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Jessica Santana is a business and leadership coach for entrepreneurs and executives. She specializes in teaching founders, entrepreneurs and executives how to build strong businesses, careers and lives they love.
Behind The Work is the podcast show for ambitious executives and entrepreneurs looking to build businesses that scale and careers that leave an impact. Hosted by Jessica Santana, each episode features in-depth conversations with entrepreneurs, founders and executives who are building companies from the ground up and are succeeding in their career fields. Discover the real successes, honest failures, pivots, and the vision behind the most successful people reshaping industries.
Some episodes, we’ll sit down with some dope guests and hear about their journeys. Other times, it’ll just be us—breaking down the lessons, strategies, and real talk that I have learned as an entrepreneur and executive – It will be everything you need to keep pushing forward and you’ll always walk away with something tangible and practical.
This show will provide answers to questions like:
- What does the real journey from zero to success actually look like—beyond the highlight reel?
- How do I turn my business idea into a profitable, scalable company?
- How do successful founders navigate failure, pivots, and setbacks without giving up?
- What's the difference between entrepreneurs who scale to millions and those who stall?
- How do you secure funding, and what should you know before approaching investors?
- What does it actually take to build product-market fit?
- How do you build a high-performing team and company culture from the ground up?
- What blind spots do first-time entrepreneurs have, and how do you avoid them?
- How do you balance growth with profitability and sustainability?
- What's the real behind-the-scenes strategy that successful founders use?
- How do you stay motivated and resilient through the tough seasons of building?
- What's the path to building a company that can scale beyond you?
- How do you know when to double down on your vision versus pivot?
- What does leadership actually look like when you're building something from scratch?
- How do the most successful entrepreneurs think differently about risk, money, and opportunity?
I always tell people that there is a difference between being a founder and being a CEO. Yes. Let's talk about it.
Shawna Young:Yeah. Let's talk about that.
Jessica:Yes. For sure. At 24, I was a founder. Yes. Okay?
Jessica:At this big age, I'm a CEO. I'm a operator with a plan. Yeah. And framework and strategy. Back then, I had that but not to the extent in the level of rigor that I have it now.
Jessica:Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Behind the Work, the show for the ambitious person who is looking to level up their lives, their careers, and their businesses. I'm your host, Jessica Santana. And if this is your first time tuning in, I wanna say welcome to the show. So today, I'm really excited because I have one of my favorite people on the podcast, The one, the only, Shawna Young.
Jessica:So for those of you who don't know, Shawna is the CEO of Camelback Ventures. Very, very important organization to me. I'm gonna let her tell you a little bit about Camelback in just a minute. But I'm a board member of Camelback, and the amount of work that they do to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and founders in this country is just astounding. And I believe that today's conversation is gonna be a dynamic one.
Jessica:And so, Shawna. Yes. Thinking about the last two years, you came into the Camelback role, you took over an organization that was founder led.
Shawna Young:Yeah.
Jessica:I know this is not your first time doing this. It's your second time. But tell us what the last two years have looked like for you. And before even sharing light and shedding light on that, tell us what is Camelback for those who are just learning about the organization.
Shawna Young:Absolutely. Jessica, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Again, Shawna Young, CEO of Camelback Ventures. We give early stage capital to early stage entrepreneurs who often don't get early investment.
Shawna Young:So we're solving for the friends and family round for our communities. Been around ten years. Aaron Walker started in 2013, and then really the fellowship started in 2015. To date, we have supported 221 founders. You are in our first class, And we give capital now $50,000 in capital and community content connections.
Shawna Young:We know Aaron learned very early that just having a check was not enough, especially for our founders, that we had to have this community impact and connections to make it happen. And so for me, I have been a social entrepreneur since 2020 also because I moved from really being an operator, being a person who ran organizations at MIT and Duke and even Scratch Foundation, being a science teacher before that, and then learned though all those that work hadn't fully moved the needle for black and brown communities and women in terms of equity. And I felt like I had to build something. I wanted to be part of a movement. So I built Onyx Black Wealth Collective.
Shawna Young:And I understood that I self funded and supported with my co founders Mosaic. It is not easy. And so in doing my first founder transition at Scratch Foundation, I learned a lot about the importance of connecting with our team and understanding the culture they were currently in and how we can move together. It wasn't just a scratch, though. I would say when I was at Duke TIP as well as MIT, those were longstanding forty year old organizations that I was coming into this vibrant leader with all these ideas, but really not understanding how I can help move along with my team.
