The first Hack-A-Thon was not until another two months, so I still had never done a Hack-a-thon before. All I knew was, I want to have a thousand Of them in the first 5 years. and then be able to help a billion people in the next 25. [Music] -"Amaro, What's up with you man?" -"I'm good, man, I'm good. Like life is--" "--Life feels like it's getting back on track right now." -"that's what's up, that's what's up. uh I would say things are definitely hectic on my end. Trying to uh, trying to keep my head uh, above water, but you know, I'm just glad to be here with you and with, uh, with the , with the listeners And sharing another great uh, entrepreneural story." -"Yeah man, and uh, I hear some sniffles and you know I'm planning a trip up to your area soon so you need to get that cleared up before, before I come up to uh to uh, visit." -"Yea man, this thing just hit me out of nowhere. Uh, as the winter's wrapping up, that's when I finally, you know, catch a cold." [both laugh] -"What are the odds, right?" -"Just my luck.. But uhm, yea but I'm over here trying to fight this thing and you know, plenty of fluids and much rest." -"ah man, well- I hope you get better soon then." -"Appreciate it, Appreciate it. Today's episode, we're going to be talking to Joey Womack, co-founder of Amplified For Good, and Goodie Nation. You know, this guy, he's based out of Atlanta, Ga. -"Yup. He's doing some awesome work. Goodie nation is an awesome company in the non-profit, social impact space where he just brings a lot of creative minds together to figure out ways for the community to solve problems because he has this thesis where, like, a lot of the resources to solve some of the world's biggest problems are already embedded with- within the community. It's just improving the efficiencies between these organizations. So that's Goodie Nation, the good work he's doing there. And to amplify for good is just the flip side where he was like "Oh! For profit companies just wanna get some of this innovation love too, so you know, let me go out and train these folks on how to, how to get that start up culture within their organizations. -"Yea and you know, some of these companies he's worked with such as google, coca cola, ford You know, a lot of great companies and he actually shares, you know, some of different ane- some of these anecdotes Of how he actually acquired some of these very large companies, as uhm, customers. Uh, one of the things we also go into within this episode is just a variety of different topics pertaining to, uh , ideation, product development, customer discovery, uhm, hack-a thons-process improvement.." -"So it's basically like, if you, so learn, gleam at the ology because that's every thing that's going to be covered within in this, steps within your viable product That's something that Joey's been, uh, passionate about. Hit subscribe right now. Not later, but right now. You're starting to sound like an I love it, I love it. Let's get into the show, bro. [Hip Hop Music] The first time, uh We had some technical difficulties Not a problem. I'm happy to have you on the show. McDonalds did a spotlight on you for Black History Month The community assembly You're doing your thing Just helping people find a way to carve out a path When I was living in Atlanta Georgia Where it's focused on There's just a lot of gems But before, before we do that What is that one Hip Hop song that gets you hyped up for that It changes man. You know, what I'm saying? So, uh, recently It's not a recent song, I'd say That's been my kick So, you know let's get right into it, you know, Black History Month was last month. That was definitely because you have two different companies that you're currently working on which one did you start working on first? Okay, well What were the Yeah, so, as I kinda alluded to After I graduated and did it full time. Yada, Yada, Yada. Long story shirt: in the process of How to raise money, so on and so forth How to be better by using these philosophies Trying to like, I realize I didn't know what I was going to do Eventually I landed on people in underserved areas all around the country. All this amazing stuff that was free. Cause I read so much. And I needed a better way to distribute the content that I was reading all the A lot of like Was there a common thing that they kept asking The major thing was funding That wasn't my wheelhouse. Or take care of the same expenses so again, you're going to raise money to spend If you're going to spend it on something Well, I'll I'll tell you So, at the same time I was putting this Facebook group together. Honestly, they let me do the events and then they're like Why don't you just do these events for us? Yada Yada Yada Free alcohol, free food, free admission, free celebrity dj. And that's the first time the group had And I saw all the Across multiple generations Wow. What if we used this type of environment to raise money for the You kind of take their talent So that was really one of my first My ability to pull together really talented people. You just provided a clear but, I mean, but from that what I was actually trying to pitch. Finding out what people really care about I learned a lot. and applying them in a non-tech way. But, yeah, it's proved to be real successful Aw, man. To make a long story short they often say, some people believe in God Was calling to use this facebook group for good, right? figure out how I'm gonna help out Cause I got a great opportunity. It wasn't until October That would bring more people of color into the ecosystem. One of which was for And so at that point. But I had this idea it's a great way to I did it. The first one was on March It wasn't like a throw down the My first thought was Then my second thought was I took it as a challenge and Why should they get involved What happens there that makes If I do like a hashtag of myself I would put So when you come to our stuff More like a house party. 20 or 30 people there. Good up tempo music. It's just not people of color. To help out people who need it the most Very talented people with a very fun Yeah, that definitely sounds like a I was just gonna say If you think back to college or high school or something like that. You bs, you wait Just imagine you never even talk You might have And then you gotta present it in front of every You throw people together for 2 days maybe 3 days That sounded like I drink a lot of energy drinks It was fun, though. We have weekend We have demo days It's all When did you start knowing that you could How did you identify We first started Our thesis It's just that whole ecosystem of change Change was going unmade Instead of creating new non-profits. It was just one day Anybody would even come out. More work needed to be done, outside of just the Okay, so maybe we'll do And then we give everyone the teams So that's the one that we had at google This team still did not The events are cool, great energy. And so now, to make a long story short Coming up with an innovative idea Ideas or solutions The second event is Then volunteer marketers They come up with About a month after that So, basically within the span of six months. Build a product. Hype around it Move it better Right there that's Even the business motto. Is it the final presentation pitching their ideas I mean, yeah...you have some investors So a lot of investors don't really know Yeah, yeah. It's a tough deal. And we're learning , we're learning still. Just pitching it was definitely In that, we start to have Have you seen that sort of support from I'll be interested to see Yeah, people are still figuring out People our generation