DeShuna Spencer: How She Built This

Episode Description:

DeShuna Spencer is the founder and CEO of kweliTV, a streaming platform dedicated to curating and celebrating black culture on a global scale. Before starting kweliTV in 2015, DeShuna was a journalist and radio host on Washington, DC’s 89.3 FM WPFW. On this episode, Fanshen and DeShuna discuss DeShuna’s path to becoming a storyteller, how she built a streaming platform before most others existed and why she’s committed to “taking matters into my own hands.”

TRANSCRIPT:

00:00:00:05 - 00:00:22:10

FANSHEN: Hey, Sista Brunch listeners, before we get into this conversation with the fabulous DeShuna Spencer, we wanted to let you know that this episode contains references to homicide and violence against black men and women. This topic occurs briefly within the first 10 minutes of our conversation. Thank you all so much for listening to Sista Brunch. And here we go. 

00:00:34:19 - 00:01:06:23

FANSHEN: Welcome back to Sista Brunch, the podcast about black women and gender expansive people thriving in entertainment and media. And now we are in our fourth season you all. This season, you can leave us a voicemail too. You can call us at 424-587-4870. And we might just play your question in a future episode or feature your question on our Instagram @sistabrunchpodcast. I am Fanshen Cox and today's guest is the amazing DeShuna Spencer. 

00:01:07:08 - 00:01:38:11

FANSHEN: She's the founder and CEO of Kweli TV, a streaming platform dedicated to curating and celebrating black culture on a global scale. Before starting Kweli TV in 2015, she was a journalist and radio host on Washington, DC 89.3 FM WPFW, where she discussed social justice issues impacting people of color. She's a social entrepreneur who is very well on her way to breaking barriers in the most unconventional way. 

00:01:38:13 - 00:01:40:10

FANSHEN: Welcome, DeShuna Spencer. 

00:01:40:20 - 00:01:43:16

DESHUNA: Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. 

00:01:44:09 - 00:02:01:12

FANSHEN: Yes. I feel like I got to see you twice in a month or something. Yeah, twice in one month. I feel very lucky. We met at the Black Media Symposium at Boston University. But I know about your work already. I was already following Kweli TV. I didn't have a subscription yet, but I do now. 

00:02:02:16 - 00:02:03:03

DESHUNA: Yay! I'm so excited. 

00:02:05:12 - 00:02:25:27

FANSHEN: Yes! So we always like to start the show by asking our guests, because we really want to kind of inspire our listeners to know that this is a path that they can take. And, you know, it takes hard work. But so we always like to ask you to go back to the beginning, as far back as you would like to go back, that actually eventually led to you running this streaming platform. 

00:02:26:23 - 00:02:28:08

DESHUNA: Wow. How far do you want to go? 

00:02:28:28 - 00:02:32:02

FANSHEN: What day were you born? How ever far-  

00:02:32:04 - 00:02:32:19

DESHUNA: I was born by the river. In a little tent.  

00:02:35:23 - 00:02:37:12

FANSHEN: There you go!  

00:02:37:14 - 00:03:09:00

DESHUNA: So it's interesting because as a kid, I mean, streaming didn't exist. So a lot of people say, what do you want to do when you grow up. I mean, for me, I knew I want to be a storyteller. At least I knew that much. How I will be a storyteller. I didn't know. So I'm from Memphis, Tennessee, working class parents. I was the kid that was living in the inner city community in Memphis. We were actually bussed. My brother and I were bussed from our inner city. 

00:03:09:02 - 00:03:46:06

DESHUNA: It was kind of like a lottery type of deal where there was like a quote unquote, better school in a better part of town in Memphis. And we won like this lottery. And so my brother and I were bussed to another school outside of our community, and we were one of few black kids at this school, at this particular school. I really began to have a love for reading and writing. I mean, so much so that my parents, that was like our field trip, you know, we were working class, so we didn't I didn't go on vacations, but books were my way of visiting parts of the world. 
00:03:46:08 - 00:04:18:23

DESHUNA: And I didn't go to the little kids section of of the library. I was in the adult section, and I was reading very adult books. So that's what I was reading. So I forgot them now. But, you know, I love reading. I wanted a challenge and I was pretty much the most read student every year. We used to have like a reading, kind of like a contest how many words you can read like a month. I want every like, every year. I was the most read, like in my class. And by the time I was probably like in the fifth or sixth grade, I kind of decided I want to be a novelist at that time. 

00:04:19:04 - 00:04:43:26

DESHUNA: But I also was an avid writer. So I write short stories all the time. Even to this day, I still have copies of the short stories. I would create character stories and character arcs. And you know what? You know, write all of these scenes . And I mean, I loved it. I love writing dialogue as a little kid. And because I grew up working class, I mean, it wasn't like my parents were like, Well, let's try to publish this. 

00:04:43:28 - 00:04:50:10

FANSHEN: Or put you in classes even. Like, they just don't know how to direct to you because they haven't been exposed. 

