Every day, big business ideas that impact the world are created. There are thousands of trailblazers and innovators who come up with effective solutions to solve societal problems. From smartphones to the latest beauty products, founders, especially Black founders, have all impacted the world through one simple thought. If this doesn’t exist, how can I change that?
Notable entrepreneurs like Dr. Dre with Dre Beats and Rihanna with Savage Fenty and Fenty Beauty have reached the masses with their influence and ingenious ideas to make a name for themselves in a lacking market. On this panel, moderated by Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole and her husband, founder of Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks, CEOs from across the nation, and celebrity friends work together to ideate and make another business owner’s dream come true.
“American Sesh” is a new event series hosted by Cole that is now LIVE on stage. Audience members can engage with the panelists as they are separated into teams and collaborate to propose the next multi-million dollar idea. This impressive roundtable includes Keisha Knight Pulliam, Larry Morrow, Toya Johnson, Set Shakur, Tameka Foster, Emline, Julius Carpenter, and Dr. Jamal Bryant.
The rules of “American Sesh” is that both teams will receive a word. The team brainstorms a creative from the word to use the word as the next original business. The first word that the teams had to work with was pillow. Together, they thought of ways to scale the world pillow and how to capitalize off an existing product.
Bryant: This guy challenged us to come up with a pillow that could help black people sleep more than any other ethnic group in America. So, we created something called Black Noise. It’s a pillow that has its own soothing sounds to help you rest.
Pulliam: For our group, we have the cosmic pillow. What happens is when you fall asleep with your make-up on, you have oil from your hair getting on your pillow, and do that consistently, your skin doesn’t like it. It acts up, right? So this pillow… When I tell you it’s magic, it is what every person needs. It emits all of the essences and the things you need to ensure that your face will be rid of all that stuff.
Cole: What about there’s a pillow, and instead of ingesting marijuana, there is THC in the pillow. And guess what the pillow is called? Cloud 9. It’s a little pillow that gets you high while you sleep without putting all those toxins in your body.
The session continued with figuring out a business with the word essence. With this round, the teams developed experiential companies that could be exploratory for people worldwide.
Morrow: So we’ll do Essence Wellness Retreats, where people go with us, take trips, and eat great food. We will sell all kinds of products associated with Essence, like good essential oils. It’s designed to heal the mind, body, and soul. It’s a place where you come to take care of yourself, from oils to travel to different products and stuff, classes and whatnot, like yoga.
Carpenter: So, essentially, what we came up with is the Essence culture. It is going to be that the people who love our culture will be able to experience it all around the world. Such as Japan, Peru, Italy, and all over the world. Because they’re not like us, but they can experience us.
The discussion concluded with getting to know four audience members, learning about their businesses, and providing them with any support the panelists could. One of the participants, Michelle Clark, along with her husband, are owners of Double Dutch Aerobics and another business called Jumping Juice. They juice with 10,000 people every three months on a 10-day juice freeze. After learning more about the business’s goals, Cole and Hayes weighed in on how Clark could expand and reach a bigger market.
Hayes: I’m big on kids. So my dad died from cancer, and you were talking about the illnesses and stuff that you heal with the juices, right? So what about the kids of the parents who are sick could jump in this double dutch competition for their parents? The kids jump in to help their loved ones or focus on getting healthy because of what they have seen happen to their parents, and so on.
Not only did the business owners gain substantial advice from the power couple, but they also won a huge financial bonus for their companies.
Two Lewis: On behalf of Pinky and Derek, I’d like to tell you that you won this package worth $25,000. Let me tell you what it comes with: one Shopify e-commerce website for service, so 120 days. You also get one-on-one financial coaching, mentorship, self-paced learning management access, and eight-week small business training. They got your back, baby.