 Chico, you went to HBC. I did. What's the most fun you had over there? Shit. You just got to pick the most fun all four years. Oh my God. That's tough. Yeah, that's tough. Nah, fuck it. Man, make it hard. Man, make it hard. The most fun ever. Yeah. In all my years of being a man, you know what, it was freshman year. Of course. Freshman year, you know what I mean, one of the little spots that, you know, like, you know, you little calf, but it's like an upgraded calf, you left the door locked, and we went in there and got all the drinks out there, bitch, nigga. We was walking back and forth across the parking lot with bags of drinks, niggas had drinks the whole first semester, man. It was a fun and shit out there. It was a fun and shit out there, man. You was confessed to this shit. I didn't say I was there. You saw it. Yeah, I saw what happened. All right, what would you say the most fun you had? That's easy. How are homecoming freshman year when Drake came out? 2012, all right. Oh my God, bro. You passed out then. I'm glad I'm prepared for this. He ran back upstairs. Gosh, guess who's coming? He goes to school all week. He was just laying there, man. I had to post on a sale. Hey, yo. What would you say? Man, favorite memory. I would say, I think it was a junior year. We did a party bus. Oh my God. It was somebody's birthday, and it was like invite only. I think it was 10 guys and probably like 40 girls. It was crazy. That's why I picked the school that I went to. True story. It was crazy. I went on the college tour. We went from all the HBCUs from D.C. to Florida. And I went to ANC, but they was on fall break. So it was like... That shit dead as fuck, bro. And I went to Winston and seen 20 girls for I seen one dude. I was like, this all right right here. This is okay right here. This is where I could be. You know what I mean? Yeah, but this is the best decision I ever made. One of the best decisions I ever made was going to an HBCU, especially for me, but we're getting all that. Definitely. Getting all that. Well, you know, it's very important that people support HBCUs. Very important. That's why we got these guys over here with us. Because they know a little bit about that. They're a lot about it, actually. You ready to jump it off? Let's do it. Hey man, welcome back to the Black Market. We started with Black Excellence. Now it's the Black Market. We didn't spread enough excellence around that it's a market. Yeah, yeah. Because it was Black and Excellence. We marked it. So now we got the Black Market. Because we marking all the Black Excellence. Well, you know. Because we're trying to make things a little more profitable. Exactly. You know what I'm saying? It's like a Walmart of Black people. Yeah. You know. So check this out, man. You remember them dope-ass HBCU pieces we was wearing on the BT Awards? Yes, I do. But these are the masterminds behind this brand. Yeah. I know you've been seeing their work all over the places. Support HBCU with the dope sweaters and hoodies and t-shirts and everything. All the celebrities got them. You know, all in the airport with them. Let me make sure I introduce y'all to my man, Cory. My man, Justin. All right. Yeah. We like to keep it real informal. Make it feel like they know you already. Give yourself. Let them know who y'all are, man. What it is. My name is Cory. One of the CEOs of Support by Colleges. Yeah. Went to Howard University and started this brand right on campus. You know, looking for a little extra money. And started making some t-shirts. And next thing you know, here we are a few years later just running as a business. Something that started as a hobby, so. And it's taking off. First of all, thank you guys. Because y'all made us some money when y'all went to the B.T. Awards. Appreciate that, boy. So you shared. You got my... I'm just saying, love. You should have brought it up. We need some of that money. I don't remember the contract, bro. We got a track. We got a track. Yeah, I know. I got y'all business and all that. Okay. What people call money. You got to find the invoice. Yeah, no problem. Nah, man. Much love to y'all. Appreciate y'all, you know, reaching out to us and making sure we had, you know, had it in hand to throw it on. It's nothing like support, you know, your brothers like that. That's exactly what we wanted to hear by putting it on, bro. Because that's our mission is to help lift each other up, man. All right. So we appreciate that. All right. Just to know that some black men ate off of that, man. Yeah, I went to, you know, I would say as far as being illustrious, the most illustrious HBCU, you know what I mean? You know what I mean? As far as status as people can say. You're going to catch hell for saying. No, I'm just saying. But you know. As far as the perception, you know what I mean? And for you to go to the one that I would say gets the most publicity and the most recognition of all HBCUs why support black colleges because Howard gets a tremendous amount of support. So what made y'all go with that as this? Yeah, and how did you end up in Howard? Yeah, so we both have very interesting stories. My mom actually went to Howard. Okay. It was funny because she went to Howard, but all my life I heard about A&T. Legacy. A&T. A&T. Because I'm from Greensboro. So, you know. Snoop to the Aggie. Yeah, shout out to A&T to Aggies. I almost went there. That was my second choice. But I got to Howard and I went for a random visit. And I think it was like accepting students in one of those days where the grass is cut, all the food