Tristan Walker has been both a rock star and an anomaly in a Silicon Valley that lacks diversity as much as it breeds world-changing innovation. As head of business development at Foursquare, a company he joined 2009 and left in 2012, Walker was able to use his skills and ingenuity to land lucrative partnerships with merchants and brands, including American Express and BravoTV, expanding the popular social check-in platform’s reach and its multimillion-dollar bottom line.
Keeping a competitive stake in the industry, Walker took his career on the road, becoming popular at South by Southwest, making regular appearances on networks including CNBC and CNN, and building a social media following of more than 300,000. How has he done this? With out-of-box insight on how technology can impact everyday life in ways that aren’t traditionally thought to be tech-related. His latest venture, Walker & Co. Brands, seeks to fulfill a need connected to a greater good. BlackEnterprise.com caught up with him to find out how his latest product under that umbrella, his plans for other products that solve problems for people of color around the world, and the most profound advice he received that changed his life forever.
You’re known for being a tech industry leader with success at companies including FourSquare. Now you’re taking on haircare and beauty? How did you transition as a businessman?
There wasn’t a transition at all. We’re a consumer products company but we still use technology in a big way. We want to deliver the best merchandising experience we can and the best product experience. We started Walker and Co. based on two views of the world I have. The first one is that all global cultures are led by American culture which is led by black culture—food, music, dance, etc. A big frustration of mine is that I’m living in the earliest adopted region of the world and it knows nothing about the earliest adopted culture. That’s crazy to me.
The second view of the world pertains to health and beauty companies. My experience of going into a retailer is having to go to aisle 15 – the ethnic aisle [which oftentimes] isn’t even an aisle, but a shelf – and I have to reach to the bottom of that shelf for a package that is dirty, coppertoned and [has a photo] of a 65-year-old bald, black dude in a towel drinking cognac… [That branding and imagery] needs to go, especially considering how much money we spend on that stuff, the culturally influential demographic we are. I wanted to put the two views together to build a very special consumer packaged goods company which uniquely meets the needs of people of color and solves problems. Bevel is the first manifestation of that vision and is the first and only shaving system designed for people with course or curly hair. You get the shaving and irritation issues, razor bumps, all those issues. We’ve fixed them.
How is Bevel different from the thousands of shavers on the market today?
[The single-blade] is really the best way to shave. This, combined with the right priming oil, shave cream, restoring balm, an exfoliating brush, 20 blades [instead of the usual four you get with other products]—all of these [elements] have proprietary formulations to fix issues [such as] razor bumps and shaving irritations. We found a great private-label partner to help us formulate this.
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When people think of tech consumer products, what typically comes to mind are gadgets, laptops, computers or items that have digital components. How does the core consumer concept of technology come into play with Bevel?
There’s nothing more personal in the world than your physiological makeup. Your DNA, your genetics—they’re unique to you. But there’s nothing less unique in the world than the entire health and beauty industry. I walk into a store and I have to use the same lotion or haircare products that everyone else is using. That’s crazy. We [seek to] offer an experience that’s one-to-one, [from our Website to our bottles to the contents in them.] They should be unique to you—where you live, your make up, your hair, etc.
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order to connect that merchandising experience and the product experience, you need software. When you talk about Foursquare, tech stuff, that’s where we come in. It’s like when ducks are gliding around in water and, beneath, their legs are flapping rapidly. Our brands are the ducks above water and the technology is the feet.The natural haircare industry has grown quite tremendously in the past decade. How does Bevel position itself as a competitive part of this multimillion-dollar market, which is saturated with companies and products?
Walker & Co is developing products to solve a problem. Bevel solves the problem of razor bumps. Done. When you think about the burgeoning natural haircare movement, it’s great, but the opportunity [in health and beauty] is larger than that. To actually build a suite of brands that people can be proud of and that fix problems is significant.
You have a lot of passion for innovation and solving problems in terms of the work you choose to do. The key word there is ‘choose.’ How are you able to monetize your passion and pursue what means something to you, not just a job or the next big business fad?
The most important value is authenticity. I really have to feel like I’m the best person in the world building what I’m building. Nobody’s going to compete or people will be scared to compete. I think a lot of people lose sight of being authentic to what they want to build because they seek the money and fame. Those really don’t mean anything if you’re not authentic to [what you’re doing]. Someone who is authentic to what they do is going to come in and build it and make it better than you, and they will make more money and make you irrelevant.
The second thing is faith. I got the best advice I’ve ever received from Tyler Perry. I had the good fortune to interview him one-on-one during a fireside chat. There was one woman who raised her hand in the audience and [talked about how she] goes through all these trials and tribulations, and she asked, ‘How do you get back up?’ What he said was the most profound thing I’ve ever heard. He said he realized his potential as an entrepreneur when he understood that the trials you go through, and the blessings you receive are the exact same thing. You go through trials but they are lessons, and lessons are blessings. People need to really understand that a little more. Everything gets a lot easier. You take more risks and you don’t stress yourself out so much. That authenticity combined with faith. It’s hard to beat that.