Name: John Henry: From Doorman To Landlord
Uploaded: 2019-03-04
Duration: 6 min 12 s
Description: John Henry isn't an influencer, he's an entrepreneur.

Nas has his line, he goes. My father was in a banker neither was my neighbor when it came to game paper who the hell was going train us. [ MUSIC ]. I resonate with that because there was no long- term thinking where I grew up. My life's work is to build generational wealth. In our communities. And the way that that happens is putting capital in the hands of founders that are crazy enough to think they can go and change the world. [ MUSIC ] My first job was working as a doorman. I took immense pride in being a doorman, and then I learned. Opening up doors for people, helped open up doors for me. I did my job with a great attitude and that eventually unlocked the heart of a resident who presented me with my first business opportunity. He owned a dry cleaning facility. He said hey if you can convince someone out there to give you their clothes I'll clean them for you for cheap. You charge the market rate and you make the spread. I started hustling and meeting other doorman and saying, hey, I know you're the key to the building, cuz I'm a doorman too. So convince the residents to give me their clothes and you know, that was my initial hustle and that snowballed and turned into Another resident introducing me to the film industry. They were looking for dry cleaning to pick their clothes at three in the morning. And so he said, what time do you get off of work? I said 11, 11 PM on the dot he picked me up and he took me to the set of what became my first film account, which was the Wolf of Wall Street. That was my in, that was my My elevator moment, so to speak. That was my kind of, big opportunity. We cleaned all the wardrobe for the Wolf of Wall Street, Boardwalk, Empire, Law and Order, Person of Interest, White Collar. We would go on to control over 90 % of the film and the TV industry in New York City. And I was an 18 year old kid. As a college drop out, with no formal business experience, and so this is why I firmly believe that being an entrepreneur It's not necessary about the way the media captures it, it's like got to be business boy wonder or a girl genius. It's more about being a regular person whose got the courage to act on an idea. [ MUSIC ] Right around the time that I sold that company, I had [ UNKNOWN ] my first business in Harlem. I'm falling in love with the neighborhood, spending a lot of time there. Harlem is a very wonderful melting pot of style, culture, and rich history. And I felt like there was a good opportunity to bring a new young perspective to it. And I thought man, let's start a monthly meet up, and that meet up quickly turned into something more, because the market was really hungry for it. So that became what Cofound Harlem is, which is this incubator which helps businesses grow. We take no equity. And companies just committed to stay in Harlem after the program. And which is nine months long. So, I ran Cofound / Harlem for a number of years. That was my first time helping other companies grow. And I started realizing that, for me, the kind of impact I wanna have on my community. Was investing in companies that could really grow and change things on a broad scale. So, I took a step back from Cofound / Harlem. Because the mission was there but that was in the right vehicle. I knew that I wanted to grow into an investment fund and right around the same time, I met my now partners at Horan capital and we decided to pair together and further the same mission with a different. Vehicle. So, all my experience up until Harlem Capital got me to understand that the playing field is not level. It's really reserved for the elite, so to speak. And we I really feel like hey the major exporters of culture. We are not being represented in these groups, you know, so art communities where I come from, we are the biggest exporters of culture, of style, fashion, music, you know, food, and we don't own any equity in these industries, that seem. Completely [ UNKNOWN ] that seem like a broken system and so my life work is to build generational wealth in our comunities and the way that that happens is putting, you know, capital in the hands of funders that are crazy enough to think they can go and change the world. [ MUSIC ] We have investment to Los Angeles and Baltimore, and San Diego and Harlem. We invested in a company called Paladin and they created software for legal firms to manage our Pro Bono services more efficiently. We invested in the cosmetic business called Beauty Bakery. Their main consumers are women of colour and that it's founded by women of colour. So she knows how to kinda resonate with that audience. So the African American community, black community has $ 1 trillion of spending power, and we own almost none of that equity. So those $ 1 trillion are going to corporations not owned by us. And so we're on this mission again to level that playing field. Now I'm hosting a show for Vice Land called Hustle. I got to get out of my world And step into the world of all these different entrepreneurs, from jam- makers to micro- distillers. There are apparel companies. I had an opportunity to get into it again with what it means to start from the ground, from scratch. It was wonderful. And also meeting all these, it takes a really kind of special person To leave their traditional environment and go and do something that by most definitions people would consider kinda weird and sometimes crazy. Those are the people that I like to be around cuz they're quirky, they're different, they're fresh. And so I enjoyed it a lot. [ MUSIC ] If you ask me who is John Henry, I would say the proud son of immigrant parents, who has been working his **** off for years. I wanna change the pay check to pay check situation for a lot of people cuz that's what I grew up in. And everyday I work towards leveling that plan [ UNKNOWN ]. [ MUSIC ]

John Henry: From Doorman To Landlord

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John Henry isn't an influencer, he's an entrepreneur.