Zach sits down with Side Hustle Pro's Nicaila Matthews Okome to talk about all things hustle. She shares her career journey, promotes SHP's Podcast Moguls program, and breaks down the genesis of her Color Noir app. She also illustrates what it looks like to really build authentic relationships in today's space.




Check out Side Hustle Pro!

http://bit.ly/2Zl5c4r




Find out more about SHP's Podcast Moguls program!

http://bit.ly/2WtgG48




Download Color Noir on the App Store!

https://apple.co/2WGZSMg




TRANSCRIPT

Zach: What's up, y'all? It's Zach, and you're listening to Living Corporate. Now, look, y'all. Y'all know we have some dope guests on the show. Executives, musicians, entrepreneurs, activists. You know, real movers and shakers. I'm not trying to, like, not drop too many names, but I'm saying, like, you know, DeRay Mckesson, J. Prince, Preston Mitchum. I mean, come on. Like, we've got some peop--we've had some people on the show, and look, who would we be if we didn't bring y'all another dope guest, okay, to parlay with us, to kick back, to chit-chat, to lay back, to--you know, to kick it one time for the one time... Nicaila Matthews Okome!




Nicaila: Woohoo!




[both laugh]




Nicaila: What a warm welcome.




Zach: Oh, no. Oh, I'm just getting started, Nicaila. Nicaila is a Jamaican-born Bronx-bred marketer and side hustler turned full-time podcaster and entrepreneur. Now, listen, y'all. She's Jamaican and she's from the BX, so she be workin' workin', okay?




[both laugh]




Zach: In 2016, Nicaila created the Side Hustle Pro podcast. Side Hustle Pro is the first and only podcast to spotlight bold black women entrepreneurs who have scaled from the side hustle to profitable businesses. Since the launch, it has been named the quote "perfect entrepreneurship podcast" by Mashable and earned over two million--hold on. [record scratch] Sound Man, give me some reverb when I say millions. So it's like, "Million-million-million-million." Million downloads and amassed a loyal social media following of aspiring entrepreneurs. Oh, yeah. I'm excited just reading the intro. So with all that being said, first of all, 'cause she's from the BX, I'm gonna add a hearty YEARP and--




[both laugh]




Zach: And I hope it's not culturally insensitive 'cause I recognize that you're Jamaican, but we're gonna add some air horns right HERE [they are dropped] and let these jaunts fly! Let's go! Nicaila, welcome to the show. How are you doing?




Nicaila: I am doing amazing. Listen, after that intro, I am on a high, all right? That is, like, the best, most warm intro I've ever received. Thank you, Zach. Thank you for having me in the guest chair.




Zach: Ooh. I'm honored, and I'm turning purple--'cause I'm blushing, you know what I'm saying? So for those of us who don't know you, and I know I gave a little bit in the intro, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?




Nicaila: Sure, sure. So yeah, you covered a lot, but I guess from what you didn't cover--so, you know, at the core, I am a dreamer, I am a storyteller, and when I was young, that looked like me being the little girl who loved, you know, making up stories, just being by herself in her own world, and later in life [it] would manifest in this career in marketing, specifically social media marketing. So I have over 10 years of experience in that lane, and while I was figuring out my life's journey, what ended up happening is--throughout my life I've side hustled and come up with different things a few times, but coming out of grad school I had a hard time finding a full-time role, and that led me back to the side hustle path, but this time I was determined to actually grow it to the point where I could do my own thing. So the side hustle was the podcast, Side Hustle Pro podcast like you said, and I was able to market and monetize it to the level where I was able to quit my full-time job and turn my side hustle into my full hustle, and now I coach emerging podcasters in my Podcast Moguls program because I want other people to be able to have that experience. And since I have a lot of jobs and, you know, that's just in my blood like you said, I'm also an app creator. So my husband and I recently launched the Color Noir app, which is an app devoted to all things melanin and Black Girl Magic. So really excited about that.