is stocked. They got everybody dressing up. And I just stepped on campus and I just felt like I was at home. Like, it was crazy. And I visited a lot of schools and just nothing made me feel like Howard made me feel when I stepped on campus and I was like, I got to be here. And so I wanted to get away from my mom too and my family because it's just a lot in college. I wanted to be free. And so I was like, man, this is the decision I want to make. And then my mom went there. She was the only person to graduate from college in my family. So I just wanted to, you know, pay my respects to her and make sure I won. Thank you. So that was it. My story is pretty simple. Yeah, mine is totally different. So I was the first person in my family to go to college in general. OK. All right. OK. Appreciate that. So actually I was getting a haircut. Granted, this was damn near eight years ago probably. I was getting a haircut and it wasn't even my actual barber. You know, when you got your replacement barber, because your barber not really there. Stand by. So my standby. So he was like, what schools did you get accepted to? I told him University of North Texas, Baylor University and then Howard. And then he was like, man, go to Howard. And then I didn't know about fraternity, sororities, nothing. HBCU is anything. And I was like, you know what? It's the one that's out of state. Let me go get that out of state experience. What the fuck would you listen to your all-time barber? Which is crazy. Eat even your first bar. It's your sad barber. He should have been. He should have been. He should have been. He should have been. He's probably watching this now. Like, you owe me some money too. For you? Oh, yeah. That's right, man. What's this motherfucker doing? But now that was a story about him. Now did you like, you still get cut by the barber? Nah, I ain't got a haircut in so long. But look, I seen him. I went back home and I seen him in the club randomly. So I had to go up to my brother. Appreciate you making that suggestion in my senior year. Because it really shaped my life, like going to HBCU. That's what it mean when they say take a village, bro. You'll never know where you might hear some good shit from. Right. All the way. So why support black colleges in that environment? Yeah, because I mean, even with my story, you know, that was something I didn't know about at all. So when I got there and I realized that it was so much black excellence, and so many people that looked like me trying to do the same thing, were like, we need to bring awareness to this, because it's no reason that my mom, my grandma, myself, and all the other kids in my high school didn't know about it at all. So that was the motive behind it. Well, at least for me. Yeah, I mean, kind of similar. But you think about it. When you're getting recruited to go to colleges or, you know, people are reaching out. All this is college fairs, college fairs. And there ain't no cool way to show HBCUs like people weren't putting it out there and promoting it. Back in the day, you had Martin and Fresh Prince. They used to wear HBCU stuff. Queen Latifah. But then that kind of like stopped. 85 sales room. 85 sales room. You know what I'm saying? So now we was like, you know, we want to bring it back in a way that people, we can relate to our people. And so merchandise is a way that we can do so. And I had just happened to make a random shirt on campus that everybody liked. And so we was like, man, we can use this, and we can take it to this school, this school, this school. And then we were like, well, let's make something that all the schools can wear. And that's what I called this kind of candy. So what was the first t-shirt? It was a t-shirt. It was a Howard University shirt. And it was just like a logo, some pinstripes, just like a regular Howard shirt with a logo. And then my friends from A&T was like, oh, let me get one for homecoming. So we made A&T one. My family was like, oh, let me get one for family. And so I'm like, man, I got to make something that everybody can get. So we made a, it was our logo and some kentai print. And on the back, it had all of the schools listed that where everybody could feel like they could be a part of it. So that's kind of how it got started. So when did y'all start making money from it? Like, to wear it was proper. So we were making a lot of money in college. So me and Jesse used to throw parties. So we already knew how to sell things. Parties you're just selling the same experience over and over. So we already knew how to make money selling something. And so we were making money in college. I couldn't tell you the profit margins. I knew I had a pocket full of money. That's the fact. A pocket full of money. You got a pocket full of problems. And so it was like one of those things where I was like, oh, this could actually go. And after school, after we got out of school, we kind of stopped it. And then just recently brought it back about three years ago. So it was one of those things in college it was cool. And then when I got off campus, me and him both started just doing like working regular jobs. And so it was one of those things we kind of let go. And then, you know, three years ago we was like, we got to bring this back. That's a good question for you. Because I think a lot of HBCU students go through that process of, you know, a lot of us are the first people to go to college in our families, you know what I mean? And a lot of people don't come from the legacy of having collegiate experience. So you follow the mold to where you go to school, you graduate, you go get a job. What was the point where you realized, man, fuck this shit. Oh, I know mine. Licensed medical providers. And once you approve, you'll receive your prescription within days. The best part, it's all done online. If you could benefit from extra confidence when it's time to perform, BlueTru can help. BlueTru's tablets are made in the USA and they prepare and ship direct so it's cheaper than a pharmacy. We got a special deal for all our listeners. Try BlueTru for free when you use the promo code black at checkout and just pay $5 shipping. BlueTru.com promo code black to receive your first month free. Visit BlueTru.