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Nothing Ventured – Nii Cleland series 2 episode 12

In conversation with Nii Cleland, co-founder of Flair - a start-up with a mission to help organizations measure their progress in building racially equitable cultures.

“In order to create long-lasting change in the Venture ecosystem, the problem must be dealt with from the top down.

Combating Racial Inequality in the Ecosystem

In conversation with Nii Cleland, co-founder of Flair - a start-up with a mission to help organizations measure their progress in building racially equitable cultures.

After building the UK’s largest mobile app for young footballers, Nii Cleland co-founded Flair – a racial equity technology company helping organisations measure and demonstrate their progress in building racially equitable cultures.

Before launching Flair, Nii’s former company, Flair Football, had seen great success with over twenty thousand users across the U.K. and Ireland. 

Having made the difficult decision to discontinue the business in 2020 during the pandemic, Nii and his co-founder, Darrell Coker, recognised the major societal problem of racial inequality and decided to devote their time and energies to creating solutions. 

In this week’s episode of Nothing Ventured, Nii discusses racial inequality in the ecosystem, expanding businesses in new territories, and Flair. 

 

The motive behind Flair. 

 

Nii begins this podcast by discussing the many reasons behind the setting up of Flair. 

When the pandemic hit, the Flair Football app’s usage had dropped considerably overnight as kids couldn’t play football all of a sudden, and the app focused on tracking performance. 

Fortunately, they had enough capital, a great team, and investors who were willing to do something different. 

This career pivot also happened in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement resulting from the murder of George Floyd, which led to a great deal of introspection.

As black founders in the tech world, Nii and Darrell thought about how race and discrimination had impacted their lives and careers. 

Nii observed other companies making rushed action plans that felt ingenuine. He was skeptical that the necessary data analysis had been carried out so that the right interventions could be implemented in order to create long-lasting change.

He says, “Something that we learned with Flair Football was that unless you use data to guide your enhancements, your products, and your solutions, you can come up with the complete wrong solutions”. 

That was how Flair began. Nii and Darrell wanted to create a process of gathering data on racial bias and inequality that was more systematic – allowing organizations to have metrics to measure progress. 

 

The impact.

 

Nii believes that the Black Lives Matter movement will have a more staying power and long-lasting impact than other diversity-inclusion waves – partly due to the amount of time that everyone had to reflect during the pandemic and partly because of the pressure that was put  on businesses and organizations.

There is a risk that this tide will settle, but it is the responsibility of those who care about equality to ensure that the pressure is maintained, according to Nii. 

Flair applies continued pressure through accountability in their data.  

 

From the U.K. to the U.S.

 

Nii and Aarish discuss the challenges of expanding your business and branching out from the U.K. to the U.S. 

Nii explains the cultural nuances regarding race between the two countries.

As Flair is currently branching out into the US, Cleland talks about the operational challenges they are facing. He stresses the importance of thoroughly understanding the market before geographically branching out. 

 

There is no quick fix.

 

In order to create long-lasting change in the Venture ecosystem, the problem must be dealt with from the top down.

When there is a systematic exclusion of people within the ecosystem in higher-level positions, it makes it very hard to include people at every other level. 

VCs need to invest more in ethnic minority-owned businesses and ensure more black founders get funded.

Aarish and Nii also discuss the tendency of companies to put all minorities in the same bracket and the disservice this does to everyone put in the same category. 

     

Advice to young entrepreneurs

 

Later on in the podcast, Nii stresses the importance of gaining as much knowledge and wisdom as possible from more experienced entrepreneurs when starting out. Learning from people who have accomplished something similar to what you want to do makes it a lot less daunting. 

“We live in a world where access is so much easier than it seems”, according to Cleland. He explains that you don’t need to be limited to your personal network thanks to social media and people’s willingness to share knowledge and help young entrepreneurs. 

Listen to the full conversation with Nii on the Nothing Ventured Podcast. 

You can also find Nii Cleland on Twitter (@niistweets), Instagram (@nii_flair), or LinkedIn (@NiiCleland

 

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