Lili C. Yeo, co-founder + CEO of goumi, talks about how her amazing children's apparel company started 15 years ago around a kitchen table (not all startups begin in a garage or basement). Formerly at Nike and Ziba Creative, Lili had the product, branding, and marketing background to take an idea to the next level.
Why be part of The Script Founders? Lili and I had a strong connection and she explains that it is a mixture of real vulnerability and honesty and this level of drive that refuses to give up. It's the sense of dignity for the founder to do what they were meant to do. "I can create prosperity. I can design prosperity."
Eleazar Ruiz, founder of Odd Notion, is a branding + website guru. He's the rare mix of top design talent and business strategist. His origin story: "Odd Notion came from this desire in myself to show up for my community. What if I make my business the vehicle for me to really show up. That's when the heart was implanted for the brand Odd Notion."
Why join The Script Founders? Eleazar explains that there aren't many rooms in Portland where you can show up as a brown person and as a founder where you can truly say "I fit."
Camille Trummer talks about what The Script FOUNDERS means to her. "It started with tension and moved to purpose, mission, and values." Camille talks about the origin story of why she founded her company Interplay - to center on purpose and make a place like Portland better than how she found it.
As for The Script Founders, "I was looking for a place where I could belong in all facets" - not just with business and not just on the personal front - but a place where she could take her Whole Self - and The Script Founders is that place.
As part of our series of interviews on The Script Founders, I got to interview the one and only Serilda Summers-McGee, Founder of Workplace Change, LLC, who was with me, Su Embree, and Ben Sand at the very beginning (a decade ago) of shaping what The Script would become. She + Su facilitated four workshops with some of Portland's top leaders of color and it ultimately led to our vision of walking alongside underrepresented professionals from college to CEO! Full circle moment, now that she is one of our 22 Script Founders and learning all the ways to build generational wealth.
Serilda and I have been friends for 11 years and I still learn from her everytime we get time together. Her founder journey has been a rocket ship. She is the embodiment of hustle and intelligence and she suffers no fools - a very direct communicator. #respect
Role reversal - my good friend Augusto Carneiro, founder of Nossa Familia Coffee, interviewed me for the first minute about what The Script FOUNDERS means to me and why I started it (shout out to my brother Lou Radja for firmly planting the seed).
Augusto is launching this week a new company called Love-All Coffee for all the die-hard tennis players and fans who drink coffee. It's amazing to hear about the immediate traction he's getting and yet another bright spot for Portland small business.
This is a different kind of interview - Phil Chun, CEO of Polaris Leadership Consulting, was my counselor and interviewer as I grappled with what's stopping people from engaging in Portland more. Like Phil, I'm a firm believer that every human being is a leader (self-leadership is so important to show up as our best selves).
Phil shares his leadership framework and guides me through my expectations of leadership development and managing change to inform my vision for Portland, which is having thousands of Portlanders rise up as leaders, engaging in our city, instead of relying on 1-2 people like the Mayor Keith Wilson and Police Chief Robert "Bob" Day.
Zanele Mutepfa Rhone, founder of Brand Zanele Collective, exudes joy and love and is a gem of a human. She has created a community of creatives of color in Portland that is vibrant and overflowing with talent. Zanele has also created a series called Here to Stay for women that curates intimate experiences where conversations go deep. Zanele is a hidden secret in Portland to much of my network so I wanted to do this interview for folks to get a sense of Portland having far more depth of experiences and people than many realize.
Yes, Portland is in a storm right now and yes, we face extremely significant challenges in nearly every category, but we can also hold that there are hundreds of glimmers of hope sprouting up in all kinds of places in Portland. And, Zanele is one of them.
I've gotten to know Ken Tomita, co-founder of Grovemade, over the past several years, but this was the first time I've visited him (and got a tour) of his craft manufacturing facility in a nondescript, old building with no signage in North Portland. Ken was born in Japan to a family of artists and furniture makers and moved to Oregon when he was 7 yrs old. His company Grovemade is a microcosm of the Oregon brand of small batch, super high quality craft products - in his case, it's elevating the home office experience to be the best of the best in design.
Ken, true to his personal brand, is not on social media - but to all of our friends in common, pls post an encouraging comment and I'll read them aloud to him in real life (analog is the new digital).
I met founder of WK Social, Wilson Kubwayo, a year ago through one of my closest friends Lou Radja. What a gift. Wilson is a young, dynamic founder who has been in Portland for 8 years, a professor of business at Portland Community College, and someone who is creating a more connected, community-driven Portland. He started an incredible series of quarterly networking events for 200 black professionals in Portland called The Mixer - that's built around Execs and founders telling their stories.
Carla Titus, founder + CEO of Wealth & Worth Within, LLC and I met through Blueprint Founders Circle and Su Embree. Her company's origin story of spinning out of Intel to start her Fractional CFO business is a lesson to all of Portlanders in leveraging what we do best here - be entrepreneurial! In a time of corporate layoffs and efficiencies, massive disruption through AI, and uncertainty - needs arise and people like Carla make it happen. Small businesses need a financial guru to navigate the shifting landscape, but they can't afford having a full-time CFO on staff, so Carla and her team of 8 employees step in with CFO expertise and bookkeeping services at a fraction of the cost.
It's time for all of us to think more like an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur - we need to be more nimble, more innovative, and more willing to take some calculated risks to adapt to this new world.