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank BlueTru for sponsoring this podcast. Freshman year, bro. Freshman year, because we was making so much money, I skipped a grade, so I was 17 in college. And then, bro, you talking about 16, 17 making $10, $15,000 a month from parties. I was like, bro, why am I here? This don't make no sense. He tried to drop out every year. He tried to drop out every year. So, but then I was just like, it don't make sense for me to be here because I can learn more outside of the university. We learned in business from someone who's never owned a business before. It didn't make sense to me. So we started our own business and started making money and that's why it was just like, man, I don't need to be here to do this. So you didn't get a regular job ever? So I've had two regular jobs ever in my life. I'm the worst employee ever. I worked at Shoe Carnival and they would tell me, hey, your job for the first hour is to sweep and it would take me from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and I'll sweep the whole thing, just going slow, like just a terrible employee. And then I, like, so then afterwards when I graduated, I had one more job doing digital marketing and then like six months in, I was like, this is impossible for me to like take directions from other people telling me when I can go on vacation and things like that. So I just quit and then I just started being an entrepreneur from there. Okay. Yeah, for me, it was kind of different. So we actually, when we moved out to Atlanta, I moved out randomly to Atlanta and I got a job with Tyler Perry. So I was like, I called Justin. I'm like, Justin, come out here. They give this free money. We doing social media marketing and branding. And so it was a challenge. Tyler was like, hey, nigga. Shit, bro. These motherfuckers think I'm giving away money. That work was easy for us. We marketing brands so much. It was so easy for us. And so we made our own terms. I was like, I want to work from home. I want an office and they gave us everything we asked for. And so it got to a point where they started asking for more and more and I was like, man, I feel like they asking for too much based off of what I came in saying that I wanted. And so it got to a point one day we started doing the clothing brand again. We was like, we should start making hoodies again and stuff. And we started making it. And then we just started seeing money coming in like easily. Like people was like, where y'all been at these past few years? And now I was like, yeah, it's time to quit. And so we walked away from a job at Tyler Perry and everybody was like, y'all crazy, y'all crazy. And I'm like, I explained to people today, like we were making a hundred K plus a year. But now like we can make a hundred K in a day now. So it's like some people had that mindset of like, oh, I got to stay here because it's guaranteed money. Like I rather better myself and see how much I can run it up. Yeah, yeah. Tyler Perry ain't going to forget that you quit on a meeting. Man, you ought to tell the motherfuckers we giving away money to them. He's going to be shitting on them just like this. You going to bring the bill. All right. All right. And I think that's something that, you know, I promote that all the time. You know, when I graduated, I went to get a job where I did my internship at and they told me you'd be making six dollars and 25 cents an hour part-time. I was like, shit. You know, I've always been a hustler. I've been making my own money for a long time. So I told myself I much rather be broken, struggling and building my own legacy than be broken, struggling, hoping somebody recognized the work ethic and giving me a shot to move up. So I think a lot of us at HBCU specifically have a fear because we don't have too many examples that are there that have done it. You know what I mean? That really, you know, you got people that are telling you, follow the instructions of what you're supposed to do, get this degree, get a job and, you know, pay loans for the rest of your life. And it's like to see you guys as entrepreneurs that came from black schools and then, you know, your story sounds super successful. So did y'all have any pitfalls? Like, man, did we? There's so many. I mean, you know, you got stuff from when we were in business like manufacturers running off on us, you know, $10,000, $20,000 here and there. The club? Bro. I mean, you got like just not really, because in entrepreneurship, you really don't understand how to do certain things until you get into that field. So we had 30 employees at one point and I didn't know I'm just a kid from, you know, Houston, Texas. And then we get 30 employees. I'm trying to figure out how to manage people and, you know, HR and all of this different stuff. And then, you know, just random stuff happening here and there