‘Black in America’: Angela Benton, One Year Later

Last November, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien explored Silicon Valley through the eyes of eight African-American entrepreneurs. All participants of the inaugural NewMe Accelerator class, the Black in America: The New Promised Land — Silicon Valley cast invited viewers into their journey as startup founders competing in an industry comprised of less than 1% of entrepreneurs that look like them. BlackEnterprise.com caught up with the tech innovators to see what they’ve been up to one year later.

If you’ve watched technophile and founder of NewME Accelerator Angela Benton move, organizing and securing funding for the tech incubator, overseeing an online publication focused on African Americans in technology (Black Web 2.0), launching her own startup Cued and, most importantly, raising her three children, you’re bound to wonder how she does it all. Let’s just say, it’s a mix of confidence, hard work, perseverance and humility.

At age 31, Benton has been recognized for her work in the tech space by Black Enterprise, Ebony Magazine, TheRoot and TheGrio, among other publications and organizations. The program she co-founded alongside Wayne Sutton has not only garnered recognition from Inc. Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, but has yielded real results. To date, NewME has assisted close to 30 startup founders with their innovative startup incubator program geared towards underrepresented minorities in the tech industry. Amidst the one year anniversary of the CNN special, see what’s been keeping Benton occupied, why she was pleased with the way the Black in America special turned out and what’s next for NewMe.

I’ve been living in Silicon Valley for nearly 15 months, I moved because…

NewME had momentum here in the Valley and it would be necessary for its future success to become headquartered here.

Since NewME took off…

I decided to put Cued on hold.  I was able to work on a functional prototype before turning 100%

of my efforts to NewME.  As Founder and CEO of NewME part of my job and responsibility to the life of the business is to make sure that it has all that it needs to grow.  This includes a good and dedicated team that is passionate about its mission; partners that are invested in its success; entrepreneurs who also see the value in our mission, and, of course, money to make it go! While NewME has not raised a formal investment round, our sponsors are our partners and are invested in our success both financially and through other resources.

The best business advice I received from a NewME mentor…

Have a clear vision of where you want to go, but it might not all unfold at once; it’s a process and once you find your sweet spot, you have to move fast.  It’s important to listen to the advice that you get along the way but pick and choose what is right for you and where you know you want to go.

The environment in Silicon Valley has changed for the better because…

There is more awareness around what the status quo had been. There is also a real effort to change it, from groups like NewME, Black Founders, [and] Black Girls Code to the businesses in the Valley that support them like Google and Facebook to Andreessen Horowitz, and many others.

What is needed more, black CEOs with technical skills or business skills? I think…

You need both skillets to run a tech business so this is like a chicken and egg problem.

There is no one solution to increasing the number of blacks in Silicon Valley because…

In reality it will take an orchestra of people, education, programs, exposure, etc. to make it all happen successfully.  At the end of the day, we should not just look for increasing the number; we should be looking at increasing the quality and likelihood of success.

I’m a fan of how the Black in America 4 documentary turned out…

It did a great job of showing most aspects that we [entrepreneurs] went through during the summer as well as where we all came from.  In terms of it being successful in shedding light on the problem: Absolutely!  I have hundreds of emails from people around the world, who saw the show, which this problem resonated with.  People in Africa, Israel, and even the Philippines.

NewME has helped…

Twenty-seven founders since the first class in June 2011.  We just had a NewME Accelerator Popup for 3 days in Miami where we helped 60 companies.  Additionally, we have 1200 entrepreneurs in the NewME Community around the country.