Join us on a thrilling journey with the dynamic Jen Fry as she unfolds her story, one that zigzags from the adrenaline of college athletics to the pioneering frontiers of tech and travel. Jen doesn't just swap jerseys for boardrooms; she inspires with her vision of professional growth for coaches and athletes alike. Her candid talk on the philosophy of being a 'kind asshole' – delivering tough love through honesty – leaves no stone unturned in our understanding of impactful communication and leadership.
In the trenches of entrepreneurship, Jen spotlights the highs and lows of her tech startup adventures. She walks us through the maze of market research, the switch from B2C to B2B strategies, and the birth of an app that promises to revolutionize group travel. Imagine erasing the headache of coordinating trips with just a few taps on your phone – that's the future Jen is crafting, and she's here to share how she's navigating this ambitious endeavor.
We wrap up our session with an exploration of the power of networking and why seizing the moment can be a game-changer. Jen recounts tales of chance encounters leading to transformative business pivots and the unmatched value of events like Black Tech Week. She also offers a treasure trove of book recommendations that have propelled her on this journey. So, buckle up for an episode that's as much about embracing the unknown as it is about charting a course to success.
Join us on a thrilling journey with the dynamic Jen Fry as she unfolds her story, one that zigzags from the adrenaline of college athletics to the pioneering frontiers of tech and travel. Jen doesn't just swap jerseys for boardrooms; she inspires with her vision of professional growth for coaches and athletes alike. Her candid talk on the philosophy of being a 'kind asshole' – delivering tough love through honesty – leaves no stone unturned in our understanding of impactful communication and leadership.
In the trenches of entrepreneurship, Jen spotlights the highs and lows of her tech startup adventures. She walks us through the maze of market research, the switch from B2C to B2B strategies, and the birth of an app that promises to revolutionize group travel. Imagine erasing the headache of coordinating trips with just a few taps on your phone – that's the future Jen is crafting, and she's here to share how she's navigating this ambitious endeavor.
We wrap up our session with an exploration of the power of networking and why seizing the moment can be a game-changer. Jen recounts tales of chance encounters leading to transformative business pivots and the unmatched value of events like Black Tech Week. She also offers a treasure trove of book recommendations that have propelled her on this journey. So, buckle up for an episode that's as much about embracing the unknown as it is about charting a course to success.
What's up everybody? Thank you again for joining another episode of entrepreneurial appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. And today we have a colleague and friend of mine, dr Jen Fry, who spoke last on my other podcast, the African Americans in Sport podcast, about her journey as a coach and social justice advocate all of that good stuff. And for this podcast we're going to talk about Jen's pivot to travel and tech, and so, more and more, I finding people that have their doctors who are like you know what.
Langston Clark :I'm not just going to be all up in the academy. There are other things I can do with my knowledge and my skills, and I think Jen is a great example of that, and so we're going to start off just by Jen. Give us your autobiography Now. You can take this any way you want to go, okay, but this is how I was thinking of who is Jen the player, who is Jen the coach, who is Jen the scholar and who was in the entrepreneur, because I feel like those are major concepts that fit into your life, that bring us to where we are right now, with someone who's in like travel and tech and, I think, in some ways, workforce development, all of that.
Jen Fry :So I first think that the title would be called kind asshole. Okay, because I think so many times people equate niceness like that's the way to do stuff, and when you're nice you miss out on a lot of ways to be kind, because kind is truth, telling Kind is hard. And so I would say Jen the player was a complete little shit Like I. The attitude I had Dr Clark was oh, I had that attitude. And when I became a coach I actively coached against the player. I was. And karma, you know, when you have kids, your karma is the kids are the way you were.
Langston Clark :Yeah.
Jen Fry :Right when your parents always be like look you bad. You're like no, no, and now you're like, ah, now I see it and that's how I was as a coach. I got asked that were a direct representation of me as a player, direct representation, which is why whenever I coached, I saw it on being really good teammate, really good work, ethic things that weren't really drilled into me the way I wish that they would have, and so whenever I talk to friends who have kids at play, I say they should be working on being really good teammates. That should be a core ethos of them is being a really really good teammate and how that shows up.
Jen Fry :So all of the kind of the ideas I've had all intertwined because I became a professional speaker to give Jen the coat and Jen the athletes the skills that she needed, because I feel that coaches aren't given skills really. I mean now, probably post 2019, coaches are, but before coaches were like you're expected to do all this stuff and we're not going to develop you and knowing like we have to center that coaches need so much professional development because they are raising a diverse group of 18 to 22 year olds and how hard that is and the intersecting identity that is. And so I became the speaker, the advocate, whatever you want to call me, to give young Jen the skills that you're needed to be an excellent coach, an excellent human, because those are intertwined. And when I speak I give the skills to the player, jen Frye, who I wish had these skills in conflict, understanding self, self advocacy, setting boundaries all of those things that we don't think of as needed skills in our athletes and our coaches and in anyone we don't think of.
Jen Fry :Being able to develop boundaries is an excellent skill to have. It's a hard skill, but it's an excellent skill because I hear so many people who do things that they just do not want to do because they're afraid of making people mad all the time. Well, I just don't want to do this thing, go this place, but I just don't want to make my friend mad. So they end up doing things that they hate spending money they hate because they don't want to make a friend mad.
