Pinky Cole is the owner and successful entrepreneur behind the plant-based Slutty Vegan franchise. Originally from Baltimore, Cole moved to Atlanta to pursue her bachelor's degree at Clark Atlanta University then ventured to New York working in television production. Between 2010 and 2016, Cole's career fluctuated between TV producer and casting jobs and her restaurant, Pinky's Jamaican and American Restaurant in Harlem.
In 2018 Cole sold her first Slutty Vegan orders through delivery apps and then opened a food truck. In 2019 she opened the first brick-mortar Slutty Vegan in Atlanta. Since, she has expanded to 11 locations across New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Birmingham.
In 2022 Cole released a book titled, Eat Plants, B*tch: 91 Vegan Recipes That Will Blow Your Meat-Loving Mind and went on tour. In 2023, TIME included her in their, 100 Next List.
In 2018 Cole sold her first Slutty Vegan orders through delivery apps and then opened a food truck. In 2019 she opened the first brick-mortar Slutty Vegan in Atlanta. Since, she has expanded to 11 locations across New York, Atlanta, Dallas, and Birmingham.
In 2022 Cole released a book titled, Eat Plants, B*tch: 91 Vegan Recipes That Will Blow Your Meat-Loving Mind and went on tour. In 2023, TIME included her in their, 100 Next List.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 Welcome to New Money, where we talk to movers and shakers
00:06 about how they made it.
00:07 I'm Rosemary Miller here with the CEO and founder
00:10 of Slutty Vegan, Pinky Cole.
00:13 Thank you so much for joining me today.
00:14 - Thank you for having me.
00:15 - Absolutely.
00:16 - Can I say I just love how you looked up?
00:18 - Really?
00:19 - I know who you was looking to, but I love that.
00:21 - I always gotta give it to him.
00:22 - Yes, I love that.
00:24 - Thank you.
00:24 That's the first time anybody's ever told me that,
00:26 so thank you.
00:27 - I'm very observant.
00:28 (laughing)
00:29 - Well, thank you.
00:30 - Now we're gonna talk about you.
00:32 What motivated you to pursue a business
00:36 in a vegan restaurant?
00:38 - I'm still trying to figure that out myself.
00:41 (laughing)
00:42 So when I first started Slutty Vegan,
00:44 it was just one of those ideas, it's like, okay,
00:46 all right, this came out the sky.
00:48 I didn't have a business plan.
00:50 I didn't have a real plan, I just knew that I wanted
00:52 to create something after losing my first business.
00:55 I had a Jamaican restaurant in Harlem, New York,
00:57 and I had a grease fire, lost everything,
01:01 and then I was able to redeem myself by working in TV,
01:04 which was formerly what I did full-time.
01:07 And while I was working in TV, they asked me to come
01:10 to Atlanta to work on the show temporarily.
01:13 And during that time, I started running every day,
01:16 I was reading a book a day, I was really preparing my mind
01:20 for excellence, I just didn't know what side
01:22 of the excellence I was gonna be on.
01:24 And when Slutty Vegan came about, I had no idea
01:27 that Slutty Vegan was going to turn
01:29 into what the world knows and sees.
01:31 I just thought that this was gonna be a hustle on the side,
01:34 because I'm vegan, I like vegan food,
01:36 I wanted vegan food on a late night,
01:37 and everywhere was closed, but the universe
01:40 had something so much bigger for me,
01:42 because what I thought was just an idea
01:44 that was just gonna be some extra income on the side,
01:46 turned into a multimillion dollar brand.
01:48 So when you ask me the question, every day,
01:50 I'm like, I cannot believe that this small idea
01:54 turned into something so grand that has inspired people
01:58 from around the world.
01:59 - And so it was more so about, okay,
02:01 you knew you were gonna start your own business,
02:04 but you didn't really know what the business would be.
02:06 It's not like, oh, I want to be a chef
02:07 or anything like that, just--
02:09 - I did not go to culinary school.
02:11 - You did not go to culinary school.
