In a fast-paced startup environment that is breaking records across the country for venture funding, not everybody is filling their wallets.
One local startup is feeling the venture pain, despite its unique idea, traction among customers and recent honor as Denver Startup Week’s Pitch Competition champion.
The idea for Black Travel Box struck Orion Brown while on a business trip in Japan. After arriving in the warm, humid temperatures of Okinawa with only a small bottle of conditioner, Brown knew her hair would be a struggle. And, in a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language, she realized finding additional products would prove to be difficult.
So, over some sake, Brown lamented the lack of travel-sized products available to people of color and began to craft a business.
She started building Black Travel Box on the side at first, continuing her career in brand management. By the end of 2018, she decided to take her passion project full time and was ready to explore venture capital funding that next year.
Brown had built a line of travel-sized skin, lip and body care products for Black travelers. But when she pitched to investors, she received little interest and was told her product was for “a niche of a niche."
“Talking to investors and being asked if Black people actually travel or if we need different products is insane to me,” she said of that experience in 2019. “It was a very disheartening process.”
Brown admits that she began to question herself and her product, and backed completely off pitching investors.
“In 2019, I was very down on myself because I felt like I couldn’t raise, and wondered ‘maybe it is me,’” she said.
Rather than altering her business, Brown has since shifted her focus to retail partnerships and crowdfunding opportunities, most recently raising $67,000 on iFundWomen.
She also recently took part in the inaugural BIPOC Pitch Competition at Denver Startup Week, winning that and the main competition a day later, taking home a prize package worth $45,000. Following the whirlwind week, in which she didn’t find out she’d be pitching until two days before, Brown is thankful for the attention it's brought to her company.
She’s even garnered some interest from investors, though she’s approaching the experience with a different mindset than she did only two years ago.
“It’s turning less into Tinder dates and more into Match.com,” she said of the experience, adding that she’s increasingly selective of the meetings she takes.
Brown now approaches investors with a series of questions, including why they’re interested in her business and how they’ll help Black Travel Box grow. She also shared her desire to find a partnership outside of the standard financial relationship that comes with investment.
“I need to have someone who can roll with the punches and go on the journey with me,” she said. “I’m not here to keep people up at night, but if I’m up at night, you should at least be peeking.”
When travel returns to pre-pandemic levels, Brown wants to be ready to pounce. She has already grown her customer base into the thousands and worked with accelerator programs from Target and Macy's. Black Travel Box will appear on Macy’s website later this year, Brown said, with a potential to land on its shelves as well.
She’s also expanding Black Travel Box’s product portfolio, working with a host of new manufacturers to grow its footprint.
“It’s going to be insane when it opens back up, and I’m getting the company ready for that where I can and how I can,” she said.
While she’s had a sour experience with venture capital investing to this point, Brown remains optimistic and is partly thankful she didn’t take on money for her travel-dependent business prior to the pandemic.
If nothing else, she’s at least seeing more of a willingness from the venture community to have conversations with businesses like hers.
“It has been an interesting process, but I think the way that things have changed over the last couple of years in terms of culture, there is more of an openness to hear and see,” she said.
