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GREENWOOD Dist.–A dozen Techstars Tulsa entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds participated in a workshop in early November aimed at growing revenue to $10 million.
Announced in October, the Fall 2023 cohort for Build in Tulsa Techstars boasts 12 founders from underrepresented backgrounds. From food waste reduction to educational connections, each founder has developed innovative technologies to solve problems for the 21st century as they seek support in growing their businesses.
Enter Jonathan Mentor, owner of Successment. Traveling from New York City to Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jonathan Mentor dusted off his shoes on the pavement of Tulsa’s burgeoning tech ecosystem with a goal to ignite revenue and provoke visibility for the fledgling entrepreneurs.
Mentor led a workshop for the 12 founders dedicated to scaling them up to their first $10 million in revenue. He uses Revenue Operations (RevOps) science to help founders develop a proven strategy for success.
“If I can get 10 founders in Tulsa as clients of mine or influence 10 of them, coach them, work with them, advise them through RevOps science, so they can get their first $10 million dollars, and I can do that 10 times in Tulsa in the course of a year, that’s a $100 million in economic empowerment,” Mentor told The Black Wall Street Times.
“And my goal is to go on the boat party of whoever the hell celebrates that win.”
Tulsa: the tech hub of the Midwest?
Tulsa, Oklahoma, home to Historic Greenwood District’s Black Wall Street, is currently experiencing an explosion of growth in its tech ecosystem.
Partner organizations across the city, including Build in Tulsa, Techstars Tulsa, Tulsa Innovation Lab, and the George Kaiser Family Foundation, have succeeded in making the city a certified Tech Hub.
Tyrance Billingsley II, a Greenwood son who founded Black Tech Street, brought Microsoft to Tulsa in July. His vision of rebuilding Black Wall Street through tech has led to a swarm of support from the White House and major companies.
Currently, Microsoft has partnered with Black Tech Street to help create 1,000 Black cyber employees in the city of Tulsa by 2030.
“We commit to doing this work with Greenwood, not for Greenwood,” Billingsley said in July, “to show the nation that Black Wall Street will be just as powerful of an economic leader for the next century as it was for the last.”
Jonathan Mentor’s recent trip to Tulsa adds more resources and expertise to a pool of entrepreneurs eager to swim in the deep end.
Provoking Visibility, Igniting Revenue for Techstars Tulsa
As a single, gay Black and Latinx dad, Mentor is no stranger to facing hurdles as an underrepresented founder. When his supervisor at the large firm he worked at early in his career refused to listen to his ideas, Mentor left.
He eventually founded Successment, which strives to give founders the tools to accelerate their economic growth.
“Because Black and brown people typically have less access to resources, generational resources, generational wisdom, network, vendors, partners, mentor networks, investments banks,” Mentor said. “So that’s really where I see the root of the problem.”
For instance, in 2022, only one percent of venture capital funding went to Black-founded companies. Despite making up half the population, only 1.9% of VC funding went to women-founded companies that same year.
Jonathan Mentor’s strategy for Techstars Tulsa uses RevOps science, which is made up of the “3 P’s of Profit: Process, Performance and Progress. This method makes founders’ data work more efficiently toward revenue growth by aligning the entire revenue operation. The result, Mentor says, is a bold startup, focused on scalable growth, not just marketing and sales metrics.
“How much money do you need, when and why? What are you gonna do with my money? And if things don’t work out what are you gonna do to pivot,” Mentor asked during the November workshop, reciting questions that would come from an interested investor.
To learn more about each of the 12 Techstars Tulsa founders, visit their website.
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