02:12 - I like to eat more than I like to cook.
02:14 - Really?
02:15 - So this really is a passion project for me, right?
02:18 When I created Slutty Vegan, it felt right.
02:22 Have you ever had something in your life
02:23 where it just felt right?
02:25 I didn't have the expertise to really do it,
02:28 but everything just kept coming to me at the right time.
02:31 I was in the right place with the right people,
02:33 made the right connections,
02:34 and all of it unfolded exactly how it was supposed to unfold.
02:38 And I think a lot of it was the timing, right?
02:42 And that timing was so necessary
02:43 because veganism was just getting super popular
02:47 all over again.
02:47 Historically, when you think about vegan food,
02:50 it's bland, it's a rich, wealthy lifestyle.
02:53 You don't see that in urban communities, right?
02:55 But when I came on the scene, it was just like,
02:58 okay, the timing is now.
02:59 The world needs a vegan concept
03:01 that people are going to appreciate
03:02 that does not taste vegan.
03:04 And I just didn't even realize
03:05 that that was the timing to do it.
03:06 And it just worked out that way.
03:07 - Yeah, it's just like KFC.
03:09 If KFC tried to open today, it wouldn't work.
03:11 - It wouldn't work.
03:13 Hey, if Slutty Vegan tried to open today,
03:15 it probably wouldn't work.
03:16 - Really, why do you think that?
03:18 - Because we came, the timing was so ripe, right?
03:22 When people wanted to open up their consciousness,
03:24 you gotta imagine, Slutty Vegan really got its big boom
03:27 during the pandemic, right?
03:29 So when the world seemingly was falling apart,
03:32 people wanted to eat better, they wanted to live better,
03:36 they just wanted to make more conscious decisions
03:38 in their lives.
03:38 And then when you think about veganism,
03:40 okay, let me try this.
03:41 If this can lead me toward a better lifestyle,
03:43 I'm gonna try it.
03:44 So we saw an increase, a real super spike with the business
03:49 because of what was happening in the economy.
03:51 And obviously, there's still economic downturn,
03:54 but I believe that Slutty Vegan
03:56 is a once in a lifetime thing.
03:58 And I'm okay that it would never happen again
04:00 if I started it over again,
04:01 because it was supposed to happen
04:03 when it was supposed to happen.
04:03 - When it was supposed to happen.
04:05 And around that time, I believe some Netflix documentary,
04:07 like "What the Health" came out,
04:09 and everyone was really trying to,
04:11 I remember I'm trying to be vegan,
04:12 everybody was doing it. - Everybody, yes.
04:14 - Well, Pekey, what challenges did you face
04:17 when starting your business, and how did you overcome them?
04:20 - I face a challenge every day.
04:21 (both laughing)
04:23 Well, one of the biggest challenges is
04:25 I've never ran a multimillion dollar company before.
04:28 So you gotta imagine, I come from humble beginnings.
04:30 My father did 22 years in prison.
04:33 My mother was an entrepreneur,
04:35 plus she worked for a company,
04:36 so she was committed to a space, even till today.
04:40 So nobody ever gave me the blueprint
04:42 on how to run a business with over 100 plus employees,
04:46 on how to make sure that my paperwork is right.
04:48 When you talk about profit and loss,
04:50 and equity and safe notes, and I'm like, what is that?
04:54 I don't understand that language.
04:55 - But wasn't it your father who,
04:57 he, on your phone calls with him, he would help you learn?
05:00 - He would help me talk about stocks,
05:02 but we never talked about having a brick and mortar,
05:05 and what profit and loss looks like
05:07 when you have a restaurant.
05:08 So that was a very new world for me.
05:10 Obviously, I had a restaurant before,
05:11 but I was a janky promoter in that restaurant.
05:13 I just opened up my doors and sold food,
05:15 and it worked, and used the money to pay the bills.
05:17 But there was no real structure for me.
05:21 So I've never done this before.
05:23 So it's almost like a baby learning how to walk.
