Melisa Ellis: Breaking barriers and redefining inclusivity in tech
This episode delves into the importance of fostering innovation and inclusion within the technological realm, particularly with respect to underrepresented groups.
Our esteemed guest, Melisa Ellis, the founder and CEO of Nobellum, articulates her ambitious mission of facilitating the launch of 100 Black-led startups by 2025, thereby addressing the critical disparities in the tech ecosystem. Through an in-depth exploration of her journey into entrepreneurship, Melisa underscores the necessity of resilience, adaptability, and community support for aspiring entrepreneurs, particularly women. Furthermore, she delineates the unique programs offered by Nobellum, which are designed to empower individuals and enhance their access to resources and capital. Listeners are invited to engage with this enlightening conversation, as it sheds light on the transformative potential of collective effort and shared vision in the pursuit of equity within the technology sector.
Takeaways:
- The podcast emphasizes the crucial role of women in technology and the necessity for their representation in the industry.
- Melisa Ellis discusses her mission to support 100 Black-led startups by 2025 through her innovation hub, Nobellum.
- The conversation highlights the importance of community support for entrepreneurs, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.
- Listeners are encouraged to pursue their passions in business and to seek out existing startups for experiential learning.
- A strong emphasis is placed on resilience and adaptability as essential qualities for success in the tech industry.
- The podcast concludes by reminding listeners that empowerment is a collective journey, urging them to build boldly and lead with love.
Find them online:
Sandra Nnaji: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandrannaji/
Melisa Ellis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisa-ellis/
Find us on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/witlovepodcast/
Transcript
Welcome to Whitlam, a podcast founded by women, produced by women, about women in technology.
Speaker A:There is a huge place for women in tech and this podcast is going to get well into the work as a leading contributor to help change the trajectory and see the rise of women in technology.
Speaker A:Sit back and enjoy as our young female hosts share energy with experienced professional women in technology.
Speaker B:Hello, hello, hello.
Speaker B:Welcome back to another episode of Wet Love, where we spotlight women in technology who are breaking barriers and creating powerful ripples of change.
Speaker B:Hi, I'm Sandra Najee, one of your hosts.
Speaker B:Today we are so excited to be joined by a visionary, Melissa Ellis.
Speaker B: black led startups by: Speaker B:She's not only transforming the startup ecosystem, but also ensuring that women in underrepresented groups have a seat at the table and the tools to thrive.
Speaker B:Get ready for an inspiring conversation about innovation, investment and inclusion in tech.
Speaker B:Hey, Melissa, thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to join me and our listeners for this episode.
Speaker B:How are you?
Speaker C:Good, good.
Speaker C:Thank you for having me.
Speaker B:Okay, so before we dive into the theme of this episode being empowering women in technology through innovation, investment and inclusion, Melissa, can you take us back a bit?
Speaker B:What sparked your journey into tech and entrepreneurship?
Speaker B:Did you have any interest before attack?
Speaker B:Did you work in other industries before going being where you are right now?
Speaker C:Oh, my gosh, girl, my life was a total roller coaster.
Speaker C:Anyone who says they knew exactly what they were going to do, I would love to study their mind because that was not me.
Speaker C:I started my career in history and law.
Speaker C:That's what I went to university for.
Speaker C:I never liked math.
Speaker C:So you told me back then that I would be a software engineer.
Speaker C:I would have just laughed at the time.
Speaker C:It was like, you might as well have said rocket science.
Speaker C:So started my career when I left university, because I had gone to university on a full scholarship.
Speaker C:I had.
Speaker C:My family had like really high expectations I was going to go to a law firm and.
Speaker C:And so I interned at a law firm and I quickly realized I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Speaker C:It really came down to, like, my limitation in terms of how I could be creative for some people.
Speaker C:It is creative for them, right, because they get to work on new precedents and things like that.
Speaker C:But for me, I wanted a lot more freedom and creativity.
Speaker C:So I started applying for other jobs and other industries.