00:04:50:12 - 00:06:00:22

DESHUNA: Exactly. Exactly. And so I don't I don't blame them at all. I mean, like, they didn't know they didn't think a child could be a published author or anything. But most of us pretty good. I see interns and, you know, contests and school. I mean, I it was a really great writer. It wasn't until I would say like middle school where it transitioned from novelist to maybe journalism. I think I mentioned like during the speaking engagement at Boston we were both at, I used to watch Meet the Press, you know, every morning before church, you know, most ten year olds don't watch Meet the Press, but I love, you know, watching it, it was, you know, very fancy to me. I was an avid reader again, you know, but beyond like novels and books were also magazines. And so, I used to read Ebony and Jet all at the time. I learned about Emmett Till reading Jet magazine and on my way to church one Sunday. And so when I got to high school, I was on the yearbook staff and one of my the other professor, a teacher, suggested, have you really thoguht about journalism? And so when I went to college, I mean, I, I wanted to be I really want to be journalist. I wanted to tell people stories in a way that maybe other people couldn't. 

00:06:02:09 - 00:06:35:07

DESHUNA: I also had thought I would be an entrepreneur. As someone who used to be an avid reader of teen magazines. I wanted to think maybe there could be a teen magazine for black girls, things like that. It wasn't until I was working in Daily News. My first job was actually working for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi. I was originally an Obit writer, and then I became like a journalist. I'm a reporter. I was kind of going out, you know, doing beat stuff. I had my first, you know, front page story on election night when my senior year. 

00:06:35:09 - 00:07:17:25

DESHUNA: I was really excited. Even my professors are really excited about that, too. When I graduated, that's when I was working at the Oakland Tribune. I was pretty much a Cop reporter, and that's where I talked about my job was pretty much writing about young black men and women getting murdered. Like, that was pretty much all I did. I knew the coroner. I knew the police chief. I knew them way too well. I was really I was so good at my job that the I think he was Harry - the top reporter, he was going to retire and they were going to make me the Cop reporter like 22-23 And I remember touring to the the the main police station. 

00:07:17:27 - 00:07:45:09

DESHUNA: I met some police officers. I had some meetings with the police chief. They trusted me to tell their stories, which is also very problematic. Right. As well. You know, because you want to be you want to tell authentic stories. You don't want to like, well, you know, we going to tell the side of the police, you know, correctly all the time if they do something incorrectly, they need to be called out on it. And so they had me meet with the police chief, I guess, to to vet me to see if I would tell a story as maybe the way that they wanted it. 

00:07:45:17 - 00:07:46:02

FANSHEN: Right. 

00:07:46:05 - 00:08:16:12

DESHUNA: And I and it really hit home, like I said, when I had that one interview where it was I was like, I I got a double homicide boyfriend, and girlfriend were supposed to have been murdered. Their child was in the back seat of the car. And I hear it's like DeShuna, there's this double homicide. Both the parents passed away, the baby survived. You need to talk to the the mother of the daughter who was in the passenger side. And that was when I made that phone call. And like, I'm DeShuna. I'm so sorry for your loss. 

00:08:16:14 - 00:08:49:18

DESHUNA: And the mother was hysterical, like sorry for your loss. You're always the first ones to know. She start starts crying like crying so hard, like hysterically crying. And I tried not to cry and I'm like, Let me double check with my editor. I'm so sorry. And I called my editor, like, huffing and puffing like, Wait a minute, You told me that she passed away. I think I'm the one who actually, you know, told her that her child has passed. And so it was very upsetting for me to to have to be the person to do that. 

00:08:49:21 - 00:09:01:20

DESHUNA: And then I went back to my editor. That's when that's when I found out that, you know, actually now she really did survive. And you need to go back into that story again. 

00:09:01:22 - 00:09:03:12

FANSHEN: Oh, my goodness. 

00:09:03:15 - 00:09:12:10

DESHUNA: And so that was the part that I really that's the part that really hurt, you know, because I'm like, well, I'm happy she was alive. I was happy she was alive. 

00:09:12:12 - 00:09:21:03

FANSHEN: But here you had been in a position to to make things more traumatic for this family because you were doing your job. And that's what this job entailed. 

00:09:21:11 - 00:09:54:07

DESHUNA: Exactly. And honestly, if you're if you're a cop reporter, I mean, that's pretty much what you do. You're interviewing people at the worst moments of their lives. And it's not like they have time to mourn, they have time to think about what happened. It was very raw. I mean, her child was still in ICU, her child was still alive. And they were just in in route back home to grab some stuff to spend a night with her. And there she is, you know, you know, So I didn't want to do that. Like, I just felt like this isn't. 

00:09:55:07 - 00:10:17:18

DESHUNA: This isn't what I signed up for, you know, as a journalist. And I was trying to figure out, like, what can I do? Like, what type of job can I do as a writer? Like, how can I tell these stories differently in a way that I'm not causing Black trauma? Like I'm the cause of it. I mean, I try to do the best I could. I would try that, you know. 

