Malkijah Griffiths and Sonya Tareke got bounced in the early rounds of the University at Buffalo’s Panasci competition last year.
The duo doesn’t give up lightly.
The co-founders of Team Real Talk re-entered Panasci – the region’s premiere collegiate entrepreneurship competition – and won its top prize in April. The prize comes with $25,000 in cash and various in-kind services.
It also propels Real Talk from a student project into the broader universe of high-growth startups. The startup seeks to partner with companies in diversity, equity and inclusion training, wrapping a high-growth business model around a hot corporate topic.
Griffiths is a Queens native who entered UB in 2015 and graduated in May with master’s degrees in public health and business. He became Real Talk’s first full-time employee July 1.
“I have a strong passion for health care and entrepreneurship, and I’ve always dreamed of having a business that is mine, that can appreciate,” Griffiths said. “I can tell it’s going to be a hard road, but the beauty is the journey and the learning along the way.”
If the business follows its projections, Tareke will join sometime over the next year.
There’s a lot to do: Griffiths said Real Talk is looking to expand its network of customers in Western New York. The company is also working with a vendor to develop its own proprietary web-based platform, which is designed to facilitate conversations about DEI within businesses.
“Sonya and I built Real Talk because we’re very passionate about having these conversations through the organization,” Griffiths said. “We have both been through things personally and wish we had something like Team Real Talk. We know what it can do for lower-level employees, for high-ranking employees.”
Real Talk has been through two phases of UB’s Cultivator accelerator program, scoring a $50,000 investment from the university in the process.
Real Talk is finding particular success with other startups and tech companies and clients, but Griffiths said its goals are much broader than that. After proving its model works in Buffalo’s corporate environment, Team Real Talk will set its sights on bigger markets.
“Our main goal right now is to be one of the most well-known DEI tech startups in Western New York,” he said. “We’re having success getting sales calls and sales leads with a lot of big-name companies in Buffalo. That’s who we’re going after.”