Shawna Young:And so when I came to Camelback, as much as people think I'm always outside or moving tons of ideas, I will say that I'm a little bit more systematic and slower paced than I have been when I typically go into organizations because I know that I cannot do the work on my own. That It takes the entire team, the board, and the community to make the change we want to make. And I have to pause enough to allow others to understand where we may go together. And I think also with a founder transition, it's so important to recognize and acknowledge the existing culture as you try to shift to where you're going. The thing for us at Camelback over the last two years is we also had our whole landscape and environment shift and change.
Shawna Young:We went from being able to boldly say who we are and what we do and who we serve out loud to figuring out how to rename things so people weren't concerned about our work while still doing the work. And so I think the other question is, why did I choose to do it again? Because founder transitions are not easy. I will say it was the mission and it was the people. So really getting to know the board and how committed they were to Camelback beyond Aaron, knowing that Aaron was ready to step away and be at best an advisor, and getting to know people like you and other founders who I could see the importance of the critical work.
Shawna Young:So that that did more than pull at my heartstrings. It made me want to be part of the Camelback family.
Jessica:Absolutely. And I don't think that it is a secret that there is a lot going on in our world right now. And so for those who are listening who are thinking about Camelback, can you share with the audience why Camelback needs to exist, not just in general, but in this specific moment in time?
Shawna Young:Yeah. And I think it aligns with why I decided to become the CEO. At this moment in time, it's a moment of inflection and innovation. If we invest right now and leaders who are in the communities that they're serving, they're gonna innovate in a way like no other. And if you're building right now, you have to be nimble.
Shawna Young:You have to think about every dollar you're spending because you don't know where the next one is going. So I think it's like the time to build more than ever. And even when you think about how our communities have become stronger in a time of distress, it happened then. These institutions that we now currently support, HBCUs and other organizations, Harlem Renaissance, it all happened under unfortunate duress. Many of those things happened.
Shawna Young:And so when others might say, let's pull back, let's pause, that's actually the opposite of what I believe we should be doing. I think it's important for us to be giving early stage capital and encouraging innovation, in particular for our communities, because the world is being built now. The future is being built right now. And we spent too much time being excluded from the capital stack that helps us build for the future that we believe our grandchildren should have. So it's not just about the energy that's in the air.
Shawna Young:It's like, how do we want to actually elevate? How do we want to ensure that more people have opportunities? And how do we want to ensure that it's an inclusive world, but actually the most innovative world possible? In doing a lot of talent development work, you recognize that when you don't invest in young people who are often marginalized and left behind, you actually are limiting the opportunities for our country. It's the opposite of what people think.
Shawna Young:It's called talent on the sidelines. And so when we don't give incredible entrepreneurs a chance to try, the chance to try, then that means we actually are hurting ourselves.
Jessica:Mhmm. Yeah. I'm so happy that you said that because I don't think that people realize that investing in entrepreneurs, investing in founders is placing a bet not just on the founder or their business. It's actually placing a bet on the future of our world Yes. Because the things that they may build may have such a big impact.
Jessica:And so one thing that as a board member at Camelback is really exciting me right now is the fact that the organization is increasing the amount of capital it's giving its fellows, and it's also going to be increasing the number of fellows that it serves. Tell me a little bit about the rationale that went into doing that and what you believe these increases are going to enable for the founders.
Shawna Young:Yeah, thank you for asking that question. What we were seeing when I came in in April 2024, two years ago, we were already seeing an increase in applications for our fellowship. And so going from two to 300 applications per cycle twice a year to 500 to 600, 800 to 900 or so, and keeping it selecting 12 fellows from that, it's almost negligible. And it also might counter what we wanna happen in the ecosystem, which is that founders feel like there's no opportunity for them. And so we wanted to test out how many fellows could we support, independent of how many applications.
Shawna Young:We know there are more applications, but is 12 the maximum number? So in the fall of twenty twenty twenty five, we did two tests. The top of the year, we had a cohort with 15 fellows. So we went from 12 to 15. And before that, Aaron had increased it from 10 to 12 in 2024 for both cycles.