Speaker C:I got headhunted into project management.
Speaker C:I had never heard of project management.
Speaker C:Really, when I was in school, I was familiar with the coordinators and admins, but I wasn't, I didn't understand like the PMO office and how all of that worked.
Speaker C:While working in that industry, I kind of grew my career to a point where I started now managing tech people.
Speaker C:That was my first time actually being exposed to the tech world.
Speaker C:And then I started realizing it's actually a lot more logic than it is math.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:It's a lot more logical thinking.
Speaker C:And I also like the lifestyle.
Speaker C:The I was the project manager, but I was stuck in the office and they were working remote.
Speaker C:I was dispatching them.
Speaker C:I was the one signing off their hotels and their cars and they were going to different site visits.
Speaker C:And I was also paying them more than I was paying myself because I was signing off on their specialized skill sets.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like we needed different SMEs for different things.
Speaker C:SME meaning subject matter expert.
Speaker C:And that's when I realized there's a lot more to this than I thought.
Speaker C:So I packed up my project management job and I went back to school full time for software development and network engineering.
Speaker C:I actually did not even do the math I needed for it.
Speaker C:So I just go to night school.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And that's how I got into tech.
Speaker C:When I went into tech my first, I think year in the school, I met maybe one other black person.
Speaker C:My classroom was predominantly women, ironically predominantly South East, South Asian.
Speaker C:And I would say maybe like 55, 60% were women.
Speaker C:And the women were top of the class.
Speaker B:As they should.
Speaker C:They were doing it.
Speaker C:And I remember it was me.
Speaker C:The only Canadians in the class was me and a Jewish girl.
Speaker C:And we, we held hands through the whole process because everybody had their own language and me and her were like, well, our language is English.
Speaker C:And then we started making friends with a lot of the other Indian ladies and they also started asking like, why aren't there more black people in program?
Speaker C:And that is when I started noodling around, how do I start to change that?
Speaker C:And after getting now into the workforce, I had the opportunity to hire black people.
Speaker C:And that led me to realizing that we were also very underskilled in this space.
Speaker C:So then I started thinking, okay, how can I provide more training and development?
Speaker C:Then I started doing a lot of RFPs or multimillion dollar tech digital transformation projects.
Speaker C:None of those RFPS were won by black led businesses.
Speaker C:So I was like, okay, what if we had more black businesses to apply?
Speaker C:What if we had 100 black owned businesses in STEM to come in and do these projects?
Speaker C:And that put me into social impact investing.
Speaker C:And so I would say a lot of the decisions in terms of my career stemmed from me being exposed to things that I just didn't know about and then finding a problem that I wanted to solve.
Speaker C:And now here I am running an accelerator and supporting black entrepreneurs of building their, their businesses.
Speaker B:Love that being because you talk about how like you wanted to address like the, under the underrepresentation of like, of black people and like people who are not really.
Speaker B:There's not a lot of people in the space.
Speaker B:How does Nobelum address those gaps differently than traditional or adventure spaces?
Speaker B:How is it, what is the uniqueness of it that makes it stand out and address that problem?
Speaker C:It's the leadership team.
Speaker C:You go into most venture spaces.
Speaker C:The leaders in those spaces do not reflect the community that I'm from.
Speaker C:And oftentimes what I've learned in ventures, they don't care what color you are as long as your business has traction.
Speaker C:They see green, they see money.
Speaker C:And so in order to get our businesses to that place, it takes a community approach to get them.
Speaker C:So what you find what get them to that point.
Speaker C:So what I find I see a lot of is businesses in our community get stuck between 0 to 250 an annual recurring revenue.
Speaker C:Once they pass that 500,000 threshold, they're on a much more steady trajectory.
Speaker C:Even those that are, once they hit, you know, 1 to 5 million venture is now interested in them.
Speaker C:So you don't deal with a lot of the same biases.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But when you're not at that point where you're generating revenue and you're going to someone to believe in your vision, you're, you need a community.
