Yeah. So definitely, definitely check those out as well. Um, and I want to talk about one thing I know somebody talked about funding, SPI RS and stt Rs, and getting you utilizing those to help you take that technology and really get funded and trying to figure out how to market it. How to Sell it how to get it to work. Any any feedback or experience with that

Francesca: 

SPR What? Can you tell me more?
That stands for?

Michele: 

innovation? Something, I always forget what they are? Look, it was Oh, thank you They call it silver. But I hate. But it is going to be, of course, and I’ll tell you it is a Small Business Innovation Research is SBI. And in small business technology transfer is the STTR. And those are both programs that come out of I want to say to seven departments like NIH, National Health, National Science Foundation, I know the Air Force has one. So the larger department national departments like that all have give out funding or provided funding yes for for these types of projects and ideas.

 

Francesca:

Okay, I was not familiar with the, the naming of that. But that’s what I was referring to earlier that depending on your area of interest, there are opportunities throughout all of government, because government is actively investing in areas that they deem important for, you know, the future of the people or economic development or you know, any mix of those things. And so, I invite people to first think about what they want to do, and then pair themselves with the right agency, the right project, the right opportunity.

 

Michele: 

Absolutely. So, ladies, there are other people like us, who have created technology, whether it’s a physical is a process and software that you literally can put your genius behind and build businesses that literally are changing the world. And just just for just for mindset, some of you know I’m in South Carolina, I’m in my hometown, I always tell people I’m dirt road born and raised in South Carolina, my mom goes, the road was paved, that’s like my, in front of the house. But the road next to the house was a dirt road. And we played on a dirt road, right played, we did hopscotch and jump rope, and all of these things. So when you literally so for me to build a tech company in rural South Lyon is very different because we don’t have high speed internet in 93%, of the state of South Carolina. So I’m excited about starlink. And just being able to bring the internet to rural areas, literally changes the economics, an area because some people are working, making minimum wage, which has been 725 since 2009. And now literally make a livable wage, by working online simply through the internet. And so it completely changes the game and the way people can live. And, and what they’ll have available to them just from the internet. And you and it’s very difficult to do if you don’t have high speed, it’s not impossible, but it’s more difficult. It takes more patience. So think about those things and how you can change people’s lives. literally taking the education and technical experience, you have to build and and and, and change and have a revolution. I love it. I love this.
So any of you one second show,
no problem. So for those of you who are like I don’t have a business idea, you see a problem that you have in your community, you see that there is a
you see there is something that needs to be changed. And you have an idea you’re like, I’m not sure how to build it, how to create it, you can go to these places to see if somebody else has already done it. And you know how you want to sell it, you know who you want to sell it to, you’re like, I’m not a salesperson, trust me, you’re not. But what you do is you solve problems for people. And when you reframe, selling to solving a problem, right, and getting people to exchange your solution for money, it is no longer sales. And so you just just reframe it a bit. But we have so much knowledge and so much so many levels of expertise, until we can take these things and literally make them businesses and change people’s lives right now.

Francesca: 
And I want to add to that because I that’s the part that is so important to me, sometimes in the US and it’s very US based. There’s something about our culture where people want to be the inventor. They want to create the thing from scratch and be the disrupter right missin I am much more We’re interested in us building wealth and fixing problems. And so if you can do that without having to, like, have sleepless nights and lose your eyebrows studying shit, like, please just take existing technology transfer it and and let it be a disrupter to people, not to technology itself, like the abstract disruption of technology for the sake of being an inventor is sometimes and is sometimes an illusion. Like I think of Uber. Like, what did Uber really do? They’re a taxi company.

 

Michele: 

You know what Uber did? Uber went into our neighborhoods, it’s like, oh, we can build an app for that. Right? And then before it I don’t know, I don’t know. I know. Last night there was somebody here from Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, they called it jitneys. Yeah, they sold it to me. And then they went to Pittsburgh to test that out because it was like, hold up, you came and stole everything, then you gonna bring it back to test it out here. Like for real?