that we just weren't prepared for, you know? You don't know what you don't know. And so until it happens, then you be like, oh, I need to learn this. I think one of the biggest things that we were into was last year, before Black Friday. Oh, yeah. Like probably like a month before Black Friday, we had just got all our inventory in. Atlanta, it like rained like seven days straight. I don't know what was going on. It rained so much and our whole warehouse flooded. We lost like $30,000 worth of merchandise. Mind you, right before Black Friday, most of that stuff came from overseas. That's a month process, two-month process. Mind you, it was during COVID. We dope. When shipping was even longer because of COVID. And so that day we said, we fed up with this place. We ended up getting rid of the inventory and buying a warehouse like a day later and ended up moving. And in Black Friday, we had our first million-dollar week. Yeah. Y'all keep running it up on there. Do y'all get support from Black colleges? Oh, yeah, all the time. Sure. And we support them like outside of just like donations because anytime we sell something with a school logo, they get 7% of the sale. That's dope as hell. They y'all doing that shit right there for real. So we do that, but then also like, for instance, we talk about like, we try to help recruit the basketball players to the schools. So like all the time recruits, they like hitting us up like, hey, what you think about this school? I'm like, go. If it's the HBCU, go. And the coaches are like, you know, put me in contact. We're just trying to help everybody. Like, we're trying to get our people. I don't know if you can do that. So what's the man named and played for the jazz? He had on, I think he had on one of y'all. Oh, Donovan Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell, that was like one of the jackals. Yeah, one of the HBCU. It's a lot of players. And so most people don't, well, some people know like we have a real close relationship with Chris Paul. Yeah, he was about to say that. Chris is a good dude for sure. Great guy. So he started this thing during the, What's the sale of him, too? What's the sale of state? From what's the state? From what's the state in the world. And he's actually enrolled in what's in the state. Yeah. What's the state in the world? Hey. He's doing this thing and he has a class with Harvard and ANT. He's doing a lot of work that people don't know about. Oh, I know about it. I'm familiar. He, during when they came back from COVID and they played in the bubble, he did this sneaker tour with us. We're basically every week or every game he would have a different HBCU on the shoot. And so we was feeding him information and sending him merchandise to match the HBCU. So he might have on some blue, light blue and white shoes with a spellman t-shirt and we would make him a graphic that says Spellman College was founded in San Juan Sosa and we did a whole tour and then players like Jason Tatum, Zion Williamson, Donovan Mitchell, all of these guys were like, hey, where you getting this stuff from? And he really just put the whole NBA on which ended up leading us to Atlanta. We had the All Star game here last year and they hit us up like, I see what you've been doing with Chris Paul. Like I want you to be a part of the NBA All Star game and we literally gave all the merchandise to players and did a whole HBCU set. It was extremely amazing. But Chris Paul was the reason why that happened. For sure. A little depressed. Yes. A little depressed. A little depressed. This is where the trap is, man. You know we fuck with you. Look at this. I don't even know what school this is. It is. It is. You know. But like, are you guys thinking about expanding into, you know, you have a lot of us that support a lot of high-end brands. Yeah. You know, a lot of high-end stuff, you know, pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for clothes that are made for European whitening. You know what I mean? So they're going to hear this and be like, oh, it made for me. Exactly. So have you guys ever thought about venturing into some high-end stuff? Yeah. I'm still with the brand or are you thinking of just separating and making some high-end stuff with the infrastructure that you've built is amazing. Yeah. Now that's one thing we've been thinking about since we got all the data from our customers. Now we can expand into any type of avenue as long as it's in that realm. So we're thinking about something like called the Black Ivy League and then doing, you know, high-end type of pieces. So that's something we've been thinking about for sure. No, all the way. All the way. That's smart, you know what I mean? That's smart. So like, do you guys, being as though I'm thinking that this year the homecomings are probably going to be a little, they're going to be back. You know what I mean? They might not be all the way back, but like, have you guys ever thought about doing a campaign that specifically geared towards HBCU homecomings? Like, stuff that's, you know what I mean? That's, you know, involved with the brand. But I just say that because, you know, if you go to these homecomings, which we've been to, I went to HBCU, but we didn't perform the damn thing. Every homecoming. Every homecoming. We see, like, just how the culture of HBCU is specifically doing that weekend. Yeah. So like, do you think that putting something together for each team? You know what I mean? And maybe putting it like to where people post, you know what I mean? What they got on and what