January 27, 2025 • 28 mins
BIN news anchor Esther Dillard speaks with Isaac Hayes III, founder of Fanbase, a social media platform empowering Black creators with more financial opportunities to build generational wealth. She also interviews Michael Wynn, a Black educator, who shares valuable tips on how to afford college without relying solely on traditional student loans.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Coming up on this edition of Leading While Black.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The younger people are looking for places that they can
have all the functionality in one space instead of having
to go to a blue sky, a YouTube, a Snapchat, Instagram,
you know, and move around.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I have a conversation with Isaac case the Third, a
leader in the field of social media, and how his
company is helping to build generational wealth in the Black community.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And then of students attending HBCUs are financing their education.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
With student loans.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Educator and author Michael Wynn offers some tips on getting
accepted to an HBCU and how to pay for it
without busting your budgets.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
From the private sector to public life, these are the
people making a difference in the Black community.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
They are leading wild.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
Black on the Black Information Network.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Welcome to Leading While Black, our monthly series on the
Black Information Network where we talk with black leaders from
the public and private sector in the fields of entertainment, politics, business, sports,
and more. I'm Esther Dillard, wishing everyone a great Sunday
and happy New Year. Today I'm first joined by a
very special guest, Isaac Hayesi, the son of music icon
(01:15):
Isaac Hayes, music producer, Voice actor and also the creator
of fan Base. It's an online application similar to Twitter
or x but still extremely unique. I really thought it
was quite interesting after looking online about, you know, especially
in current events, talking about reports of thousands of people
leaving X formerly known as Twitter and then moving to
(01:37):
blue Sky. That's a fairly new platform. But really no
price has been about black owned platforms like Spill or
your platform, fan Base, And I just wonder, why, why
do you think that Spill and you aren't getting any
love from the mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think primarily the large user base that is
leaving X are probably the white community that are very
familiar with the platform like blue Sky. Blue Sky was
actually funded by Jack Dorsey, one of the founder of Twitter,
so he was part of that movement of it, and
Blue Sky's been around, I think since twenty twenty one,
(02:15):
so I think the familiarity of what it's very very
familiar for Twitter. So if you're looking for something that
is exactly like Twitter, I think Blue Sky is probably
what is the most familiar looking platform that people see.
Spill is very similar to the functionality of microblogging, which
is good. And then there's US, which we have a
whole bunch of different features. So I think that's the
(02:37):
reason why. But you know, I think that's the only
reason why. But I think there's still an opportunity for
people to find out about fan Base and spill and that's.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Why we're here. I hope that you could tell me
what is different about fan Base than perhaps the other
platforms like Blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, fan Base has six content formats. The format is
just a way that you post content. Posting is a formmat,
stories is a format, live is a format, audio chat
is a format. Long form video like YouTube is a format,
and then short form video of like TikTok or reels
is a format. And fan Base has all six of
(03:14):
those in one app together. And I think future generations
and younger people are looking for places that they can
have all the functionality in one space instead of having
to go to a Blue Sky, a YouTube, a Snapchat, Instagram,
you know, and move around. And so I wanted to
build something with fan Base regards that. I think it's
something future facing and really enticing with people that want
(03:38):
the everything app as we probably call it in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, you mentioned in an interview that you did a
few days ago, and I thought it was really quite
interesting how you kind of put into into context like
that social media is kind of fifty percent technology and
fifty percent psychology, and you kind of put it where
black folks really have a psychology when it comes to
(04:04):
why they do things on social media. Why did you
say that, I guess, would you explain what you said first,
and then why did.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
You say that?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I said that the black community is addicted to disrespect,
And I think that we've always been taught as the
black community to fight to be in spaces where we
needed to be included. And I think in the past,
I mean in the Civil rights era, it was absolutely necessary.
I think in corporate American certain spaces it's absolutely necessary.
(04:32):
But we're moving into a space now that the infrastructure
is no longer well, the most valuable infrastructure of the
planet is no longer brick and mortar. It's not physical,
it's virtual. Space is like technology. So therefore, the black
community or any community itself can build a product, an
apparatus that can contain its culture and then own it
(04:53):
and then scale it without having to have construction workers
or permits or all these other things that we need.
And so we're so used to a fighting to be
included in spaces where we literally have the capital, the community,
and the population to actually build our own especially in
places like social media where people actually really thrive off
(05:15):
of black culture, which really powers social media. And so
the psychology of it is even no matter what race
you are, there's a huge, huge, huge amount of people
that are really addicted to the dopamine and the attention
that you get from having views. And I run it
to build fan base the same way. That doesn't limit
the amount of views that you get on a post
(05:36):
like you do on Instagram, but actually it's unlimited because
the people that follow you see your content, but also
anybody can see your content through suggestions and stuff like that.
And so once we break that habit of saying wow,
like the psychology of me wanting views and that my
content actually has value, and I can actually get more
views and scale harder, scale further, scale larger than I
(05:59):
think people wunderstand what fan base offers.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I loved how you explained in one of your interviews
that people don't understand sometimes that they can have a
whole bunch of followers, but really it doesn't convert into
dollars and cents, and how fan base kind of changes
that game. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, traditional platforms are built off advertising, so that means
it gives you. The platforms the majority of the revenue
that they make come from advertisements, and so to do that,
they actually have to compete with the user. Because if
you have a million followers, right, why would I let
you reach a million people for free when I'm about
(06:43):
to charge Colgate to reach a million people with an ad.