Speaker C:You need people who are going to back you because they believe in you.
Speaker C:You don't have any money to show yet.
Speaker C:You're not at that point.
Speaker C:And that's where we come in.
Speaker C:We, we come in at the stage where we're supporting entrepreneurs to get to that first 500,000 in annual recurring revenue, the first million in their revenue.
Speaker C:And this requires a strong ecosystem of support.
Speaker C:So at nobellum, we have three different programs based on the different areas that we've seen that founders need support.
Speaker C:Excuse me, we have our innovator program that supports STEM founders.
Speaker C:We have the IDEA and the growth stream.
Speaker C:The idea stream is for people who are still building out the idea but need support getting to their mvp.
Speaker C:And then the growth stream are those who are generating revenue, over a hundred thousand in annual recurring revenue.
Speaker C:And they just need support with their growth getting to that 500, that 1 million.
Speaker C:We provide them access to subsidized legal through IP Ontario where usually entrepreneurs in our community often break their entire bank trying to get their IP patents because it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Speaker C:So we work close with IP Ontario.
Speaker C:We work with different leaders in the ecosystem that can provide space.
Speaker C:So we have the University of Toronto, there's a research, there's an innovation hub that they can access for meeting rooms and stuff like that.
Speaker C:There is also Mayant where they have over 200 chemists that can support the entrepreneurs.
Speaker C:We also provide co working spaces at loft.
Speaker C:So really just supporting them with those types of resourcing and then we give them access to capital.
Speaker C:So over the last two years we've distributed around $200,000 in non diluted grants just to give them that first small check that's going to get more revenue.
Speaker C:So that's one program.
Speaker C:The next program we provide access to is our Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship.
Speaker C:It's an eight week program that's focused very specifically on AI and intellectual property.
Speaker C:So we bring in experts in AI and we train them to either leverage more AI, incorporate it into their business model or build AI from scratch.
Speaker C:Like actually build their own large language modeling and figuring out how to make that a revenue model that's profitable for them.
Speaker C:And then we have Global, which is what Nketch is probably the most familiar with.
Speaker C:We recently did an investor trade mission where we brought several angel investors, fund managers overseeing over $500 million in investment dollars and we brought them to Jamaica to meet some of the founders that we've been supporting in the ecosystem.
Speaker C:And so one of the things that C Global aims to do is provide training and development to international founders and bring them abroad to here in North America, other parts of the world that where they can find clients, but it's primarily urban here.
Speaker C:We send investors to the home country to see so we to see the innovation, to see the impact.
Speaker C:The program is actually called See Global want to see the different countries.
Speaker C:So we're doing Seed Jamaica.
Speaker C:C stands for catalyst for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Speaker C:And so these are some of the different areas that we have, these are some of the different pockets.
Speaker C:So from the STEM founders to women in AI and IP and C Global for supporting founders with scaling globally and stuff like that.
Speaker C:We recognize that these are some of the core areas that we want to start supporting with but with a consistent theme around access to capital, access to community and ecosystems and resources, access to trade, international trade.
Speaker C:But more most important thing that I hear, founders Talking the most about is the access to the community because it is a very lonely journey.
Speaker C:And a lot of them have made their first co founder, first co founders, found their first board members, their advisors by being in the program.
Speaker C:And that actually goes a longer way than an investment check because that's what they need to generate the revenue to be sustainable over time.
Speaker B:It seems that when you were speaking about what Nobellum is and like this, like kind of the streams, I guess, to help propel different purposes, it seems that a lot of the work you do have to, has to come with like within, like you have to believe in helping these businesses as they're at the bottom and working their way to the top.
Speaker B:So you have this kind of like, you have to have these qualities that like, not only is it the tangible things you need, like the money and like the resources and all those things that can make your business successful, but it's also like you need that character, you need that heart, you need that like belief in people and community and what, and involving everybody from different like walks of life, from different backgrounds.