Francesca: 

That is the way of the colonizer? Yeah, right here, which is a whole other presentation. But the way of the colonizer is to come, extract and then give it back to you when I give it back, but sell it back to you, right. And so there’s this thing. And when I think of Uber as a business model, it’s a taxi company. It’s just the change the dispatching system. Yep, that is all they did, they created a different dispatching system. But you still have to call for a cab you just requested via an app instead of a phone call. And because of its decentralized fashion, multiple taxi drivers are available to bring you wherever you want to go. But it’s it didn’t solve a problem. And when you realize it doesn’t solve a problem is when you look at that last mile I was speaking of earlier, it’s still there it is. And traffic didn’t change. I’m still stuck in traffic in an Uber or in my old car. Right. So it’s when we talk about disruption in the illusion of disruption. I think that when we’re honest with ourselves, there are so many great ways to build a thriving enterprise to actually make a difference and make a lot of money. Not having to, you know, go for a venture capital, get a million dollars, so that you can get this prototype going blah, blah, blah. Like that’s the whole thing.

Michele: 

There, there is a Latino led startup out of Boston, the young man, and I’m calling you out because he’s a little bit younger than us. He’s an industrial engineer to supply chain. What he noticed was that map last mile of delivery there, you anybody ever had somebody come whether it’s a rental property or your home, they come and fix it, oh, I need to go to the store to get this part. And it’s forever when they come back. They can dispatch you can order the part they will go pick it up so that you don’t lose your people from the job site. They keep working. And I’ve had so many people when I work the construction, Oh, we got to go back to the hardware store. Oh, we have to go do this. And it keeps the work going. Because you’re not sending somebody to go somewhere to pick it up. So just really into like, do you would have saved me so much time in Pittsburgh, again. Pittsburgh problem, but it was it was bad X ray can’t get it there to you in the same day. They’ll give it to you early the next day, but you need it right now. And so it’s one of those problems. And this is a started by her. And this is why I was like, is this really a startup idea?

Francesca: 

Listen,I’ll tell you some stuff I’ve heard.

Michele: 

No, listen to this one. Listen to this one. And I want you to think about this. They’re doing an app where people can schedule for them to come over to their home and braid their hair.
Okay.
So I’m just gonna leave that there. So you’re thinking, this can’t be this easy. There it is. Yes. And so you really watch out a really, that’s why I didn’t want you to get like really deep but you have so much knowledge and technical experience. People are looking for you. And these are the things you’re able to much larger things you’re able to solve for. We do have another question. Oh, this is what my business offers. Okay, cool. Um, and so I want y’all to really, really focus on that. Because it you’re, you’re thinking I can’t possibly do this.

Francesca: 

Let me let me add something to that. Michelle. I’m getting super comfortable here. I’m like putting my feet up on my own couch. And here’s, that’s it.
I then I break out the wine. It’s over. And so here’s here’s the My issue, not issue but perspective. One of the things that people say when they come to me, you know, help me grow my business. Okay? What do you want to do? I want to make a million dollars. Okay? That’s one way to approach this. And how are you going to do that? How do you make a million dollars, right? Like, you have to do a thing a million times and make $1. And then that’s a million. Sometimes people get lost in numbers, you don’t need to be. Most people on this call are not making $500,000 a year. Okay, so how about we get you to 300,000? You know, and then we get you to 600,000. But million is just a number, and it has a ring, and it has a cultural bias or something like people think of it a certain way. And the reason I’m bringing that up is because I think sometimes when we’re looking at business models, and we’re trying to think big, and we’re trying to do all of that, yes, baby steps, sometimes what we do is build a thing that is so big in our heads that we can’t start. And that we don’t have a way of actually saying
yes to
Mika 300,000 words for me to like, let’s get there, right. And so here’s the thing, sometimes, I think of like local restaurants, those mofos are making $300,000 a year. And it’s one restaurant in a great location, and they’re working their butts off, right. But we again, start thinking like, Oh, I need to have a national Empire like Dr. Evil, right? Like, we start thinking, like, the colonial mindset that somehow this is about building an empire and taking over Yeah, and I’m the king of the world, like, No, no, that’s not what we’re after, if we’re going to be true to who we are as a people, and our values and the things that we’re actually investing in, I’ll tell you what I really like, right, and I think I showed you this before, right? This is my messy home, I’m in the cute spot. However, here are the windows, I’m going to put in my garage. And there’s my art studio at the entrance of my home that is going to be in the garage with a history model. And then here are like my canvases that don’t have a place in the piano. And then books that have to be put on the wall where the windows are. And you know what, that’s what I want to make money for. These are the things that are tangible, that are real, that make a difference in my life and in the life of my children. And so when I think of building empires, and I think of you know, I think of doing that one business at a time, that’s my approach, y’all have your own. But that’s why I help small businesses, because I know that small businesses change a family and they change a neighborhood. And so if you can focus on that, and then choose a neighborhood, choose a community where you want to make a difference. And then you partner with someone in India who’s doing the same thing. And then next thing you know, you are having a global impact. And things happen to grow. And yeah, dollar Nair first, that’s right. I like that. You know, we we need to start thinking about things that are scalable, but scalable, does it mean that you start big, it means you get big.

