 I was made in America and now I'm a part of making America. These are the things that I needed to be successful. If you don't utilize this time to learn something or do something different, then you're failing yourself. Take these techniques and apply them to your business. I get teary. I hate talking about it. Because I really want the little girls to know that they can do it and they can be just like me. They realize that you're a human and not a computer. Thank you. Can you follow me? What would you tell someone at that very beginning stage? Being an entrepreneur is being able to take nose and build with them like bricks. America has always been associated with making it. But is this opportunity accessible to all? I'm Scott Shigeoka. Go Daddy's Entrepreneur Residence and I'm on a journey across the country meeting the people who are building it. They're defying the odds and their stories show us what it means to be made in America. So I became an entrepreneur because I saw the way I wanted to shape this world. But the journey wasn't always easy and didn't always go according to plan. But part of being an entrepreneur is pushing through that and learning from it. Our goal with this series is to highlight the everyday entrepreneurs that are making our communities better with their dedication and with their dreams, despite the challenges they face. We're telling their unique stories because if we celebrate our joy and if we also acknowledge our struggles we can lean in to the journey of being an entrepreneur. And that's why we're out here in Atlanta. Atlanta is a place where entrepreneurship thrives. It's a place where people make their own way. Growing up in Atlanta was incredible. Our mayor was black, our leadership was black. I knew black doctors, lawyers, accountants, small business owners. If there was a field of practice to esteem to, there was representation of that here in Atlanta. Here in Atlanta it seems like the soil is rich here as far as being creative and being able to have a platform to actually grow it. Atlanta is the mecca for rising businesses and it's just... Atlanta is everything. You need to be here. What are you waiting for? But it also has another side to it, like most places around the country. There is a huge income gap and a lot of it is divided along racial lines. We're not just seeing the haves and have nots, we're seeing the haves and have never's. It's literally this heartening Atlanta politically was built to include everyone but so many people are still being left behind. We're having some very, very tough conversations about society and about people. We have an opportunity to get it right. Small business ownership is second only to home ownership as a source of building wealth in this country. So we have a tremendous opportunity to unlock societal potential at an accelerated pace. Here in Atlanta we're working with G-Men, the Georgia Micro Enterprise Network and they are a partner of Empower by GoDaddy. They provide support, training, resources, tools and community for everyday entrepreneurs here in Atlanta and across the state. Hi! Hi, I'm Scott. Hi, I'm Sonia. Welcome to Atlanta. They are truly trying to close the income gap and other forms of racial inequity through the power of entrepreneurship. This is where the magic happens. G-Men in a Whole is an organization that provides the stability and the resources to those that may not have that opportunity. We help to mold and make entrepreneurs from the conception and to implementation. Sonia's going to take me around Atlanta and she's going to show me the small businesses that make Atlanta what it is. Yeah, oh it smells good. I can smell it. I'm like, hmm, I want some of this. What people usually get. You know, the barbecue chicken. When people come together to build business and to create jobs, man, that feels good. Fallen off the bone. I'm from El Salvador. I grew up in markets selling fruits and vegetables with my grandma. I moved to the States to be independent and create my own business. I'm a kid and I never went back. I think if you are an American, by default, you are an entrepreneur. You may not know it, you may not realize it, you may not agree with it, but there is an entrepreneurial spirit and I believe that this is the greatest opportunity because we can make together what we want America to be for ourselves and for future generations. You're part of history. I could be the next Coca-Cola. We can be the next Briars Ice Cream. When you're your own entrepreneur, you can limit yourself. Of course, systems, once you start being educated on the systems, it's like, what can I do to platform myself beyond that? I love that answer. Oh, wow. Yeah, I saw her. I was just like, I love you. Going into a classroom, we're in there with businesses that we respect, that we already knew before going in. Like, you know, these businesses that we've looked up to, now we're in a room with them, makes us feel good that we're going in the right direction. When you meet people who are on the same journey, the same path, they relate to you. Some people who work nine to five, they don't understand what it means to put your whole heart into something and it has to work. I am excited about what we're going to learn today. Your entrepreneur tank should be on full when you leave. Why does this work matter to you? It matters to me because I am a third-generation entrepreneur. So, my grandfather owned a couple of restaurants around Barbecue. My father owned a restaurant. And I, at one point in time, had a catering business. So, if similar opportunity was afforded to my grandfather and my father, I really feel like they would have been more successful than they were. So that's why this work matters to me. What's up, y'all? I'm Scotcha Gioca. I'm the entrepreneur in residence with GoDaddy. I think like one of the things I hear so much is that this feels lonely sometimes, you know? Like, it can feel difficult sometimes, right? Like, people telling you, no. But I think you are here today because you're trying to defy that. You're trying