00:10:17:27 - 00:10:36:27

FANSHEN: It was your job and yeah, and, and we need we need us in those positions, those, you know, black and brown people, but also folks with empathy in those positions because it continues. Right. That kind of role continues. But at the same time, you knew you were like, I can't keep doing this. 

00:10:37:05 - 00:10:37:27

DESHUNA: Right. Right. 

00:10:38:09 - 00:11:12:16

FANSHEN: And you pivoted into bringing joy to so many people through Kweli TV. Like that's, that's the piece that I think so so many of us feel stuck in something that we don't like to do. But you were literally like, this thing that I'm going to turn this, you know, this job that I'm not loving, but the skills that I'm learning. And you're a filmmaker, you're a documentarian and you were like, let me figure out how to make sure people can have access, see themselves, see a broader story than the stories that you were limited in telling as a journalist. 

00:11:12:18 - 00:11:13:03

FANSHEN: Right? 

00:11:13:13 - 00:11:45:23

DESHUNA: Right. And it was a pretty long journey, you know, to to even to even get there. Because, like, once I decided I didn't want to be a journalist, or at least in that capacity, like end up working for like a weekly, weekly paper, being a feature writer, very, very soft stuff. And then after that, I end up moving to DC area and I was 24 years old, and that's where I knew that I wanted, I was to figure, like, how can I learn how to manage something? Because when you're a journalist, you just write. 

00:11:45:25 - 00:12:52:27

DESHUNA: You don't really know how to manage a team, you know how to manage, you know, a budget. You don't know how to do any of that stuff. And so I end up taking this job and then ended up working there way longer than I wanted to work as a communications manager and then and director of communications for this organization for-  well, it was a and non for profit organization. I was the first black manager at this job, the CEO, and I did not get along at all. I mean, he was kind of low key, like racist a bit sometimes. He would say things that were a little bit out of line and I was always had to check him on it. And so it's really, for someone who's twenty-four starting out in your career, having to check people, you know, with, it was very hard and it was very difficult. But I knew I had to stay the course because I learned so much there. I learned how to manage a team. I learned how to how to manage a budget, having a budget and having writers and having learned social media, learning, you know, videography. Like the one good thing about this job was they they gave you money each year to learn things. And so I took classes on videography and I took a documentary class. I took a class on producing for for, for film. Like all this stuff, as you know, under this company. 

00:12:53:03 - 00:13:15:23

DESHUNA: I learned so much. There was it allowed me to do my first documentary with the skills I learned with the funding that they gave me, you know, to to, to learn and grow. And I feel like it was a really great experience, even though there were so many other rough patches of their company. But those last company I've worked for, I never worked for anyone else after that. After that company. Yeah, I'm only like. 

00:13:16:00 - 00:13:24:00

FANSHEN: You took the skill, you got those skills, you kind of took what you needed out of that company and. And now are working for yourself. 

00:13:24:22 - 00:13:53:27

DESHUNA: Yeah, I know. I mean, it's. It's a journey. And I always tell people that, you know, who are interested in entrepreneurship, like, it's not for the faint of heart. Like, it's a lot of work. It's it's super stressful. But if you're passionate about what you're doing and if you're not looking about, okay, it's about the check day one, it's really more about the mission. The money will come, the customers will come. All that will come if you know you're in it for the right reason. And so it's been a very bumpy road to get here. But, you know, we're still here. 

00:13:54:27 - 00:13:55:25

FANSHEN: Amazing. 

00:13:58:11 - 00:14:34:02

FANSHEN: This is Sista Brunch, the podcast by and about black women and gender expansive people thriving in entertainment and media. Stay tuned for more of our conversation with our guest and social Impact executive DeShuna Spencer. And also, while you're here, go ahead and do us the favor. Even if you just like the show and maybe you don't even really, really love it, still, you can give us, you know, like four stars. We'll take all five stars as well. Leave us a quick review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast and share the podcast, too, with your friends and family. 

00:14:42:16 - 00:14:45:08

FANSHEN: We're back and ready to chat more with DeShuna Spencer 

00:14:47:24 - 00:15:10:01

FANSHEN: I want to dig into a little more now, specifically on Kweli TV, because I'd love you to share first of all, why you named it Kweli TV and and what what can we see on Kweli TV and, and then maybe a little bit of the technical, like how you understood even how to create a streaming platform. So that's a lot of questions. 

00:15:10:03 - 00:15:48:10

DESHUNA: I think I remember it so Kweli TV, well Kweli means truth in Swahili. And when I was coming out with the concept, so when I was thinking about starting a streaming service before I started this company, I actually did an online magazine. I actually thought that would be my legacy. It was called Empower, and that's why my radio show on WPFW was called Empower Hour. It was an extension of my online magazine. But one day actually was not long after I had had done my or I started working on my documentary, I had this idea for streaming service just came to me like flipping through cable. 

00:15:48:12 - 00:16:24:29

DESHUNA: I just didn't see anything I wanted to see. And in some ways I've represented I want to see more documentaries. I want to see more black history. I want to see more indie independent films. Besides having to travel somewhere to a film festival, I want to see it in my home. And I was like, okay, well, what would I name this company? And everything that I learned, you know, about being a former journalist and understanding the concept of authentic storytelling and how storytelling really impacts implicit bias and so many things, I started trying to think what is truth mean in other languages? And I end up choosing Swahili, mainly because of Kwanzaa. 