That doesn't make sense as a business model. So for
that very reason, they have to limit your visibility so
that Colcate doesn't walk to you and say, well, look
they're charging me all this money over here to reach
a million people. But you can reach a million people,
so let me just give you this money and you
run the ad on your page. And so for that
(07:07):
very reason, platforms suppressure content, so they force people to
force the corporation to spend money with them buying ads
and not with you as the creator. And fan base
differs from that because we don't suppress content. We're not
ad based platform. We're a revshare platform, meaning that you
can make money passively by people just tipping your posts,
tipping your stories, tipping your live tipping your audio rooms,
(07:29):
tipping your long form content, top being your short form content.
And on top of that, you can have an additional layer,
which are subscribers, where people can put content behind paywalls
and people can subscribe to that content. Which is really
the future of where social media is going. And the
creator economy, which I no longer refer to either or
as that name. I call it the social economy where
(07:50):
every action that you do on social media has a
value that someone can pay you for or tip you for,
or reward you for, or you can charge yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wow. Wow, different thought mindset, different complete mindset, and how
things are I just wonder if for somebody who may
not have loaned the story of fan Base, how did
you come to start this? What prompted you to get
this whole idea?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
A few things to make a long story shirt. I
understood that when you pull back and get the macro
fifty thousand foot view of social media. Black culture power
social media. It's powered by the music, the lingo, the trends,
the fashion, the humor, all of these things that we bring,
(08:40):
but we don't actually own the infrastructures. So there's this
disproportionate exploitive relationship between black culture and social media, and
so I wanted to build something that not only anybody,
no matter what race you are, could monetize from day one,
but then the opportunity to own the platform and then
gale it to something that we have equity. And so
(09:02):
if you're not on the cap table of Instagram or
the cap table of TikTok, or the cap table of
x or Snapchat, all the energy that you put into
these platforms, especially the Black community, is going in the
pockets of a small group of people who are very,
very wealthy, who take that wealth and hand that wealth
down to their families and they create generational wealth for
(09:22):
their kids and grandkids and great grandkids. And as I
said before, we're in a virtual infrastructure era. We don't
need brick and mortar. We don't have to build restaurants
or own football teams or build anything. Right, we can
build virtual spaces that can hold billions of people that
we can own and still make one hundred times the
(09:45):
money that you would with something that's brick and mortar.
So that's that's the reason why I came up with
fan Base. It's just black culture power social media, and
we need to own an infrastructure that houses that culture
and make money off of that.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know, it's funny, but when I listen to someone
like yourself who's been in the game a long time,
and I see the young folks who are really into
social media and they're on every platform and they're doing
excellent and they understand the game. For those who are,
you know, maybe older folks over fifty crowd me who
(10:21):
have their their starting their business women that are, you know,
trying to get out of corporate America, trying to change things,
what would you say to them that maybe they don't
have a huge following, why would fan base be something
that they would want to try.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, let's do some math, all right, So the average
American salary is about forty seven thousand dollars fifty thousand
dollars a year. What the average person is making. If
you decided to create content and charge people for your content,
and let's say you charged four ninety nine a month
and fan base is a it's a fifty to fifty split.
(10:56):
Apple and Google take thirty percent, We take twenty and
give fifty to the user, which is the exact exact
same as Twitch which is the exact same as YouTube creators.
It's the same thing. But all you need is five
thousand people paying you two dollars and fifty cents a month,
and that's twelve thousand, five hundred dollars a month. That's
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and that's
more than ninety six percent of Americans make every year.
(11:17):
Out of the billions of people on the planet. All
you need is five thousand people around the planet to
subscribe to you. And so it's not about having, you know,
hundreds of thousands of subscribers like Casannat. Small groups of
people can still give the ability to make income or
a second a second form of income that can free
up your time to pursue other avenues. So instead of
(11:38):
driving Uber or Lyft, you can now become a content creator.
So now it doesn't require you to physically always be
in a car. Now you can put content behind the
paywall and still make the same amount of money, if
not even more, and freeze you up physically to do
other things that you want to do. I think content
creation and the social economy is going to be the
gig economy of the future.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Awesome So where does a person go if they want
more information about fan base, how to get started, how
to do this? Where did they go?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You didn't ask me the most important question, what how
did I raise the.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Money to do this?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So there's this thing called equity crowdfunding, which is basically
a provision that was signed in the law by Barack
Obama back in twenty twelve and really became active around
twenty fifteen. And so what that did is it wiped
out this thing called the accredited industrial rule, right, and
that rule basically is rich people are the only people
that can invest in private companies. That's a crazy rule. Yeah,
(12:39):
but it's like you got to have a million dollars
you know, of assets minus your house, or make two
hundred thousand dollars a year for two consecutive years. And
that's and that's been since nineteen thirty three. And so
that's crap because that means the Apple, the IBM, the Microsoft,
the Google of the world were all founded by already
rich people. So now we're moving into this era where
because of this this this Jobs Act that Barack Obama created,
(13:02):
anybody regardless of your networth or annual income can invest
in a private company. So now that opened up the
world for people to raise capital, not from angel investors
in vcs and not from banks, but from your community.
And so who makes a social media the community? So
who better than to give the opportunity to actually own
the platform in the community. So I launched a round
(13:24):
on this platform called start Engine. I had to apply.
I've done three rounds, actually four now, but the three
previous rounds we raised about ten million dollars. We raised
ten million dollars in three previous rounds of recif crowdfunding,
and these are small entry level investments. The minimum to
invest in fan Base right now, it's three hundred and
ninety nine dollars. That gets you sixty shares of stock
and fan Base at six sixty five a share. But
(13:46):
you're sitting on a cap table of a company that's
currently valued at one hundred and sixty million dollars. Mind you,
these titans of social media are worth two hundred billion,
one point five trillion, three hundred billion. So even if
fan Base gets to a ten billion dollar company or
one hundred billion dollar company, that's an enormous amount of
return that people would never ever see. You know, traditionally
(14:07):
in the in the retail stock market, you're actually owning
an asset, and then it's an asset that you can control.
