A good building starts with a substantial foundation.
No matter where you go from there, that base is an opening action, an announcement, a public sign of things to come. Whether itās a new home for human, hoopty, or heirlooms, or the future site of industry or ideas, the foundation is the start of something exciting. In a new business and as in the new book āBlack Founderā by Stacy Spikes, it needs to be solid.
With high school graduation on the horizon, Stacy Spikes was itching to move.
His hometown of Houston, Texas, had become ātoo smallā to hold his dreams. Education was important in his family, but college held no interest to him, either. Instead, he was going to Los Angeles to chase a career in music and movies.
He broke the news to his parents and, with $300 in his pocket, he drove northwest.
Once in California, Spikes quickly understood that he didnāt need a job, he needed several of them. Before he could get settled, though, he fell in with a bad crowd and was hospitalized to help him kick drugs and alcohol abuse forever.
He returned to a job he had working with a two-in-one company in Encino, making and packaging videos. The men he worked with mentored him; it was there that he learned the need to āgo to extra lengths to meet [someone] in their field.ā
Spikes took acting classes and absorbed as much as he could about old-time Black comedians. He built a recording studio in his home and learned to make album covers, which led him to a job at Motown, where he went into sales and learned how to make an impression. The āBlack Godfatherā taught him that it was possible to talk with anyone, black or white, with honesty. And before he founded Urbanworld Film Festival and MoviePass, Motown helped him see that to succeed, āYou didnāt need an army, just a small group of like-minded souls set on making a difference.ā
Readers looking for a good business biography are in for a nice surprise when they read āBlack Founder.ā Theyāll also get some entrepreneurial advice. Itās not bold-face or bulleted; youāll have to look for it, but itās in there.
āTransparencyā is what author Stacy Spikes learned early, and itās what he applies inside this book, which is refreshing. This isnāt a book about a meteoric rise; Spikes instead writes about setbacks, both personal and professional, and times of struggle. Readers can imagine a Parkour-like hustle that Spikes describes as he overcame seemingly-catastrophic events and still landed with both feet; such tales serve to instruct as much as does the actual instruction.
Though it may seem to lag a bit ā especially for older readers, or those who are unfamiliar with the businesses Spikes founded ā āBlack Founderā is entertaining enough to read for fun, with a side dish of instruction. Whether youāre ready to act now or youāre just finding your inner entrepreneur, to launch your idea, itās a good base.
c.2023, Dafina
$28.00
256 pages
Hereās a rags-to-riches story for you: āNever Far From Homeā by Bruce Jackson (Atria, $28) is the story of Jacksonās life. He was born in Brooklyn and lived his early life in public housing. At age ten, he was arrested for robbery (which he didnāt do) and he caught the attention of drug dealers. Knowing then that that wasnāt the kind of life he wanted, Jackson worked hard to overcome his background. His story is inspiring and awe-striking.