# Overcoming Funding Hurdles For Entrepreneurs

An episode of [Earn Your Leisure](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1450211392), 20 Jul 2026, 7:41.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/8dbc4f54-a337-4481-9ef2-b355012b0a3d/d2421c28-3b45-4ace-8986-b48b016af7e8/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=eac4c628-29cb-469a-b5c8-b355012b0a48

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## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: I mean, we know statistics. We hear about it, the
[0:03] Speaker 1: percentages that minority founders, you know, are able to have
[0:07] Speaker 1: access to. What was that like for you, obviously being minority,
[0:10] Speaker 1: being a woman, a founder talk about that.
[0:13] Speaker 2: I really liked being an outsider in the sense. It
[0:17] Speaker 2: was similar to when I just started to start the
[0:18] Speaker 2: business from NASA. At first, people were telling me, Hey.
[0:23] Speaker 3: You've got to go with a pitch deck, go to
[0:24] Speaker 3: the valley, go to vcs.
[0:26] Speaker 2: But the vcs weren't trying to rock with me.
[0:28] Speaker 3: They didn't think that there was a market for what
[0:31] Speaker 3: I was looking to do.
[0:33] Speaker 2: Business has been around for ten years.
[0:35] Speaker 3: You're wrong, right, So one of the things that I'd
[0:37] Speaker 3: like to say is stop taking advice from people who
[0:40] Speaker 3: haven't done what you're trying to do with LINGO. I'm like, eh,
[0:44] Speaker 3: I don't think I want to raise venture capital.
[0:46] Speaker 2: I know what the stats are. They're terrible. How do
[0:48] Speaker 2: I look at.
[0:49] Speaker 3: The model and how do I flip the model on
[0:50] Speaker 3: its head? Because that's what I do. And when I
[0:54] Speaker 3: looked at it, I said, vcs get their money from
[0:56] Speaker 3: family offices.
[0:58] Speaker 2: Why don't I try to hit up a couple of
[0:59] Speaker 2: family office.
[1:00] Speaker 3: Now I know why people don't typically hit up family offices,
[1:04] Speaker 3: but I was determined once again to try, and I
[1:07] Speaker 3: had the time, and oh, by the way, I had
[1:10] Speaker 3: the patience because I'm already running a business that's successful
[1:14] Speaker 3: that I've had for ten years, So let's try to
[1:16] Speaker 3: figure this out.
[1:17] Speaker 2: So I made a list of.
[1:18] Speaker 3: Family offices who were in businesses that I thought that
[1:21] Speaker 3: could be strategic investors. And the gamble that I made was, well,
[1:26] Speaker 3: if I can get a multi billion dollar family who
[1:30] Speaker 3: has the right investment mindset and is willing to support
[1:34] Speaker 3: me and understands the long term of what I'm looking
[1:36] Speaker 3: to do, can I also bring in traditional capital?
[1:40] Speaker 2: And the answer was yes.
[1:41] Speaker 3: So I did a founder led seed round where I
[1:44] Speaker 3: brought in a million and a half from a family office,
[1:47] Speaker 3: and then I went to the other vcas and said,
[1:49] Speaker 3: do you want to play?
[1:51] Speaker 2: How did that work out?
[1:52] Speaker 3: It worked out well because if I've already brought in
[1:55] Speaker 3: a million and a half and you're going to sip
[1:57] Speaker 3: in one hundred thousand dollars, that million a half is
[1:59] Speaker 3: going to help your hunred thousand dollars.
[2:00] Speaker 2: So I basically de risked around for you. And that's
[2:03] Speaker 2: one of the.
[2:03] Speaker 3: Areas that I've been big on telling other minorities to
[2:07] Speaker 3: pursue was what I call friendly patient capital.
[2:10] Speaker 2: I call my investors like they're my dad. I'm like, hey,
[2:14] Speaker 2: what do you guys doing. Here's what I'm working on.
[2:16] Speaker 3: And part of the things that were not, you know,
[2:20] Speaker 3: non negotiable for this family was that you were going
[2:23] Speaker 3: to do good and you were going to do well right.
[2:25] Speaker 2: It's not just the dollar, It's about the legacy.
[2:28] Speaker 3: And so when I tell them that kids in Ghana
[2:31] Speaker 3: are doing our kids have the video, love it. They're like,
[2:35] Speaker 3: that's what you're supposed to do, right, go out and
[2:37] Speaker 3: make that impact, whereas some people who have you know,
[2:41] Speaker 3: domestic vcs are not necessarily as lucky to have people
[2:44] Speaker 3: who think in that way.
[2:47] Speaker 4: So, okay, so you raise the money that helps you
[2:50] Speaker 4: with infrastructure and employees. I'm assuming, so are you raising
[2:53] Speaker 4: more money? What's the goal?
[2:55] Speaker 2: Yes, you can definitely hit me up if you want
[2:57] Speaker 2: to send a check, nankcept check.
[3:00] Speaker 4: How much are you trying to raise?
[3:02] Speaker 3: I would like to raise about a million more and
[3:08] Speaker 3: plot a path to our Series A.
[3:10] Speaker 2: And I'll tell you why. Some of our clients are
[3:14] Speaker 2: big firms talking Siemens General Dynamics.
[3:18] Speaker 3: General Dynamics has been a customer's ours for the last
[3:21] Speaker 3: three years. Microsoft buys from us, Right, we have big
[3:24] Speaker 3: companies who have engineers who buy from US.
[3:27] Speaker 4: What do they buy the software?
[3:29] Speaker 2: They buy the kids so.
[3:30] Speaker 4: They can teach their employees, They have.
[3:32] Speaker 3: Their employees go into the schools, or they provide it
[3:35] Speaker 3: as capacity building for the schools that they sponsor. And