05:27 So I literally had to learn by way of Google,
05:29 and YouTube, and all these other channels,
05:31 and by way of experience, how to run and operate a business.
05:36 So now, when I look back on everything, I've learned a lot.
05:38 It was the most expensive school I could have ever went to.
05:41 I had to learn operations, I had to learn cost of goods,
05:44 things that, as a creative, to be honest,
05:46 I really wasn't interested in, but I
05:48 knew was necessary in order to grow a brand.
05:51 But fortunately, I had enough people around me
05:55 who were as smart, if not smarter than me,
05:57 and who had the expertise to say, OK, Pinky,
05:59 this is how you do that.
06:01 So while I was focusing on marketing and being
06:04 the creative genius behind the brand,
06:06 I built a team around me that could focus on the numbers,
06:09 that could focus on the money, and share and educate me
06:12 on how to do that so that I can grow.
06:13 So that was hard.
06:14 That was really hard.
06:16 The second piece of it was making sure
06:18 that I identified the people who had the right ethos to be
06:21 a part of my company.
06:23 I don't want nobody working for me that just want a paycheck.
06:26 I want dreamers.
06:27 I am a dreamer.
06:29 When I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it,
06:32 but I'm going to do it at 1,000%.
06:33 I never half-ass anything.
06:35 I don't like to meet expectations.
06:37 I want to exceed everything.
06:39 So as a CEO of a company like this,
06:42 I want those same kind of people that
06:43 have that same attitude, that same drive,
06:46 that same relentlessness, because I
06:47 know that they will care about my business just as much as I
06:50 do.
06:50 And I didn't always get that right.
06:52 I used to hire people on Instagram.
06:55 So I didn't always get that right,
06:56 but now I'm more intentional about it.
06:59 So when you talk about challenges,
07:00 challenges happen for me every day.
07:02 And even at the highest level, I believe
07:05 that entrepreneurs and CEOs still go through that.
07:07 But I've learned along the way how
07:09 to grow a company based on the pitfalls,
07:11 based on the mistakes, based on the things
07:13 that I didn't know that I know now.
07:15 Pinky, where did this confidence come from?
07:17 My mama.
07:20 I've been confident for a very long time.
07:23 And I believe--
07:23 I was talking about this the other day.
07:25 I believe that my confidence came from being the underdog.
07:29 And a lot of people don't talk about that.
07:31 When you're the underdog, you've got to go above and beyond
07:33 to prove yourself.
07:35 And I always felt like I was the underdog because my parents
07:38 are Jamaican.
07:38 So if I would go to Jamaica, I wasn't Jamaican enough.
07:41 In America, I'm not American enough.
07:43 So I had to create a lane for myself.
07:46 And a part of that probably is trauma, I'll be honest,
07:49 and total transparency.
07:50 But I created a lane for myself where I always
07:52 went above and beyond what everybody else was doing.
07:55 I always had in my mind that I got to work harder
07:57 than everybody in the room.
07:58 I was always that girl.
08:00 And as a result of that, it carried with me
08:02 throughout my life through selling candy, selling food,
08:06 having parties, starting businesses, doing beauty
08:09 pages, all of these things.
08:11 I was always on the hunt to be great.
08:15 And it just transpired into my adulthood.
08:17 So that level of confidence is embedded in me.
08:19 Like when I walk in the room, you're going to feel me.
08:22 You're going to hear me.
08:23 You're going to feel my presence.
08:25 And you're either going to be inspired
08:27 or you're going to get a little nervous.
08:29 But I'm here, and I'm present, and I'm in the room.
08:31 And that level of confidence has allowed me to get investment
08:34 from my business.
08:35 It's allowed me to build really, really good relationships.
08:38 Because when you come into my space,
08:41 you are my equal, even if you've got a billion dollars
08:43 in the bank.
08:43 My billion dollars ain't there right now.
08:46 But I have billion dollar cultural currency.
08:49 And people love and respect that.
08:51 So confidence is key.
08:52 Explain cultural currency.