Jen Fry :They don't know how to have boundaries and say I love you, but I want to go eat over here, I want to go do this thing. And so that's kind of how I look at it. Like how could I have given the young Jen Frye the skills that she needed? She learned, but learned right. You have to bump your nose and learn through growth, and then you know. I think about this journey as an entrepreneur, which I literally like, tripped and fell into because from being a head coach I was like I did not want to be. Let me just ask I didn't. I never wanted to lead anyone and I tripped and fell into leading a three company.
Langston Clark :Okay that changed your question yeah, yeah, yeah, so I it's, it's. It's interesting because I think, I think you're a founder in a lot of different ways and you have a very interesting story as a woman who went from being a college player to a college coach, entrepreneur and scholar. But either I don't know if it was before or during right as you're becoming an entrepreneur, I think it's. As you're becoming an entrepreneur the speaker, the consultant, all of that stuff you're also becoming the scholar, like working on your doctorate, your PhD, and in both instances, you were a founder, right, oh, yeah, that's true. So you were, you were a scholarship. You were also the founder of, like, this new branch of study, right, this new way of looking at what it means to study and understand athletics, right. And so, like, how does you, as an academic founder, right, play into you being the entrepreneur who is the consultant, the speaker and all of that, like how talk, talk?
Jen Fry :about that evolution. That's a good one, I think, the fact that my mom really kind of allowed me to just try and be willing to try stuff, and so I never have this thought process if I couldn't do things. I mean, I remember when I was 17 and literally I went to your college in Arizona, five minutes from the Mexican border, and I got to know the athletes at the junior college I ended up going to and they wanted to go on spring break and they're like you want to come, and I'm at this point I'm 17, right, and I asked my mom, I'm like can I go with them? And she was like, of course I'm 17. We go a seven car caravan to Mexico, lake Havasu and Vegas. I missed a week of school. I don't have a cell phone, I just disappear. And then Jen, the little shit, shows up at track, the track meet to throw my discus and then go back and party right, like. But my mom gave me extensive freedom, freedom that I think would scare more kids and more adults. But she gave it to me and she had five kids older than me like at least 15 years older than me that she had a tight grasp on, and with me the six kids she adopted. It was just freedom and I think because of that freedom I'm willing to take chances that people aren't used to taking. Right In my scholarship, I said I want to study black female athletes and I want to do it from a geographical lens.
Jen Fry :Who's going to pay me? I'm doing this regardless. Like I'm not going to, I'm not going to change my idea because of who I'm under. Like I'm going to expect the academia to fit me versus me fitting the academia. And that's a big risk, right? Many people won't take that. They'll say you know what, dr Clark, I'll do whatever it is you want me to do, I just want to do it Right. Like they will say that and they will squeeze themselves in to do things that they don't want to do, just to work under you, or that scholarship For me.
Jen Fry :I was like this is who I am, this is what I'm going to do, who's going to fit around me and willing to take that chance with my businesses? Kind of the same thing of I want to do this stuff. What does it look like? And at certain points I haven't seen anyone doing it. So I'm going to do this thing. I don't even know what it looks like I don't know how I'm going to construct it, but I know that I want to do this thing.
Jen Fry :Like when I started speaking, I wanted to speak about race. People weren't doing it the way I thought it should be done, so I was like I'm just going to try it out and I'm willing to take leaps. I have a humongous faith in myself of flying the plane while reading the directions right, while blowing up my little life jacket on the side, all at the same time. Like I have the faith of building it. As we're flying and reading the directions and knowing it's going to be bumpy as hell, we're going to hit a shit ton of turbulence where the plane rocking and rolling, but I know we're going to come to clear a sky and to have the faith I have in myself. And then also the people around me have a phenomenal faith in me.
Langston Clark :Yeah, and for those of you, so Jen correctly, if I say this wrong, all right. So Jen is essentially the founder of I don't want to say this an academic discipline that looks at the experiences of the racial and gendered experiences of black female athletes, like black women athletes, black female athletes, through geography. So she's like looking at the sporting, racial, sociological experience through geography, which is something to that point hadn't been done in that way and, as scholars, like being the person who is founding a discipline is like super important, because everything that happens after that that person gets credit for. And so what's amazing about Jen is that I was reading a book by what's that dude's name? Adam Grant.
Langston Clark :I think Adam Grant wrote this book and he was talking about the beginning of social media and he referenced some social media platform I never heard of, but I looked it up. Some white guy started it. And then I looked up black planet and the dude who started black planet started black planet before that white dude Adam Grant mentioned in his book. And so the significant thing about Eugene is that anybody who ever does anything about geography and sport, regardless of whether that has to do with race, is going to go back to you, and that's the significance of being someone who for the audience, who has founded, like in academia.
Jen Fry :Well, I would pause and say so. There are white scholars, especially from England, that did geography and sport. For me, the addition of race and gender, those are the two big things that people haven't done. What does it look like to add in and just when you say that, the addition of race and gender to talking about sport, geography, Thank you for that correction Still significant, nevertheless right.
Langston Clark :So you've done your coaching, you're doing your consulting, public speaking, working with different athletic programs, coaches and student athletes Talk about these more recent pivots into being a founder, right. And so these pivots and these evolution that you're going through with Hyra Bowl and Cordill, like, how do you, how are you doing all of this?
