Adam Torres and Nitiya Walker discuss the Girl Start Up Competition.
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Show Notes:
The Girls Start Up Program is helping your entrepreneurs on their journey to success. In this episode, Adam Torres and Nitiya Walker, Executive Director at Seeds of Fortune Inc., explore the importance of entrepreneurship and how the Girls Start Up Program works with 10X Kids.
About Nitiya Walker
Financial Empowerment and Education Advocate
Nitiya is passionate about solving the college affordability issue through educational and economic empowerment for women of color. As the Executive Director and Founder of Seeds of Fortune Inc., a unique organization combining girl power, financial literacy, career development, and higher education pipeline to put opportunity and financial power back into the hands of young women of color.
The program helps minority teen girls become financially empowered by helping them learn about money through the college and scholarship higher education process. She created the program in her Senior year of college inside her dorm room. Nitiya was inspired to share the skills of obtaining scholarships, she learned in highschool that allowed her to win a Full tuition, Posse Leadership Scholarship to Babson College, Girl Scout Future Women of Distinction Scholarship, and more. She believed it was her duty to help ease the financial burdens of those in her generation since she was able to graduate debt free.
She was recently selected as One Young World Deloitte Scholar and Forbes 30 Under 30. She has also worked on the Girls Scouts of Greater NY Future Woman of Distinction Scholarship Committee, Speech Coach for the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated teen program, and has spoken at The Girl United Nations, The Opportunity Network, Viacom Careers, and Barnard STEP program. Nitiya is the Former, Head of Millenial Committee with the National Association of Minorities in Communications. She hosts a blog and financial coaching company, Walker Finance and Media, highlighting financial tips for Gen Z and Millenials.
About Seeds of Fortune
Seeds of Fortune Inc. is a renowned organization dedicated to empowering young women from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Through innovative programs, mentorship, and guidance, we aim to equip these future leaders with the tools they need to excel academically, professionally, and personally.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right. So did I have Nitiya Walker on the line and she’s executive director over at Seeds of Fortune Inc.
Natalia, welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for having me today. Oh, my gosh, Natalia. So I’m excited to talk to you. I’ve been covering the, pitch competitions that the Grant Cardone foundation has been supporting for a while now. I had Elena Cardone on the show. I had Phil, I had Sherry.
I mean the whole crew over there. I’m just. thoroughly excited about what’s going on. and I’m excited to have you here today. So I guess just to get us kicked off a bit here, maybe just start by telling us a little bit more about , the Girl Startup Program and really kind of how all of this started.
So our Girl Startup Program came from our scholars program where we wanted girls to be able to Learn entrepreneurial skill sets as socioeconomic mobility is very important to us while they were doing the college application process in 2022, we decided to make it a program initiative on its own, where girls would be able to compete with each other with the best ideas kind of coming to the top.
And then we were able to, in 2023 partner with the grant Cardone foundation to 10 exit. And how did you, like, do you recall, like, when you first got the idea, like, yourself, , as an entrepreneur and to just kind of go on this path? You remember that? Like, what, what was that like? So, Girl Startup is one of the programs within our greater organization, Seeds of Fortune.
So, Seeds of Fortune has been around for 10 years. It was created when I was an undergrad from the idea of trying to get funding for a college education. I realized that with the growing cost of college, it was just very expensive to be able to navigate those waters and to be able to really have transparency in the college affordability lens.
Somebody taught me how to get scholarships to college. So I really wanted to be able to give that back to my community. But the entrepreneurship component really came into play because when I was in high school, My church had this program called teens that mean business And they allow that’s a great name, by the way.
I like that teens that mean business. That’s amazing. Go ahead Yeah, I know. It was like, actually, it’s a really great program. It’s still running to this day. And the church would fundraise all year to allow for 20 high school students to be able to intern with local businesses. And we had to take financial literacy classes and present at the end of the summer.
So it was quite an exciting way to kind of incentivize us. yeah, that’s so interesting to me to think that like that’s a very forward thinking church. I feel like my church didn’t have any entrepreneur thing. Like, that’s amazing. It’s great. No, it was really great. They had a set of bank accounts.
Like, they were really like invested in our success overall as students. So when I was creating Seeds of Fortune, I remembered I ended up going to Babson College, which is number one for entrepreneurship in the country. And when I was helping the students through their college application process, some of them had hadn’t had extracurricular activities.