to say, no, you know what? You can say that, but I'm going to tell you something else and I'm going to show you something else. I can actually do this. And you got each other is the other thing, right? You have a community here. That's what I'm feeling in Atlanta, you know? Like, how do we rise up together, right? So, rise up, right? We try to rise up. Like, you try to rise up. Like, there's some amazing trainers here that are going to help you share yourself as authentic beings in this world. And I hope you get what you need from that. One of the things we've noted here at G-Men, we've been around for about 20 years. And one of the first thing we noted that here in the South, we don't have as many of the opportunities that other cities do have. You're from Atlanta. I am from Atlanta, Georgia. I went to a school called Harper High School and it's really in the hood. And I'm the first entrepreneur in my family. I bootstrapped my way through. I was in corporate America, but I took my 401k and I just made it work. Now I go back to Harper. I go back to Adamsville and I speak to the little brown girls there. And I show them that just because you're from Adamsville, just because you're from the South side, look at me. Because I really want the little girls to know that they can do it and they can be just like me. So engagement is huge. When you engage with them and you have that conversation and they realize that you're a human and not a computer, thank you. Can you follow me? Okay? So with that being said, pull out your phones at GoDaddy. All right? So the energy in here is amazing. Everyone was so engaged in class. I never saw so many hands up in a workshop before. It was so amazing to see them hungry to learn and to want to engage. And I think that's what's required as an entrepreneur. You need to be a lifelong learner. You need to have that growth mindset that allows you to continue to level up. I want to know a little bit about like what's the dream for you? Like what's next for you? Like where are you? Where are you trying to take this journey? Let's legitimize this the way that we need to and like make a commitment to ourselves and to our children that we're going to seek the education that we need to grow our business into something more. You know, I'm excited about having other people like me to own these franchises. So I'm excited to grow my business. I'm well on my way right now so I already have that traction. I think you're always trying to be better and do more. Because it'll create stability for me in the long term. The time you all came, it felt like the last happy day. It was like that was the cutoff of businesses growing and people connecting and then the next day it all stopped. Like everything shut down. There was a 24 hour quarantine that went into a fashion midnight. Yeah, I mean we were literally in flight. You know, we were opening up, expanding another space and of course everything is at a standstill. Of all the entrepreneurs that came through the program that we work with, 90% of them are shut down. How are you guys doing this? My partner got tested positive for COVID-19. Oh wow. He is doing good though. He's recovered. He hasn't had a fever in a while. Oh great. We're just completely isolated just really trying to do our part. I think like you, you're feeling a sense of uncertainty and I think that's definitely in the air. We're trying to think of strategies to make sure that we're staying grounded and we're asking for the help we need and we're also reaching out to others how we can. You know it really has forced us to be creative. We're doing catering for frontline workers at hospitals. We did 120 people today. We've transitioned to selling a lot of to-go food. Small businesses are generally very resilient and resourceful because they've had to make things happen with very little. That's resilience. That's great. So entrepreneurship is crucially crucially important. You know if we want to get Americans back to work, small businesses need to be ready. They need to be healthy so they can employ them. All I could say is the timing of everything has just been so amazing. For GoDaddy to be a partner with G-Men and with the Atlanta entrepreneurs has kind of made the difference. That is pretty much the thing that everybody is asking for. They all need to know how to do promotions. They all need to know how to take their business from a site to online. That is an immediate solution that's available. If you don't utilize this time to learn something or do something different and you've been complaining about it, then you're failing yourself. They're actually reaching out without having to leave their home, which is important for them to know, I can do that. I can still do business from right where I am. I love that. What you're talking about is a mindset shift, right? I'm using this opportunity wisely. I love that reframe of saying this is a moment for us to better our businesses, to adapt. So next we're going to learn more about some of these entrepreneurs. Get to know who they are, how they got to where they are and see where they're going next. I was made in America and I wouldn't trade that for anything. The good, the bad, the ugly, like all of it, right? It inspires us to evolve from made to making, right? Like I was made in America and now I'm a part of making America. Our children had the vision first. All right team, ready to deliver, y'all ready? Started out challenging our children to come up with something creative for the summer. They said, can we start a business? I said, well, what do you want to sell? I said, well, can we sell the popsicles we're already making for the family? And they sold 85 popsicles in 45 minutes at their first event. Thursdays is our delivery day. We deliver in the city of Atlanta in Decatur. Pull the stick from the bottom before it falls off. All right, thank you. Thank you guys so much. We just dance and over zoom, you know, we're just doing our thing, you know. Hey Scott, how are you? I'm good. It's been a minute, right? But I'm glad we can