So I tell everybody invest in fan Base, download the app,
but more importantly invest because now you see the way
that crypto is going crazy. Right now, it's just the
value of things that rise. Or even with Blue Sky,
and this is a great example, Blue Scott probably got
(14:28):
about maybe ten million users in the last two or
three weeks, right That means the value of that company's
probably gone to treat the four billion dollars in a
matter of weeks, just because large amounts of people move
to the platform, that platform becomes popular. Vcs notice that
growth and say we want to help you scale this growth.
How much money do you need? And so you can
(14:49):
do that on fan Base. And fan Base has had
some spikes as well, but nothing like Blue Skott. But
we will and when that does, fan Base will no
longer be worth one hundred and sixty million, it'll be
worth one point six billion, maybe or three billion. And
now you're an investor in a company that does that,
that's grown like that. So I tell everybody go to
start Engine, dot com, slash fan base to invest the
(15:09):
minimum to invest three hundred and ninety nine dollars, but
sit on the cap table. We have to start owning
these infrastructures that we innovate, especially black culture.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's so great to hear from someone who is so
passionate about what they want to do and in helping
the black community. Isaac Case the third, thank you for
joining us on the BIM.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
When we come back, we'll talk about HBCUs getting accepted
and how to pay for it.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
The Black Information Network and six time Emmy nominated news
anchor Vanessa Tyler, Welcome you to black.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Land, a podcast about the ground on which the Black
community stands right now.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
From stories about salvation and loss, I love the person
who had an a HRV diagnosis, the dreams achieved or
yet unfulfilled from people who have made it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I sat down with a derapist and I began my.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Journey to those left behind. Listen to black Land on
the iHeartRadio app or.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to the program
Leading While Black. I'm your host, Ester Dillard. We're speaking
with Michael Wynn. He is an educator that's been around
for about thirty years and the author of around twenty
seven books, including a series that we're going to talk
about today. It's all about HBCUs, how you should research
(16:26):
as far as finding one scholarships where you can apply
and help with financial assistance. Welcome Michael Winn to the
bi in.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Thank you, Thank you for having me. I'm looking I'm
ready for this conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I'm enjoying it because I looked at what it really
attracted me to you was I read an article in
Black Enterprise where they wrote, I'll read it Win helps
students understand how demo developing strategies for matching two to
three scholarships, and then it went on to say that
that this is all to help all they need to
(17:04):
increase on time graduation and receive a debt free college education.
And I was thinking, any parent who reads that sentence
or two is going to say, oh, I got to
get these books. So I need to talk to this
man about his books and how you help people get
into HBCUs and especially get the financial help that they need.
(17:25):
I have the four that arrived yesterday, and so I
didn't get through all of them because it's quite a few.
Please tell me you know what are what are these
books series about? And who is it for?
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Worm?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Okay, I've been doing this work, as you mentioned, over
thirty years, and we've been working with schools and school
districts and hands on with parents. All of my work
is strategy focused and has driven my data. So when
we began to have the conversation about HBCUs, we need
to begin with the data. The data is not good
(18:02):
from a financial perspective, but there's a reason. So first
let me talk about the data and then why I
wrote these books. Eighty percent of students attending HBCUs or
financing their education with student loans. The graduation rates for
black women is forty four percent over six years. The
(18:23):
graduation rate for black men men is thirty four percent
over six years. Now, the question becomes, if you leave
school without a degree and a mountain of debt, you
still have to pay off that debt even without a degree.
The bigger question that any parent ship raise is well,
wait a minute, why are so many students who attending
HBCUs doing so by financing their education on student loans.
(18:48):
I thought that there were scholarships everywhere everywhere. Look, there's
a scholarship book that says scholarship money is falling out
of the sky.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I got to do it. Oh yeah, he's out and
grab it. The problem is strategy.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Many parents and students are not engaged in any college
planning strategy whatsoever. They go through high school, they then
apply to fifty or more schools, they get the acceptance letters,
they post all of it on Facebook, they talk about
all the scholarship money they will award it.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
However, that was in the details.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
You can't spend scholarship money from one school to another school.
So even if you awarded a million dollars in scholarship
money from fifty different schools, it only matters how much
money you got from the school you're actually going to attend,
and then your scholarship strategy has to fill that financial
aid gap. However, what students do is every year after
(19:42):
they get accepted to college, they say, I need scholarships. No,
you needed scholarships back in elementary school when you know
you wanted to go to college. So then what should
have happened from elementary school all the way through high
school is positioning yourself strategically for the scholarship that you
would most likely qualify for. Now when it comes to HBCUs,
(20:05):
it's some of them are transparent. And I'll give you
an example. I work with a student from Florida, and
he would have gotten the Bright Futures in Florida. He
was led to believe it paid for everything, but it doesn't.
It only pays for tuition and then you're on the
for everything else. But he had a thirty two on
the ACT and he had over four point oh GPA,
(20:27):
and so I focused him on Tuskegee and Xavier because
he could qualify for a full scholarship in both schools.
He and his parents had a road trip to New
Orleans to visit Xavier and the Alabama to visit Tuskegee.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And he had one more thing.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
He was a baseball player, but he was not a
recruited athlete, so he wanted to attend college to become
a mechanical engineer and play baseball because he loved baseball.