Michele: 

So I love it. I love it. And some of you are going to come back and say, but how do I compete with the big companies? Let me tell you how you compete. Let me tell you how you compete you don’t this is what you do. You get so damn good at this one thing. They you become the Xerox you become a Google when they say oh, we need like, Oh, you need to Google that. And they call it you. Right? That’s how good and you go, don’t go Why go go narrow and go deep. And, and when people say well, you know, we don’t know. Like, yeah, you’re working with such and such, aren’t you? Like, yeah, their employees are good. It’s like Exactly. I own this is do or die. Are you really gonna show up and show? And it’s like, oh, that’s a good. It’s like I’m not saying they have lazy people. But what I’m saying when you own it, you end the when it more than any employee any day. And then and that’s just I’m sorry to let y’all know. But that’s just hot. That’s entrepreneurship. So when that point and they’re pushing back like no, this is not what we do. This is who we are is not a job. This is our life.

Francesca:

And I want to break this down. I want to break what you’re saying down into math. So say your goal is $300,000 a year. That is 650 $1,000 contracts. Okay, you don’t need to compete with the biggest and take All of their business away, you only need six then contracts that are 50 grand a year. Shoot, if you do $300,000 contracts, you’re good to go. Right. And so the idea of competition, the idea of driving out the competition, all of that is the way of the colonizer, that is language that has to do with conquest and with takeover, and with displacing others. If that’s not who we have to be, that there’s room for all, there’s abundance, there are plenty of contracts, there’s plenty of opportunity. And when you start there, you’ll see the three gigs you can start with, you’ll see the five gigs you start with, and then you grow those five. And next thing you know, you’re like, you know what, I can’t handle 15 clients, I can only take on 10, whatever, right? And then you keep growing from there, right? But trust me, when I tell you that there is a level of satisfaction that comes from not building the Empire. But the journey. The journey is important, probably more important than that end results. How many people you and I think of like, it just happened so often TOMS Shoes, right? They started with, you know, let’s give a shoe to kids that don’t have any shoes. Well, what they actually ended up doing was displacing local economies in South America that were based on shoemaking. And so yeah, the kids have shoes, but now the parents are unemployed. So thank you. So what and I’m not even saying that he did a bad thing. But what if he had employed those families to make the shoes? What if there were other things that we can do to be effective and to be good? danga? Can’t we just be good people? I know that’s so hard to hard question.

Michele: 

So there is nothing wrong with being a small business starting out as a small business and eventually growing. I come from small business, it grew to a six figure business and then my mom retired because we weren’t taking it over. But it really does happen. It is absolutely a possibility in a small town of 4000 people having a six figure business. Think about that. She had three she had three other three other daycares. Two of them were church, daycares, but she, for whatever reason, was very good networking with the local colleges. So they sent all the college students and employees to her. And she was very good with social services. So if they had foster kids in the area, she got those two. And she My mother is very good at writing grants. So whatever program she had, they were like, Oh, you have to go here because she was the only one in town. So she knew her niches. She said in those niches. And that’s what made her bank. So understand it, you can do this, and you’re like, yes, I’m gonna trust me. If it’s smaller than 4000 people. You can still do it.
I’m just asking. I’m just saying. I’m just Yeah,
yeah.
So any, any parting words?

Francesca: 

Just lead, lead don’t don’t present yourself as a victim of the technological revolution lead it directed with your invention with the problems you choose to solve.
That’s it.

Michele: 

Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. This has absolutely been a fantastic discussion. You’ve learned a lot habitude you understand you understand how much power you really do have in driving innovation in changing the world and really bring an impact even as a small business. You don’t have to start out large you can grow to that. So everybody, I will see you tomorrow night. We will be back with Dr. Lizette. And she’s going to be talking about the hater in your head. I know y’all like I know. I can do this. We’re gonna get there you can. You won’t get the hater out of your head tomorrow. All right, everybody. Have a great night and I will see you tomorrow. Bye. All right.
Bye bye.