Morgan DeBaun: Betting on Black Media
Founder of Blavity, Morgan DeBaun, talks to us about her entrepreneurial journey starting businesses and raising capital, creating the Blavity, Inc. empire and the challenges of being a black women at the heart of money and power.
Written By: Alicia Sheares
Morgan DeBaun is in a league of her own. The twenty-eight-year-old CEO and Founder of Blavity, Inc., a media company for Black millennials, she turned intention and raw talent into calculated, deliberate action. In 2014, at just twenty-four years of age, she quit her Business Strategy and Development job at Intuit ito embark on her mission of bringing Black experiences to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist.
The move from working for a startup to founding one turned out to be a multi-million dollar idea. In the face of dismal statistics — like the fact that, despite being the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the US, studies say that only 0.2 percent of venture capital funding goes to Black women founders — she became one of the few to raise over a million dollars within two years of Blavity’s launch. She and her team have gone on to raise a total of over $8 million to date.
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In 2016, her name appeared on several coveted lists including Forbes’ 30 Under 30, the Root 100, and MVMT50 Top 10 Innovators; and just a year later was the recipient of ADCOLOR’s Innovator Award. Her innovation, leadership and foresight grew Blavity from a singular news website into a full-fledged media company with five distinct brands reaching over twenty-million people globally. Some might crumble under the pressure of leading a multi-million dollar company, but Debaun is not one of them.
I visited the Blavity, Inc. headquarters around 1p.m. on a hot, muggy day in July. The office couldn’t be better situated — it’s located on the edge of the Los Angeles Arts District where both tourists and locals converge. The former is drawn to the area by iconic angel wings painted on the side of buildings, while the latter grabs their daily overpriced coffee on their way to work. The office is situated in a high rise building where all visitors must be pre-approved by the front desk. After the security guard locates my name, I’m instructed to go to the 16th floor.
The elevator doors open and I’m struck by the simple yet chic decorations: white walls, grey floors, cream chairs. Yet there are idyllic pops of color sprinkled throughout — yellow and red FitBalls in meeting rooms and works of art by notable and up-and-coming Black artists. Similar to other established tech companies, Blavity, Inc. has an open floor layout, floor-to-ceiling windows and glass doors which would allow the sun to shine through, were it not for the infamous city smog. The design seems to facilitate both a sense of community and approachability — after all, you can see everyone through the glass doors — and a sense of surveillance — after all, you can see what everyone is doing through the glass doors. Among the twenty or so people in the office on the day of my visit, the shared commitment to telling Black stories and uplifting Black people permeates throughout the space. Observing the employees, I can’t help but reminisce on my college days. Everyone is working, yet people still make time for small chat; to tell a joke, to share a funny meme or tweet and to listen to music outside of the confines of headphones. Rather than serving as a distraction, these components are central to Blavity’s core goal of Black community engagement and progression, a mission that is led and executed by their visionary and CEO.
A secretary guides me to DeBaun’s office where she is in the middle of a meeting with a newly-hired employee manager who has only been on the job for a week. “Blavity is fine, but we need to totally revamp Travel Noire and Shadow & Act,” she says. She has clear and high expectations, but still, she wants options. “Tell them to come up with ten different designs. That might be excessive, but it will push them to be creative.” She is a direct and an affable leader, a result most likely due to her upbringing in St. Louis.
DeBaun was groomed for leadership at a young age. “I was raised to be my own person and to ask for what I wanted. I remember I was at the doctor's office with my Dad. I'm doing a checkup and you know, the doctor will ask questions: ‘Do you sleep well and what do you eat?’ Usually kids look at their parents, who craft an answer for them. My dad just looked straight at me and was like, ‘Why are you looking at me to answer questions about you?’ I remember being like, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense.’ My parents were very intentional about giving me a gender-neutral name because they wanted as much as possible for the world not to discriminate against me. So I was definitely raised to be my own person.”
And that she is. DeBaun’s entrepreneurial spirit started at a young age. When the vending machines at her middle school were removed due to concerns over sugar, she sold Kool-Aid to her classmates. “The idea of taking a dollar, and making a dollar twenty-five was certainly something that was ingrained in me.” DeBaun was also inspired by her grandfather — an entrepreneur — and her father, a research doctor skilled in grant-writing. “I've been trained to be a leader for twenty-eight years, an experience which other people do not have necessarily.” These skills proved vital as a college student at the University of Washington, St. Louis where she majored in political science and entrepreneurship. “I spent my time in undergrad meeting and learning people. I was passionate about getting student groups access to resources.
It was at WashU where she met her co-founders, Jonathan Jackson, Jeff Nelson and Aaron Samuels. “The word ‘Blavity’ existed prior to me getting at WashU.” A portmanteau of ‘Black’ and ‘gravity’, “it meant that Black folks were coming together. No matter if you were the only Black person in your economics class or the only Black person in your pre-med program, you could have that moment of community at the lunch table.” The four were inspired to start Blavity in response to a void they saw in Black representation in the media, such as Afrofuturism and Blerd (Black + nerd) culture. Additionally, the founders realized that Black millennials needed a new voice after the murder of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests in Ferguson, Missouri. “I don't know that I fully grasped how bad Black media was at the time.Blavity found their place in the conversation by highlighting millennial frustrations about race relations in America, particularly irrational white reactions to Black bodies, and discussing the role of technology in keeping the police accountable. True to its mission, Blavity illuminated voices of an increasingly vocal and socially conscious demographic.