08:53 Cultural currency is money that is not in the dollar.
08:59 People follow me for the right reasons.
09:01 I like to say that I set a positive example
09:05 for entrepreneurs, for women, for mothers, for minorities,
09:09 for black women, for black people,
09:13 for people who are vegan, who don't look like society's
09:15 status quo.
09:17 I fit into so many boxes that people can relate to.
09:21 And when you can relate to people, they will support you.
09:23 They will follow you.
09:24 They will respect you.
09:26 And they're going to go to bat for you.
09:28 So when we talk about cultural capital,
09:30 I believe that I have that.
09:31 And I don't take that for granted.
09:33 Because there's so much power in having the air of the people.
09:36 Now, when you abuse that, that's a whole other story.
09:39 But I work my hardest to make sure
09:41 that I show up in the world in the right way.
09:44 Because there's so many people looking at me
09:46 and expecting me to win.
09:47 Because my win is a win for them as well.
09:51 I want to go back to you saying, when you walk in the room,
09:54 you're going to know I'm confident, right?
09:56 When you walked in the room, the first thing I thought was,
09:58 she is so humble.
09:59 Thank you.
10:01 I get that a lot.
10:02 Your humility just radiates all over.
10:04 Thank you.
10:05 Absolutely.
10:05 I appreciate that.
10:06 It's a healthy balance.
10:08 The humility and confidence.
10:11 Confidence doesn't have to be loud.
10:13 When you think about confidence--
10:15 it don't have to be loud and boastful.
10:18 Confidence can be quiet and subtle.
10:21 It's all about the presence.
10:23 And thank you.
10:23 I appreciate you saying that.
10:25 I do get that a lot.
10:26 But humility is also the key to being
10:28 able to grow and thrive, especially in the hospitality
10:31 industry like this one.
10:33 So you said you had quite a few people who were there
10:35 to help you on this journey.
10:37 Who were your one or two mentors,
10:39 the people you can call and you want to cry,
10:41 you want to break down, but those
10:43 are the people you can really reach out to who will help you?
10:46 Oh, I have so many.
10:48 One of them is Richie Lou Dennis.
10:51 He was my first investor.
10:53 So he kind of really laid the foundation for me
10:57 to be able to scale my business in a way
11:00 that I've been able to do it.
11:02 And the reason why he invested in me
11:03 is because of that confidence that we talked about.
11:06 So I've been able, over the years, to be able to call him.
11:09 And he's given me sound advice on how
11:11 to really run a company, how to deal with people,
11:14 how not to deal with people.
11:16 And I appreciate that because he's already made his fortune.
11:19 So he doesn't have to do that for me.
11:21 So for him to be a guiding light in my professional career,
11:24 I don't take that for granted.
11:26 And I appreciate that.
11:28 One other person who has been influential
11:31 in my professional career, his name is Shaka Zulu.
11:34 So he's a part of my management team and my mentor.
11:37 And Shaka has been in my life for over five years now.
11:40 And what he does is he gives me the non-business advice,
11:44 because I'm still human.
11:45 I still have to be the recipient of this level of success
11:49 that's coming my way.
11:50 So he keeps me grounded because, obviously, he
11:53 has run very successful businesses.
11:55 He's managed one of the most successful artists
11:58 in the world.
11:58 So he really brings me back down to earth
12:02 so that I can understand the world in a different way.
12:05 And those are just two of the many.
12:08 I have a lot of people, men especially,
12:10 now that I'm thinking about it, who have been in my corner
12:13 and have supported me.
12:14 And I appreciate those people because they just
12:17 want to see me win.
12:19 Richard was your first investor.
12:21 How did that happen?
12:23 Because I know black women struggle probably more
12:26 than anybody else to get investment dollars.
12:29 It's funny that you say that because we hear that a lot.
12:32 But I've been so fortunate enough
12:34 that I didn't have to deal with that.
12:36 It was so easy for me to get money.
12:39 How did I meet Richie?