Jen Fry :Oh God, it's the, it's probably the wildest pivot. You know, I always I coach for 15 years and I never thought that moving groups was done really well. It was always done very archaically. I mean, dr Clark, think about when you got married. You probably had groomsmen and bridesmaid and had a spreadsheet of when everyone had cut their hair, had their makeup done like it's very it's done archaic way. And so I realized that my graduation I'm trying to graduate and I have the Google sheet of when everyone flies in, but no one looks at it. It's not in real time, no one knows they're on the same flight with each other until they're literally in the flight. And so I'm like there has to be a better way to do it, and I didn't see anyone doing it well, and so I really jumped off a cliff with this and and part of me is like I'm glad the way I did impart me is like I don't know if I would have done it, because I am spending my own money and I think that tech is looked at as very sexy, with VC in shark paint, and I want to caution people who are looking at tech in those eyes, because tech is not sexy, tech is really expensive and when you look at it through what I'll just get VC funding, you don't even know if a people want to pay for your thing. B is it scalable? Because VCs wanted to make sure that it's scalable and they can get their billions, they can get millions back within a really quick amount of time. Do people want it? Like you have to think not your friends and homies, but to ask who people want it. And I was like I know this is a thing. Like I know it, I know from the extensive traveling through my network, like I know this is still a pain point and I jumped off without doing my real due diligence, my real interviews, and I don't want I don't know if I want to say luckily for me, but I knew I'm on the right track because that this was a huge pain point.
Jen Fry :The difference was going from business to consumer, to business to business. Everyone thinks of selling an app or something, people to people. The problem is that that's hard as hell and it's really hard to scale. Because think about Dr Clark, whenever you go to Chipotle, are you going to pay for guacamole? It's $2.99. But most people are like $2.99 for guacamole, $3.99. I'm a pass. So think about that on the food you really want. Are you going to get a lot of people, mass amounts of people, to buy an app at $2.99, especially when there are versions that are free and can not do it as well, but do it?
Jen Fry :And so so many people immediately think of the B2C or business to consumer route immediately. And is that a true, viable route? Can you get the money to build your company and scale your company? And people don't think about that. I've been until someone was like you need to look at B2B, business to business, and I was like and I did probably 50 interviews I was like, oh, this is the place this is. So you have red ocean and blue ocean. Blue ocean is wide and open. Red ocean has a lot of different apps in it. So if you think about, we'll do it in academia, right, you think about writing something about prick or race theory, that's a pretty red ocean. There's a lot of writings on it. A blue ocean would be to develop a different kind of like I did with sport geographies, a different thing. That's, it's wide and uncontested at this point, and so so many people see things that are already red ocean because they haven't done their research.
Jen Fry :They're like, oh, I'm going to build this thing. And I'm like, well, how much research have you done to see if anyone's have done it? Well, I haven't yet. Then then you don't even need to be talking about money or building unless you know that this is an actual thing that people are going to want to buy. It's a viable option, you know? I mean, it's like, if you think about water, there are a million types of waters out there. Liquid death did it in the, in the can, the box water did it in boxes. So they're doing different things to the same thing.
Jen Fry :And so when when I started this, I did not know about this world, I was like I just want to build an app. I didn't know I'm not building an app, I'm building a tech company, and that is different. It is hiring, it is fundraising, it is all these things that I did not know. And so I jumped literally jumped out. I'm flying the plane, read the directions, building it, duct taping it, putting some gum to do some stuff, and figuring out as I go, and so I just tell people who are listening they're like, oh, I have this tech idea. Do you how much? You should do at least 50 interviews with people you don't know, before you even think of it a viable option, before you even put a dollar towards it.
Langston Clark :Yeah, talk about the app. Talk about what it's called and what it does.
Jen Fry :Yeah. So imagine you're going on a trip with your homies and you're like, okay, we're going to go to New Orleans for the week, and many times, people, then it just becomes text threads, email change here's my flight, here's my flight, here's the hotel, here's the hotel, here are the activities. You just are sending consistent text messages and if you add a new friend, it's a whole new text thread. So you, it's just something that is not in real time. You can't see what are we doing in real time, what changes are there? And because of that, I see a lot of miscommunication and frustrations. People will be like I don't want to travel on groups again because of that information. Hey, what's the confirmation code for the Airbnb? Let me scroll through, let me try and find it. Hey, I've been waiting here, dr Clark, for two hours for you to finally get me that Airbnb code. So now I'm already pissed off because I've been waiting for that Airbnb code. Hey, y'all, we're going to go eat at Chili's. Okay, I'm at Chili's now when y'all at. Oh, no, we're at the other Chili's on. Well, I just looked up Chili's.
Jen Fry :So all of those miscommunications and what we have is we, we literally say real time group movement at your fingertips and so meaning that all the real time information you need to move your people is right there in your app so you can add all the information. You can drag and drop the itinerary, you could change cocktail hour from six to seven instead of being seven to eight, and everyone's app is up to date immediately. So there is no more questions of hey, dr Clark, what time are we leaving at Anyone? What time are we leaving? The math text messages, it's all, it's all in there. If you want to add the menu, you can add the whole menu, a link to the restaurant. You can add all the details. Hey, it's the, we're wearing white and you can add all those details.