Shawna Young:And then we went up to 20. So all that was a lot in one year. And we found that that 20 was a sweet spot of where we could accept more fellows, more incredible founders, but also support them. It requires more support. We have switched out how we actually operate our team.
Shawna Young:So we now have program partners. And we shifted our structure of our programs team from a lot of folk who were focused on implementing the fellowship itself to a smaller group that does that, and then another group who actually is supporting fellows along the long arc of being an entrepreneur. So it meant some restructuring. It also was a signal. It has not been great what's happening in the ecosystem, and I think you can answer to that in two ways, with your words, which is important, but also with your actions.
Shawna Young:So for me, it's about actions. I'm going to tell you more positive stories. I'm going to tell you about the incredible work of our stores. Founders. We're now doing site visits where we're going out on-site with our founders and sharing the incredible work that they're doing in their communities.
Shawna Young:At the same time, we increased the investment from 40,000 to 50,000. At the same time we increased and sustained how many founders we're supporting to 20. So in the last two years it went from 10 each cycle to 20 each cycle. So we doubled the size. It also means though that we have to have increased investment to be able to do that so we can sustain the work we're doing.
Shawna Young:But it's strategic because the message we want to send to the broader community is now is the time to invest.
Jessica:Absolutely. And one of the things you talked about earlier in the conversation was that we are both at the point of inflection at a point of inflection, but also at a point of innovation. So on the innovation side of this, we've seen artificial intelligence really change the landscape for how founders think and build and even the expectations that we have on them on to what they bring to the table. So can you share a little bit about how Camelback is thinking about artificial intelligence right now, not just for the organization, but maybe for the entrepreneurial community it serves?
Shawna Young:Yeah. Really good question. So we've been investing in entrepreneurs building with AI since 2018 at least. And then many of our founders after that started using the tools. And we think of AI as a tool.
Shawna Young:And we want to ensure that more founders use it to help them in terms of how they can be more efficient, but also that they're building so that it could become a more equitable tool So that our children are not being exposed to LMSs and other models that are actually going to give them exposure to things that are not great for them. And so it's important to me that more entrepreneurs of color and women are building an AI. And also how can it help them become more efficient operators? It doesn't mean you can't have checks and balances though, because as a person who's used the tool myself, many tools, there's a lot of hallucination there. And we want people to feel like as a CEO, they can tell the, you write that?
Shawna Young:It's important for people to use their time well spent in actually building relationships, connecting with people, building social capital, and then thinking about how AI can help them be more efficient in how they do their work and operate their organization. And I think for me, the other piece is that AI has more of our voice in it. That's so important.
Jessica:Yes. Absolutely. I agree. Like, as someone who is, like, deep in the world of AI right now with my own initiatives, I think a lot about the pace as at which it is going and also the good aspects of what AI brings. Yeah.
Jessica:Obviously, the bad ones is also outweighs certain pros that you think about. But, you know, one of the things I ponder for myself is, like, how can we use these tools to really move the needle for, you know, folks that have been left out of innovation to start participating in them? So one thing I'll I'll, you know, ask is, you know, Camelback on the topic of not leaving people out of innovation, you've all been doing this work now for ten years, over ten years now.
Shawna Young:Over ten years. Yeah.
Jessica:And when you think about the last ten years, how do you think it's gonna be informing the next ten years under your leadership?
Shawna Young:That's such a good question. Thank you for asking. Yeah. We started with solving for one specific problem. Founders not getting early capital, not having community, not having content.
Shawna Young:They need to be successful. And we did that with with a fellowship at a time when we could deploy that and do that with Fidelity. And many of our founders could go on and be successful very much like you, right? Now the environment is different and our founders need more sustainable support from us, even capital I would say. And that gray space, that white space we're taking up as an accelerator is wider.
Shawna Young:And so how do we now think about what it means to have multiple ways in which we support our founders? In some cases, if you were doing venture philanthropy, you'd call it portfolios. So we have our flagship fellowship. And then we're thinking about what happens after that. Is there a way for us to deploy some more capital and give tailored technical assistance to our founders when they need it most.