connect even in this like COVID-19 reality. My name is Amber Con Robinson. I am Keyway Lubna Robinson. Monkey Pops. That is my children's all natural vegan popsicle business. And tell me about your kids. What are they like? And when did they get started with Monkey Pops? Lord Jahan, she's our media ninja. She's the one that takes charge of putting out e-blasts and saying, this person has 1.2 million followers and getting people attracted to Monkey Pops. I post, I update our pop-ups. I answer people's questions and I just reach out to our followers. Oh, that was you that I was talking to or something like the whole time. So they have no idea that they're talking to a 12-year-old? No. Secret. Hadar, since he was young, he was always good with numbers. He is our financial genius. He's the one that looks at the books and thinks about like, you know, are we spending too much on some products to make our popsicles the price point they are, which is pretty exciting. My sister here is a big spinger and I just say a lot. I like getting a lot of things. And then Aya, she is our special gem because she was the one that really initiated the flavors. She would basically throw ideas out and we would say, let's try to create what she's doing. We have 34 different flavors in all. Basil lemonade and strawberry lemonade and yeah, mango cream. What is it like to run a business with your kids? Because I think that's something that not a lot of folks have experience doing. What's the experience like and also what's hard about it, you know, like let's keep it real. Oh, keeping it real? When you're in the building process, which we are in, we're doing, we're touching everything and we're doing everything. So sometimes we end up burning the candle above ends to make things work. We have to get up early in the morning before the children can do some prepping. Then we got to have free time with them so they can enjoy themselves as children. It can become challenging because we know we don't want to burn them out. We want them to be excited about the business and feel that they're not missing out. The thing is that all my children start to really appreciate the sacrifice and the benefit that comes from that sacrifice. They feel good when they walk into a room and people already know them for good things. Not just for being children in the room but like, hey, you guys are business owners. We're looking forward to work with you. Their eyes light up and that does something for Amber and I both. It really does. When it comes to equity, especially racial equity in this country, being able to teach young children of color about money really early on, we'll start to heal some of the generational wealth gaps that we have. Being able to understand why wealth doesn't transfer between generations in certain communities. Historically, a lot of African-American families don't know much about financing and credit and so forth. When I graduated college, I realized that my credit was messed up. I remember turning to my mom and like, why don't y'all tell me about credit and blah blah blah. She's like, well, what do you mean? We didn't know about that. And then when we go and attempt to get financing and billing like maybe a scarlet letter on our head, you know, of this history that keeps coming forward and haunting us. Credit represents the passport to the American financial system. If one does not have a credit score, every single service we want to access becomes more expensive. There was over 130 billion dollars in 2019 invested in the form of angel and venture capital in about 11,000 U.S. firms. Less than 1% of those were black founders. We have not gotten any outside support whatsoever and we haven't been able to adequately pay ourselves just by turning the money over and putting into the business over and over. With it being full-time for my husband and full-time for me, you know, we have things that come up that pull from the financial pot. We had to get a new van for the family. That took away from what we had saved for packaging to go into our larger retailer. That gets frustrating, like very frustrating. When is that financial break going to come, you know, for us? Like that, I have moments where like, I get overwhelmed. I feel like that. So, yeah. What's coming up for you right now? There's some like emotion coming up for you, like some energy coming up for you, what's behind that? Like all of this is an enjoyable process, you know, but we've been working like tirelessly for the past five years. I want to know that there's some relief that's in the near future. And I've been coaching myself silently by looking at great entrepreneurial women. And I'm like, well, what is it that they have that allows them to be where they are? And a lot of it means that they have help, you know, addition to their spouses. Thank you for calling out that the successful people in life that we see have so much help and so much support around them. I think there's this interesting narrative that says like, you have to be everything. You have to be the really great mom. You have to be the really great business person and you have to do it all and not take time for yourself ever, you know. But it shouldn't be that way. The radical act of self-care is actually really valuable and important for your relationships and for your work. I come from an entrepreneurial family and there have been traits of entrepreneurship in my children that initially I wasn't aware of. Who is that? This is my grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather was the first African American civil rights lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio. Langston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall and all of them, those were my grandfather's comrades. When I look at these pictures, I just feel like we have a lot of support, you know. That's the friend who stayed at their house when the house got destroyed in Hurricane Irma. The power goes off and we all congregate as a family in my children's room and we all huddle and like say this prayer