Tell us about your connection with the Open Opportunity Fund.
As a partner with Open Opportunity Fund, we partnered with A3C to bring in a lot of the folks that we work with daily, a lot of founders, investors, and people investing in quality, to bring them in to give a lot of their knowledge and information on what they’re doing on a day to day basis into a crowd that is a little bit more culturally centric and focused. The A3C had a lot to do with the business of music, but there are a lot of people who are building businesses all around the space, and we feel like they can be beneficially affected by that type of information that people have here.
How has the combination of culture and tech been big in pushing the culture forward?
It’s a question I think about every day. [With] the history of diverse populations [here], we make up the fabric of this country, and we’re the vibe and the culture of this country. When you travel outside the United States, people want to relate to you based on things that they’ve seen through primarily Black [cultures], and they call that American culture. To have a platform like [A3C], [for]the people building these things, is special. Where it gets a little trickier now is you have to figure out how you [commercialize]in a way [that’s] culturally congruent, but [still]able to move the culture forward, [and]also monetize it successfully. [Brands] and anyone else that wants to interact with this [platform]know that they need to come knocking on your door first and be able to appreciate what [you’re] doing and be willing to trade and transact in these businesses. I want to continue to see rooms like this [at A3C and beyond]to continue to build and exchange information. I think there’s a lot that we can offer. Now it’s time for us to start reaping the rewards that we are sowing into this culture over time.