Speaker B:Because you want to see representation, you want people to feel like, okay, I see someone who looks like me, I can try, I have that type of like trust or I could cling onto me like me seeing someone that I could, I recognize that I'm familiar with.
Speaker B:So speaking on like you know, having, needing those intrinsic qualities, like what advice would you give to someone who wants to go into the tech space, specifically like young women and yeah, like what kind of inspiring advice?
Speaker B:What would you think is most, what would you think is most beneficial to being in a tech space, but not necessarily like money, just kind of like what qualities do you think would someone like a young woman would need to be in the space to sustain like the challenges, to make it through any of the hardships in this space?
Speaker C:Yeah, this is a really good one because it seems so simple, but it's actually really not.
Speaker C:And it's interesting because even when I ask investors, like what makes you want to invest into someone, the answers they give are not technical.
Speaker C:It's all about the personality of the person.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker C:Investing in that person first.
Speaker C:And so there's two things.
Speaker C:I'm going to break this into two parts.
Speaker C:One part, it takes a little bit of crazy to be really successful.
Speaker C:You also have to know when you're not going on the right track and you need to pivot.
Speaker C:So I'm going to sum that up with resilience and being adaptable, but also very, very strong willed in what you're doing.
Speaker C:And I'm going to break that down for you.
Speaker C:Someone who is not strong willed enough will give up too easily.
Speaker C:Someone who is not flexible will just keep making the same mistake over and over and not adapting.
Speaker C:And so one of the key things that we do when anyone starts our program is we throw them into market research.
Speaker C:You have this problem, you're passionate about this problem, but are millions of people going to pay money for this solution?
Speaker C:And some people have to sit down and have the ugly baby conversation with their, with their team.
Speaker C:I love this problem, but is this actually going to amount to something?
Speaker C:And I think that is the first step.
Speaker C:I see some founders, they get to this point and they can't have the ugly baby conversation.
Speaker C:They just keep going and they're like, nope, everything is fine.
Speaker C:I'm gonna keep going in this direction and understand there's no such thing as an ugly baby.
Speaker C:Just on the first purpose of that.
Speaker C:Beautiful.
Speaker C:It's a figure of speech.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:But the point is that they need to be able to have that conversation and recognize.
Speaker C:But the resilience comes in is when they've done the market research.
Speaker C:There's an appetite, but the industry isn't ready for them.
Speaker C:I'll give you a couple examples.
Speaker C:I have a founder in my company who is using the CBD from orange peels to cure epilepsy.
Speaker C:It works.
Speaker C:He cured it with his cousin.
Speaker C:That's actually what inspired him to start it.
Speaker C:But is the pharma industry ready to accept that?
Speaker C:They're not, because they're making so much money not curing it.
Speaker C:They're making so much money not using something as simple as an orange peel that grows from the earth.
Speaker C:So now he is in a long battle with a monstrous industry and finding ways to adapt and work with that.
Speaker C:He has to be resilient and strong.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But he also has to be flexible and adaptable.
Speaker C:We actually set him up with one of our execs and residents in our program and they just gave him a hundred thousand dollar angel check and has joined their team as an advisor.
Speaker C:That person who joined our team, he's on our board.
Speaker C:He exited in Silicon Valley and is now retired.
Speaker C:So he knows what to do to help this founder get to the next stage.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:The founder going to be coachable.
Speaker C:Will they listen?
Speaker C:That's another quality.
Speaker C:So then I have another founder who is converting buildings, making them more easier for EV charging.
Speaker C:He literally has robots that drive around at night and charge people's EV cars because most buildings only have one or two spots.
Speaker C:But if your building has 50% of the people, have EV charge, have hybrid cars, you only have two spots.
Speaker C:How are the rest of the building going to charge their cars?
Speaker C:Welcome to Kiwi Charge.
Speaker C:That's what his product does.
Speaker C:But are condominium developers ready to have that idea?
Speaker C:Right?