00:16:25:01 - 00:16:58:09

DESHUNA: And most most Americans know Swahili because of Kwanzaa. And that's the main reason why I chose the language Swahili. But I knew I wanted it to be truth. Like I knew I wanted to tell authentic stories. I just don't want it to be called truth TV. I wanted it to have a ring to it. Kweli TV has a ring to it. And so the type of content that we have, we have currently over 600 titles representing the entire African diaspora. So content from here, like North America, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and Australia, all black stories. 

00:16:58:19 - 00:17:31:22

DESHUNA: We're everywhere and we really want to be the platform that really showcases the diversity of the black experience. For a lot of us. We can't travel to other parts of the world through our platform. You can just like as a kid, when I was reading books, I could travel somewhere. I can you can travel to Venezuela, see what it's like to be Afro Venezuelan or Afro Caribbean. Wherever. You can see that through the platform. What's it like in the be in Ghana or or Tanzania? What is life like in, you know, in Brixton, in the UK. 

00:17:31:27 - 00:18:19:21

DESHUNA: Like those, those are type of things that we really offer at Kweli TV that you really can't see on other platforms. I think it's so important to be able to do that. And also even just, you know, talk about it from a global perspective, but even for here in the US, we want to show a different side to the black experience. I think a lot of times for traditional media, a lot of the stories tend to be one sided about what it means to be black. And we really want that. And it's a lot of times based in trauma, you know? So a woman scorned or her husband did this or he's in prison, you know, And not to say we don't have those types of stories about the realities of some of the injustices that's happening in America, but we also want to celebrate the best of our culture. 

00:18:20:10 - 00:19:08:09

DESHUNA: And, you know, and I think that's why, you know, that's why what we do is so important. And so that's kind of the type of content that we have. As far as like our top titles or top type of genres. I always tell people, you know, we don't that documentaries are like the top people love documents on our platform. They're related to the history. Animation, Sci-fi is also really big one and children's programming. So we really you know, and not to say other platforms don't focus on those, but I would say other platforms that may focus on black experience may tend to steer towards from romcoms traditionally, or maybe it's more soap opera type of stories like very, very traumatic and trauma and drama, you know, type of stories. 

00:19:08:17 - 00:19:20:17

DESHUNA: If there are documentaries, sometimes they tend to focus on, like it's like, Biggie and Tupac. But you'd be surprised how often I'm pitched about Biggie and Tupac.  

00:19:20:19 - 00:19:25:28

DESHUNA: I believe me, like I love their music a lot. But I'm like, how many more docs can we do about, you know? 

00:19:27:29 - 00:19:32:29

DESHUNA: So, you know, we really want to tell unsung heroes, you know, we want to really showcase those on our platform. 

00:19:33:11 - 00:20:15:04

FANSHEN: I love it. And I think that that's what you do is to show us all the possibilities, because I think you're right. You know, there's space for all of us. All kinds of stories should be told. But also, if we keep telling the same kinds of stories over and over again, it's just like erasing us, right? Because then still young people don't know that the story, you know, a different kind of story that they may have. They don't know that they have a place where they could share that that story. How did you have the technical understanding? So you talked about like being the communications manager and and knowing having kind of the the storytelling skills where you could, you know, how to choose a good story. 

00:20:15:06 - 00:20:22:14

FANSHEN: But I'd be like, what streaming service, like, do I get a developer? Like, how did you how did you do that part? 

00:20:22:29 - 00:20:55:08

DESHUNA: That was it. Ignorance is bliss sometimes, they say, I didn't know the first thing about starting a streaming service. When I had my online magazine. There were so many resources for starting online magazines. I mean, even there was a book How to Start an Online magazine for Dummies, like there literally is a book called that. There is no How to Start a Streaming Service for Dummies. Like that book does not exist. So Reed Hastings, there is no book. He doesn't want competition and he's not, you know, readily trying to give it out. At the time, there weren't many streaming services. 

00:20:55:10 - 00:21:26:02

DESHUNA: It was pretty much mostly I would say, Netflix, Hulu, HBO is, you know, trying to get a few things off the ground. I think it was HBO Go at the time or HBO Max. And so I didn't really know how to get started. The best I could do was because I had my online my magazine, one of my one of my board members was a full stack developer because I wanted a well-rounded group of people who are on my board. And I asked what I have this idea for this platform, and I don't really know what to do. 

00:21:26:04 - 00:21:55:21

DESHUNA: Like, I started my magazine with a very, very, you know, beefed up WordPress site. You can't start a streaming services on a WordPress site. Like it's not gonna work out. The video, one video alone, if you ever tried to upload a video on WordPress one video and that's it. And so I was like what, I don't know where to get started. I started doing some research and that's when I learned about what it takes to build like a startup, like a like a tech streaming service. Like I didn't know what AWS was, you know, Amazon Web Services. 