12:40 I met Richie Lou Dennis by way of Shaka Zulu.
12:43 And he introduced me to him.
12:45 And when we connected, there was just
12:47 a different level of synergy.
12:49 He's a thinker like me.
12:50 He's a hustler like me.
12:52 Rich wants to be a winner, like I want to be a winner.
12:55 And he felt that energy.
12:56 And I don't believe that he invested in me because
12:59 of the fact that I sold burgers, pies, and fries.
13:02 I think that he invested in me because he saw somebody that
13:05 was such a big dreamer that was going to get what she wanted
13:08 by any means necessary.
13:10 And I don't know that it had anything
13:11 to do with me being a woman, probably.
13:13 But I feel like that kinetic energy was just so real
13:17 that he just wanted to be a part of something great.
13:20 You've got to imagine, when I got my first investment,
13:22 lines down the block at every single location.
13:24 I'm making millions and still trying to figure it out
13:27 in this new business.
13:28 And he sees a diamond in a rough, like, oh,
13:31 I need to be a part of this.
13:32 And then obviously, that level of engagement
13:35 and the relationship building of it all was so important, too.
13:37 So I'm very grateful for that.
13:39 And Rich, if you see this, you know
13:40 that I'm coming from the heart, OK?
13:43 You weren't kidding about lines down the block.
13:45 Didn't you get put out of your first business?
13:47 I did.
13:48 Yeah.
13:49 Well, almost.
13:50 Almost got put out.
13:51 I had to go to court and everything.
13:53 You know what's interesting?
13:55 If you want to be a disruptor, there will be some disruption.
14:00 And there's been some disruption along the way in my business.
14:02 But I'm so grateful for it because it only
14:05 made me even more relentless.
14:06 It made me stronger.
14:07 It made me go harder, put a battery on my back.
14:11 And I wouldn't take those experiences back for nothing.
14:14 You know why?
14:14 Because when I look back over my life
14:17 and over the things that I've been through in my business,
14:19 it really just painted the picture where now I really
14:23 have a testimony.
14:24 So the next person that starts a startup business,
14:26 I can tell them the things that I've
14:28 gone through so that they can avoid a lot of the pitfalls
14:30 that happen.
14:31 Or they can understand that, like, you
14:32 want to be an entrepreneur?
14:34 This ain't no game.
14:35 This is real, right?
14:36 Because people see the end product.
14:38 They see the Instagram posts and the accolades
14:41 and the achievements.
14:42 But there's some sleepless nights that come with that.
14:44 There's some tears at night that come with that.
14:48 And I've experienced all of it on every single level.
14:51 Some people may have seen, and some people
14:53 may have not seen.
14:55 But that's the beauty of entrepreneurship.
14:56 And I want to be able to share that story with people.
14:58 So tell us about that, those earlier days,
15:00 those day-to-day trying to keep going, trying to--
15:04 I still have those days.
15:05 Really?
15:05 I'm pregnant, probably.
15:08 But you know, and it wasn't rooted in money, right?
15:12 Like, there is difficulty running--
15:14 first of all, the restaurant industry
15:16 is one of the hardest industries to be in, right?
15:19 Very hard.
15:20 I mean, the margins, and it's difficult.
15:22 You're in a service-based business,
15:24 so you're pleasing people for a living.
15:26 So imagine when people aren't pleased,
15:28 especially if this is a business that you
15:30 didn't start to make money.
15:31 I didn't start Sleaty Vegan to make money.
15:33 I started Sleaty Vegan because I wanted people
15:35 to have a real experience with vegan food and reimagining it.
15:39 But I care about what people think, right?
15:42 And because I care about what people think,
15:43 I would get reviews.
15:44 If I get bad reviews, oh, I would take it so personal.
15:47 I would be so upset, even to today.
15:49 Like, if I get a bad review, I am
15:51 mad because I've set a standard in my business
15:55 that I want it to be excellent on every single level.
15:58 And when we miss that mark, it frustrates me.
16:00 And I'll be totally honest.