He's at Tuskegee in a full scholarship, a walk on
to the baseball team, number twenty two, Ryan Moore, and
he is doing fine. But that was a strategy. The
(21:05):
other thing is that oftentimes students when they're I mean
right now, HBCUs receiving a record number of applications. But
students oftentimes are applying to the brand names. Everybody knows
and t more about spell So they're not applying to
college based upon financial need. They're applying to college based
(21:25):
upon brand name. So I got another story for you.
Worked with another student from Florida. He had an opportunity
for a full scholarship at Clafland University, but he turned
it down because he wanted the brand North Carolina and
T where he went without any scholarship money. At the
end of a year, his GPA had fallen to one
(21:45):
point nine. He had already taken out almost thirty thousand
dollars in student loans, and he was despondent and depressed.
We had lost track of him, and my wife had
She checks in with our students regularly, so she just
on this particular day, it sounded like he was standing
on a bridge ready to jump.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
When he asked my wife's call, and she said, what's
going on?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Well, missus, when I should have gone to Claflin, I
left A and T. It didn't work out for me.
I don't know what I'm going to do, she said,
don't worry.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Let me make some calls.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
So now he's on his way to Claflin. They are
going to accept him, give him a chance to get
a fresh start, and he will still have an opportunity
to earn his way into the Honors college. So those
are just two very different stories, but the common thread
is matching to the right school because that's where the
(22:41):
majority of scholarship money will come from, and then supplementing
that with two to three additional scholarships. If you have
any gap, Now that's only the I'm sorry you were
about to ask you a question.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I love what I do, so yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I think that you have. Honestly, I think most parents,
when they probably listened to you and listened to this
conversation which they had you as on backup dial, you
could just call you up and say, hey, help me
out here, because having that guide in many ways is
something that I don't think a lot of parents have.
(23:18):
Do you find that parents feel like when they do
connect with you that where were you?
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Absolutely? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
We started our foundation back in two thousand and six
and they grew out of my wife and I serving
as education ministry leaders at our church where we had
a lot of national publicity on a number of scholarships.
It's students at our church or receiving and so we
started our foundation to really spread that information to schools
(23:47):
and school districts. We wound up with some contracts with
school districts and we were working hands on with students
and that was great.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
The problem is there.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Are so many school districts that don't provide any of
this information.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
I mean, they don't even put my books on a bookshelf.
That's the easiest thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
If you're not going to bring in a consultant, at
least put the books on a bookshelf so that students
can at least begin reading and learning about what they
need to do. So this year we have started attending
HBCU college fairs so that we could connect directly with
parents and students.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
The problem for many students is that they're.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Only attending a college fair as a high school senior.
Really you're college planning at the It should in earnest
begin by sixth grade and the latest it should begin
by ninth grade because you have that seven year gap
to really develop the elements of your profile that on
(24:45):
line with your gifts and your talents.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
For those who are just joining us. I'm mister Dillard,
and I'm speaking with Michael Wynn, the author of an
HBCU book series that you got to get a hold of,
especially if you're a parent that does thinking about sending
your child to college. It directs people, giving them a
direct layout of how to research, where to go for scholarships,
and having kind of a plan in order to get
(25:08):
your kid into college. I want you to please talk
to me and to parents who may be in a
situation where their child is in high school. They're trying
to figure this thing out now they're a little late.
What is your best advice for them to and where discerned?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Okay, let's begin. We always need to begin with the child.
What are the child's interests, gifts, talents, personality, temperament, what
type of environment would be the best environment for that
child to thrive? And then what's the financial need? For
so many parents they will say he needs a full scholarship. Yeah,
well that comes a number of ways. One, if a
(25:52):
child has the we'd like to call it the body
of work, meaning their grades and test scores and achievements
through a high school, they have the body of work
that matches directly to a college for a full scholarship.
Then that's where the focus needs to be. It needs
to be on that group of schools needs to be
applying by the deadline to be considered for the full
(26:12):
scholarship money. The child doesn't have the body of work
or a direct full scholarship from the school, then we
need to look at the college major and what schools
that child would have the opportunity to get scholarship money
even after enrolling, based upon what they were studying.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Final thoughts before we wrap up, and where should people
go if they want to find more information about you
and the HBCU books that you have.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Okay, they can go to Amazon dot com, but I
suggest don't go to Amazon.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Come directly to the source.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Our website is Access and Equity dot org A C
C E, S S A N D E Q U
I T Y dot org. All my information is there.
All the work that we do with schools and school districts,
and all the books that I've written are there. What
I really would encourage parents and students to do is
to engage in reading about the opportunities because it is
(27:14):
not widely publicized where what schools are known have a
reputation for what career pathways or scholarships that they're connected to.
So parents and students, I think, I really believe that
I've written a good series of books and that if
parents and students pick them up and read them, that
(27:35):
they will be on their way to developing a really
good college and scholarship plan. And the two plans really
do fit hand in hand.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I appreciate you, Thank you Michael Wynn for joining us
on the BIM.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Thank you so much for having me again.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
If you're looking for him online, type in m Y
C H A l W Y and that's Michael Wynn.
And to find his programs in books, it's Access and
Equity dot org. That's a c C E S S
A N D E q I t Y dot org
to find out more information. And that's our program for
(28:12):
this week. Be sure to join us each month at
this time as we talk with more black leaders from
our community on behalf of today's guests and the entire
news team at the Black Information Network. This is Esther Dillard,
wishing everyone a great Sunday and a terrific start to
twenty twenty five. Thanks again for listening to Leading While
Black on the Black Information Network,
Coming up on this edition of Leading While Black.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
The younger people are looking for places that they can
have all the functionality in one space instead of having
to go to a blue sky, a YouTube, a Snapchat, Instagram,
you know, and move around.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
I have a conversation with Isaac case the Third, a
leader in the field of social media, and how his
company is helping to build generational wealth in the Black community.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
And then of students attending HBCUs are financing their education.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
With student loans.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Educator and author Michael Wynn offers some tips on getting
accepted to an HBCU and how to pay for it
without busting your budgets.