While still committed to covering political issues, Blavity, Inc. has grown in four short years from a vlog site to a media platform with five distinct brands. Blavity.com, the flagship, covers Black news and features user-generated stories. From there, the company acquired Travel Noire, a platform that highlights and curates Black millennial travel experiences; and Shadow & Act, a diaspora entertainment news and media site. The lifestyle brand for women of color, 21Ninety, was launched in 2017 and hosts Summit 21, a two-day conference filled with masterclasses and fireside chats with notable speakers like Angela Rye and Sarah Jakes Roberts. Finally, AfroTech is Blavity, Inc.’s other inaugural conference and was born in response to the lack of diversity in tech. Black people make up approximately twelve percent of the tech workforce and hold only eight percent of jobs specializing in computers, science and math. Companies bemoan that they don’t hire Black workers because they simply can’t find any. The conference turns this fabrication on its head by showcasing and supporting Black techies. Going into its fourth year, the now four-day conference brings together Black entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, software engineers, marketers and the like to collaborate on projects, apply for jobs with recruiters and to grow their own businesses. Rather than critiquing tech companies for their lack of diversity, Afrotech actually does something about it.
From covering politics to tech to beauty, the company’s scope is expansive and rallies against ideas that Blackness is a monolith. The desire to showcase aspects of the Black experience has brought the company both laudable praise and severe criticism. Some think the company fails to capture the range of Black experiences outside of the limited vignettes of educated, well-traveled, brunch-going and upwardly mobile Black people, leading to the pejoratives, “Black by Blavity” or “Blavity Blacks.”
When asked about her thoughts on this critique, surprisingly, DeBaun thinks it’s a fair one. “I think that Blackness is very diverse. I think that when we started the company there was an underserved market of Black folks that we focused on in the beginning. I think it's valid to suggest that some of our writing styles may not be accessible to all Black folks. That being said, I think that we don't have to solve for all Black people. I think that different brands are going to have different target audiences. We can't solve for everybody. I think that it's an amazing expectation that folks have of us because that means that we still have a lot of work to do. And we should have a lot of work to do — we are only four years old! But if that content is already being solved for by other brands, why would we continue to do that? Because that's an area that's already served.”
““You know, I don’t think I would change anything about what I did. I do think that I got three male co-founders subliminally because I didn’t think that the world would accept me as just one single founder woman. I don’t think that I would have been successful.” ”
It is easy to forget that Blavity, Inc. is still a young company, given their rapid growth. One core feature behind their expansion model was to rely on user-generated content from unpaid contributors. The strategy worked like this: a person would write and post an article on Blavity’s website. As these stories were circulated among friends and friends-of-friends, it brought exposure to the company. Blavity was then able to use these clicks to generate income from advertisers and woo potential investors. Asking DeBaun about whether Blavity’s growth model was exploitative, she has no patience for it. “I think that that was a fair critique… month seven. Okay. Did we pay our bloggers when we first started? No, right, because we had no money! And startups start with, ‘Are you about this mission? And if so, be a part of it and when we get to a place where we can pay you, we will.’ When I raised our first round of funding, $500,000, that money didn't go to new things. It literally went to pay everyone. And there are people here who got full time job offers. It didn't go to me getting a salary.”
Once Blavity gained a following, it did not take long for the company to secure funding. The most recent injection was a $6.5 million Series A announced in July of 2018. Asked what she will do with the money, she says that it will “go toward the opening of a new office, possibly in Atlanta. We also plan to hire more software engineers to help with our expansion.” Those who follow DeBaun on social media know she’s been in Atlanta for the past several months working on building plans and attending conferences throughout the South to recruit top talent. The success of Blavity under her leadership should signal to investors that backing projects centered on race, gender, and at those intersections, are a good bet. When asked if she thinks the tides are turning, she responds, “Yeah, um…they…” she starts out, before letting out an exasperated, “No.” Despite Blavity, Inc.’s success, she can’t lie. Venture capitalists are hesitant to fund Black-centered projects and her company is no exception to the rule.
There are vast discrepancies in access to venture capital funds. Current studies show that women of color receive less than one percent of all venture capital funding. The difficulties faced in raising venture capital cause many to use a variety of strategies to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of funders. Women with curly hair have been known to straighten it. Female CEOs of color will sometimes have a white male employee do their pitches for them. Others forego venture capital funding altogether, instead trying their hands at crowdfunding campaigns and revenue funding. As DeBaun reflects on her entrepreneurial journey, she is honest about strategies she’s used to gain the trust of funders.
