zlacker

"well-meaning friends—mainly other Black entrepreneurs who faced similar challenges—suggested that Givens add a White man as a co-founder."

I'm not black, but I'm also not white, and I've been suggested this numerous times as well by well-meaning people after our startup not being able to fundraise for several months but some of our white-male-founded competitors had successfully raised. One friend was even joking about a "white-guy-as-a-service" to help minority startups get funded -- i.e. hire a white guy to show up to your VC pitch (or maybe pitch it for you) and your chances of funding would probably astronomically rise.

>>dheera+(OP)
Yeah this is real man, but products win in the end of the day, beat them, it makes the competition harder, so what? I am in the same boat, work twice as hard, racism won't give you time, this can take decades to fix. Best of luck

>>dheera+(OP)
This reminds me of a Nairobi-based startup who tweeted a job posting in which they were looking for a white male to join their team to act as a face for the business. I don't know if it was in jest but it was hilarious and sad.

>>hckr_n+WY3
This is basically what DJI did. Sad world but I bet they wouldn't have gained so much traction and investment if their marketing wasn't always full of white people using them (they did this right from the very beginning).