Shawna Young:So when you're coming in and you're just starting to build your venture, you may not be thinking about how you build your leadership team or what do you need when it comes to building out and hiring a chief development officer. And that matters. And often what I find is that our founders, when they do get enough funding to start to hire a more senior team, we try to hire one person to do all the things. And so really giving them advice around, if you can't do all the things, no one else can do all the things. You gotta pull that apart.
Shawna Young:And so when I think about the vision moving forward, it's how we cultivate a community of founders by giving them content and connections. And many of them will become into our fellowship program. And then also how do we support our founders when they're done with our program? So how are we more connected with our alumni and how do we help them become our next tranche of investors in our own founders and in Camelback?
Jessica:Absolutely. Shawna, you are an incredibly talented and smart person. You could be doing any kind of work in this world. Why do you think that you are dedicating your life right now to building a level playing field for social entrepreneurs to succeed?
Shawna Young:Wow. As you build your career, you think about often like you're going up this elevator and you keep going and going. And sometimes you're chasing after something that's really not fulfilling. Even when you're a social entrepreneur and you're anchored in your community. And so I would say I was on an upward trajectory and I had a few different things happen to me in leadership that helped me realize that that was not where I wanted to be in terms of the superficial things.
Shawna Young:How large the organization is, how much money you make, what's your title? Taking a break from that and doing something called life coaching with my mentor Paula Snee, she's incredible. She helped me realize that what is most important for me to be happy is to be working with people that I'm aligned with, values aligned with, and doing the work in our own community. All those other things will happen and come. And literally, as I was finishing up this life coaching with Paula, the Camelback opportunity came up and it was everything.
Shawna Young:It was just gave me joy reading the description and and meeting everyone here who was who was looking for the next CEO. My personal story of my parents being black entrepreneurs who started their gymnastics business in the 1980s. It reminded me all these things and all these connections. And I felt like I had something I could offer also. And it made me feel very happy to know that all the steps in my career could lead me to this moment.
Shawna Young:And the craziness, the hardness of what's happened in the last two years, even on a broader environmental kind of status, I would say I was ready, that we are ready for this, that Camelback needed to be present and accounted for, but actually be in front of the line and stand in its privilege to ensure that entrepreneurs know that we are here. And it's an honor, candidly, to be CEO of Camelback at this moment in time. So often you don't know why things happen the way they do, but I've learned to accept that they happen for a reason.
Jessica:Absolutely. And so as we wrap up the interview today, my last question for you is if the folks who were tuning in to today's episode were all people who could help Camelback get to its north star, which in my mind is giving every single person in this country who wants to build something from scratch that is meaningful and impactful for their communities. What would you want them to leave with after hearing you today?
Shawna Young:Yeah. I'll level up from Camelback. And I would say, I want you to be engaged. I want you to support early stage entrepreneurs. Of course, we talk about as leaders of organizations, nonprofits, it's great to have financial support.
Shawna Young:It's great to volunteer, but I think it's bigger than Camelback. I think this moment in time calls for everyone to do more and to also support and just give compliments and like, tell an entrepreneur who's building something, you know what, that's an incredible idea. Because often they may not be hearing that and they're in this echo chamber just trying to make something happen. So giving your time, giving your treasure, giving your advice now for entrepreneurs who are community based is more important than ever. This is an all hands on deck moment.
Shawna Young:Camelback cannot make the difference we want to do without everybody seeing that we are looking for opportunities, we are supporting social entrepreneurs, and whether they are a Camelback fellow or not, they can go and see multiple places where people are giving their time, where they're giving them their advice, where they're giving them Even if it's small checks, a check is better than no check, it's important to do that. And I think when we do that, Camelback mission is going to be realized. And I don't know if you knew, but you got your Alumni Leadership Award at Camelback Ventures at our Guardian Summit two years ago. It was my first one. Mhmm.
Shawna Young:And I just was like, who is this incredible person? You are the only award winner of all the awards. I was like, what is she doing? Your smile is infectious. Your energy is everything, your personal story is so inspiring.
Shawna Young:So thank you for making time to share with us today.
Jessica:Of course, of course.
Shawna Young:So let's get into it. Okay. First cohort, what was it that you saw, what was your vision, what were you solving for, what did you wanna innovate when you first started thinking about America On Tech? And then how did you see Camelback being part of that journey?