Zach: Man. So first of all, you've got--you got a lot of dip on the chip, 'cause we was gonna get there, but it's okay. We're still gonna get there a little bit later in the interview. First of all, I love this. Yes, I love the Color Noir app. Definitely in Podcast Moguls. We're gonna talk about that as well. You know, it's interesting, 'cause my--I know that you talked about, like, you know, how you made the side hustle your full hustle. I feel like the scariest part of anything is getting started, right? So you talk about--you talk about kind of not really knowing what you wanted to do after grad school, but, like, plenty of people finish grad school and don't know what to do, and then they figure--you know, they do something. They end up going back to industry, or maybe they teach or something like that. What was the igniter for you to actually launch Side Hustle Pro specifically?




Nicaila: So the igniter for me was really rejection. I got rejected so many times in that period between when I graduated from Michigan--I went to the University of Michigan for my MBA.




Zach: Shout-out [?].




Nicaila: Shout-out. Go Blue. Graduated in May 2015, and [I] didn't end up landing a full-time role until December of 2015. So between that time I had a whole bunch of rejections. I'm talking about--there was one company, I went on an interview--I had six interviews with, and I just knew I was gonna get that role... did not get the role.




Zach: Mm-mm! [read: No!]




Nicaila: Yeah! So what happened is I started blogging again and interviewing people, 1. because I was trying to figure out, "Okay, what can I do? I know I love writing. I know I love social media. Let me just explore and continue to work on things that bring me joy. I don't know what it means. God, I don't know how to make a career out of this," but I figured that while I don't have a job I should at least nurture those skills. So that was the initial impetus to just start the blog, and I was particularly interested in black women who were side hustling but were able to build out their business on the side, because 1. I was so tired of being rejected I was like, "Oh, I'm done with corporate. Even when I got a job, I gotta do my own thing. I gotta do my own thing shortly after, like, the last job I'm gonna get. No one's ever gonna be able to reject me again." And then 2. I also knew that, again, I was gonna go back to corporate and that anything that I was gonna start would have to start as me building it on the side.




Zach: One thing you said that I love is that--what I've observed, especially for, like, younger folks, millennials--millennials ain't really younger no more. We're, like, not the youngest people [?] anymore. What we'll do is, like, you know, we don't know what we're doing, where to start, so we just kind of sit on our hands, and part of your story was you were like, "Look, I'm not getting a job. I'm gonna do something." Like, you took that and you used that energy and put it towards something that eventually manifested into something viable, and that's just--that's so inspiring to me, like, no boost, because I think a lot of times what I've noticed is, like I said, we'll just kind of, like, sit on our hands and be like, "Well, I don't really know what to do, so I'm not gonna do anything." It's like, "Well, no. You could do something," you know what I'm saying? Like, you could do--like, figure out--figure out something. Like, take that energy and put it towards something. Make it--




Nicaila: Absolutely, yep.




Zach: Yeah, make something--like, do something productive. Man, so that's just super dope. So, you know, we talked about the first scariest thing. I think the second scariest part of doing something entrepreneurial is realizing like, "Oh, snap. This is something I can actually do full-time." So, like, as you were building out Side Hustle Pro and as it was growing, at what moment did you go, "Ayo, this is gonna be me for real"? Like, "I got this"?




Nicaila: So, you know, I kind of had two of those moments in my journey. So the first one happened when I was freelancing. So because I didn't have a job I was able to land, like, a freelancing gig with this organization, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, MLT, which prepares, you know, under-represented professionals for the career field and also has a super dope MBA prep program, which I went through, and I also went through it in undergrad.




Zach: Yeah.




Nicaila: Folks at MLT Family, much love to them, because they gave me a freelance role as a social media marketer during that summer while I was finding my way. That was one of the first moments where I was like, "Yo, I could--you know, worst comes to worst I could maybe start my own social media consulting agency. That's one thing I could do." But I kind of pushed that to the side because I was like--I just didn't know how I would start that, how I would get any clients and what that would look like, and I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted to do. So continued to do that, continued to interview, got my full-time role--which ended up being at NPR, National Public Radio, in Washington, D.C., doing social media for their programming and their podcasts, ironically. So as I was doing that I ended up turning the blog into a podcast at that point, and the moment when I thought "I think I could do this full-time" is when I decided to start going after sponsorships. So within six months of the podcast launching, I pitched my first sponsor, and it just so happened that cold pitching--I landed that first sponsorship contract, and it