together. We're like, oh God, please keep us safe in the process. We get all of our popsicles and we start driving through the neighborhood and giving them out to neighbors. We get a phone call from the next door neighbor and he says the storm got y'all. Three trees fell on our house. It was very scary to leave your house and come back and see it in shambles. Essentially, we were instantaneously homeless right where we prayed as a family. The tree came literally down on her bed like 20 minutes after we said a prayer. The pops saved our life. When Hurricane Irma hit, it let us know that you gotta seize the moment. The moment can come and go quickly. We lost a lot of things. Our house was destroyed. The only thing you could go really when that situation happened was up. You know, sometimes things that appear tragic aren't tragic. You know, sometimes you have to be put in an uncomfortable position in order to have a paradigm shift in your life. We were living in the suburbs of Atlanta in Stone Mountain. We then relocated to Atlanta. Us moving to the city of Atlanta really gave us the opportunity to be more engaged in events in the city. We started developing reputation very quickly. Atlanta is such a diverse and inclusive city. One thing that I've appreciated about being here in Atlanta is that if you can navigate networks and build personal relationships, you can create opportunities. I tell them all the time like, what if the storm didn't happen? We wouldn't be where we are right now. When COVID hit, 100% of our events were just canceled. Like everything was just wiped off the board. We thought that we were going to get certain funding so that we can upgrade our equipment and get new supplies. And then with the COVID happening, it all literally disappeared in thin air. How do we shift? How do we pivot? If our product is primarily a person-to-person product, how can this product now become an online product? Hey, Amber and Kiwi, it's been so long since we last saw each other. So how has business been post COVID? We decided to offer porch deliveries. And so our customers order online. So I think it'd be a great idea if we got your Instagram account linked to your website so those static pictures turn into the live feed. It's just letting your customers know what you guys are up to, which is so important, especially during COVID. Thank you, Courtney. You can go to any social media platform, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, at Mokipops. That's it. M-O-K-I-P-O-P-S. And yeah, subscribe below. Welcome to Mokipops production world for now. So, you know, you heard me say for now. No Willy Wonka here. No, it's not. It's a Robinson's. So you've been traditionally selling Mokipops at events all around Atlanta. And now you've got your eyes set on, you know, getting up on shelves in different retail shops. Why are you moving in that direction? My son challenged us a couple of years ago saying, hey, it's great that we're going to events and people are starting to know us. But how can we make money while we're asleep? So this says, hey, that's retail. That's a retail question. That's wild. That is just, you know, that I have so much hope in optimism and faith in the next generation. I'm just like, are you asking those kinds of questions to you of that kind of insight at eight? I'm just like, wow, that's, that's, wow, that's beautiful. One of the key things that we have to do to get our products on the shelves is to, first of all, have something that looks presentable. Right now, our packaging is we have the wrappers and we have stickers to go on the wrappers. We're trying to blend the two, so we're trying to have branded wrappers. We're still like in a shared kitchen space, which we're kind of busting at the seams. So we can't produce much more than we can right now. We're limited into what we can do. We're about to do an event with Food Well Alliance where they bought the popsicles back in January. When COVID hit, it was like, well, we have popsicles sitting on the table. We still want to honor, you know, the order. So there's going to be a day in an event where they're going to have like, you know, social distancing and different COVID measures in effect. But we can still honor our business. I had a conversation with my son the other day and I was letting him know that when you're doing business with people, you want to always have integrity. You know, it's not like, oh, well, you know, we took your money at the beginning of the year and the popsicles, oh, these were good. We just passed them to someone else. No, we're still able to honor that. And that's really special for us because the only way our business is really going to grow and be the places going to be if people respect us. People know that we're trustworthy and that we have a lot of integrity. What's your hopes for your kids to get out of this journey? For us, it's like legacy building, especially us being African-American on business. It's very important to be able to have a business that could be started by our children and with the help of us. That one day they can take it and just keep passing it on down the track to have that story and have that legacy and to transfer it down, you know, generations to come. That would just be awesome, you know, really. Generational wealth is the wealth passed down through families. You know, it's a big reason for the racial wealth gap today in black and brown communities because there's not a whole lot of that. A black family that owns a business is 12 times wealthier than a black family that does not. We need to accelerate everything we do to support equity and inclusion so that folks that have the determination and the resolve to get ahead can get the resources. Hopefully, when they're my age one day, they're reaping a whole different type of benefit from the job and they're being able to just help people. We want to open up the gate to people, become successful and us being able to share our tools and how we did it so we can share it all for generations to come. And a lot of ways like I'm