Jessica:It's so interesting because when I think about what we started in 2014, it's definitely not what we've built now looking at the last twelve years. Now when my cofounder and I started Brooklyn on Tech, because it wasn't always America on Tech, we were corporate tech consultants. We were the first people in our family to have a tech job. And I think going into that industry taught us a lot about what opportunity looks like, who gets to have it, and who doesn't get to have it. And him and I being from the communities that we're from and the communities that we represent, we started asking ourselves big questions around, well, why are we here, and we don't think we're any more special than any of the students or families or talent in the communities that we're from, and why are they not here with us?
Jessica:And so we went a lot deeper into trying to answer that question. And then one day we got together at a coffee shop, and we were like, maybe what we need to do is stop trying to get the answer to that question and become the solution to getting more people that look like us into technology spaces. And so we crafted this master plan on coffee shop napkins. We started with 20 students in Brooklyn. And during that pilot, there was never an intention to grow a national organization.
Jessica:There was never an intention to scale. I believe that what we wanted to do was just create opportunity. And when Camelback came our way, this was the first time someone ever called me a social entrepreneur. Because what I thought I was doing at the time really was just creating opportunities for students in the community that I'm from with my best friend. And so in terms of what my vision was and what problem I wanted to solve was making sure that, one, we weren't leaving people behind in the spaces of innovation, and my vision was just to get students into tech.
Jessica:As I've gone deeper into this work and really understanding the systems that prohibit young people from entering this industry, I realized that so much of what actually I was trying to solve for was economic freedom. But at that time, I didn't have the language to describe it in that way. And I believe that Camelback saw something in me in that moment that I didn't even see for myself. I'm a first generation college graduate, first generation to be in corporate America and also a first generation entrepreneur. And so all of these titles and different kind of pathways and identities weren't ones that people were speaking life into me to do.
Jessica:And so when Camelback was like, I like what you're doing. Apply to this program. And then ultimately let me in it. I was just like, okay, this is a new pathway, a new way of thinking about my life that no one at that time ever said that I should think about my life in an entrepreneurial builder, founder kind of way.
Shawna Young:Every time I hear your story, I learn something new about you. And I'm so excited. I know your cofounder Evan also very well. The energy you all bring to this work is infectious. When when Aaron tapped you on the shoulder and said, you all should be part of you should be part of our first cohort, what did he get right in what he was building and the experience that you got when you were the first cohort in Camelback?
Jessica:That's such a good question. You know, I think that looking back at that time, I believe what Aaron was trying to accomplish was pretty phenomenal during the timeframe that Camelback 15 when you
Shawna Young:became a fellow. Yep.
Jessica:Yeah. This was during a time where not a lot of people were talking about the importance of social entrepreneurs that were proximate. Mhmm. No one was really, like, adding fuel to the fire to the conversation around, like, investing in leaders of color. And to see him be in these spaces and navigate those spaces while also still trying to build his own organization, but at the same time simultaneously advocating for us was pretty incredible.
Jessica:And I think what it did for me was embolden my own action and embolden my own leadership and vision to ask myself, well, what am I gonna do to make sure that I stand on the things that I believe in and continue the work of American on Tech regardless of how hard it is. And so the things that I think he got right was that one, he was building a solution that I personally believe was first to market. I believe that he was doing it with the lens of coaching capital and connections. I know we've added more Zs since then, but at that time, that is what I needed. I needed coaching and I got a coach.
Jessica:I needed capital and I got capital. And I needed connections and I got that. So many of the Cohort one fellows are still people that I lean on today. Like Geralyn from Knowledge House, she is one of my really great friends in this space. I'm still in touch with Logan Cohen, who was the founder of Kudzu.
Jessica:It's really incredible to see founders like Ami and what she's been able to build with Braven and have that be such a model for excellence on how I should continue to think about building my own venture. And so those three things, I believe, are the things that he got right from a programmatic perspective. And I also just believe the ways in which he led during that time really spoke to my own, fears that it would be okay regardless of of how hard the work ahead of me was going to be because I didn't actually know how hard it was gonna be at that time. I came into the space very bright eyed, very big eyed, and I quickly learned that there were lots of things about social entrepreneurship that were gonna be really hard.
