A Dayton entrepreneur continues her national reach and growth with new contracts and a live broadcast.
Dee Thomas, founder and owner, Anchored With Excellence LLC in Englewood, recently traveled to Atlanta in early June to film a pilot episode for a new show by Pinky Cole, an American restaurateur and owner of Slutty Vegan, a plant-based burger restaurant chain in Atlanta, Georgia.
Thomas can’t say which network the pilot episode will air on but the concept is called American SESH, in which Cole invites successful and rising entrepreneurs in addition to her celebrity friends to get in a room to ideate, according to American SESH LinkedIn.
“She came up with the idea for a pilot show with entrepreneurs from all over the world,” Thomas said, who started following Cole online last year. “The theme is to bring us all together to talk about what we’re doing in the marketplace and our communities.”
Thomas said she was among thousands of applicants that applied to be featured on the pilot episode.
Anchored With Excellence is an educational consulting firm offering professional development training for daycare centers and educators; leadership and transformational coaching for women; wellness plans for women; mentoring for school-aged girls; and tutoring. The startup was a 2023 Dayton Startup to Watch by Dayton Business Journal.
“I kept shooting my shot,” Thomas said.
Thomas recalls being in a Meijer with her son when she was notified she had been selected.
“I literally had to park the cart; I get so emotional,” Thomas said.
She called the chance a “dream come true.”
“Primarily because as a child I was always a dreamer; I knew I would make it out of my traumatic situations at home,” Thomas said. “This was full circle of what I was attempting to do for a long time. To be acknowledged for what I am doing positively in my community to build up children, women, families and schools around the world.”
The filming was done in early June during a live panel called American Sesh Live at Black Enterprise Disruptor Summit.
Thomas was partnered with LaTavia Roberson, an original member of Destiny’s Child, during the taping. Each team was given the same word and 30 seconds to create a business name, concept and how to scale it to a million-dollar business.
“It shows how to come up with ideas quick on your feet,” Thomas said. “We were considered disrupters; we think outside the box to make our work happen.”
Thomas eagerly awaits to find out when the pilot episode will air.
“As an entrepreneur, you really don’t know day to day what the day will look like or the connections you’ll make,” Thomas said. “Really build those relationships.”
Now Thomas prepares to hit the road again, this time to Florida for a week of training with a school district client. The training at the Conscious Discipline Conference will cover how the brain works in children with trauma and social-emotional issues; and how to best work with these students.
“Part of my business is an educational consultant working with teachers on students with trauma,” Thomas said. “I train those teachers on how to deal with those children.”
Thomas has also become a qualified education service provider for the State of Ohio Afterschool Child Enrichment program. Families that qualify based on income can receive up to $1,000 per child for tutoring. Thomas is recruiting students now for tutoring in reading, writing and math for grades third through 12th. Email her at dee@anchoredwithexcellence.com.
Her advice for other entrepreneurs: “Believe in you when no one else does; shoot your shot as many times as it takes until you get that yes.”