They weren’t involved in anything. So they were coming up on their senior year of high school, and a big part of being a top candidate for college is to have extracurricular activities. So I found that the business plan and team that mean business was a great way for me to be a part of a ecosystem that helped to expand my creativity, think about how I could create revenue and in a short amount of time, be able to enhance my my extracurricular activity experience.
So I thought it could be a great opportunity for the girl with financial empowerment being a key pillar of ours for them to learn entrepreneurial skill sets, be creative. Ours has a particular lens where it has to be a social impact idea, so something that’s going to help the community.
how did you, originally, so you mentioned now at I think you said 2023, you were introduced to Grant Cardone foundation and the, and the concept was to 10 X, some of the initiatives and the pitch competition. Otherwise, like, how’d you get introduced to the organization originally So, I actually saw a grant in a podcast called David never sleep. And he was talking about how he grew his business. He was talking about his background. He was talking about the 10x brand. And then he started talking about how they had formed a foundation pretty recently to help students from underprivileged backgrounds be able to be successful because of grants own struggles and adolescence.
So from there, I was like, well, Seems like a group of people that would be really invested in what we have going on here at SEADS because we have similar like minded missions. And I reached out to the foundation and we did some collaborations in Miami. And then from the collaboration in Miami, we were able to start to think about initiatives that could be a great pillar to connect with Young people all across the country and our entrepreneurship program.
It’s amazing. And for those that don’t, that maybe haven’t been following this story, cause as I mentioned, we’ve been, we’ve been covering a little bit here and I’ve, I’ve interviewed multiple people from the foundation, maybe talk a little bit more about the pitch competition and just how it works, maybe selection.
And otherwise, like, like how does it all work? So for us, they get selected. So we have like another pitch before the 10, et cetera. Yeah. So the young ladies, they can apply from all across the country in our program, and we’re headquartered in New York City. So the girls submit business plan ideas to us on our online platform.
Once they submit an online idea to us, they have to create a business website as if the company has already launched, if they haven’t launched it already. From there, we have a panel of reviewers that review the websites to see which ones are the top websites and the most innovative ideas helping their communities forward in a social impact driven lens.
From there, they have a four week accelerator that we put them through where they learn the fundamentals of creating a business and getting your business off the ground. And then they transition into what we call Founders Day Pitch, which is sponsored by our partner BMO Capital Markets, where the girls buy for the top 20 spots to come to the Grant Cardone Foundation’s Miami Pitch Off competition.
So the girls have been pretty rigorous in their ideation to launch phase before they get to the 10x pitch off. Once they’re at the 10X pitch drop, the judges from the Founders Day pitch pick 10 students to pitch to buy for 000, and 1, 000 in grand prizes. Funny enough, this year they doubled up the prizes for the girls to be able to do their Businesses and launch it for our organization, the girls can use the picture of money to continue to grow their businesses or to grow their knowledge in the business field.
So going into a college or university that has an entrepreneurship or business program. And I don’t think we mentioned this or I don’t think I asked you. So age groups, what are the age groups? They are 17 years old. So they’re 11th. They’re between their 11th and 12th grade of high school. Okay. That’s amazing.
Cause what you just now described, like the pitch off competition, the accelerator, the, this, that, like, I don’t even like, like people don’t go through this till after college norm, if they’re ever, if ever, or maybe, I mean, in entrepreneurship as well, there’s some people listening right now, like, man, I’ve never been through an accelerator, like how amazing Is it that everybody that’s participating, regardless of, , where they fall in, the lineup, like that they get to go through this experience.
It’s amazing. No, I didn’t at that age. That’s crazy. It’s great. It’s so crazy. And like the ideas they come up with are so innovative and fun. Oh, give me an idea. What, what sticks out to you? Do you have anything off the top that just like something you say it doesn’t have to be somebody that one, it could be somebody that one, it could be whatever you want, but like, what are some of the ideas that stuck out to you as you’ve kind of been involved in this?
I would say they’ve all range. So some of the ideas that stuck out to me this year was a young woman has something called the Mina, which was a stem based comic book collection. One of the third place winners, she had a charm business. So think Pandora, but for teams, and instead of just being you collect charms, each of the charms are connected to an online community.
Where you can meet other girls that also have those same charms and be able to connect with them on your achievements or things that you’re trying to be successful at in, in society. They run the gamut. There was another one called Aguas, which was a Mexican refreshment drink, which has been in the Mexican Culture and tradition for many, many years, and they just have like a beautiful branding and family story to it.