Shawna Young:Such a great answer. And when you think about how the landscape has changed, how it's it's not as easy to start your own venture, We have so many different tools and technologies that can be helpful with it. Do you see some difference in what do entrepreneurs need to know what to do now, social entrepreneurs, that they did not maybe have to do or they have to be stronger at maybe they had to be stronger at when you were starting out, but maybe not as much now. Just what is that contrasting components? What are they?
Jessica:Absolutely. So I believe that when I started in this space, I was always looking for folks who looked like me to give me permission to believe that I believed in these spaces. As time has passed, it is incredible that now I can enter rooms and see people that look like me. Right? So from a role modeling standpoint, I believe that that has changed significantly for entrepreneurs.
Jessica:Like you are no longer, like, needing to become the thing that you're looking for. They are actual models of success and actual leaders that look like you that have been in this industry for a while, many of which lend their time and their talent and their treasures and their expertise to help other founders come up. That didn't really exist during that time. I think the other piece of the evolution for me that I can think about is the introduction of artificial intelligence has absolutely democratized how products and services are built. There was a time where capital was the name of the game.
Jessica:Like capital would really constrain someone's idea. It would really not be, like it would be the difference between making it and not making it. And what we're realizing now is that capital is really important still, but it's not the only thing that founders need. And things like artificial intelligence tools are really making it easier to bring products to life much more easier than it was back then. And I think the other thing I can think about is that there is somewhat of a more conscious ecosystem about why proximate entrepreneurs have to be invested in.
Jessica:Not everyone gets it still, but there are people in this space that do get it, and I believe that Camelback played a really important role in shaping the narrative about why we need to be investing in women and people of color at the same rates that we do their peers. And so those are the three things that I've seen evolve. I still think there's tremendous progress we need to make to make the level playing field more equitable for founders and entrepreneurs, especially those that come from marginalized backgrounds. But I believe that what we see today is a direct reflection of the contributions of Camelback and so many others that have been doing this work for a long time, that have been signaling to the sector that we're here and we're not going anywhere.
Shawna Young:Thank you for that answer. And as you think about, if we get a little more tactical, if you think about the table stakes that an entrepreneur is starting out now, they have an idea, they've crafted it, they almost have an MVP. What are the things that they need to be thinking about as they're building their venture in 2026?
Jessica:Oh, that's good. The first thing I'll say is one, you need to figure out how to unlock the right advisory. I believe that building alone, especially for those that are solo founders, it is probably one of the worst things you can do because you're in an echo chamber of your own thoughts and you need people to help refine your ideas. So the easier and quicker that you build your board, whether it's a governing board or an advising board of some sort, like you need that external guidance to make sure that you're building products that actually solve the problem that you are intending to solve. I believe the other thing that founders need is to really refine their value propositions.
Jessica:I believe that founders a lot of times are building things based on what they think the market needs versus what the market actually needs. And so the the more you can do customer discovery and research and, interviews with your potential stakeholders, I think the better you get to a product market fit. And then the third thing I believe that you need is visibility. And what I mean by that is I know that in the age of social media, a lot of people still downplay these tools. But if you are not excited about what you're building, there is a world where no one else is gonna be excited.
Jessica:And I've seen that some of my biggest moments came from being able to be visible. So storytelling and narrative change also has to be a part of your strategy because sometimes a problem that you're trying to solve is not even an immediate problem for other people that are not proximate to it, and you need to create the conditions around your product and what you're trying to bring to life to get people to see, oh, okay, maybe what this person is trying to solve is a problem. How can I back them? How can I support them? Those are the three things I would say, tactically, you should do.
Jessica:Obviously, more tactically is like have a comps plan, invest in social, invest in marketing. But at the high level, those are the three things I would be doing if I was gonna be launching something new.
Shawna Young:Yeah. I appreciate that. I remember when I was at MIT, I was there for eight years running the office of engineer outreach programs called MITES Now, and I had my head down. I was doing the hard work. It was my first experience as executive director.
Shawna Young:And I kept thinking the harder I work, people are gonna recognize me. Obama's gonna tap me on the shoulder and take me to the White House to be part of the National Science Fair. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Because I was no one knew I was there.