getting chills because I'm thinking about breaking the cycle and like bringing in education and also the systems that hold us back. But really, second chances are so necessary, right? If I want to start my own business, what would you say that I should do? You shouldn't like start a lemonade business because that's a typical business that everybody wants to start when they first start it. So like something different and you need help, you can't just do it on your own then it's not going to be a complete business. You just have to learn to map yourself and push yourself beyond your limits and you can't be complacent. You know, we represent, you know, a dream that the family has, you know, and that's something that's always in my head. It's like, look, I want to see this through for the sake of my family. Like my mother said to me, I'm just really proud of you for sticking to this, you know, and you're seeing the fruits of your labor. You know, so that meant a lot to me to hear her say that. I'm just so proud and excited for them. I think they are really doing the work behind the scenes. They're making some really big and challenging shifts in their business towards retail and new ways to sell their product. Like that is what a true entrepreneur looks like. That's a Robinson family. Y'all are showing what it means to be made in America. Like that's what it's about. This is my favorite place. This is where I get all my products and this is what I make my lettuce toner called Let Us Face It. Yolanda is a type of person that you immediately gravitate towards. She is the owner of Iwi Fresh in Atlanta, which is a farm to skin spa and she's got her own products. And then I use my herbs for my herbal mixed toner. So, you know, my grandmother, she was a home remedy queen, we called her. She had a little bitty house and the streets wasn't even like paved, but she had a little backyard and she would literally take seeds. Just kind of throw them out and stuff would grow up. So this is my garden. This is my secret garden. Yolanda! Hey! Tell me more about how you started Iwi Fresh. You know, I realized as I got older that things were very processed chemical base and my son had eczema at the time. So I'm going to have to create some grandma recipes. I went back and became an esthetician. I took some herbal classes, some nutritional classes and started testing on all my friends and my family members. And I came up with Iwi Fresh, which stands for it is what it is. If it's carous, it's carous, if it's squash, it's squash, it is what it is. I was a single mother with three children. Before Iwi Fresh, you know, I was corporate America. Being a black woman as an engineer, I was around a lot of white males. I was always having to prove that I was smart, that I knew my stuff. I knew there was more to me than four walls. We got charcoal, turmeric, rice, oatmeal. My bank account did not say it was time to go. My bills did not tell me it was time to go. But spiritually and emotionally, I knew it was time. I turned in my two weeks notice. It was times where it was hard for me to pay my mortgage. Car got repossessed. I had to learn how to reach as people to help me. And some people couldn't do it, some people could. It's about showing the mutuality, the interdependence. We're like a community, all the entrepreneurs. We're small business owners and we all support each other. Y'all come on out today. We'll be here till five o'clock. Just come on by Iwi Fresh. We got many petty kids, facial kids and hot chef kids. Only $25. We applied for a lot of grants and loans that are now kind of starting to come through. So that's been very helpful. What I've learned through this is that I really need to put more energy in my online sales, my online products. Even when the doors open, I got to have that. I want to know about the new space that you got going on. Is it still in progress or are you opening up? So yeah, so my concerns were always about me being in the middle of starting something. Because I already have a store that's already existing. So we were like, okay, we got to rebound from that. So I'm thinking through that. But then you have this new store that hasn't even opened yet. And it's like, whoa, how is this going to be? The new pharma oasis, Iwi. Yay, look at that. So here I am on this beautiful Saturday morning. Right here, you can see. There's a lot of work. There's still construction going on. How long have you been thinking about opening up this location? I always wanted to open up a healing space in the community. That's been my passion. You know, here in Atlanta, people have to drive far to get these healing and this wellness. When I say the word community, I'm talking about the inner city black community. This is where I grew up. And there's no accessibility to healing and wellness on the level that I want to present it with Iwi Fresh. I mean, I want to see brown girls like me to be able to go across the street and take a yoga class. To go across the street and do meditation. You know, I want to be able to have that accessible for my people, for black people. In Atlanta, there's been a huge economic disparity between the poorest and the wealthiest. One of the things that Atlanta has that it's very inspiring is that their level of servant engagement by business leaders in Atlanta to get involved in solving issues is very powerful and it's what drives the community. Last year, I found this old church schoolhouse right in the community. It was just a perfect space and so then I just started working towards it. You guys want this? You gonna eat that? We're still going through inspections right now. It's a pandemic so it's going to be a slower pace. We got to get time to move in. We got to paint. Are we going to open? When are we going to open? And if we do open, what are some of the safety practices we need to do to open? So one of the things that COVID-19 has highlighted is just how important it is to not have underlying health conditions. People of color led companies who are bringing healthy solutions, whether it's wellness products or food to communities. It's supporting communities in that journey towards health. Why is wellness and spas as a business, why are they thriving right now? We are in a pandemic and I feel like health is on everyone's minds and I think we're not taking our health and our wellness in particular for granted. Hey, come on back, come on back. So today I'm here to see Dr. K to get my vitamin C infusion. And nothing new popping up, no any concerns. No, everything seems to be really good. Okay, very good. During this journey of me opening up my healing center, I was diagnosed with cancer. One day I got this sharp pain on my left side, I didn't know what it was for. Went to the hospital and the doctor says we're going to have to do emergency surgery on you. I was blown away from it. I was like really not expecting it. I really was not expecting that. And I was like, I was like, I have to do chemo? She was like, yeah. And what kept me going was my staff. I have to be there for them because I think about their families. I got up and I'm like, okay, we're going to get through this. We're going to make this happen. Yeah, so today she's getting her nutrient cocktail. And I made a choice and pivoted to more holistic and all natural. And it's been working for me. I feel good. We are in my neighborhood where I grew up. I went to a school called Harper High School. A lot of people when you say you went to Harper, people are like, you went to Harper? And I'm like, yes. They're like, oh my God, you don't look like you went to Harper. It's really in the hood and it's real. There's a lot of craziness that goes on in Adamsville and at Harper High School. This is my room, the first window right there next to the door. That was my bedroom right there. People see you and they have these stereotypes or these expectations about what's going on in your life. But we never really know what someone's story is. We never really know what the story is. And I want to break that stereotype. The first base was right here. We played kickball on the street. I mean, literally we was kickballing the ball up here. And then you had to tag this mailbox because this was first base. I'm very passionate about speaking to young black girls and really showing them another way. I'm the first entrepreneur in my family. I bootstrapped my way through. I was in corporate America but I took my 401k and I just made it work. My family were like, wow, you made it. You graduated from college. You got a degree. Now you're good. You're successful. You made it. And I'm like, no, I haven't. I really have to really pursue what I really am. Today my business, even fresh, Farm to Skin Spa is reopening. It's been, what, three months. Woo, wow. I'm excited about opening. When I decided to open up, I had made sure that it was not my decision only. And that I had to get my staff involved because I really care about them. One of the things that I love about being a small business owner, an entrepreneur, is that I get to employ a lot of different people. Y'all ready to get into a huddle? That I can employ my own children and then I can employ other people in the community. That really warms my heart. I think my first check was about $20. And I was like, I was so happy. I got my first bank account. Yeah, Amy taught me a lot. It's cool that she got the idea for my great-grandma. They like to have her, you know, really start my mom's vision. Congratulations on reopening. Open. I can see the background. What's going on? Okay, well, I'm going to give you a tour, okay? This is our Farm to Skin chop board. This is our massage oils. That's our brown sugar scrub here. And you have different toppings. You notice we have social distance away because normally somebody is sitting right here. We're doing a waterless pedicure and manicure, which is more sanitized. My clients came in and they were like, we were excited about coming. We knew that you guys were going to be safe. What do you think about the waterless? I think it's great. I think it's a great idea. So she thinks it's a great idea. I love it. I love that you're engaging with the customers. And that's the waterless too. I know you got tons of stuff you got to do. Good luck on your opening day. Thank you, Scott. Hope you get some points soon. I don't got dishwashers, like all those fancy people. I was born and raised, so washed by hands. All right. Got a cool package from Ewe Fresh. I like that the first thing I see is Ewe Fresh branding. So this is a 14 karat glow face cream, which I've heard a ton about. This is charcoal bentonite clay and turmeric. Dang, that's cool. So squash it out. Face cleanser. Lots of stuff in my face. What you trying to say, Yolanda? That smells good. Is that lettuce? Yeah, it is lettuce. Okay, Yolanda. So tell Scott I'm twirling for you. Hey, Yolanda. How are you? Good to see you again. Oh, yes. Hi. I met you in the class. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm excited to work on improving your site. Tell me, what are your goals for your website? Our pivot was to really sell more. So we really wanted our website to be more e-commerce driven so that we can sell more products. And I think our products have been behind and they need to be on the front. There's a few ways we can do that without being super aggressive or in their face. We can work with you to find that balance. That'd be great. You know, as I'm in the middle of this right now, you know, with my existing store and with the new store coming up and then with this new wave of COVID, what advice could you, you know, give me as a business owner? So especially during this time when people are looking for wellness, I would say like lean into that, you know? Show them that you have something that they care about. I like that. Also, don't lose sight of who you are. You know, because we are not just buying this, you know, product. We're buying into the love and the spirit that you have. The new space is really coming along really good. Come on, come on. Give me some dance moves. Y'all on camera. Come on. So what's