they doing. Like, I think that'd be dope for y'all to do just because you already got the infrastructure and just, you know, making homecoming pieces. Like, you know what I mean? And maybe a competition or something because, you know, we all go back and forth from each one as the greatest. You know what I mean? Personally, I got to give it to A&T because I've been a Howard. It's pretty solid. Pretty solid. I've been a Howard. I'm a DC nigga. I grew up around Howard. And Howard is more, you know what I mean? Like you said, it's the Ivy League homecoming. You come out there. You ain't got only me, nigga. You just ain't looking at me. You know what I mean? A&T is that your motherfuckers out there taking shots with the police. You got Darren hosting everything. That's the thing. Those people, that's what I mean about the homecoming is because every school has their Darren's and their Chico's or BDOT's and these people who are imprinted on the campus that, you know what I mean? Host everything and bring the culture to the campus and each generation has that person. So you guys, you know, tapping in with those people, man, is brilliant for y'all. It's extremely important. And luckily we had built like BDOT and my mom used to babysit BDOT when he was younger. So I've been with him for a long time. And then I met Darren, because one of my guys, Matt Summers, he's an Alpha A&T, he used to host everything with Darren. And so they kind of went in. And then Jay Murphy went to Howard while he was there. He started hosting everything. So it kind of just brought it together. But last year with COVID, we was like, how can we help the HBCs? That's what they make a lot of money for these homecoming. All of them people on campus. And so what we did, we did a virtual homecoming actually. And so we had Darren and a pretty V host. And then we had Two Chainz, Mulatto, Money Bag Yell, Black Jokes, We got a lineup all out of pocket. I spent $500,000. So all of them together. And it was no funding. Nobody picked us up to stream. We reached out to BDOT. We reached out to everybody. Nobody picked us up. And we ended up, you know, we actually won two awards. We won a Webby and another award for online performances or something like that. I didn't even know those things existed. But we gave money to the HBCs. We gave scholarships. And we just let the community feel that we were still supporting them. So we're going to do something like that again this year. And then every year we do a homecoming. Every year we do a homecoming tour too. So we're trying to hit 20 schools this year. We always hit ANT, Winston, Howard, Fanview, and Hampton. But now we're trying to hit like 16 community schools. And we're going to show up, do a pop-up, educate the people, sell some merchandise, have some fun. What can they reach out to y'all? Like, we got people who, you know... Support Black College. Yeah, so our website is supportblackcolleges.org. And then our Instagram is just supportblackcollege. Isn't any of these schools y'all haven't been to that you want to hit? Like, why aren't you excited about going to that you haven't been to? That I haven't hit... I want to go to Winston. We ain't been there. I've been to Winston plenty of times. We never vented out there during homecoming. Oh, damn. Yeah, I've been there. I mean, it was just me, but... No, y'all ain't been there since y'all been to business. Right, since we've been to business. Well, hey, the door's open. There it is. We got to come to Winston. We know some people there. We got to check in. Oh, man. Oh, yeah, we got DP's there, too. DP's, too. Yeah, that's my... Yeah, it's a little DP. Remember, he first was getting started on campus, so... Yeah, we got to tap in with Winston. Yeah, all the way. Winston is, you know... To me, it's the greatest one ever. But, you know, I know you guys... It's alright. It's alright. I think one HBC I want to go to is Southern. I've never been there, but... It's where my manager graduated. They're a band, you know what I mean? They just seem like it's so crazy out there. Southern or Granville. Granville, yeah. They seem like it's different out there. They're crazy. That's what I want to know. On Monday at Granville. Like, it's just... We didn't go to P.V. either. Oh, yeah, P.V. too. There you go, P.V. Oh, you love it. They got some beautiful music out there. Make sure you go in the afternoon and check out some band practice. Oh, yeah. The shit they be playing, you know what I mean? You be like, they can fight. Yeah, yeah. They don't play this shit every day. It's a fool down there, man. Yeah, I know. Never got to type it with them. Fuck. All the Texas HBCUs, it was what we did. We did Prairie View. Texas Southern, maybe? Texas Southern. We did A&M. A&M. Like, you know what I mean? We tapped into the HBCUs, man, for sure. Y'all was killing the HBC tour. Literally everywhere we went, it would be like, oh, y'all know the comedy show them? I'm like, yeah, man. We had a great run, bro. Just to know that we got love like that in a market like the college market. All right. Come on, man. Yeah, all the way. I think I saw y'all spam. You should. And then, you know, they're competitive at the HBCUs. You can't do one. And they're like, nah, hell nah. You got to come over there. All right. You got the contract? Yeah, they got it. They got it. They got it. Yeah. But make sure y'all support these brothers, man. Yeah, man. Keep doing what you do. Appreciate it, bro. HBCU, this is another edition of the black market. Support black college, man. Yippee. Yippee.