Equity

On Saturday night, Nick and I started watching a new show on Apple TV called "Stick." It's about a washed-up, competitive golf pro finding his way into the next chapter of his life after a career-defining meltdown on national TV during his last golf competition. I'm not particularly excited by golf, so I thought the show would be lost on me, but Nick assured me that I would enjoy it and he wasn't wrong.

My friend and airport business partner Maiko and I at the Lenox Ave store. She’s the owner of Bessou and we’re working together on a project in JFK T4.

I only got to the middle of the second episode before I started to doze. It wasn't because the show was boring. I just can't keep my eyes open after a certain hour. Plus, I had two glasses of this not-too-sweet Riesling that our most recent Harlemites collaborator Dom gave me, so not falling asleep sooner was nothing short of a miracle.

While I watched the first episode (some spoilers ahead but not too many because I only watched 1.5 episodes), I couldn't help but think about the value of sweat equity. As I watched Owen Wilson's character pitch all the people in his life to make an investment in the career of this teenage golf phenom that he decided to coach so he could turn him pro, I thought about the fact that Wilson's character had no equity—no leg to stand on, no pot to piss in to make any of his asks realistic. No one was willing to write him a check to travel this kid around to competitions that would lead to his eventual stardom because he lost all of his equity after his mental breakdown. Whatever stock he had with his professional network was gone.

Our brown butter soft serve with caramel, candied pecans, and graham crumble only available at the Lenox store. Nick and I have had ideas of opening a soft serve concept but we need to build a following for it from our existing stores before we pour any money into the idea. We’ll use the platform we have to build an audience for something new. Photo credit: @kissafernandez

Ultimately, he had to get his startup money by selling his part of the house that he shared with his ex-wife. After seeing this, I wrote down in my phone's Notes app the thought that you have to leverage what you've already earned or accomplished in order to get to the next level. What you have can range from material possessions to skills you've honed over the years.

I've had firsthand experience with this very idea. When Nick and I were opening the second Sugar Hill Creamery, we asked people in our network if they would consider investing in the business. They all declined. Years later, people we never asked began to express interest in investing in what we've built. Side note: we have bootstrapped our business, so there aren't any fancy investors that helped us get our start or play an instrumental role in our growth. The point here is we would have never gotten any interested parties proposing to make an investment in the company's future without all of the equity we had built in the company through our sweat and pain. The things Nick and I have are hard and soft skills plus our unrelenting ability to work no matter what.

My mom has been wanting to start a podcast for a while. A few weeks ago, I had a lightbulb moment on a podcast idea for her that we are in the process of bringing to life. I had her headshots taken this week and look forward to sharing more about it soon. I think many of you will love it.

We all have ideas that we want to see brought to life. Getting other people to invest in them can feel like a tall order when we have no equity in whatever it is we're trying to bring to life. With new ventures, our sweat equity is usually what will get us to the next stage of growth. So often we let those no's on initial investment discourage us from moving forward with our ideas. But really, those no's are the fuel we need to look more dynamically, more creatively at the board to figure out how we leverage what we already have to make our dreams come true. Wilson's character used his house that he didn't want to sell to get his startup money. We all have resources, whether soft skills, hard skills, time, financial capital, or robust networks, that we can leverage to bring our ideas to life. But we have to do the work to build the equity. People want to invest in winning concepts, and it's hard to do that if it's your first concept and it hasn't been proven.

I took this picture during Juneteenth at the Lenox Ave store. The line snaked a couple of times across the dining room floor to be able to order. It will never be lost on me that people come to our stores to enjoy what we built from dust and we don’t know any of them. They owe us nothing and yet they believe in our brand and patronize it.

I have no idea if these mid-show thoughts will resonate or encourage anyone to lean in and leverage whatever they already have to bring their ideas to life, but I hope they do. These ideas remind me of something I'm always saying: you have to play the cards you're dealt to the best of your ability to create the life you want. If you get a bad hand, there's no reason to quit the game. You just have to play a smarter game. Figuring this step out alone will help build your equity.

Petrushka

Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach