Porter Braswell, Co-Founder of Jopwell, spoke to Auburn students to give them advice on being an entrepreneur with reference to his booming business.
Braswell is the CEO and Co-Founder of Jopwell, which is a company dedicated to helping Blacks, Latinx and Native Americans advance their career opportunities. Braswell has been recognized as LinkedIn’s 2015 “Next Wave, Top Professionals Under 35,” and Vanity Fair’s 2018 “Future Innovators Index,” along with many more achievements.
The Jopwell company has also received many honors featuring, Entrepreneur Magazine’s “100 Most Brilliant Ideas,” and Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies.”
Braswell grew up in New Jersey with a family who defined success as having a job with a high monetary value. He ultimately received an internship with Morgan Stanley in high school before pursuing a degree at Yale University. While at Yale, Braswell interned with Goldman Sachs and continued working there after his graduation.
Braswell began to see many technical companies come out with statistics that saw a lack of diversity in their workforce. Braswell was applying to these types of companies but was never given entry as they claimed the experience and skills didn’t lie within the minority groups.
“It was incredibly frustrating and isolating,” Braswell said. “It led me to really think about, ‘What responsibility do I have as a person, where can I make an impact in this world and how can I leverage my skill sets and my backgrounds to do something I was passionate about?’”
This is what led Braswell to the idea of Jopwell. Braswell saw companies looking for someone like him, but still denied him. Whether this was from lack of connections or sheer ignorance, Braswell wanted a solution. Companies claimed they wanted the most qualified person to get the jobs, but weren’t exploring the full potential of candidates.
Braswell said Jopwell values diversity because when you’re bringing different experiences, contexts and backgrounds to a company it develops the different worldly experiences to help in problem-solving. This doesn’t de-value non-diverse people, but rather points out that diverse people have experienced the world differently.
Companies are beginning to develop diverse cultures, initiatives and organizations, but don’t explain why it matters. Part of this “why” is because by the year 2040 majority of this nation’s population will be of a diverse culture. This is going to change how companies market and sell products. It’s because of this that a diverse company, specifically diverse leadership is key.
These diverse minds can apply their societal knowledge to the companies goals in order to improve business. It has also been proven that having a more diverse workforce leads to success as well as driving innovation. This is something college students could relate to with the idea of working together with people who aren’t like themselves.
Braswell continued by giving a three-step plan to become an entrepreneur. The first is that your entrepreneurship must be solving a problem. The second is that as an entrepreneur you have to either be an expert or have personal experience dealing with that problem. The third is that you have to be passionate about solving the issue.
“I tell people very humbly that I did not leave Goldman Sachs, working at a bank to make more money,” Braswell said. “I left because I wanted to make that impact on this world. I was so passionate about wanting to solve this challenge that that drives me every single day.”
Braswell talked about the struggles of becoming an entrepreneur and how the first step in overcoming those struggles was to do something. Day one on the job is always the toughest because you’re not exactly sure where to start, but that’s the most important part. You’ve got to start somewhere and take that leap of faith to kickstart your business.
When Braswell started Jopwell he and his co-founder had no technical experience so instead they used their finance experience to begin networking. This was the gateway to open the business, let others know who they were and get other companies on board. These networks were more willing to invest in the people than the company, Braswell said.
“What I believe is that you can build a small business if you can work on a big problem,” Braswell said. “The business will grow, it will breathe, people will want to be a part of it and that’s how you build a large business. But you don’t build a large business on day one. Over time if you’re solving a problem and you’re passionate about it, the world really starts to work, fo you.”
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