Shawna Young:You know what mean? So I think right now it's important to tell the stories and be okay even as a private person, I'm pretty private, being on social media, sharing more of my personal life, not just I'm at this conference, but I've even started saying, it was a hard week. I went to yoga, I did this, I did these things because I have to think about how to center myself in the midst of this and tell the real story of what it means to be a founder, I think is also important. I think it's important to not just share the successes and also how long the journey is. I think it's at least ten years and you're on the other side of the ten year journey.
Shawna Young:Who is a Jessica now that wasn't necessarily the same when you started in 2014?
Jessica:That's such a good question. I started AOT when I was really young. I was 24 at the time. I was very fearless. I'm still fearless, but I think there was also a level of naivete at the time.
Jessica:I think this generation talks about it as being dulu. I was extremely dulu at 24 years old. There was nothing to me that was impossible, anything could be achieved, and I still have those qualities in me now, but now I feel like I have better strategy and framework and process. I think back then, I really just wanted good things to happen and I didn't wanna come up against any kind of opposition. I thought that it was ridiculous that these systems existed, and I still think it is ridiculous that systems of oppression exist in this society.
Jessica:I make sense. But I still have like a naivete about me that I operate with where I'm like, I believe that any and everything is possible But now I just believe that I am more strategic than I was as a founder at 24. I always tell people that there is a difference between being a founder and being a CEO. Yes. Let's talk about it.
Shawna Young:Yeah. Let's talk about that.
Jessica:Yes, for sure. At 24, I was a founder. Yes. Okay? At this big age, I'm a CEO.
Jessica:I'm a operator with a plan. Yeah. And framework and strategy. Back then, I had that but not to the extent in the level of rigor that I have it now. Yeah.
Jessica:And I've also learned the importance of bringing people along with me. Yes. You know, you cannot build an institution or an organization or a company alone. Yeah. The amount of time that you spend with your team, the amount of time you spend with talent on developing talent on your team is really important.
Jessica:I believe that I didn't get that right always in the beginning. I was trying to just build and figure it out. And I was like, I need you to come ready made. I don't have time. But now I'm realizing I do have the time and I think the best work that we do on this earth is the work that you do with humans.
Jessica:And I believe that beyond the legacy that I wanna leave with students and families in my programs is that I wanna say that I built an organization and I built a team that should they ever leave AOT, they'll go to another organization, they'll get they'll be able to take the skill set that we refined and be able to go make impact somewhere else as well.
Shawna Young:It's incredible. Yeah. It resonates so much because at the end of the day, people remember relationships and
Jessica:you cared about them.
Shawna Young:I remember one of my teammates telling me because I could be results oriented sometimes all the time. And she's like, Shawna, people show up for you because they know you care. And the work's gonna get done candidly. It may not get done like the exact time or way and structure you want it, but it's going to get done. But your team knowing you care matters.
Shawna Young:And you brought up this piece around moving from being a CEO, from a founder to a CEO, which is an operator. I talk about this a lot when I'm sharing because often for folks who are founders, you're a self proclaimed CEO, right? And how you really understand what it takes to run an organization, to build the operations, and to keep people behind you, even beyond raising the money if it's a nonprofit, is so important. So thank you for sharing that important advice. I wanna also talk a little bit as we start to wrap up.
Shawna Young:You're now part of our board. Yes. Welcome. Thank To the Camelback even board family. Absolutely.
Shawna Young:I would love to know why did you say yes and what do you hope to do and help us steward as a member of our board?
Jessica:Thank you for asking that. So when my organization turned ten years old, I was at a point of inflection where I was like, wow, Jess, like over the last decade, you really left it all on the table and the wildest dreams that you've had for American I was also asking myself, how are you gonna meet this moment? Because at the AOT turned 10 in 2024, and that was also a very pivotal time in our country. Mhmm. And even though there's so much work to do at America on Tech, I really felt a big calling from God to ask myself how I was going to be a steward for other things that I was passionate about.
Jessica:And one of the biggest things I always tell people is that America On Tech became what it became because there were certain things that happened for me as a founder that I realized were not happening for other people. And I didn't think it was, again, one of those moments where I was like, I did not think I was any more qualified than any other founder I've ever met. I just honestly think that there were pieces of access that I got that I was really, really, really lucky to get that is not scaling to everyone else. And when I think about the first investment that I got from Camelback Ventures, which is what really kicked us off, you know, full time in 2015, I was like, this is the organization I wanna spend my time with because at AOT, I can continue to grow serving students and families. But if I could actually spend my time also helping an organization help their organizations create impact, then my impact actually multiplies.