Speaker 5 (00:43):
From the private sector to public life, these are the
people making a difference in the Black community.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
They are leading wild.
Speaker 5 (00:50):
Black on the Black Information Network.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Welcome to Leading While Black, our monthly series on the
Black Information Network where we talk with black leaders from
the public and private sector in the fields of entertainment, politics, business, sports,
and more. I'm Esther Dillard, wishing everyone a great Sunday
and happy New Year. Today I'm first joined by a
very special guest, Isaac Hayesi, the son of music icon
(01:15):
Isaac Hayes, music producer, Voice actor and also the creator
of fan Base. It's an online application similar to Twitter
or x but still extremely unique. I really thought it
was quite interesting after looking online about, you know, especially
in current events, talking about reports of thousands of people
leaving X formerly known as Twitter and then moving to
(01:37):
blue Sky. That's a fairly new platform. But really no
price has been about black owned platforms like Spill or
your platform, fan Base, And I just wonder, why, why
do you think that Spill and you aren't getting any
love from the mainstream media.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think primarily the large user base that is
leaving X are probably the white community that are very
familiar with the platform like blue Sky. Blue Sky was
actually funded by Jack Dorsey, one of the founder of Twitter,
so he was part of that movement of it, and
Blue Sky's been around, I think since twenty twenty one,
(02:15):
so I think the familiarity of what it's very very
familiar for Twitter. So if you're looking for something that
is exactly like Twitter, I think Blue Sky is probably
what is the most familiar looking platform that people see.
Spill is very similar to the functionality of microblogging, which
is good. And then there's US, which we have a
whole bunch of different features. So I think that's the
(02:37):
reason why. But you know, I think that's the only
reason why. But I think there's still an opportunity for
people to find out about fan Base and spill and that's.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Why we're here. I hope that you could tell me
what is different about fan Base than perhaps the other
platforms like Blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Well, fan Base has six content formats. The format is
just a way that you post content. Posting is a formmat,
stories is a format, live is a format, audio chat
is a format. Long form video like YouTube is a format,
and then short form video of like TikTok or reels
is a format. And fan Base has all six of
(03:14):
those in one app together. And I think future generations
and younger people are looking for places that they can
have all the functionality in one space instead of having
to go to a Blue Sky, a YouTube, a Snapchat, Instagram,
you know, and move around. And so I wanted to
build something with fan Base regards that. I think it's
something future facing and really enticing with people that want
(03:38):
the everything app as we probably call it in the future.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Well, you mentioned in an interview that you did a
few days ago, and I thought it was really quite
interesting how you kind of put into into context like
that social media is kind of fifty percent technology and
fifty percent psychology, and you kind of put it where
black folks really have a psychology when it comes to
(04:04):
why they do things on social media. Why did you
say that, I guess, would you explain what you said first,
and then why did.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
You say that?
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I said that the black community is addicted to disrespect,
And I think that we've always been taught as the
black community to fight to be in spaces where we
needed to be included. And I think in the past,
I mean in the Civil rights era, it was absolutely necessary.
I think in corporate American certain spaces it's absolutely necessary.
(04:32):
But we're moving into a space now that the infrastructure
is no longer well, the most valuable infrastructure of the
planet is no longer brick and mortar. It's not physical,
it's virtual. Space is like technology. So therefore, the black
community or any community itself can build a product, an
apparatus that can contain its culture and then own it
(04:53):
and then scale it without having to have construction workers
or permits or all these other things that we need.
And so we're so used to a fighting to be
included in spaces where we literally have the capital, the community,
and the population to actually build our own especially in
places like social media where people actually really thrive off
(05:15):
of black culture, which really powers social media. And so
the psychology of it is even no matter what race
you are, there's a huge, huge, huge amount of people
that are really addicted to the dopamine and the attention
that you get from having views. And I run it
to build fan base the same way. That doesn't limit
the amount of views that you get on a post
(05:36):
like you do on Instagram, but actually it's unlimited because
the people that follow you see your content, but also
anybody can see your content through suggestions and stuff like that.
And so once we break that habit of saying wow,
like the psychology of me wanting views and that my
content actually has value, and I can actually get more
views and scale harder, scale further, scale larger than I
(05:59):
think people wunderstand what fan base offers.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
I loved how you explained in one of your interviews
that people don't understand sometimes that they can have a
whole bunch of followers, but really it doesn't convert into
dollars and cents, and how fan base kind of changes
that game. Can you explain that a little bit more?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Well, traditional platforms are built off advertising, so that means
it gives you. The platforms the majority of the revenue
that they make come from advertisements, and so to do that,
they actually have to compete with the user. Because if
you have a million followers, right, why would I let
you reach a million people for free when I'm about
(06:43):
to charge Colgate to reach a million people with an ad.
That doesn't make sense as a business model. So for
that very reason, they have to limit your visibility so
that Colcate doesn't walk to you and say, well, look
they're charging me all this money over here to reach
a million people. But you can reach a million people,
so let me just give you this money and you
run the ad on your page. And so for that
(07:07):
very reason, platforms suppressure content, so they force people to
force the corporation to spend money with them buying ads
and not with you as the creator. And fan base
differs from that because we don't suppress content. We're not
ad based platform. We're a revshare platform, meaning that you
can make money passively by people just tipping your posts,
tipping your stories, tipping your live tipping your audio rooms,
(07:29):
tipping your long form content, top being your short form content.