16:01 If your why were to be money, do you
16:03 think you'd still be doing this today?
16:06 No.
16:06 No.
16:07 No.
16:07 You really got to love this.
16:09 You got to love it.
16:09 You really have to love exactly what you do to stay in this.
16:15 And this is anything, right?
16:16 Like, a basketball player got to love basketball
16:19 to do it for 15 years, not knowing if you're
16:22 going to get drafted or not.
16:23 You understand what I'm saying?
16:25 A tennis player, same thing.
16:26 You really have to love this work
16:28 and be intentional about it to stay in it and love it.
16:31 Because if you don't love it, it's going to show up.
16:34 Well, Pinky, you did get the money.
16:36 I did.
16:36 So what was the biggest money mistake you've made so far?
16:40 Corporate spend.
16:42 Could you elaborate?
16:44 So when you have a business, obviously--
16:47 and I wouldn't call it a mistake.
16:49 I would call it a big lesson learned.
16:52 So we got an injection of capital.
16:56 And once we got the injection of capital,
16:59 there were several locations that we were opening.
17:01 So we were working smarter, not harder.
17:04 So we were hiring people early on so that we could
17:07 train them and everything.
17:08 But in the middle of doing that, we
17:10 were in a supply chain issue.
17:14 So the supply chain was all janky.
17:16 It was hard to get equipment from these stores
17:19 because of everything that was happening with the pandemic.
17:22 So we got to lead on a lot of locations.
17:24 So if we don't have the locations,
17:26 but then we have the staff, now our corporate spend
17:28 gets extremely high.
17:31 So now we have to supplement figuring out, OK, all right,
17:33 so these locations were supposed to open up two months ago.
17:36 And we still have these people on payroll.
17:38 And they're not in a store.
17:39 Instead, they're in other stores when they're supposed
17:42 to be in their own stores.
17:44 And that was the biggest lesson that I learned.
17:46 And I don't think that there was a way that we could get around
17:49 that.
17:50 But we spent a lot of money hiring people early,
17:53 thinking that our stores were going to open on time.
17:55 And they didn't.
17:56 And that hurt.
17:57 So when you look at the bottom line, you're like, ouch.
18:01 But the big lesson that we learned there is,
18:03 you have to be strategic in everything that you do.
18:07 You have to get concrete dates.
18:08 If we know that there's supply chain issues with equipment,
18:11 we got to make sure that we work around those things so that
18:13 we're not affecting our bottom line.
18:15 That's probably the biggest thing that I've
18:16 learned since raising money.
18:19 So what about you personally?
18:21 You come from humble beginnings.
18:23 And today, you got it.
18:24 You've made it.
18:25 How did you learn--
18:26 Have I?
18:28 Have you?
18:29 I still feel like I got a long way to go.
18:30 Yeah, a long way to go.
18:31 Oh, gosh, raining down.
18:34 So how did you learn to manage your money?
18:37 I've always done a good job at managing my money.
18:40 I am very cheap.
18:43 It's like a running joke with all my friends.
18:45 I am frugal, OK?
18:46 Very frugal.
18:48 I think I got it from my mother.
18:50 When I was younger, she didn't care about nothing else.
18:52 But you better make sure you got good credit.
18:54 Make sure you pay your bills on time.
18:55 Nothing can be late.
18:56 So it traumatized me because I felt the ghost of my mother
19:00 behind me.
19:01 If I would go to buy something expensive,
19:04 I would get buyer's remorse because I'm
19:06 thinking about my mother and how she would save everything.
19:09 My mother has the same wardrobe that she's
19:11 had for the last 20 years.
19:13 So I grew up in a space where I saw my mother like,
19:16 we need leftovers for the next three days.
19:18 And that's OK.
19:19 So as an adult, I love leftovers.
19:22 I've always been very conscious of my money.
19:25 And to be totally transparent, it's because I want to keep it.
19:29 I don't want to lose it.
19:30 I don't like the feeling of lack and not having.