Jessica:Like how can I codify my learnings, my thinking, my thoughts, my methodologies, and actually hand it and be a part of the process to refine how we define leadership in this country, how do we invest in leaders in this country, and how do we democratize access for them to have the tools and the resources to really build things from scratch that they are only uniquely able to build from scratch because of where they're what they represent, and who they are? And I thought to myself, Camelback is the organization I wanna be spending my extra time with because I know how pivotal it was for me to have this resource, and I can imagine that if Camelback continues to grow and I can help be a part of that journey, that there are gonna be more Jessica's and there are gonna be more Evans and Amis and Gerilyn's. And if that could be also be part of my legacy outside of the work that I do at ALT, then I think I'm gonna be in my rocking chair at 70 years old. Like, yeah, I met the moment. I did that.
Jessica:And I did that.
Shawna Young:I still remember when you came up to me and you were like, Shawna, this is what I wanna do. And it stuck with me the entire time. I want you know, you were the top of my list when it came to who we wanted to be on the board. And I'm excited about the energy that you're gonna bring. You also remind me of the importance of founders becoming not just CEOs, but becoming investors.
Shawna Young:And so as we think about our next grouping of people who will be philanthropists, who will invest in our founders, it really is the current founders, because we know institutions will only do so much. So I want to, as we round out this conversation, get your thoughts on what does that transition look like to move from really running your own organization to think about being a vehicle that will fund the next generation, not just through your programming but as an individual, either angel investor, member of a board. Just talk a little bit about this investor transition that happens with founders often.
Jessica:Absolutely. I'm so happy you mentioned that. I've actually in 2024, again, during that moment of inflection, I became part of the Goody Nation Angel Investor Fellowship. And I was like, I need to understand. Like, I get investment from a philanthropic standpoint.
Jessica:I don't know how it totally works yet from, like, a for profit standpoint. Like, let me understand the ways in which capital moves for for profit startups. And I did that fellowship, and it introduced me to another way in which capital moved. And also at that time, had already been I had already met the threshold for being an accredited investor. And I was just like, it's time for me to start doing this.
Jessica:And so that transition for me is about power. Mhmm. It's about resource mobilization, and it's about betting on people the ways in which people bet on me. Yeah. And so I have actually been accepting deal flow to myself.
Jessica:I haven't made any investments yet, but if you're watching this and you wanna pitch me, please do. And my hope is that with the blessings that have been bestowed upon my life, that I can continue to be a blessing to other people and be a part of their journeys to building cool things that solve really big problems in our society. The transition, I will obviously say it's a paradigm shift. You know, you go from raising capital to deploying it, and you start to realize that maybe the set of questions that I'm always getting as a founder, Now I'm asking the founders these questions and it's because I hold the dollars. So even on a ego check, right?
Jessica:I gotta make sure that I'm not perpetuating the same behaviors that I don't like done to me, but it's been a great learning opportunity. And I believe that every founder who makes the transition from being a founder to being a CEO, to then eventually being an investor should really think about how their experiences building something can inform their own investment thesis, when they are working with startups to figure out how they're gonna deploy their own capital.
Shawna Young:I am so excited for you. Congratulations on that Thank you. You're gonna pick some great winners we know. And even if they don't give you billions, you supported someone. So thank you for doing that.
Shawna Young:Jessica, we're excited. You're gonna be at Guardian Summit this summer. Now you're part of the board. Just wanna get a quick sort of closure and shout out for those of you who are watching. Please join us this summer.
Shawna Young:Guardian Summit, New Orleans. It's going to be several conversations. Jessica will be in the building. And it's so important for us to remember how you start and who believes in you. And at Camelback, we talk about first checks a lot.
Shawna Young:Who gives you that first check? Who Who believes in the idea that you have? And even if it doesn't work, you can do it again. So we wanna thank you for your time. Thank you for being an extreme example of what it means to invest back in our community.
Jessica:Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here again. Alright, everyone. You heard it here.
Jessica:First, make sure that you become the person that you are waiting for. Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Behind the Work. If you like this episode, make sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to our YouTube, and follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We look forward to seeing you next week.