Jen Fry :So it's not a matter of hey, what are we leaving? What's the address? Again, what are we wearing? Again, where are we going out? Right, like all of the consistent text messages. So you wake up from your nap and you got to hunt through 200 text messages to see what is the single source of truth. And that's what I'm helping is is developing a single source of truth for group movement. So you don't have to go to your calendar, your text messages, your Instagram threads, your, your emails. You don't have to do any of that. You can look at your single source of truth in an app.
Langston Clark :So it's to me, it's like, it's like the conference app for travelers. If, if, if the travel, whatever excursion where you're going on, is the equivalent of the conference, your app is the conference app.
Jen Fry :Yep, absolutely, and we're going to add email parsing so that your flight will be up will be real time. You can see if it's canceled or delayed, so you're not having to go and check Okay, what's just flight number again and trying to find it. Or how many times have we sat at the airport for hours because Dr Clark's flight was three hours delayed and no one knew? And so now we're sitting there? We're trying to alleviate all of those pain points. You have it again real time group movement at your fingertips, the seven to eight travel apps that you use all in one place.
Langston Clark :So so talk about your experience as a traveler, because I didn't know. I didn't know until our last interview on African-Americans and sport podcast, same as plug from my other podcast, go listen to it. And it was really good. I didn't know you were in a travel like that, so talk about your, your experience as a traveler and how it influenced, you know, your decision to create this app for people who are doing group travel.
Jen Fry :Listen, I'm not just a traveler, I am a traveler, and so what I mean by that is I was actually born in Canada, raised undocumented Arizona for the first like six years of my life, so I borders do not matter to me, meaning I would go back home across the board with no problem. I we were five minutes from Mexico. I go grab some tacos. Come back, oh, you need to get your TTC clean. Go to Mexico. So borders do not matter to me.
Jen Fry :When I did my PhD at Michigan State, I go up to Windsor, ontario, across the border to get my hair cut. I'll go get my hair cut. Come back Like borders don't matter. And so for me, that's been a part of of why geography and maps and globes and all of that matters so much and what make me the traveler who I am, because from a young age I've always been going across borders and traveling.
Jen Fry :When I turned 18, my sister helped buy me a trip to go travel Europe on a tour for like two weeks. So like I, my mom, I appreciate her, where I know other parents would do and give me real freedom to move, and I think we have to acknowledge that a lot of parents are afraid for their kids to move. And what I mean by moving is I don't mean you picking up and just moving to another city or state, I mean the ability to move with freedom and go and figure yourself out. To go spend two weeks in Europe as 18 year old, by myself with this tour, but kind of by myself because we have cell phone. You gotta figure a lot out.
Langston Clark :Yeah.
Jen Fry :To move from Arizona to Alabama for school, you gotta figure a lot of stuff out. So my mom gave me that freedom which, if you're a parent, I would invite you to think about what freedom can mean to your kids because they need to learn their lessons, they need to bump their nose, they need to figure stuff out while they're moving around of who they are. And so, because of that, I have always been a rabid traveler, if you may, and traveling by myself. I'm building a group movement platform, but I also, probably, out of 10 trips, eight of them are by myself. Like I travel a lot solo around the world.
Jen Fry :I, when I was working at Duke, I would just find cheap tickets and just okay, what's a cheap ticket? $188 to Chile? I don't know much about Chile, let me sign it up. Oh, $200 ticket to Cartagena, colombia Let me just see if I can tack on Medellin and Bogota. Let me figure it out For me.
Jen Fry :When people have these hard itineraries and they travel, you miss out on the beauty of just finding shit, of walking around and being when I was in Santiago. Chile is amazing. I had never been there. I got $108 ticket Amazing. And I'm just walking. I find all of these museums that were just phenomenal. I would have never found it if I had this rigid itinerary that I had to Uber everywhere. So I walk I don't know 10 to 12 miles a day. You come with me, we ate fin de Uber. You better have some really strong shoes on, because we are walking everywhere, cause when you Uber, you miss out on the city, you miss out on everything. And so, for me, my sister owns a hotel in Bali, and so I go to Bali for Christmas every year. That's the type of traveler I am is that I'll go to Bali for a year at five times.
Jen Fry :Let me see what Mexico say. It looks like my best friend. I went for like five days. I try and explore as much of the world as humanly possible, because when you see the world, you see it with your own eyes. You are amazed. Everyone's like Mexico stays bad. I mean, I live five minutes from Mexico. I will go out the time. Mexico stays one of my favorite places. I want to buy a place there is so amazing, but I would have never known that if I just listened to people. And so it expands your vision not only of the world, but who you are and how you fit in the world.
Langston Clark :Talk about how your group travel movement will embody that, because I see value in traveling alone. The first trip that I made big trip that I made alone was to Australia. It was like 2018. I have a friend who's a diplomat I don't know if station there is a word he was assigned to Australia, Melbourne.
Jen Fry :Diplomat status is a whole baby. That diplomat says.
Langston Clark :Yeah, he's living his best life.
Jen Fry :That separate line.