“You know, I don’t think I would change anything about what I did. I do think that I got three male co-founders subliminally because I didn't think that the world would accept me as just one single founder woman. I don't think that I would have been successful.” Despite having male co-founders, as CEO, much of the fundraising for Blavity, Inc. fell on her shoulders. “I certainly think that raising money was harder for me as a woman than it would have been for men, partially because a lot of fundraising is about social interaction. And there's a significant amount of social interactions that I refuse to put myself in a position of doing. I'm not going on the trips to Hawaii because then I'm portrayed as the cute, fast, Black girl founder. And I don't need those problems.”
While DeBaun was willing to deal with the difficulties associated with her gender, she was staunchly against compromising when it came race. “The white part, I refused to adjust for. I have walked away from many racist investors who would have given me money but do not respect Blackness.”
While the difficulties facing Black women founders may seem insurmountable, she believes change is coming from inside the community. She shares with me that she’s a part of a collaborative ecosystem of resource-building. “I have two mentees. I have two mentors. It's a small group of women, but we're working. Yeah, we're trying, and I think the answer is, ‘Let's fund it.’ I really am a fan of trying to do what you can, and I can't change 50-year-old Joe the VC’s mind.”
She also believes that more venture capitalists of color can ameliorate some of the difficulties with fundraising. “What will change the situation is Black founders getting a huge exit. Like, I need one of us to exit for $400 million. I need women to exit for over $400 million, right, and then it's a wrap; because then we have our own Mafia and I don't need to go to them anymore. We have enough resources among us.”
Black collaboration and economic empowerment undergird DeBaun’s vision for Black people, starting with her own employees. “My first responsibility is to my people, to make sure that they have financial freedom, because for some folks this is the most money they’ve ever made.” Blavity, Inc. offers competitive salary packages, pays their interns, and is one of the few young companies that provides its employees with 401(k)s. Once her employees are solvent, she hopes to extend financial literacy to the wider Black population. “This is where my true passion lies.
For her, money is more than just capital used to buy goods and services, but signals freedom. “Money gives you the ability to make choices and do what you want without thinking about the cost.” And freedom from financial constraints subsequently leads to power. “Power is the ability to say something and people listen to what you're saying. I think at a certain threshold, you have to have a level of assets and wealth to be able to do what you want without asking permission from somebody else.” DeBaun desires economic power but is cognizant of the difficulties Black people have faced in obtaining it. “Yeah, none of us have that life, right? And I could probably list the number of Black people in the country who have that type of power.”
In her quest for power, she doesn’t wish to be the next Oprah, or anyone else for that matter. She does, however, have entrepreneurs whose leadership styles she looks up to. “There's a variety of leaders that I look at, like Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos was selling books. That was the beginning, the framework. I'm going to start selling books, and then another thing. And now, I’m just going to buy the whole market. I'm just going to buy Whole Foods. He's playing in a variety of industries. And you know, somebody had said when he was first pitching Amazon that it would be the biggest e-commerce site. Crazy, right?
Some might be critical of DeBaun’s emphasis on money and power, and question the purported promises of capitalism. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, jobs have become more precarious, and wages have stagnated. These changes affect people throughout the United States but have a disproportionate effect on the Black community. However, Debaun is optimistic for the future of Black people. “We're the most creative people. Like, we have always had to create something out of nothing. You go to a barbecue competition and there’s a bunch of white people? Where did those ribs come from? Y’all gave us the scraps, right? So, I think that creativity is our competitive advantage. We’ve been oppressed in a racist America, stripped from our homes, and we've had to make do out of something that was impossible. We continue to defy the impossible. I look at that and I'm like, If you can think it, you can do it.”
Her advice to entrepreneurs just starting out: just go for it. “There’s no better time than today to start your business. People have this fear of failure. I don't like to fail. I don't want to fail; my expectations are great. But failure is part of the process. I just accepted like, ‘Today you will fail.’
As a full-time CEO, DeBaun has her hands full but shows no signs of slowing down. Hair pulled back into a slick bun and wearing all Black with a statement red lip, her effortless aesthetic is juxtaposed against her demanding professional life. Amidst traveling back-and-forth from Los Angeles to Silicon Valley to secure VC funding for Blavity, Inc., she simultaneously built another company. Inspired by her own skin problems growing up, DeBaun started skincare company, M. Roze Essentials. “I had really bad acne for a really long time and I tried everything: washing your face seventeen times a day, changing my diet, and drinking all the water. I was doing all of the things they say that you should do but nothing worked. So, I wanted to create a product that helped women like me — busy Black women — feel beautiful in their own skin.”
Outside of her various ventures, DeBaun is a daughter, a sister, a friend and an informed citizen. She’s excited about the potential of the mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, to enact change and expressed hope that Stacey Abrams would become the first Black female governor, both in the state of Georgia and in the United States. She is conscious that the problems facing Black entrepreneurs mirror issues that Black people experience overall and hopes to use her platform to help others achieve success. Blavity, Inc. has grown so much and will undoubtedly do so in the future. However, one must not become so big or too good for any blessing that comes along. When asked if she would describe herself as a hunter or a gatherer, DeBaun responds, “I'm definitely both. I'm going to go for the big elephant. But like while we're walking, I’m going to pick up these berries. You know, we still take $500 deals. We're still going to go after the million-dollar deal, but don't you dare say “no” to money. Money is money.”