And on top of that, you can have an additional layer,
which are subscribers, where people can put content behind paywalls
and people can subscribe to that content. Which is really
the future of where social media is going. And the
creator economy, which I no longer refer to either or
as that name. I call it the social economy where
(07:50):
every action that you do on social media has a
value that someone can pay you for or tip you for,
or reward you for, or you can charge yourself.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Wow. Wow, different thought mindset, different complete mindset, and how
things are I just wonder if for somebody who may
not have loaned the story of fan Base, how did
you come to start this? What prompted you to get
this whole idea?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
A few things to make a long story shirt. I
understood that when you pull back and get the macro
fifty thousand foot view of social media. Black culture power
social media. It's powered by the music, the lingo, the trends,
the fashion, the humor, all of these things that we bring,
(08:40):
but we don't actually own the infrastructures. So there's this
disproportionate exploitive relationship between black culture and social media, and
so I wanted to build something that not only anybody,
no matter what race you are, could monetize from day one,
but then the opportunity to own the platform and then
gale it to something that we have equity. And so
(09:02):
if you're not on the cap table of Instagram or
the cap table of TikTok, or the cap table of
x or Snapchat, all the energy that you put into
these platforms, especially the Black community, is going in the
pockets of a small group of people who are very,
very wealthy, who take that wealth and hand that wealth
down to their families and they create generational wealth for
(09:22):
their kids and grandkids and great grandkids. And as I
said before, we're in a virtual infrastructure era. We don't
need brick and mortar. We don't have to build restaurants
or own football teams or build anything. Right, we can
build virtual spaces that can hold billions of people that
we can own and still make one hundred times the
(09:45):
money that you would with something that's brick and mortar.
So that's that's the reason why I came up with
fan Base. It's just black culture power social media, and
we need to own an infrastructure that houses that culture
and make money off of that.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
You know, it's funny, but when I listen to someone
like yourself who's been in the game a long time,
and I see the young folks who are really into
social media and they're on every platform and they're doing
excellent and they understand the game. For those who are,
you know, maybe older folks over fifty crowd me who
(10:21):
have their their starting their business women that are, you know,
trying to get out of corporate America, trying to change things,
what would you say to them that maybe they don't
have a huge following, why would fan base be something
that they would want to try.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Well, let's do some math, all right, So the average
American salary is about forty seven thousand dollars fifty thousand
dollars a year. What the average person is making. If
you decided to create content and charge people for your content,
and let's say you charged four ninety nine a month
and fan base is a it's a fifty to fifty split.
(10:56):
Apple and Google take thirty percent, We take twenty and
give fifty to the user, which is the exact exact
same as Twitch which is the exact same as YouTube creators.
It's the same thing. But all you need is five
thousand people paying you two dollars and fifty cents a month,
and that's twelve thousand, five hundred dollars a month. That's
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, and that's
more than ninety six percent of Americans make every year.
(11:17):
Out of the billions of people on the planet. All
you need is five thousand people around the planet to
subscribe to you. And so it's not about having, you know,
hundreds of thousands of subscribers like Casannat. Small groups of
people can still give the ability to make income or
a second a second form of income that can free
up your time to pursue other avenues. So instead of
(11:38):
driving Uber or Lyft, you can now become a content creator.
So now it doesn't require you to physically always be
in a car. Now you can put content behind the
paywall and still make the same amount of money, if
not even more, and freeze you up physically to do
other things that you want to do. I think content
creation and the social economy is going to be the
gig economy of the future.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Awesome So where does a person go if they want
more information about fan base, how to get started, how
to do this? Where did they go?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
You didn't ask me the most important question, what how
did I raise the.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Money to do this?
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (12:16):
So there's this thing called equity crowdfunding, which is basically
a provision that was signed in the law by Barack
Obama back in twenty twelve and really became active around
twenty fifteen. And so what that did is it wiped
out this thing called the accredited industrial rule, right, and
that rule basically is rich people are the only people
that can invest in private companies. That's a crazy rule. Yeah,
(12:39):
but it's like you got to have a million dollars
you know, of assets minus your house, or make two
hundred thousand dollars a year for two consecutive years. And
that's and that's been since nineteen thirty three. And so
that's crap because that means the Apple, the IBM, the Microsoft,
the Google of the world were all founded by already
rich people. So now we're moving into this era where
because of this this this Jobs Act that Barack Obama created,
(13:02):
anybody regardless of your networth or annual income can invest
in a private company. So now that opened up the
world for people to raise capital, not from angel investors
in vcs and not from banks, but from your community.
And so who makes a social media the community? So
who better than to give the opportunity to actually own
the platform in the community. So I launched a round
(13:24):
on this platform called start Engine. I had to apply.
I've done three rounds, actually four now, but the three
previous rounds we raised about ten million dollars. We raised
ten million dollars in three previous rounds of recif crowdfunding,
and these are small entry level investments. The minimum to
invest in fan Base right now, it's three hundred and
ninety nine dollars. That gets you sixty shares of stock
and fan Base at six sixty five a share. But
(13:46):
you're sitting on a cap table of a company that's
currently valued at one hundred and sixty million dollars. Mind you,
these titans of social media are worth two hundred billion,
one point five trillion, three hundred billion. So even if
fan Base gets to a ten billion dollar company or
one hundred billion dollar company, that's an enormous amount of
return that people would never ever see. You know, traditionally
(14:07):
in the in the retail stock market, you're actually owning
an asset, and then it's an asset that you can control.