Langston Clark :Yeah, I went to go visit him. I didn't take anybody with me. I had to figure the whole thing out. The Airbnb in Australia is like America, but it's like a parallel universe of America, so it wasn't like I didn't have extreme culture shock or anything like that. You know what I'm saying, but it was still like literally the other side of the world by myself, and I don't know that I've ever done group travel in the way that I think you're thinking about group travel. So talk about what group travel is and why that's important, maybe in particular for black people. I mean, I'm going on vacation with my wife and my wife's family, but I haven't gone to like Madagascar with a group of people from around the world, or a friend who lives in LA and another friend who lives in Miami and another friend who lives in. You know what I mean. So what is this group travel movement For?
Jen Fry :me. I look at group movement, and under group movement is group travel, and so the reason we call it group movement it's a play on words, right, it's a semantics, and that we're teaching people a new language. We say group movement because think about how we move groups. The Black Channels Summit is moving groups of students, of athletes. Think about when you go to a conference with your friends you are moving groups of people. If you're building a retreat, you're moving groups of people. So group movement for us is all the nuance of how people move together. It could be that you are moving your group of students to a retreat two miles away. It could be a business retreat, an offsite, a founders retreat, or it could be going to Madagascar. Group movement covers so many different things. Think about college sports. College sports is all about group movement.
Langston Clark :It is.
Jen Fry :Baby, especially now with these big 10 schools right UCLA, usc, that's some group movement. Stanford and Cal to the ACC, that's some group movement. And so we want to really change the idea of moving groups and under it, say, as travelers, that's a part of group movement. But my goal is, with my platform portal, is that you have you're taking your group to the Black Channels Summit on the platform. Your friend trip, your family trip, your homecoming trip, every time you're moving with people, it's on the platform, so you have everything in one play for all your group movement.
Langston Clark :Hey everyone, thank you again for your support of entrepreneurial appetite. Beginning this season, we are inviting our listeners to support the show through our Patreon website. The founding 55 patrons will get live access to our monthly discussions for only $5 a month. Your support will help us hire an intern or freelancer to help with the production of the show. Of course, you can also support us by giving us five stars, leaving a positive comment or sharing the show with a few friends. Thank you for your continued support. That's brilliant. It literally is like I said it's the, it's the, it's the conference app for travel. So let's, let's take the Black Student Athletes Summit. Okay, and so, for context for the audience, I met Jen, probably at what I think is the best gathering of Black professionals in the world the Black Student Athletes Summit. So there's all of these Black scholars from around the country who study the experiences of Black athletes. There's academics, student athletes, people who work in the leagues, people who work in media, espn all in our five.
Langston Clark :ADs, everyone, everyone, everyone is there and I'm telling you, it's just a sea of Black people with law degrees, mbas not not MBA, but MBAs, masters of Business Administration, phds all of that, probably like a thousand of us all in the same place. Yeah, do you see your app as a B2B? Going directly to the conference and saying, hey, add this to your as an, as, as a, as a what am I as an add on to your app, as an add on to your conference? Like, how do you see it as a B2B? As a B2B business or utility?
Jen Fry :Yeah, that's a great question. So if we take the example of Black Student Athletes Summit, so these these teams are coming or these groups of people are coming to Black Student Athletes Summit. Black Student Athletes Summit has a conference app. They WOVA events, they have a conference app, but the conference app doesn't help get the group to the conference. It only is to help you at the conference know where you're going, what you're doing, but it also doesn't have the nuance of where we're going to eat. Are we going to do any extra events? None of that stuff. It's only for the conference event.
Jen Fry :And so ours is a good partner, because what it is is that literally we get you to the event, we help you figure out all the different things you're going to do in one place. And then you have your conference event, because the reality is that if it's May and you're taking 20 students, they might have already went home. So now you have to get all of their flight information put in one place. You have to get all the hotel information what rooms everyone's in put it in one place. Then you have to say, okay, you know we're doing the Pac-12 Big Ten dinner, so where is that going to be? What's it? Who's going to be there? What's the menu going to be? Oh, we're also doing our Pac-12 brunch All those nuances of things that tend to be in text message, slack, whatsapp and instead we're putting it in one place.
Jen Fry :That makes it super easy and accessible for everyone to see. And I think the difference is people say, well, teamwork does that, and teamwork does it for moving everyone from one place to the other, you're coming everyone's from going from Houston to LA. We look at people as polygons of everyone has their own bit of information and we're putting it on one place, and so it's a different type of foundation. We had to build that from the ground up, versus a linear platform where you move everyone from one place to the other place.
Langston Clark :So you have this history as a coach. You have this history as a player. So when I think of you as an entrepreneur, I'm going to ask you the question as the entrepreneur, who's the player? You're the one making the place, but who is your coach? As an entrepreneur, where do you go to for advice about how to build your business, how to scale all that stuff? What resources? If you decided not to go to VC route, there's still some knowledge that you can get and you can acquire. So how are you getting the knowledge to do what you're doing?
Jen Fry :Yeah, I would say one big issue that entrepreneurs have is that they don't have curiosity. You have to be super curious because there are so many resources. You have to be super curious and you have to follow back like crazy or follow up like crazy. So what I mean by that is anyone I talk to and they're like hey, you need to talk to John Smith, done, right, and that's how I get that chain of knowledge. It's someone being in a program and me being like that's a park, what's that program? Oh, it's this. Is this accelerator? What's the accelerator? Google, google, okay, let me see HB, google, google.