00:21:56:04 - 00:22:02:01

FANSHEN: Yeah, I do. I'm proud to say I do know that. I think that's because we have to hold our our podcast content. 

00:22:02:03 - 00:22:02:18

DESHUNA: Okay. 

00:22:03:00 - 00:22:03:18

FANSHEN: Oh, good. 

00:22:04:00 - 00:22:04:18

DESHUNA: And you know. 

00:22:05:01 - 00:22:05:16

FANSHEN: Yeah. 

00:22:05:23 - 00:22:36:02

DESHUNA: Yeah, yeah. I started to do research. I didn't know about AWS and I learned that Netflix, you know, they use AWS for something called Cloud Front. And so it's very technical, but this is something I learned. So the reason that when Netflix first started the issues of their buffering was that they weren't using a type of technology to allow people to stream anywhere in the world. So let's say if, if, if your company is based in like L.A. and your servers are in L.A., 

00:22:36:04 - 00:23:05:15

DESHUNA: the people who are, you know, within their range, you're going to have the best streaming experience. If someone is streaming from New York, the guy is going to buffer more because the server is further away. With Cloud Front, which I learned, you know, by doing my research. Cloud Front is what Amazon uses to allow platforms even like a Uber or whatever, who to be able to use the closest server to where people live. And so the. 

00:23:05:17 - 00:23:12:22

FANSHEN: Individual that so like each of your subscribers are watching from something that's close to their. 

00:23:13:00 - 00:23:36:00

DESHUNA: Exactly. Exactly. And people didn't realize this when I talked to the other developers. I want to play our streaming service. We have a bunch of servers. I was like, well, you know, AWS. Well, we, we're probably cheaper and like no because I was always trying to explain to people, like your servers in Northern Virginia. If someone wants to watch this in Nigeria, they won't be able to. Like talk about buffering in New York. Nigeria is going to be like . 

00:23:36:15 - 00:23:42:00

FANSHEN: Next year you'll be able to watch, you know, press play now and come back in a year. Right? 

00:23:42:02 - 00:24:13:08

DESHUNA: Exactly. Exactly. And these are things I had to learn. I didn't know anything about MVP, a minimum viable product. And I even had this idea for Kweli TV, I wanted to build this big, you know, the whole shebang and make it amazing. And that's when the the first active member on my board. He was like no, you I know you build an MVP. And I was pushing back and he was like, no, you build an MVP. You want to build the best product. You want to build enough just for people to like it because it may change. 

00:24:13:10 - 00:24:30:24

DESHUNA: You may see that you built one way and you see customers are liking it another way and you spent al this money to build some stuff that maybe people don't want. So you build the minimal product first and then expand from there based off of user feedback and usability and surveys and stuff like that. So I took his advice. 

00:24:30:26 - 00:25:05:26

FANSHEN: Y'all we are getting a business lesson. I love this entrepreneurial advice today. Wow. Okay. Even by the way, I have to say, even the fact that you had a board like that, that's the kind of thing that I think we don't always think about as we're creating a business, right, is like, you do need support and a board is a perfect way to do that. And in fact, I'll admit, I haven't thought about that from my company yet. And I'm like, right, a board that makes so much sense. And then you have people on on your board that that understand the different things that you need in order for the company to run. 

00:25:06:07 - 00:25:36:12

DESHUNA: Exactly. And so it was, he was really, really helpful. He connected me with another developer because he said like, he couldn't really do it, but he knew someone who was more, well, well versed in sort of developing bigger projects. And I hired this guy. I ended up winning a grant. It was $20,000 through Unity Journalist. I'm not sure if people remember Unity Journalists, but it was all the other organizations combined in NABJ, NAHA NAAJ, all, you know, came together for years. 

00:25:36:14 - 00:26:06:25

DESHUNA: And so Unity created a fund because for journalists of color, we're typically the last one hired first ones fired. And this was an opportunity for us to be able to create our own media companies. And so they all gave out two $20,000 grants. They went NABJ founded, which is myself, and went for a Hispanic association, and he won 20,000 as well. And pretty much give all the money to the developer to to build the MVP. 

00:26:07:04 - 00:26:56:06

DESHUNA: It was crazy, though. He skipped out like, you know, moving to Colorado and he didn't finish. He didn't finish our beta. He finished about 80 to 90% of it. And I end up just releasing it because it's interesting, because I wasn't sure what to do, because I had I didn't have any more money. I ended up reading - the founder of - co-founder of LinkedIn - I ended up reading a quote, I was doing some research one day and it said, if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you started too late. And so I was super embarrassed by the first version and so that's the reason why I went ahead and decided to release it, even though it wasn't, it was horrible. It could it can play movies. It can take people's money. It was that was it. If people needed to reset their passwords. I had to do it, you know, which is. 

00:26:56:11 - 00:26:59:12

FANSHEN: Whew. And how many subscribers did you have at that point? 

00:26:59:17 - 00:27:00:22

DESHUNA: We had, you know, 

00:27:00:27 - 00:27:03:08

FANSHEN: Enough that it was going to be hard to do it. 

