Morgan DeBaun is the CEO and founder of Blavity, Inc. and has brought the company’s annual conference to Atlanta. Blavity Fest is a gathering for creatives, builders, and people looking to connect and make an impact on their community and culture. This year’s conference emanated from Atlanta for the first time. She says in its early days, Blavity sought to elevate conversations happening in group chats and social media, which were not being covered by traditional media. Why? Those conversations surrounding social justice and change weren’t being platformed.
“Nobody wanted to talk about police brutality on their website,” DeBaun explains. “So we’re going to talk about it because we’re already talking about it in our group chat. So how do we create a platform that allows our conversations, our training discussions, to be elevated and syndicated, so that we know that there’s a connective tissue amongst us, even if you’re the minority, sitting in your college campus or at your job.
And it was just a bunch of Black creatives trying to come together to do something meaningful. There’s a difference between having an idea and turning it into something that turns into an organization, which then turns into a company. You know, in an average, different phase, something else was required, and a different set of people were required. But those early days are some of my favorites.”
Blavity’s portfolio includes 21Ninety, AfroTech, Blavity360°, Blavity House Party, home&texture, TalentInfusion and Travel Noire. Blavity, Inc reaches 100 million consumers per month.
DeBaun’s advice on navigating raising capital in an Anti-DEI climate
DeBaun is an angel investor, is a tech founder, and has navigated the choppy waters associated with launching companies and fundraising. While the current political climate demonizes diversity, excludes equity and inclusion, DeBaun advises founders to focus on the end goal of growing their business, not just raising money.
“Venture capital, from a traditional sense, is a really trendy type of capital to get,” DeBaun says. “At the end of the day, the most important thing as an entrepreneur and a business owner is that you’re creating a business that is profitable, that’s growing. “That you’re able to have a return on investment for yourself if you’re the majority shareholder, or for your investors.”
DeBaun also says raising money is one way to finance growth, but it’s not the only way; creating a profitable and growing business is crucial. She has raised more than $12 million in venture funding in a time where there were no Black VCs, no Black funds. The current environment should not discourage founders.
“And I really encourage founders to not lose sight of that angle,” said DeBaun. “Raising money and getting a headline in TechCrunch is not the angle, and I think we glorify that a little too much in our culture, and I think there’s an overcorrection for it. So even though there’s been a pullback, it hasn’t gone all the way back to zero. And I think the best companies will continue to have opportunities to grow in this type of environment.”
AI is a tool to drive growth, not anything to be afraid of
DeBaun says she holds AI training meetings every two weeks with her staff. She believes AI will shift industries that they are building on top of and also industries they participate in. Her background in Silicon Valley is rooted in innovation and she would rather lead from the front. DeBaun believes AI has helped Blavity’s employees enhance their content and operate more efficiently. As a result, Blavity is able to drive growth across its brand portfolio.
“I come from the place where innovation is created, right? So I want them to be equipped, whether they start with Blavity for a year or they’re here for 10 years,” DeBaun says. “In terms of innovation, what it really does is allows our team to have more creativity to think. If you look at our content, our quality of content has gone up because our team has more time.
They’re not spending as much time on the nitty gritty of copywriting everything, or copy editing. Because AI can help copy edit. Some of the things that were manual are automated, so they can spend more time being creative. We were at the Met Gala. But we’ve never had time to send people to the Met Gala on two of our brands. That’s great, right? Those are the ways that we’re changing that savings of time to have a better impact on the quality of our content.”
Advice to Young Creators and Entrepreneurs
DeBaun urges young creatives to develop adaptive learning skills. Learning and applying concepts in the traditional sense is becoming outdated as these adaptive technologies are rapidly advancing. AI has made it easier to access information and knowledge. Thus, it’s crucial to know how to use and integrate this information effectively. DeBaun emphasizes learning how to learn and developing critical thinking and strategy skills.
“You’ve got a chief technology officer on your phone now. So you need to be really good at asking questions,” DeBaun says. “You need to learn how to put pieces of information together with critical thinking and strategy. And you need to make decisions with the information that’s presented to you. It’s no longer about ‘How much do you know about this one thing,’ because now we have a computer in our pockets that knows everything about a lot of things. I think that is so different from how we grew up.”
DeBaun adds that taking coding classes doesn’t matter because AI tools exist. So it is the most freeing moment to be creative and to be a thinker. The environment is perfect for a person that doesn’t want to follow the system and desires to make things for themselves.
“It’s a puzzle, and I would just recommend you get really good practice as much as possible, building things, putting tools together,” DeBaun says. “Knowing enough about technology that you know how to plug things together, and it’s not overwhelming for you that’s going to make you very dangerous, very at a very young age.”