Jen Fry :And I start to put pieces together like that of just pure curiosity. It's like, okay, well, that one is nationwide, let me see what's worldwide, let me see what's in my city, let's see what's in the state, and so I have this like just innate curiosity that keeps me finding information or looking at people, contacting people. I know a lot of people are like, well, I don't want to bother this person. Look, I'm gonna bother the hell out you. Hey, dr Clark, I love to chat with you about this. I love to chat and just see what happens, because what's the worst? They're gonna say, no, okay, I mean thank you, but I think the promise is that people are like afraid to reach out. You gotta have this innate curiosity.
Jen Fry :So, for me, when I hear people say, oh, I built this business by myself, I'm like you are a liar. You cannot build a business by yourself. You have to have mentors, people to bounce things off of people, to see your idea and be like that's good have you thought about this switch of the words? And be like damn right, you have to have people that push back on your idea and you need someone. When I tell you push back, you need to be super uncomfortable in the amount that they're pushing on you. What about customers? What about this, what about that? And they're just pushing on and trying to break every piece, like your dissertation, right when you defend.
Jen Fry :They try to break every piece of it, because if the people you love are helping you out and making you think of that, when you go in front of angel investors, vcs, whatever it is a pitch competition they're just beating you over the head with questions. You've already been there before and I see so many people who are afraid and those are afraid to feedback. I'm like, just give me all the feedback. It's gonna hurt for a second, but I need that feedback to succeed. And that's helped me, because people are like, wow, you take feedback really, really well, and that's a goal of mine is to be that. It's not saying I won't push back and be like Dr Clark. Respect them and push back on that because and so I try I will take feedback. Why am I also pushed back? And it's not me being dispensative, it's me pushing back because I know this, this, this, and they might be like, okay, well, now you know that better than I realized, but I want to learn, I want to just take everything in, and so for me, I think that's a critical component because, no, you cannot build my goal is to sell this thing for $300 million Like I am trying to go all or shit for people Like I'm trying to jump off some yacht and blue water selling this, and to do that you have to have multiple people.
Jen Fry :You have to have so many people in your life that are helping, like this brown swell of pushing you forward, because if you do not have that, you will not. I'm trying to go beyond my wildest dream. I'm trying to do stuff where I'm like, look at me, what I would never thought. I was sitting in Oprah's house, just bullshit, like how did this happen? And that's the wildest dream. But you have to have the people around you to help you because you never know the one person. That's like, oh, you. And now all of a sudden, you're doing a meeting with Oprah and I'm like, how did this happen? Because the people around me are helping separate me forward.
Langston Clark :Have you done any incubators or accelerators and, ifs, what were they?
Jen Fry :Oh my gosh, I try and do as many as possible.
Langston Clark :Really.
Jen Fry :And one thing I will say is that I am where I'm at because of the amazing grace that people have given me. Like, if you do not think people are giving you grace in your life, you are dead wrong and you sometimes you won't know what grace looks like. So, for instance, there is a I'm in Baltimore and there's an incubator called so to give you an idea. Accelerator is like usually they give you money to accelerate the scaling of your company. Incubator so like incubate your idea like an egg. You got incubate egg for it to stick to hat and so. And then there's pre accelerators, which are like a step between incubators.
Langston Clark :I want to get, I want to get the order, so people know, because I don't know either. So the first thing that happens is incubation is first.
Jen Fry :It's not what really happens. It's just like it can go in any order. But then this is what the purpose of the market Okay, incubator is to like incubate your idea. Is this idea even viable? We got to figure that out. Then pre accelerators can get you ready for the accelerator, and the accelerator usually gives you bigger amounts of money to scale your company. You're accelerating the company.
Jen Fry :So I did an incubator with it's called box renewers here. Well, they might consider themselves an accelerator, but so I did it with them. And when I say I had grace. So last year they accepted me in. But the start date was the day I was flying the Bali and I was like I'm sorry, I really want to be in this, but I'm flying the Bali and I can't change my ticket, like I just can't.
Jen Fry :And I said you know, wendy, wendy Bolger, who runs it should be phenomenal. You've been out like I would love to be in it. But here's my situation and thank you. And she's like well, let me, let me see, let me figure something out. So then I get an email and she's like hey, you know to all of the people who got accepted, would you be willing to start, like the day before, on Monday instead Tuesday, and everyone was like sure. So she moved this incubator a day forward for me to be in it. That's great, yeah, and that has helped my career. So I'm in this. I learned how to pitch, I learned how to do all these things and that's where I demo day. I met a young woman who was like you need to look at B to C to B to B. Okay, let me investigate it. I investigate and the B to B that that one statement changes trajectory of my company.
Langston Clark :Got it.
Jen Fry :That's what I mean by feedback. When you give me ideas, I'm going to, I'm going to go out there and research and see is it viable. So I'm doing that. And then there's a accelerator called Techstars. There's two pretty big ones in the world Techstars and White Combinator. Techstars has 60 programs around the world. They're they're a pretty big one and they're about to go public, probably within the next year or two. And so it's like I think it's like they say, it's like a 1% rate of people getting in, yeah, and but, dr Clark, I'm competitive, I expect to get in 1% and I expect to get in still, and so I go to again. I also want a person that can tell me about events I am. I show up, meaning I've had people who are like yo, there's Black Tech Week in Cincinnati. Really, I mean, look okay.