Speaker C:Even further is the city partnered with the City of Toronto, did a pitch, one of their biggest pitches at the Small business forum, over 7,000 people.
Speaker C:He won first place and set them up to have a discussion on how to bring his product into the city of Toronto.
Speaker C:It started moving forward, but then guess what?
Speaker C:The City of Toronto has old policies in place that says if a pilot costs more than $10,000, you need to fill out 200 pages of paperwork.
Speaker C:You need to have 5 million in insurance, not even like 50 million insurance.
Speaker C:It's so ridiculous.
Speaker C:A year and a half later hasn't gone anywhere with the City of Toronto.
Speaker C:So now what we're doing is we're working on with oven and GM and different ecosystem builders to work around the problem.
Speaker C:Is there a market demand for this?
Speaker C:Yes, we proved it.
Speaker C:But there's still systems in place that are not ready for emerging technologies.
Speaker C:Actually, just at a roundtable with the City of Mississauga talking about the same exact issue.
Speaker C:Canada wants emerging technology, but we do not have the policies in place to receive it.
Speaker C:And so our Canadian talent is going to leave.
Speaker C:So going back to your question, I would say it boils down to resiliency.
Speaker C:Once you've done your market research, being adaptable and flexible, but then also having a very strong will and knowing when not to back down and then be coachable.
Speaker C:Because even when you do find that solution, you may need certain people to help you get to the next stage.
Speaker C:And they may have a very different approach based on their success in.
Speaker C:In that.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I definitely.
Speaker C:I feel like my answers are very long.
Speaker B:No, they're.
Speaker B:But they're good.
Speaker B:Like, they offer like perspective and like how you're talking about how one of the founders that you work with, the policy, the old policies that are stopping him from pushing forward or trying to make a move is like stopping him.
Speaker B:So I think that's interesting because there's a lot of things that are just, in just are just in the way that would take so long to get past to just for someone to just take one step ahead of them, just take the next step.
Speaker B:You have to take like a million steps back and do all this paperwork and do all the passing of these bills and laws just for someone to take their next step.
Speaker B:That could be like groundbreaking for their business, you know, so yeah.
Speaker C:And one thing I have to see, women, we tend to give up way before the men do.
Speaker C:We give up way before.
Speaker B:Well, for listeners who want to support, get involved, or even start their own venture, what's one action that they could take today that you think that would help them?
Speaker C:I would tell them, don't just start a business because you want money.
Speaker C:Start.
Speaker C:Start a business because you found a problem that is worth solving.
Speaker C:The biggest mistake.
Speaker C:I see founders come into the program, they see this problem, they're not that passionate about it, but they know that it can make them money.
Speaker C:It shows because when it starts to get tough, they want it back out.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker C:And so I think the best thing that you can do if you are an entrepreneur, you haven't found that thing that you're passionate about yet that makes sense.
Speaker C:Join an existing startup, be a part of it.
Speaker C:It's like, you know, people approach business very different than how they approach their careers.
Speaker C:They spend years interning and researching and learning, but then when they go into business, they just dive right in and it's like, no, you actually can intern in a startup.
Speaker C:You can be a.
Speaker C:You know, a lot of people provide equity because founders need help.
Speaker C:So they are willing to offer equity for someone to get.
Speaker C:Help them get started their business.
Speaker C:That's one of the things I don't see a lot of entrepreneurs doing enough.
Speaker C:Everyone wants to start their own business.
Speaker C:Not everyone is a leader.
Speaker C:So you can have a brilliant idea, but if you're.
Speaker C:If what you are building isn't aligned with what the market needs and you don't know what the lifelong process is for a company.
Speaker C:It can be tricky for women though.
Speaker C:I find that we are very organized.
Speaker C:And the number one thing I've observed since I have started running this accelerator is when you find a committed and dedicated women, no one can compete with them, especially when they're in their element.