19:34 So I have made it my business to buy real estate,
19:39 to invest my money in stocks.
19:41 I got money under the bed for the rainy day fund.
19:44 I have so many other things that I've invested my money
19:47 in, in businesses.
19:48 And I know that at the end of the day, when
19:51 this is all said and done, I want
19:52 to be butt naked on a beach knowing
19:55 that I did right with my money.
19:57 And the only way that I could do that
19:59 is to be conscious about the things that I do.
20:02 And I'm used to it, so it's not hard.
20:05 What is difficult is now that I have kids.
20:07 Kids are not cheap.
20:09 I didn't think so.
20:09 Kids are very expensive.
20:10 I don't have any.
20:11 I didn't think so.
20:12 Especially to have five kids now.
20:13 Kids are very expensive.
20:15 But I'm like, OK, that means I got
20:16 to make sure that I'm working hard so that I
20:18 don't have to always work hard.
20:20 Yeah.
20:20 Yeah.
20:21 And because you have this money, who do you trust now?
20:25 Who do I trust?
20:26 I trust my husband.
20:27 Yeah.
20:29 I trust my husband because we're in alignment with our goals
20:32 and dreams and what we want.
20:35 I trust my mother because I know my mother is going to always
20:39 make sure that she takes care of our kids.
20:42 And there are a couple of people in my business
20:44 that I genuinely trust that have been with me
20:46 from the very, very beginning that I know that, God forbid,
20:49 something happens to me, they are
20:51 going to treat Slighty Vegan like their own.
20:55 Well, Pinky, you have American Sesh coming up.
20:58 Could you tell us about that?
21:00 Yes.
21:01 So I started American Sesh in December of last year.
21:05 And it was basically a way to bring collective minds
21:08 together with no ego, no phones, just pen and pad.
21:11 So I've had the likes of Ludacris, Richie Lou
21:15 Dennis, Caroline Wonga.
21:17 I've had so many other people, the mayor of Atlanta.
21:22 I could go on and on.
21:23 So many celebrities have come.
21:24 But I've also had creative executives come.
21:26 And they sit in a room with people
21:28 that don't have any money.
21:30 And they sit at a table, and they come up
21:32 with billion dollar ideas.
21:34 And it has been so successful.
21:35 When I first started, there were like 30,000 people
21:38 who have signed up to want to participate.
21:40 And now we're doing a live sesh for the first time
21:44 with an audience.
21:45 And we sold out in less than seven hours
21:49 when we opened up those tickets.
21:50 So what that tells me is entrepreneurship
21:53 is at an all-time high.
21:54 People want to win at an all-time high.
21:56 And people want to learn and collaborate with other people
21:59 who are also winning.
22:00 So I'm excited about it.
22:02 This is just another extension of the beautiful things
22:04 that Slutty Vegan, Pinky Coal, all these things
22:07 that I'm doing already.
22:08 It is just a collective that really
22:10 is just going to build this umbrella that's
22:12 going to unlock that path of generational wealth for me.
22:14 And because entrepreneurship is at an all-time high,
22:17 what three pieces of advice would you give
22:20 to up-and-coming entrepreneurs?
22:23 What three pieces of advice?
22:24 The AAA.
22:30 Make sure that you have an accountant
22:32 to keep all your books clean.
22:35 Making sure that you have an attorney
22:37 to protect you in business because everybody
22:39 is too happy in 2023.
22:41 So make sure that you have the people that are
22:43 going to properly protect you.
22:46 And having an assistant.
22:47 If you are in business, you need to keep your head clear.
22:50 And having an assistant will support you in making sure
22:53 that your head is always clear so that you can go out and use
22:56 that creative genius to go out and change the world.
22:59 So that's the three things that I
23:00 would tell new entrepreneurs.
23:01 The AAA.
23:01 AAA.
23:02 AAA battery.
23:04 Pinky, you're amazing.
23:05 Thank you.
23:06 Absolutely.
23:07 And thank you for joining me today.
23:08 Thank you.
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