So I tell everybody invest in fan Base, download the app,
but more importantly invest because now you see the way
that crypto is going crazy. Right now, it's just the
value of things that rise. Or even with Blue Sky,
and this is a great example, Blue Scott probably got
(14:28):
about maybe ten million users in the last two or
three weeks, right That means the value of that company's
probably gone to treat the four billion dollars in a
matter of weeks, just because large amounts of people move
to the platform, that platform becomes popular. Vcs notice that
growth and say we want to help you scale this growth.
How much money do you need? And so you can
(14:49):
do that on fan Base. And fan Base has had
some spikes as well, but nothing like Blue Skott. But
we will and when that does, fan Base will no
longer be worth one hundred and sixty million, it'll be
worth one point six billion, maybe or three billion. And
now you're an investor in a company that does that,
that's grown like that. So I tell everybody go to
start Engine, dot com, slash fan base to invest the
(15:09):
minimum to invest three hundred and ninety nine dollars, but
sit on the cap table. We have to start owning
these infrastructures that we innovate, especially black culture.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
It's so great to hear from someone who is so
passionate about what they want to do and in helping
the black community. Isaac Case the third, thank you for
joining us on the BIM.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
When we come back, we'll talk about HBCUs getting accepted
and how to pay for it.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
The Black Information Network and six time Emmy nominated news
anchor Vanessa Tyler, Welcome you to black.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Land, a podcast about the ground on which the Black
community stands right now.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
From stories about salvation and loss, I love the person
who had an a HRV diagnosis, the dreams achieved or
yet unfulfilled from people who have made it.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I sat down with a derapist and I began my.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Journey to those left behind. Listen to black Land on
the iHeartRadio app or.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back to the program
Leading While Black. I'm your host, Ester Dillard. We're speaking
with Michael Wynn. He is an educator that's been around
for about thirty years and the author of around twenty
seven books, including a series that we're going to talk
about today. It's all about HBCUs, how you should research
(16:26):
as far as finding one scholarships where you can apply
and help with financial assistance. Welcome Michael Winn to the
bi in.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Thank you, Thank you for having me. I'm looking I'm
ready for this conversation.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
I'm enjoying it because I looked at what it really
attracted me to you was I read an article in
Black Enterprise where they wrote, I'll read it Win helps
students understand how demo developing strategies for matching two to
three scholarships, and then it went on to say that
that this is all to help all they need to
(17:04):
increase on time graduation and receive a debt free college education.
And I was thinking, any parent who reads that sentence
or two is going to say, oh, I got to
get these books. So I need to talk to this
man about his books and how you help people get
into HBCUs and especially get the financial help that they need.
(17:25):
I have the four that arrived yesterday, and so I
didn't get through all of them because it's quite a few.
Please tell me you know what are what are these
books series about? And who is it for?
Speaker 5 (17:38):
Worm?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Okay, I've been doing this work, as you mentioned, over
thirty years, and we've been working with schools and school
districts and hands on with parents. All of my work
is strategy focused and has driven my data. So when
we began to have the conversation about HBCUs, we need
to begin with the data. The data is not good
(18:02):
from a financial perspective, but there's a reason. So first
let me talk about the data and then why I
wrote these books. Eighty percent of students attending HBCUs or
financing their education with student loans. The graduation rates for
black women is forty four percent over six years. The
(18:23):
graduation rate for black men men is thirty four percent
over six years. Now, the question becomes, if you leave
school without a degree and a mountain of debt, you
still have to pay off that debt even without a degree.
The bigger question that any parent ship raise is well,
wait a minute, why are so many students who attending
HBCUs doing so by financing their education on student loans.
(18:48):
I thought that there were scholarships everywhere everywhere. Look, there's
a scholarship book that says scholarship money is falling out
of the sky.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
I got to do it. Oh yeah, he's out and
grab it. The problem is strategy.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Many parents and students are not engaged in any college
planning strategy whatsoever. They go through high school, they then
apply to fifty or more schools, they get the acceptance letters,
they post all of it on Facebook, they talk about
all the scholarship money they will award it.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
However, that was in the details.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
You can't spend scholarship money from one school to another school.
So even if you awarded a million dollars in scholarship
money from fifty different schools, it only matters how much
money you got from the school you're actually going to attend,
and then your scholarship strategy has to fill that financial
aid gap. However, what students do is every year after
(19:42):
they get accepted to college, they say, I need scholarships. No,
you needed scholarships back in elementary school when you know
you wanted to go to college. So then what should
have happened from elementary school all the way through high
school is positioning yourself strategically for the scholarship that you
would most likely qualify for. Now when it comes to HBCUs,
(20:05):
it's some of them are transparent. And I'll give you
an example. I work with a student from Florida, and
he would have gotten the Bright Futures in Florida. He
was led to believe it paid for everything, but it doesn't.
It only pays for tuition and then you're on the
for everything else. But he had a thirty two on
the ACT and he had over four point oh GPA,
(20:27):
and so I focused him on Tuskegee and Xavier because
he could qualify for a full scholarship in both schools.
He and his parents had a road trip to New
Orleans to visit Xavier and the Alabama to visit Tuskegee.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
And he had one more thing.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
He was a baseball player, but he was not a
recruited athlete, so he wanted to attend college to become
a mechanical engineer and play baseball because he loved baseball.
