This is What It’s Like Trying to Get Investment as a Woman of Colour

For some reason I have been unable to write this piece. Every time that I started, I found that I wasn’t able to move forward or communicate a steady, solid perspective on my experiences in the business world as a woman of colour.

In trying to figure out why I had this block, I uncovered a very deep denial about the reality of what has been going on in the corporate world with people that share my skin colour.

To give a bit of perspective, I was raised by two very strong parents who were successful business owners. We went to great schools and I was surrounded by other successful people with a rainbow of skin tones. If I wanted something and I couldn’t get it and felt that I should have it, I fought for it until I got it.

I remember being around eight years old and learning about people of colour for the first time at my school in Santa Monica. We had just finished studying European History and learning about the great Kings and Queens and painters from the 1500s-1800s. When it came to Africa and African Americans, all I was taught was the horrors of slavery, segregation, police brutality, civil rights movement, and the poverty stricken Ethiopia. I was literally dumbfounded. I remember asking my teacher at the time, didn’t black people also have kings or queens and she said, no, they were slaves or savages from undeveloped countries. Just for a moment, envision how this affected me as an eight year old.

When I came home and asked my mother, she said some of it is true, but it is not the entire truth. There was a lot more to my ancestry and skin colour than that and she went on to educate me about WEB Dubois, Madame CJ Walker, Oba Ewuare, Sundiata Keita, Ezana Axum, Garrett Morgan, Dr Mae Carol Jemison, George Washington Carver, and Daniel Hale Williams.

My mother went to great lengths to ensure that I understood that I am not better than anyone and nobody else is better than me. We are all the same and we all have the same right at life even if our journeys on how we get there are different. She told me that my journey may be harder, or I may find different obstacles than my friends, but everyone faces their own set of challenges and obstacles and that I should focus on my own and not worry about others as it will only be a hindrance. When I said I just wanted to wash it away, she picked up a fistful of soil and said you have the skin colour of the Earth. The plants, the trees, the animals, everything that is given life comes from Earth and shares the same colour as your skin.

With that advice, I decided to shut down the noise around me and just get on with it. And so I started my career and received the jobs I wanted at Universal Pictures, the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, The Hollywood Reporter and the Sundance Institute. I went for everything I wanted and got it. But there came a point in my profession where I didn’t feel I was being groomed to ever run a business or head up a huge division at a studio or being promoted. I found that I was trying to make my own way all by myself, which can be very hard, as in the media industry, you really do need friends in high places to give you air time. Without it, something that can take you two years will take you twenty and your competitors will have created an insurmountable barrier to entry.

So when the time was right and the stars were aligned, I created my own business, ScreenHits TV, without properly understanding the depths of the obstacles I would face.

So being forced to look in the mirror and see what is going on in the world and the Black Lives Matter movement, I now see a very different narrative to my work experience as a woman of colour that I didn’t see before. It is this internal conflict with my upbringing that makes it very hard for me to come to terms with the injustice that has been allowed to become so commonplace in our world today.

This has been made clear from when I look back at how some of the media industry and the VC investment community refused to support ScreenHits TV early on, regardless of the quality of our product, solely because I did not look like they needed me to, in order to invest or help build and grow ScreenHits TV. Our competitors took advantage of this and secured them as clients or investors, even though their product was not as robust or proven as ours at the time.

I remember one person saying to me, 'I have seen people better come before you and fail and your business will fail, too'. Seven years later and with COVID, the online marketplace for the buying and selling of TV content is flourishing with more than £40 million VC funds invested in competitive companies in the UK alone. While none of those funds went to the founding company in this space, aka ScreenHits TV, I am happy to see industry and financial support for my idea and it confirms that I was not out of my mind at all when I thought of it.

The sad thing about this story is that a lot of people are not used to seeing people like me starting businesses, growing businesses, innovating tech, creating the next unicorn. They may not even know that they are being biased, but the silent propaganda that we all see in the media unconsciously informs people that if you are going to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, then you must look like them or have the same 'pedigree'.

If it wasn’t for amazing brands such as Warner Media giving us a chance to build out their tech on the B2B side, I would have found it very hard to continue to grow and innovate. Investment funds were not available to us no matter how hard we tried and we had to depend on revenue. So I thank Turner Broadcasting (Warner Media), IMG and the other brands that supported us and saw our product’s value, even if they weren’t used to seeing someone like me at the helm.

By having more and more women lead businesses, these biases will change over time. I am confident of that. And seeing women from all colours of the rainbow at the helm, will do even more to allow for innovation and job opportunities.

It is so important that women find a way to get their ideas out there. And for all the women that look like me, I know how hard it is. I know how demeaning the VCs can make us feel or how the industry can shut the door in our face when we are presenting an amazing product…. But my advice to you is one that my favourite artist, Amadeo Modigliani, once said, 'It is your duty in life to save your dream'.

While depending on people in life is needed at times and is important, there is no one, and I mean no one, that can take from you what’s rightfully yours. I know people say the world hasn’t changed, but in my mind, I do see change and even though diversity issues still exist, I cannot diminish the triumphant advancement of my people against so much adversity. One paves the way for others to follow and follow we shall.

I will end this article with an excerpt from one of my favourite poems, And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou:

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Out of the huts of history’s shame

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

ScreenHits TV app will allow subscribers to integrate their leading streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Britbox, BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Kidoodle, Eurosport and more onto the one app. Now available via desktop and soon to be available via Samsung/LG Plus Smart TVs, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Roku Stick, Apple Store, Google Chromecast, iOS and Android. www.screenhitstv.com

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