So really exciting, like, innovative, very cultural experiences. Another young lady, she had something called the cultural connect. Which was kind of like a Duolingo, but like, instead of just learning about the language, you would learn about the culture of the individuals within that ecosystem. So really, like, really bridging the gap on what is needed in society to make society a better place, but then also something that can bring in revenues as well.
And just roughly, like, how many submissions, like, go into this? Like, how many people do you think apply to this? Roughly, I don’t mean an exact number or anything like that, because this is amazing. Thank you. We had about, I would say, a hundred girls apply, 60 successfully completed their websites for review, and then we Wow.
That’s absolutely amazing. I’m over here thinking, man, I obviously have the company website, but I’ve been talking about doing this personal branding website for a long time. Thank you to all those participants out there. They’re motivating me. Like, how motivating is that? This to see 70 year old, 62 websites, 60 new potential businesses, new pitches, new skill sets.
Like to me reaching into, , these communities and these entrepreneurs, you don’t know that next, whoever the entrepreneurs, the Elon Musk, the whoever, whatever, it doesn’t even matter. Like it could come out of these competitions in time. And this was their start. You just never know. It’s quite exciting, really, to see them grow and become more into themselves as the competition goes on.
And then you have the beautiful backdrop of Miami and Aventura for the girls to, like, really have their dreams come true. It’s quite exciting. Wow, I can’t even imagine the energy there. And you mentioned that they’re coming in, I believe, submit from all around the country, yeah? Yeah. They do.
Wow. To think about like one day you’re in a pitch, you’re doing some stuff. You start what , you’re winning, you’re going to the next thing and you get to fly to the foundation headquarters. Go, go do your pitch. Like what an experience. And you’re 17. blows my mind. Like the opportunity and all the people that are involved.
To make this happen. what has been one of your favorite parts of just being through this whole process and witnessing all these ideas and just participants? Like, what’s been one of your favorite parts of being a part of this? I think for them to grow their confidence and their business ideas.
For them to share parts of their culture and their identity with us or problems happening in their local ecosystem at the end of the innovative ways that they’re trying to solve those problems at a young age, I think has been like the most exciting part of the job for us as an organization.
how do people get involved with Seeds of Fortune? Like, how do people get involved? How do they support? Like, talk to me a little bit more about that. So people can get involved with Seeds of Fortune by going to our website, www. seedsoffortune. org. We’re always bringing on corporate partners to do volunteer experiences.
Like, for example, at the pitch off, we have corporate volunteers that review the girls websites and pitches before they go to their founders they’ve pitched. We have people that come in and help with college essay writing. So anything that you can think of that you think that would add value to our organization.
We’re very open to ideas and collaborations and then also we’ll be coming out with a blog soon. I’ll be highlighting the student businesses that were a part of the job. So thanks for that, to be able to see the wonderful businesses and websites that pitch this year. Oh my gosh, this is so fun.
I’m so happy, that you came on the show today, talk more about Seeds of Fortune, of course, and the work you’re doing with the Grant Cardone Foundation and for all of the amazing entrepreneurs and women that are participating. And really our, our future, not our future, our current entrepreneurs.
What am I talking about? There’s over 60, 60 websites launched already. So what am I talking about? They’re doing it. They’re not thinking about it. They’re doing it. And I think to all the, the other entrepreneurs out there that are listening, I hope this is inspiring to you on your journey as well. I know you mentioned it, but I’ll ask you one more time, the website how can people follow up They can connect by going to www. seedsoffortune. org um, slash And then we also have our Instagram page at Seeds of Fortune. So very excited about that. So yeah, any way that people can get involved, get excited about our organization, , we’re elated to have them. And for everybody listening to this, just so , we’ll put the links to it and the and to the, to the website, all that good stuff in the show notes so that you can just click on it and head right on over and speak into the audience, if this is your first time with mission matters or engaging in an episode, this is a daily show each and every day, we’re bringing you new entrepreneurs, new stories, new ideas to hopefully help you along the way in your journey as well.
So if you haven’t done it yet. Hit that subscribe or follow button because guess what’s happening tomorrow. There’s going to be a notification and you’re going to get another episode. So definitely hit that subscribe or follow so you don’t miss anything. And , I’m thrilled about everything you’re doing.
I can’t wait to continue to follow this story and just watch more and more entrepreneurs come out of this program and and all the great work that you’re doing at Seeds of Fortune. So again, thank you for coming on. Thank you so much.