He's at Tuskegee in a full scholarship, a walk on
to the baseball team, number twenty two, Ryan Moore, and
he is doing fine. But that was a strategy. The
(21:05):
other thing is that oftentimes students when they're I mean
right now, HBCUs receiving a record number of applications. But
students oftentimes are applying to the brand names. Everybody knows
and t more about spell So they're not applying to
college based upon financial need. They're applying to college based
(21:25):
upon brand name. So I got another story for you.
Worked with another student from Florida. He had an opportunity
for a full scholarship at Clafland University, but he turned
it down because he wanted the brand North Carolina and
T where he went without any scholarship money. At the
end of a year, his GPA had fallen to one
(21:45):
point nine. He had already taken out almost thirty thousand
dollars in student loans, and he was despondent and depressed.
We had lost track of him, and my wife had
She checks in with our students regularly, so she just
on this particular day, it sounded like he was standing
on a bridge ready to jump.
Speaker 4 (22:04):
When he asked my wife's call, and she said, what's
going on?
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Well, missus, when I should have gone to Claflin, I
left A and T. It didn't work out for me.
I don't know what I'm going to do, she said,
don't worry.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Let me make some calls.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
So now he's on his way to Claflin. They are
going to accept him, give him a chance to get
a fresh start, and he will still have an opportunity
to earn his way into the Honors college. So those
are just two very different stories, but the common thread
is matching to the right school because that's where the
(22:41):
majority of scholarship money will come from, and then supplementing
that with two to three additional scholarships. If you have
any gap, Now that's only the I'm sorry you were
about to ask you a question.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
I love what I do, so yeah, I know.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
I think that you have. Honestly, I think most parents,
when they probably listened to you and listened to this
conversation which they had you as on backup dial, you
could just call you up and say, hey, help me
out here, because having that guide in many ways is
something that I don't think a lot of parents have.
(23:18):
Do you find that parents feel like when they do
connect with you that where were you?
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Absolutely? Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
We started our foundation back in two thousand and six
and they grew out of my wife and I serving
as education ministry leaders at our church where we had
a lot of national publicity on a number of scholarships.
It's students at our church or receiving and so we
started our foundation to really spread that information to schools
(23:47):
and school districts. We wound up with some contracts with
school districts and we were working hands on with students
and that was great.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
The problem is there.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Are so many school districts that don't provide any of
this information.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
I mean, they don't even put my books on a bookshelf.
That's the easiest thing to do.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
If you're not going to bring in a consultant, at
least put the books on a bookshelf so that students
can at least begin reading and learning about what they
need to do. So this year we have started attending
HBCU college fairs so that we could connect directly with
parents and students.
Speaker 4 (24:22):
The problem for many students is that they're.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Only attending a college fair as a high school senior.
Really you're college planning at the It should in earnest
begin by sixth grade and the latest it should begin
by ninth grade because you have that seven year gap
to really develop the elements of your profile that on
(24:45):
line with your gifts and your talents.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
For those who are just joining us. I'm mister Dillard,
and I'm speaking with Michael Wynn, the author of an
HBCU book series that you got to get a hold of,
especially if you're a parent that does thinking about sending
your child to college. It directs people, giving them a
direct layout of how to research, where to go for scholarships,
and having kind of a plan in order to get
(25:08):
your kid into college. I want you to please talk
to me and to parents who may be in a
situation where their child is in high school. They're trying
to figure this thing out now they're a little late.
What is your best advice for them to and where discerned?
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Okay, let's begin. We always need to begin with the child.
What are the child's interests, gifts, talents, personality, temperament, what
type of environment would be the best environment for that
child to thrive? And then what's the financial need? For
so many parents they will say he needs a full scholarship. Yeah,
well that comes a number of ways. One, if a
(25:52):
child has the we'd like to call it the body
of work, meaning their grades and test scores and achievements
through a high school, they have the body of work
that matches directly to a college for a full scholarship.
Then that's where the focus needs to be. It needs
to be on that group of schools needs to be
applying by the deadline to be considered for the full
(26:12):
scholarship money. The child doesn't have the body of work
or a direct full scholarship from the school, then we
need to look at the college major and what schools
that child would have the opportunity to get scholarship money
even after enrolling, based upon what they were studying.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Final thoughts before we wrap up, and where should people
go if they want to find more information about you
and the HBCU books that you have.
Speaker 3 (26:40):
Okay, they can go to Amazon dot com, but I
suggest don't go to Amazon.
Speaker 4 (26:45):
Come directly to the source.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Our website is Access and Equity dot org A C
C E, S S A N D E Q U
I T Y dot org. All my information is there.
All the work that we do with schools and school districts,
and all the books that I've written are there. What
I really would encourage parents and students to do is
to engage in reading about the opportunities because it is
(27:14):
not widely publicized where what schools are known have a
reputation for what career pathways or scholarships that they're connected to.
So parents and students, I think, I really believe that
I've written a good series of books and that if
parents and students pick them up and read them, that
(27:35):
they will be on their way to developing a really
good college and scholarship plan. And the two plans really
do fit hand in hand.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
I appreciate you, Thank you Michael Wynn for joining us
on the BIM.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
Thank you so much for having me again.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
If you're looking for him online, type in m Y
C H A l W Y and that's Michael Wynn.
And to find his programs in books, it's Access and
Equity dot org. That's a c C E S S
A N D E q I t Y dot org
to find out more information. And that's our program for
(28:12):
this week. Be sure to join us each month at
this time as we talk with more black leaders from
our community on behalf of today's guests and the entire
news team at the Black Information Network. This is Esther Dillard,
wishing everyone a great Sunday and a terrific start to
twenty twenty five. Thanks again for listening to Leading While
Black on the Black Information Network,
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