your timeline on all of this? Everything continues to go the way it's going. August 1st will be our soft opening. It's going to be membership based. Very cool. So it's coming up and just around the corner. Yes. Real quick, like really around the corner. Being an entrepreneur is so difficult for a lot of different reasons. And that takes immense grit. And that's exactly what Yolana has been doing for years. We are seeing her open and expand into new stores even in the midst of a pandemic. Oh, look at this. This really gives me chills to see my vision come to life because this is what I want people to feel when they come in. She has to get the permitting, also the decorating, getting furniture in, hiring people, getting them into the space. There's a lot that needs to get done. That's a pretty tight turnaround. To me, her journey and her story is about what can happen if you continue to persevere. I feel excited to see what happens in this coming month. I'm excited to see the new space. I'm excited to see how her vision comes to life. I think gone are the days of like the shark mentality and entrepreneurship. In fact, entrepreneurship and small businesses can be seen as a community effort. It can be seen as a collaborative effort where we work to support each other. I think that's what the pandemic is showing us, that we are so much stronger when we have a community that we can grow alongside of. And that's what I've seen in Atlanta. Atlanta is a city of opportunity, but it's also a city of economic and racial disparity. And it takes a community effort to bridge that divide. It takes working together and looking forward. And both Yolanda and the Robinsons are in this moment of growth. They're both pushing their plans forward despite all of the obstacles and enlisting their community to help them succeed. You know, so much of what it means to be an entrepreneur is to see the fear, to acknowledge it, and then to be courageous and walk through it. I'm so excited. It's such an exciting moment. Today we are finally opening the Oasis. Yes. You've worked so hard and you have hustled to get to this point. I have to pat myself on my back because I did good, Yolanda. Yes, Yolanda. And how are you feeling about your website? Oh, I like it. It looks so fresh and so clean clean. I like how the flowers look alive. That's actually a real flower. I love that because it is what it is and it's alive. And you know, with our fruits and vegetables popping out, I can see. I love it. I love the nature. So people can connect the dots, you know, to see that farm to skin. It looks like it's easy to navigate and that's very important. And that was our main point was easy to navigate user-friendly. So it has definitely solved that for sure. I'm so proud of you. This is a moment where you are just transcending. Like, that's the word I would use. What I've learned in this journey is that what you put out in the universe is really what you get back. If you could tell something to the version of yourself back when you're still, you know, in corporate America and you're just beginning to think about, you know, I'm going to start this farm to skin spa. What would you tell yourself? Quit. Turn your resignation in early. I waited too long. I remember our conversation where she was getting emotional and talking about how there are young girls in the area of Atlanta that she is running her business in and she wants them to know that this is possible. Like, this can be a future for you. You know, it's important for me to facilitate this opportunity for other people in my community because it's not about me. It's bigger than me. It's bigger than me. It's for all of us. Atlanta is at a crossroads right now. There's a reason Atlanta is home to over 25 Fortune 100 companies. This is where I will caution. Because of our accelerated growth in technology and in innovation, we're now moving into a new era where a lot of people, particularly minorities, are not being included. Where you have innovation density, you have increased poverty. And it's because if you don't bring along the poorest of those which in Atlanta disproportionately are Black, then those people become left out. And so if they're not exposed to opportunities or realities, they won't pursue them. How do you create something where the next generation looks to it and says, I see myself in that? Today we are going into one of our first stores. Very excited about it. Very charged. We're just ready to get it in there. During these times of COVID, it's been hard to store to keep stock or get new things in. So for us to be our first new store and they want us, it's very humbling. And we'll be on some shelves very soon. Do you all feel like this is a major accomplishment? Yes. Yes, good. So this is just store number one of many. Our goal is to go big, real big. Our goal is to be all across America where Mokipops is a household name. Big box stores. And so this is just the beginning. Our hard work that we've been doing is paying off. And we now are starting to see and feel the fruits of our labor. Yes. You know, it was a little uncertain in the beginning of the pandemic. You know, but we were like, look, we still can do it. You know, people are still buying food. People are still buying treats. We're like, we fit into this and we're going to ride it with it right now. So I love your teamwork. I love how you guys are so supportive of each other, the vision, coming in through the training, the gym and taking what you needed, all the nuggets and the strength that you guys have already. That's what people need to see. This is how it's done. This is supposed to be my teacher, y'all. You made the class so fun. And what I loved about you the most was that being a black woman teaching those classes, you stage yourself. Yes, ma'am. And you gave it to us. Yes, ma'am. And we learned something. Yes. So thank you for coming out today. You're welcome. Come on in here. This is the rainforest area. We have yoga, reiki, yonestine, reflexology, body scrub, all of that's happening on the first floor. Then