00:27:03:10 - 00:27:27:12

DESHUNA: Exactly. And we had a couple of hundred. You know, I would say, day one, we were getting subscribers. It was shocking to me. It was exciting. You know, I would go online and refresh and people were sign up every single day. And, I just couldn't believe that people were, you know, into it. Not that I mean, I knew people would be into it, but you build something. You don't know how people will react to it. 

00:27:27:14 - 00:27:27:29

FANSHEN: Right. 

00:27:28:11 - 00:27:42:03

DESHUNA: And there was a tech side of things also. Even getting the content was it was less challenging, was still somewhat challenging because people there weren't any other there weren't livestreaming services around people like, who are you? 

00:27:42:18 - 00:28:04:23

FANSHEN: You right. You know, Yeah. You you were one of the only people running your own one for black folks. Well, you still are the only one running one for black folks. But at that time, I mean. Right. We have to think about how much has changed since you got started. But at that time, right. Like even just you convincing people to take you seriously. 

00:28:04:29 - 00:28:05:14

DESHUNA: Right. 

00:28:05:16 - 00:28:31:23

FANSHEN: You know, and then and I love that quote. I think our listeners had no idea they were getting a how I built this black woman version today. It's the Sista Brunch version of How I Built This. I, this is, I'm so glad to hear that piece of it because I think that's where we get intimidated, right, is we think, you know what, I don't know how to do that piece of it, so I'm just not going to do it. But you were like, No, I'm going to I'm going to learn.

00:28:37:21 - 00:28:50:03

FANSHEN: Hey, it's Fanshen Cox and you're listening to Sista Brunch. We'll be right back. And during this quick break, if you haven't done this already, go ahead and follow us on Twitter @SistaBrunch. And we're also on Instagram @SistaBrunchPodcast. 

00:29:00:11 - 00:29:03:18

DESHUNA: This is DeShuna Spencer, and you're listening to Sista Brunch. 

00:29:08:04 - 00:29:43:15

FANSHEN: You talked about that 20 grand. Are you comfortable talking about what your salary looks like now or what your range is like? How do you survive on this? What did it take to get you kind of the financials wherever you're comfortable to talk about the financials? And also, obviously, this will change. So this will warn everybody this won't be entirely evergreen, but talk about what it costs to subscribe to the channel and what that means for you in terms of your survival and comfort and luxury, hopefully. 

00:29:43:17 - 00:30:10:27

DESHUNA: Good question. And so we it's been interesting. This journey is really interesting as far as like raising money. I always tell people I had no idea the disparities that black women face when trying to raise money. I'm not sure if I mentioned it at Boston University. But typically when I go to speaking engagements, I always ask the audience to guess what percentage do you think Black Women receive in investment dollars, zero to 100%, Oh, did I mention that? 

00:30:11:08 - 00:30:12:03

FANSHEN: No, I don't think so. 

00:30:12:26 - 00:30:30:01

DESHUNA: Do you? What do you think the number is in between? Like, so I think like, I figure like maybe billion dollars is allocated every year to startup founders. What percentage do you think goes to black women, even by women in general, women in general, than black women? I'm really curious to hear your thoughts.  

00:30:30:03 - 00:30:53:14

FANSHEN: And so, that's the thing. I mean, white women, I would say maybe they're up there are like 30%. Black women... I mean, I hope it's somewhere around 15. I mean, obviously, I hope it's a lot more, but 15 ... Half of that? I know I'm going to be sad when you tell me. What is it? 

00:30:55:11 - 00:31:01:17

DESHUNA: Usually people's mouths like are wide open. So for white women it's 2.3%. 

00:31:02:12 - 00:31:05:05

FANSHEN: What? It's only what? Oh, my goodness. 

00:31:05:17 - 00:31:08:19

DESHUNA: Right. Women make up half the population.

00:31:08:21 - 00:31:09:17

FANSHEN: Now I'm afraid to know.  

00:31:09:19 - 00:31:41:24

DESHUNA: White women, so you know white women not getting any money. You know, black women getting scraps. So when I started the company it was two point, you know, I'm sorry for for black women, it was 0.2% when I started the company. Now it's about 0.6%. So not even the full 1% and when there was a 0.0.33 or something like that. Not serious. It's like 0.33 and for black people as a whole is like 1%. So it's really, really bad. 

00:31:42:05 - 00:31:53:09

DESHUNA: Now that goes to show you. So basically white men get all the money. It's not even the white women. White women aren't getting the money either. Like white women are only getting 2.3%. 

00:31:53:11 - 00:31:53:26

FANSHEN: Wow. 

00:31:54:08 - 00:32:17:29

DESHUNA: I didn't know that going in. I had no idea at all that it would be that difficult to raise money. It has been extremely hard to raise money. I know we're probably be much further ahead if we would have been able to raise money. When I started the company, I really assumed that, I was going to Stanford's YouTube channel and watching pitch competitions and practicing and and learning about the, you know, the tech industry ecosystem. 