Speaker C:The number one thing I've observed that prevents women from getting to where some of the male founders in our program has gotten to the second guess themselves.
Speaker C:They spend a lot of time researching and not enough time acting.
Speaker C:And they are always the first ones to give up.
Speaker C:And I really want the listeners.
Speaker C:If you are a woman thinking of starting a business, you don't have any experience, find a startup, intern with them, be an advisor, provide fractional support for equity, get your feet wet in that process.
Speaker C:You will start to see so many problems that you may want to solve and find the one that you're passionate About.
Speaker C:Hold on to that.
Speaker C:Start with your market research first.
Speaker C:What do I mean by market research?
Speaker C:You need to validate that people want the product that you're going to sell.
Speaker C:Don't spend three months building a product that you don't know if anybody wants.
Speaker C:Within a couple of weeks, you should be able.
Speaker C:Whatever it is that you want to sell, you should be able to put it together somehow, whether it's a deck, whether it is a website that's on Canva or Squarespace that doesn't require any technical coding skills.
Speaker C:Just start, go to market.
Speaker C:Start asking people, would you pay $5 for this?
Speaker C:Would you pay $10?
Speaker C:Would you pay $2 for this?
Speaker C:How many people are willing to sign up?
Speaker C:Can you get a wait list of a hundred people?
Speaker C:Get those hundred people to break and rip apart and criticize what you're doing.
Speaker C:Then come back with iteration two.
Speaker C:Keep going to market.
Speaker C:Keep going to market.
Speaker C:When I go into rooms with other communities and I see how they build, they go to market as a part of their.
Speaker C:And, and I don't mean with anything that costs money.
Speaker C:I'm saying this is just their time and labor that they're using.
Speaker C:That's another thing.
Speaker C:Don't go seeking capital before you actually have done your validated that there's a product market fit.
Speaker C:But I think there's two things that we tend to do.
Speaker C:We tend to spend a lot of time thinking, not enough time acting, getting in front of customers.
Speaker C:And then the next thing is, when we do get in front of customers, will take one or two people's word, and then we'll hold on to that for dear Life.
Speaker C:No, get 100 people on a waste list.
Speaker C:Get another hundred people.
Speaker C:Break it as fast as you can.
Speaker C:That's how other communities I've observed, I've started paying attention.
Speaker C:They're raising capital so quick, they're generating sales so quick because they found what the market wants, and now they're adapting to that.
Speaker B:Dynadia.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You've shared, like, so many, like, just pockets of just, just.
Speaker B:I don't know how to.
Speaker B:I don't know the word for it.
Speaker B:We just shared so much insight that could help someone who is one, start a business, who's, like, starting a business but, like, isn't sure.
Speaker B:Isn't sure what to do or, like, needs, like, to just reevaluate and reassess how they are, like, working.
Speaker B:That way they can get better results and be, like, realistic and not try to overachieve when they don't have a lot to take them far.
Speaker B:Like, take it step by step.
Speaker B:Do this first, then do this.
Speaker B:Because you don't want to, you know, like, bring yourself down a snowball and like, not know how to pick yourself up because you know you're trying to do too many things when you don't have, like, the basics or you're not ready to.
Speaker B:You're just, you're just kind of all over the place.
Speaker B:You just need to ground yourself and take it step by step.
Speaker B:So thank you for sharing what you shared.
Speaker B:So I'm going to end off.
Speaker B:Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing so much wisdom and your vision.
Speaker B:Your work with Novellum is proof that innovation isn't just about technology.
Speaker B:It's about people, heart, access and community.
Speaker B:To our listeners.
Speaker B:Remember that empowered humans empower humans.
Speaker B:So go out there, build boldly, and always lead with love.
Speaker B:Until next time, this is the witlove podcast.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker C:Bye.
Speaker A:So there you have it.
Speaker A:We trust that you enjoyed this episode and are looking forward to the next month.
Speaker A:Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode.
Speaker A:Until then, thank you for listening.
Speaker A:With love.