on the third floor, we're doing mental health behavior. And then we have our manufacturer up there. So each sub-leaser gets to come in and decorate it and do what they want to do to it. So this is it. This is it. Go daddy did a website for us. We saw it yesterday for the first time. Can I see that? I'm excited on just starting a fresh, clean slate. And it's all part of your launch. Yes. Your new beginning. I'm excited. I saw when you guys first came through. And you know you have this vision of what you want to do and you feel like you're there. And then you have this aha moment of, wow, I couldn't have been doing so much more. You think you know that you've been in business for so long. Right. But you come to find out and you really don't know nothing. And you really, you know, it's like, whoa. Right. But I'm so glad that I didn't panic and I didn't let fear stop me. Right. And I'm like, okay, we're going to get through this. I don't know how, I don't know when, but we're going to get through it. Right. Right, we did. Right. The internet has really managed to circumvent some barriers to entry, including first and foremost capital. In many cases, small businesses no longer need as high amounts of capital to create a business environment. It's just easier for the customers and us instead of having to say everything by word of mouth, they can just research us and be able to read our story and be able to access our deliveries. And it just has to be interesting. A lot of colors, a lot of nice, pretty fonts. Update always. Until I met the Robinson's, I had never thought of this idea of bringing your kids along the journey of being entrepreneurs. We do know that fresh air and being outside is something that you don't have to be contagious or have to shy away from. We just got to do it in a responsible manner. So how are they making it socially distant? What's the setup like? We're curbside. The children are working the booth a couple feet from us right now. You coming to get a mokipop? Okay. These are our flavors here. The great thing is, since we're at a neighboring garden, they have kale plants set up beside our popsicles. So people can come and get a popsicle that is homegrown somewhere and they can get a plant. So making a connection is that the food that you're eating from the popsicle had to come from a garden somewhere. We did a pre-sale and they bought 600 pops from us and we wanted to make sure that we got that to them before the close of 2020. So we didn't have to carry that as a debt into 2021. I'm really impressed by the way that they're honoring their pre-COVID orders. Because if you don't have your integrity, what do you got? Saying what we do and doing it and following through with it. I love that. I feel like the pandemic came through and you all are finding ways to navigate through that and to do it in a safe way and continue selling products. Do you all feel proud of your ability to do that to make this all happen? Oh, definitely. They have this resilience. They're able to take these moments of catastrophe, a tree falling into your house. A pandemic radically changing everything about your business model. They take these really catastrophic moments and they turn it into gold. They're alchemists. The Robinson's, I think, the dynamic of them as a family, they are holistically the whole vision of what partnership, teamwork and family and community is really about. They were able to take that and push it to the next level. And you had a hand in it too. It's a big part of it. It's very heartwarming. It makes it all worth it. How did it feel to see Yolanda's new space? Did you check it out? Oh, my God. To persevere the way she has and gotten through a pandemic and still do the shift. So to come here and to see the vision unfold from all of the people that she has already beginning to have space, which means she's opened up a door and it literally blown my mind. Can we do the Iwi Fresh Park Oasis? We're excited to be here. I'm super excited that you guys are part of this movement because that's really what it is. It's a movement for us to be able to bring healing and wellness to the community. When she first got here it looked nothing like it looks today. You couldn't even see what she was talking about, but she had the vision. It's a great example that it can be done. We are at a point of history we're resetting. We're resetting society. Right now we're focusing on racial equity in black communities but we've got to deal with poverty everywhere whether it's Adamsville or Appalachia. So if you are inspired and become passionate about solving a problem in your community, in your industry, in your ecosystem, by all means, I think you should take the first step towards becoming an entrepreneur. You should be able to wake up one morning and say, you know what? I want to start a business and I'm going to start it. Thank you guys for being a part of my dream come true. Thank you very much. Thank you. For me entrepreneurship is about creating your dream or your vision of life to look like and then getting out there and making your own way. That's what she did. She is now marching towards these large industries and saying make space for me. When you're an entrepreneur you never stop fighting and that's exactly what Yolanda and the Robinson's did. They put in the work to pivot to delivery to get their products on shelves or to open up and they don't have to do it alone. This work is all about having community. We have to remember that no one created their small business by themselves. I think the reason why there's a huge movement is because it's time. For me, I have seen so much support, so much love from black people who are being very intentional on coming out and supporting my business. There's so many different forms of protest that are required to create change and I believe that entrepreneurship is a form of protest. If everyone plays their part entrepreneurialism would allow us all to experience the concept of the American dream and truly experience freedom inside of the American construct.