Entrepreneur In Residence

Kapor Center Oakland, CA | 2017

what does it mean to be an entrpreneur in residence

The kapor center is a venture capital firm in Oakalnd, CA and like any other VC they provode venture capital for startups all around the country mostly tech startups. As a part of a new venture - the ilab they provide office space inside of their really nice building downtown oakland and mentorship. The idea is to support under represented founders and help the, get their ideas off of the ground. They dpntrpvode any funding its just office space. The idea is cool but not practical. The cost of livign is high and there is no way honestly to build a startup with no money especially as an under represented founder. Having wifi and office space is great if you have seed funding coming from somewhere else. During this period of time I was working as a data science intern with Acorns to fund my cost of livivn while trying to build a startup on the side. The idea was cool and I think with more resources it could have turned into something.

who else was there?

There were six of us in total in this program and one floor of office space. Each one of us had our own desk. I dont remember what everyone was working on and you can go look these people up for yourself. I do remember one guy was working on some sort of tool that helped undocumented immigrants with something. I dont remember what Eugene was working on but I do know that Eugene is a really smart guy and in another post we will unpack a few key comversations ive had in my professional life that he has helped me navigate. I dont remmeber anypne else from this time.

Describe your startup

(video)[https://youtu.be/fuAsYV1Subk?si=fACtWPtcFQJM0MSc]

At the time I was living next door to a teacher and his wife who owned a preschool. She described to me many of the administrative challenges she was having woth onboarding new students and families and how having a tool to do this would be so helpful. The is the big idea around preuni. I did spend some time interviewing local schools who seemded to be onbaord with using the product initially to help them get students enrolled in school. The idea was nice and the MVP was also nice, I think I needed more capital to actually turn this idea into something.

strengths of the project

•	This was a real pain point for preschools at the time.
•	A real business owner was willing to use her business as a pilot for the product.
•	An MVP was built for the product.

weaknesses of the project

No one at the time believed in black female founders enough to put momey behind our ideas. Maybe if I were a white male foinder from Stanford someone would have given our idea even $50,000 to try to make it something. The weird thing about the BULLSHIT idea of culture fit [CODE WORD] racism was that if you were not white and building a food delivery app, you were not going to get even $1.00

the irony looking back

I think there are many products and services that you CAN build. I think that it takes very little to bring a product to life but I think that the opportunity cost of actually bbuikding that product or service as opposed to living your real life or at least trying to have some lived experience as a black woman is worth more than the struggle porn of trying to raise money in silicon valley. I think a few more people NOW care about products for urban communities, but not enough to put any money behind them. I think that upwardly mobile black girls will always find a way out like me, and that is the best option. I don think it makes sense to try and work within a broken system and I believe that trying to change it is such a waste of time. But just imagine whatbwe could have created with just $10,000 - the truth is to that community we weere not even worth that much money.