00:32:18:01 - 00:32:57:04

DESHUNA: And if you get customers, you know, and you're starting to see growth, you, you get money. And it was streaming was so early at the time I thought it would be a shoe in. We were kind of very early on to the game by people didn't want to invest in black media and they're like, Well, Netflix can just do what you do, or maybe not and maybe we can be our own thing. You know, it was very difficult. I was very depressed the first couple of years of starting the company because we were running out of money in our beta was in such disarray that we started to lose customers because people were just frustrated with the site, people were like, because I had to explain to people what beta was mean Black people didn't know what the beta was. 

00:32:57:06 - 00:33:08:09

DESHUNA: And then when I told them they were excited, we would get these emails like, Hey, I found this wrong. I found that wrong, they thought they were being a part of our process to make it better. But two years go by and, you know.

00:33:08:11 - 00:33:09:07

FANSHEN: They we're like, okay. 

00:33:13:01 - 00:33:54:05

DESHUNA: What's going on? It wasn't until it was December 2016, I was watching a video of Ava DuVernay and she was speaking at NYU, and I was probably crying or something. You know, just depressed and she was talking about the early days first trying to make her first film, and she was mentioning how she would go to these events when she was in the industry. But, you know, as a publicist and marketing and not really, you know, on the other side of things and she was she mentioned how she would try to meet with people or you know the thing you go to events and you thinking that you will make a connection and kind of like that you know, desperation thing. 

00:33:54:07 - 00:34:31:24

DESHUNA: She talked about how she kind of exude desperation and she really talked about how when she goes events, she sees desperation, other people and she knows because she was that person at one point. Being in DC, same thing. If I could be in L.A., you know, you meet people who will go to events they go to they go to network, hoping that they meet that one person that's going to change your lives or you get that one check, you get that one opportunity, those things do happen right? You meet Snoop Dogg and he tweets about you and the rest is history. Not to say it doesn't happen for the most part, doesn't happen like that for most people. And when we're. 

00:34:31:26 - 00:34:36:11

FANSHEN: Not when we're talking the percentages that you just shared, like it definitely doesn't happen for us, right? 

00:34:36:13 - 00:36:11:13

DESHUNA: No, not, for black women. Not at all. And so she said that she stopped sort of doing that and tried to figure out, like, how can I just make this happen? And that's why she funded, I think, her first film through her credit cards. And she just got her friends and she basically decided to network, you know, parallel, parallel networking, with people that she knew who were, you know, and they filmed them in a couple of days and, you know, and the rest is history, right? I'm sure there were lots of things happening, ups and downs. But she took it. She took matters into her, into her own hands. And I went into the next year trying to figure out how could I take matters into my own hands. I do not want a Silicon Valley bro to dictate whether or not I become successful because he did not write me a check. And so in 2017, I started working on pitch competitions. My first pitch competition was actually February of 2017. It was a Harvard Business School I found out about the pitch competition 2 weeks before it was supposed to happen. I only had a couple of hundred dollars left in my business account. We were running on fumes. I had just enough money just to fly to Boston. One of my friends was like an R.A. at a small college in Boston. I stayed with her, I stayed in a dorm room illegally. Technically, I wasn't supposed to be there, but I couldn't afford to be. I couldn't afford, like, a hotel. And and I stay with her and used my last dime and I just practice, practice, practice that pitch. I was so nervous. 

00:36:11:25 - 00:36:46:17

DESHUNA: And you know, it's interesting how things work with, you know, with business, how, you know, up and down. I had just applied for another opportunity. And I remember I sat down and I was just checking my phone because people were pitching before me. They didn't really tell us what order we're going to be, and they just call your name. And so I was just kind of sitting there waiting for my turn. And I remember just checking my email really quickly in an opportunity email, you know anyone who's in the industry, like you get the email, you know, if you're applying for something, if the first line is an update on your application, you didn't get it.

00:36:47:22 - 00:36:49:27

FANSHEN: Right. It's not congratulations. It's an update.

00:36:53:02 - 00:37:08:00

DESHUNA: Exactly. So I saw the email was like an update on your application. Thank you so much. But oh, and then literally once I closed the email I heard my name. Up next, DeShuna Spencer with Kweli TV.  

00:37:08:02 - 00:38:14:25

DESHUNA: And that's one thing in life, right? You get a rejection, you just get a rejection, it's something you wanted, and then you're right. Another opportunity is facing you, you know, Head on. What do you do? Do you, like, go up there and like, Oh, sorry, guys, you know, or do you, like, say, you know what, I missed opportunity. Let me rock this one because it's an opportunity for me. And I won the pitch competition. I won every pitch competition that year actually, I've only got second place like maybe once or something. But in all the years I pitched, I always win. I go to win, I go to win. So I'm really I'm really anal about, you know. About putting my life in my own hands. I think as as black women in particular. No one's coming or even just black people in general, because my husband or I talk about this like, no one's coming to save us. And we have to figure out how can we as a community build ourselves up without having to rely upon outside dollars. 

