Rob Francis - Planned Companies - A Gen Xer Brings a 120 Year Old Company into the Age of Millenials

oneKIN & the soon-to-be launched Twiine have BIPOC founders, which everyone says they want to fund. These ventures accelerate BIPOC businesses and help close the wealth gap, which everyone says is needed. In this episode, Marvin Francois, co-founder of oneKIN & Twiine, shares stories from his adventures trying to get this venture off the ground. He pulls back the curtain on what it is like for BIPOC founders to raise capital in an atmosphere that saw only 3% of all VC funds ($147B) go to Black founders in 2020.

Have you ever wondered how a big bunch of bananas that are gown in & transported from another hemisphere can cost under $2? Jennie Coleman, from the Fairtrade Certified banana co. Equifruit, details how this tropical fruit became a staple in northern households & why the exploitation of workers has persisted since the founding of banana republics. She also explains how the low price of bananas & the actual cost of improving conditions make this an industry that should be on the precipice of positive change.

Perhaps the answer to many intractable problems is to use technology to bring back the things from our past that worked. Beth Esponnette, co-founder of Unspun, is using tech to take us back to the day when clothing was custom made and built to last. This approach solves most problems inherent in today's fashion industry, and gives customers of all shapes and sizes clothing that fits. Yes, a better planet AND clothing that fits. Beth joins Doug to discuss all of it.

What's the difference between a $5 t-shirt made by a large reputable company that talks about good wages and protecting the environment, and a $30 t-shirt made by a small brand that actually uses sustainable practices & pays well throughout their supply chain? Adila Cokar, founder of The Good Tee and practitioner of radical transparency, explains the costs and benefits of a fair trade t-shirt, & how she focuses on relationships with all her suppliers to assure harmony with her values. Certifications help too.

We all know the apparel & fashion industry exploits people & the environment, but who can say no to cheap & abundant clothes. For decades, the industry has said they are improving but then comes another tragedy or revelation. We have yet to talk about the good, bad & ugly of the industry on here because we have felt the task too daunting. Until now. In this episode we dip our tows in with Andrea Reyes who explains where the water's warm, where it's cold, & where it's just an abyss.

Would you use a search engine called BackRub? That was Google's original name. Had they gone to Brad Flowers, a naming expert & author of The Naming Book, or just followed the 5 steps from Brad's book, which he details in this episode, they would have come up with something much better & with more longevity than BackRub. But would they have been as successful? Find out on this great how-to episode during which Brad also shares very practical tips for becoming a BCorp, which his agency, Bullhorn, has done.

Your tax dollars help pay for home-delivered meals for the elderly that can either be cooked & delivered within a recipient's community, or cooked, frozen, and delivered from across the country? Adrienne Fudge, of 40 Dreams Catering, provides the former & is determined to maintain her community-based model, no matter how big she gets. In this episode, we are joined by Charles Rosen of Ironbound Farms to discuss Adrienne's methods & benefits relative to her giant, PE-backed, national competitor, Mom's Meals.

Our earliest thoughts and aspirations are shaped by what we see and read in books, but the publishing industry has been a constricting force by hiring homogenous authors telling homogenized stories. Marietta Zacker, of the Gallt & Zacker Literary Agency, talks about the effects of the historical exclusion of authors, illustrators and stories from marginalized communities, why this has happened, and how her and her colleagues are getting diverse and compelling stories into the hands of children & young adults.

Amazon & Etsy require advertising capital just to be seen on their platforms. So, where are people of color, whose communities have lower levels of investment capital available, supposed to go to sell their retail products? Enter Marvin Francois, co-founder of oneKIN and the soon-to-be launched live stream social commerce platform Twiine. Marvin and his partners are on a mission to provide POC-owned businesses with a robust platform through which they tell their stories, interact with customers and sell their products.

Wall St is detrimentally too white and male. Women & minorities, who achieve 60% better returns than their white male counterparts, manage a mere 1.3% of the $69 trillion in financial portfolios (Bloomberg). While Wall St says the lack of diversity is a pipeline problem, Troy Prince, founder of Wall Street Bound and Prometheus Capital Management, knows that it most definitely is not. Plain and simple, the problem is social capital...some have it, some don't, and he is doing everything he can to change that.