Jen Fry :I'm going yeah, I went this year.
Langston Clark :Are you, are you going 24?
Jen Fry :Yep, yep, most likely. And I got a book. I got a book, my Airbnb, I got a special.
Langston Clark :Airbnb. Listen, this is I'm in the episode. I'm up the Cincinnati Black. Was it Black Black Tech Week? Yep Happens always around my birthday and I've been wanting to go the past few years.
Jen Fry :I turned 40 this year, so this is what I'm going to do.
Langston Clark :I'm going to go to Black Tech Week because I want to try to get people to interview for the podcast, but then I'm going to go to Comic Con right after. So that's going to be, that's going to be my birthday trip. So, absolutely, I'll see if I can use your app to coordinate my group travel with you. Yeah, we can figure out what events we're going to go to and what happy hours we'll go to during Black Tech.
Jen Fry :Week and listen when the happy hour's open anyone. If you are going to Black Tech Week, if you're doing anything after a tech, you better get on the RSVP quick. Don't try and play, don't try and wait, don't try and come up the door. You will be denied. You need to be RSVP. So we're going to do that. Yeah, it's super easy to like the amount of people there that you could interview. Absolutely, you'll have three years of footage. I'll tell you that.
Langston Clark :Word Okay.
Jen Fry :And so I went there and, just meeting so many people, I met this one great human tie who we just connected nothing. And then we kept seeing each other on events and he's put me in line with all his friends about it. So, like you never know, if you show up you'll meet one person that can change your life, and that's how it's been for me. For instance, Felicia Hatcher, who runs Black Ambition. She does a lot of group movement. I want to talk to her EA. So she's like absolutely here's the last email I get to interview her and get on their radar. That's what I'm saying. Like you guys take the chance and know how to pitch it quick. So I didn't pitch to talk to Felicia. She ain't going to have what I want, but that EA, she's going to know how the pain points of moving groups.
Langston Clark :That's brilliant Because, you know, sometimes we get so caught up in having to get the person who's no you know front and center. But this goes back to your point about saying nobody builds their business on their own. It's all other people and entities that make stuff happen, and sometimes you don't need to go to the CEO or the front person. You need to go to the person who actually makes things happen to get with you.
Jen Fry :And that's more of what I'm learning because the front person is sexy. You don't want the sexy, you want the person that is like Dr Clark, we need this thing. We need it Because for me, the front person is only the participant. I need the person that's feeling the pain and that's going to say we need this. And so for me, I, just everywhere I've gone, I've always been like I see me, if I meet one person, I'm good. And I've met some excellent people who again have helped me and literally shepherd me of like, oh, you need to meet this person, but let me, let me contact them. I'm like, oh, yeah, and so I think that's the biggest thing is that when people are like, well, I just don't know why to go, you will meet one person that you need to meet. We here here in Baltimore, we have Equitec Tuesday. I go every Tuesday, every single Tuesday I've went. I've always met one person that was like I need to meet that person and so you have to show up.
Jen Fry :I, I'm in this thing called National Sports Forum, bdse, cohort Black Indiversity or something of diversity in sport entertainment, and this one woman puts on a group chat hey, anyone going to FBJ deal breakers or deal makers. I was like what's that? I look it up, it's in two days in DC and it's like 300. And I'm saying owners, gm, big people. The owner and the GM of the commanders was there, the owner of the five football big name, melody Hobson. You know who Melody Hobson is? She was there. She's on my vision board. I got to meet her.
Langston Clark :Oh, you did you met Melody.
Jen Fry :She reeks of wealth, the wealth that just I mean, just reeks of it like, just smells of wealth. Her whole outfit costs more than my key. Like she, just you. You look at her, oh yeah, and it is understated wealth. Right, it's not the. I have the Birkin, I know you look, I didn't see a name brand on anything, but I'm like them are four carat earrings, are real.
Jen Fry :That outfit, she and I got to meet her and she was just walking out with her coffee cup and I was like, and I I shit the bed. I was like, but like the people I got to meet were people that I was like oh, this is, this is why I came. I got to be in front of the big people that I've been trying to email, and so I say that you have to be willing to show up, because you never know who you will meet. That will change the course of your life. That will give you an idea.
Jen Fry :There's this one guy, ted Coat is a company here. They're venture funds and what they do is essentially they, they give money. And so there's this one guy, his name is Jean-Luc Park, and this man always says the most amazing things, and so when I see him, I'm like, oh, he about to fit some real, some real knowledge. And what did he say? He said let me see if I can find it.
Jen Fry :I mean, the stuff he said had me reeling back. He was like what you're selling, jen, it's peace of mind. He's like you're helping them do the job you're helping them not do. You're helping them do the job that they don't want to do, so they can do the job that they want to. And he was like he said you know, we think, because one thing that we're trying to do with our movement platform is recruiting. Think about how many recruit visits they are. The on campus recruiters are taking pictures of itineraries and just sending the recruit. There has to be a. You're giving white glove service to all aspects of these recruits and then you send them a screenshot. Yeah, that makes no sense. What does?
Jen Fry :it look like to revolutionize the recruit visit itinerary, logistic all on the platform. Anyone can see it. If you're on the trip or not on the trip, you can see what people are saying, where they're going, everything. And he was like this is important because you're adding a level of quality. He's like and these parents know quality because they've heard quality. I was like that sentence is what I came here for.
Jen Fry :And so how do I sell the power five? It's like you white glove everything else but you send the text message. How do we white glove every aspect, the itinerary? So they have a platform where everyone they see whatever, and the best part is that they can't see cell phone numbers, because sometimes people don't want to get cell phone right, like even though the recruit visit. So there is a level of autonomy that other options don't have. And so with this we can literally have everyone. The recruiting coordinator can have every single visit on there and be able to see who's on there, what's going on. So, like I, when I meet people and they give me just one bit of information, I'm like that's what I gave your phone, was that?
Langston Clark :So, jim, we have origins as a book club, so typically what happens is once a month we have a live discussion with an author and an entrepreneur, or an entrepreneur who was an author, as I mentioned earlier. Can you give me some insights onto what you've read or what you're currently reading that is helping you on your journey, or maybe just something that you like to read? You know, it could be a blog, it could be a book, it could be magazine, whatever.
Jen Fry :So I think the first one is is there's a book out there by Gay Hendricks G-A-Y-E Hendricks. It's called the Big League, and I like it because he talks about that. We as humans now have a low tolerance for joy. Think about when things are going really, really well in your life and you're like, well, let me stop enjoying this because something's going to happen. Right, the pendulum is just swinging and it's going to what? My behind. So you have all this joy that you are not essentially participating in because you're trying to brace yourself for the pendulum swinging and something bad happens. So then any little slight that occurs, you look at something bad and the pendulum swinging back versus right, like, okay, I've made tenure, I just had the birth of my kid, all these things, what's going to happen now? What? What things do I need to protect myself from? And when you do that, you're showing that you have a really low tolerance of joy because you're afraid of what's going to happen next Instead of realizing everything that's happened to you. It might have hurt, it might have jarred you, but you've been able to find a way and sometimes it's left you an even better place.
Jen Fry :I think about the times I got fired I. It actually was a time of being like Jen, you need to get out here and you're not going to do on your own, so we need to get you out of it. And it literally leveled me up every time, and so I really liked that book. It's a really easy read, it's like maybe 60 pages, but it just talks about how people will literally then put obstacles in front of themselves because it's like I don't want it to be that Dr Clark or whatever screwed it up. I screwed up for myself. You couldn't do it to me because I did it. And then you see people who do really dumb stuff. Get the DUI, do dumb things and it's you know, look at your life is like we're things going too well, and it was like, oh, this is scaring me, so I have to kind of self self impose a wound on me. And so I liked the big leap a lot, because it really makes you think about how big or small your tolerance to joy I'd say.
Jen Fry :The next one I'm reading right now is called never split the difference. Yeah, yep. And so learning how to just be a really good negotiator, because I think so many times people get really flustered in negotiation and stop advocating for themselves and people push back and take it personal. Well, obviously he thinks it's about me, so I'm going to stop. Versus like this is just some natural part of negotiation and I just need to be able to hold my own pushback on that.
Jen Fry :You know, what does it look like in salary negotiations? Well, you know, if they're thinking that, obviously this and then they make up these stories again, the stories we tell ourselves, versus what does it look like to be able to negotiate on all levels? And I think you know my chief of staff, dawn, makes fun of me because I negotiate everything, like I'm I'm trying to negotiate and she's like, of course you've got that. And most times I just ask. And some people literally do not want to ask and then they're like mad when someone else gets the bigger bump of salary, gets the extra week off. Why did they get it? They ask you some of these things. People are going to just give you my dude.
Langston Clark :Sometimes you got to ask.
Jen Fry :You have to ask and so yeah, so that's kind of I'd say, two books right now, that I'm reading that or that I've read that really hit home for me.
Langston Clark :So, Jen, I will see you in July. I mean this I'm going to Black Tech Week in Cincinnati. Safe Travels on your Upcoming Trip, and I might share this with the African American Sport Podcast too. We'll see how it goes.
Jen Fry :Yeah, of course, and so I'm seeing right now that Black Tech Week is it. Do they have the date yet? Nope, that's still. Let me see. They said that they're going to have the date and so y'all, because usually they'll do like the oh, it's supposed to be July 16th to the 20th, yep. So make sure you get in there, get your Airbnb right, like, get all yourself together to get going, because it's like the parties, the things that you meet. So Techstars, like each program, has a managing director. I met the managing director of Techstars there, monica, and she was the reason why I was like I want to be in that Techstar and so you never know who you will meet at places that will change your life. Stop saying, well, I don't know who I'm going to go, it doesn't look that interesting, so I'm not going to go. I met life changers at the most random places because I show up.
Langston Clark :Jen, thank you for that advice. Those of us who are listeners, listen, y'all need to go to Black Tech Week in Cincinnati. Yes, look up Techstars, look up Incubator, look up Accelerator. So you know the difference. And thank you all for joining us.
Jen Fry :Thank you for having me on here.
Langston Clark :Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you like the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.