00:38:15:08 - 00:38:55:19

DESHUNA: It's interesting because, you know, we haven't really been, you know, I guess, stamp of approval by, you know, Hollywood. You know, people see me as a nobody in the industry. And, you know, I try to work. It's okay. I try not to let that get to me. I've had lots of people come and go who, you know, claim they're going to do this and do that. And it just doesn't work out. And I just learn that I'm I'm not going to let that bother me. I know what my mission is. And until otherwise, I you know, something else something happens that shows we need to be in a different direction. I'll keep doing this. 

00:38:55:25 - 00:39:58:13

FANSHEN: The way I always think of it is you let them come to you and that I'm confident and like it's it's not about, oh, as long as you know, just do this thing because I talk to people, pitching their projects, etc. all the time, or organizations and initiatives and they're like, Well, Sundance didn't let us in. And I'm like, well bump Sundance. Like, make it so that Sundance comes to you the next time, right? And that that is what you are building because they don't have what you have, which is the commitment to community. Like, that's everything. You're authentic, like the authenticity with which you created this company and the meaning of it, the the you know, the content you're committed to that we don't get to see even on other black content, you know, platforms that that will draw people in. You've got community and these other platforms just don't have that. So I'm not going to blow smoke up your butt about what we can do in Hollywood, but I am going to be in touch about what we can do together. 

00:39:59:08 - 00:40:00:25

DESHUNA: Definitely. I'm excited for the conversation. 

00:40:00:28 - 00:40:31:00

FANSHEN: Me too. Me too. Okay. This has been amazing. I'm going to ask you one more question and then we will wrap up. So this is our Sista Brunch question. Sista Brunch came out of the Directors Guild of America Trainee program. So our co-host Anya, she was in the trainee program and then the women of color would get together on the weekends and have a brunch to be able to talk about all the things that they were experiencing while they were in the trainee program or on sets. 

00:40:31:02 - 00:41:04:22

FANSHEN: And that was a place where they could be comfortable. So that's why we call it Sista Brunch, you know. And then she started having Sista Brunches and brought me to one and I was like, Wait a minute, all these amazing women that y'all are telling me you can't find to hire. That's why we created it. So you are sitting down to a Sista Brunch with a young version of DeShuna, and we want to know, what are you eating together? What are you drinking together? And then what advice are you giving her?

00:41:06:08 - 00:41:17:29

DESHUNA: A young DeShuna being from Memphis, either. I would have been eating a hot dog, unfortunately. Chili cheese and coleslaw. That's the way we eat in Memphis. It's horrible. 

00:41:19:21 - 00:41:52:18

DESHUNA: That's how I grew up. Or barbecue. I mean, like, I used to eat my fair share of barbecue sandwiches. What would we be drinking? I stopped drinking soda like a long time ago, like, as a kid I stopped drinking soda. And so I'd  probably just be drinking water, honestly. And what would I would I tell my little younger self or what are we talking about? I would I would actually tell my younger self, like, you got this, you know, don't worry about the future. As a kid, I was always so worried about where I would be in life. 

00:41:52:20 - 00:42:40:03

DESHUNA: I held really low self esteem, I had like a bit of a stuttering thing. And even though I love to read, you know, you know, get myself together and make sure and I always felt that maybe I wouldn't be as successful. A lot of people didn't see potential in me, and I fought so hard to, like, prove people wrong. And so I had a huge chip on my shoulder growing up. And I would just tell her, girl, why you worried? You know, you have no idea where the places you're gonna go, the things you're going to do in life. You got this. You have nothing to worry about. I would just give her a real big hug and say you're beautiful. Because I didn't think I was beautiful either. You know. 

00:42:40:27 - 00:42:51:12

FANSHEN: Thank you so much DeShuna. This has been incredible inspiring educational. Support the platform. And yeah, we're so glad to have you on. 

00:42:52:07 - 00:42:54:23

DESHUNA: Thanks for having me. This has been really a great conversation. 

00:42:55:20 - 00:43:33:00

FANSHEN: Thank you so much for listening to Sista Brunch. We're the podcast that brings you the stories of black women and gender expansive people, breaking barriers and bringing joy to the entertainment and media industries. This is our fourth season of Sista Brunch. You can read the transcript of this show and listen to all of our previous episodes at Sista Brunch dot com. As always, thank you so much for your support and please remember to subscribe to the podcast. That's one way you can support us. You can leave a review. We always appreciate that. Can share it with your friends and family and you can also follow and interact with us on Instagram at Sista Brunch Podcast. 

00:43:33:02 - 00:44:03:29

FANSHEN: And you can always listen to Sista Brunch on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Sista Brunch is brought to you by TruJuLo Productions. Our senior producer is Sonata Lee Narcisse. Our producer is Brittany Turner. Our executive producers are Christabel Nsiah-Buadi and Anya Adams. Our associate producers are Farida Abdul-Wahab and Mimi Slater. We acknowledge that the land we record our podcast on is the original land of the Tongva and Chumash people. See you all next time. 

00:44:04:01 - 00:44:05:21

FANSHEN: Until then, take good care.