When Alex Rodriguez couldn’t find a group that would help him connect with other people of color in the Twin Cities tech community, he created his own.
Graveti, the group he founded last year, focuses on bringing together “high potential” founders, techies, investors and organizers of color to collaborate and improve opportunities for minorities in the Twin Cities’ startup ecosystem.
“Right now, a large percentage of the community is doing tech as moonlighting or a side hustle,” Rodriguez said.
He added that by connecting young entrepreneurs to the right resources, Graveti hopes to show its members that an idea or a part-time gig could grow to a full-fledged business.
Rodriguez said he got the idea for Graveti from his own experiences at meetups in the area.
“I was usually one of the only people of color there,” he said. “Which seemed strange to me because there are so many talented people of color making things happen in tech.”
In response, Rodriguez began hosting small, informal meetups at coffee shops and coworking spaces across the city. The number of attendees grew quickly, leading to Graveti’s “official” launch just over a year ago.
“It’s important that people see that there’s a tech community in Minnesota. But more specifically, that there are people of color succeeding in this community."
At the time, Rodriguez was in the process of growing and developing WorkMand, his project management app for construction companies. He also was in the middle of a one-year stint as a Code 2040 fellow at COCO.
“I had a lot going on, but I thought, ‘Well, if no one else is going to do this, I will.’”
Late last month, Graveti hosted its inaugural summit at COCO Uptown. The half-day conference covered the basics of how to break into tech, and featured nine speakers from around the Cities and across the country.
Homi was one of the companies Graveti brought in to present at the summit. Co-founded by Carleton-grad Phil Xiao, Homi is a food truck (that served free truffle butter chicken fried rice to Graveti attendees at lunch) that also doubles as an online mentorship platform connecting college alumni with recent grads.
Although the five-person Graveti team was actively planning the summit for the past several months, Rodriguez said that the idea for a summit had been there from the start.
“It’s important that people see that there’s a tech community in Minnesota,” he said. “But more specifically, that there are people of color succeeding in this community. It’s a big issue around the country that there’s a lack of blacks and latino/as working in tech.”
While Minnesota is among the most prosperous and well-educated states in the country, it has the highest financial gap between races nationwide. And once people of color enter the professional world, they’re not likely to stay in the Twin Cities.
60 percent of Twin Cities professionals of color who took part in recent focus groups through regional development nonprofit Greater MSP said they plan to leave the state within the next three to five years.
But Rodriguez remains optimistic.
“I’m proud of the community we’ve already built in a year,” Rodriguez said. “There’s a lot of regulars, and none of them are here for selfish reasons. Everyone wants to help in some way.”