[3:40] Speaker 3: as I started to do this, we started talking to
[3:43] Speaker 3: school districts. Shout out to Syracuse School District. And I'm
[3:46] Speaker 3: realizing that this mission and this need is even bigger
[3:50] Speaker 3: than I knew. Like when I thought about it, I
[3:52] Speaker 3: was like, oh, we're just going to ship out some kids,
[3:54] Speaker 3: But it's really become about how can we help make
[3:57] Speaker 3: a district better?
[3:59] Speaker 2: And that is a problem of a much larger magnitude
[4:03] Speaker 2: and it takes more time.
[4:04] Speaker 3: And we're also now building custom kids, Like we're about
[4:07] Speaker 3: to drop three whole space lessons. We got a climate satellite,
[4:10] Speaker 3: we got a buggy coming out. That buggy's a moon rubber,
[4:13] Speaker 3: and we also have a rocket launch. And in building
[4:17] Speaker 3: all all this content, I'm like, you know what, bo,
[4:19] Speaker 3: we take a little bit more capital, take our time,
[4:23] Speaker 3: and really do something that is going to.
[4:26] Speaker 2: Move the needle.
[4:27] Speaker 1: How many lessons are inside these kids? Because I'm thinking,
[4:31] Speaker 1: and this was an elementary middle school and obviously high
[4:33] Speaker 1: school probably different, but it felt like they were just
[4:35] Speaker 1: for semesters, and so there was a semester with the
[4:38] Speaker 1: lessons and there was a new set of kids. So
[4:39] Speaker 1: those fourth semesters of kids in the grade every year.
[4:45] Speaker 1: How many lessons are inside of your kids right now?
[4:48] Speaker 2: So it depends on what you want.
[4:50] Speaker 3: And this is the beauty of it, because we design
[4:53] Speaker 3: this to be flexible. You can have two to three
[4:57] Speaker 3: semesters worth in your kid if you want, all about what.
[5:00] Speaker 2: You ask us for. So we developed content for every.
[5:04] Speaker 3: Lesson for the classroom and you could teach that over semester.
[5:09] Speaker 2: You could teach it over too.
[5:11] Speaker 4: So school districts aren't really buying it for you. For
[5:14] Speaker 4: the most part. Is corporations as buying it.
[5:16] Speaker 2: It's mostly been corporations.
[5:17] Speaker 3: If you're out in the district, yeah, I mean, I
[5:20] Speaker 3: think the challenge right is there's a lot going on
[5:23] Speaker 3: in the district environment and we've got some good connections
[5:28] Speaker 3: and we're making progress.
[5:29] Speaker 2: But this is where I'm.
[5:31] Speaker 3: Not ashamed to say I need help the people who
[5:34] Speaker 3: purchase from us. They love us, but I started to
[5:37] Speaker 3: realize what we were really up against when it comes
[5:40] Speaker 3: to like ads and marketing and all that stuff. And
[5:43] Speaker 3: that's really why I was like, I got to go
[5:44] Speaker 3: back to the drawing board and raise more money because
[5:47] Speaker 3: I did not know how expensive it was to really advertise.
[5:51] Speaker 2: And read some of these people.
[5:52] Speaker 1: Is it a price point issue? Because I feel like
[5:55] Speaker 1: schools wet so much money on some of the most
[5:58] Speaker 1: ridiculous things, and they do it better every single year.
[6:01] Speaker 1: And so when you're approaching schools or school districts, are
[6:06] Speaker 1: they saying, well, it's the price point, we don't have
[6:09] Speaker 1: it in the budget this year. What is the resistance
[6:12] Speaker 1: you feel? Because every school has them, so I'm just
[6:14] Speaker 1: trying to find what would be the resistance.
[6:15] Speaker 2: So we actually do not see resistance. Once we get
[6:20] Speaker 2: in front of the right person.
[6:21] Speaker 3: What I see is the amount of money that I
[6:24] Speaker 3: have to invest to have somebody reach out, form the relationship,
[6:29] Speaker 3: do the presentation, put the proposal in front of whoever
[6:32] Speaker 3: has to make the decision, close the deal, and then.
[6:35] Speaker 2: Get paid can be roughly six to eight months. And
[6:39] Speaker 2: that's really where we have to support the operation until
[6:42] Speaker 2: they can close the deal.
[6:43] Speaker 3: And so the challenge in my mind is how can
[6:45] Speaker 3: we do more of these deals and shorten the time.
[6:49] Speaker 4: So what's the ultimate vision for the company.
[6:52] Speaker 3: My vision for Lingo would be to not only be
[6:57] Speaker 3: a global provider of immersive STEM experiences. I would like
[7:00] Speaker 3: to get to the point where some of our boxes
[7:02] Speaker 3: interact with Oculus, but to combine that with the entrepreneurship thing.
[7:07] Speaker 3: Because when I teach the Lingo Box in the Bahamas,
[7:10] Speaker 3: and I've had this camp for nearly ten years, I
[7:13] Speaker 3: couple it with entrepreneurship, and then I give kids money
[7:17] Speaker 3: to go out and try to run their business, because
[7:20] Speaker 3: I believe that you don't have to have a college
[7:23] Speaker 3: degree to be a multimillionaire. You just need to have
[7:27] Speaker 3: entrepreneurship skills.
[7:29] Speaker 2: And it's like a muscle.
[7:30] Speaker 3: The more that you exercise it, the stronger that you're
[7:32] Speaker 3: going to get. So I want students trying to build
[7:35] Speaker 3: their first startup when they're twelve or they're thirteen, because
[7:38] Speaker 3: by the time they're twenty, they're going to be beasts.

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