A New Kind Of Business Man: My Family's First Entrepreneur

Growing up, I thought career success meant following one of three paths: Law, finance, or medicine. My parents raised me to believe that if I worked hard and stayed focused, I could achieve this type of professional success. They supported my pursuits, both in the classroom and on the basketball court, and they undoubtedly laid the foundation for me to be able to establish a promising, conventionally prestigious career.

In high school, I participated in a program that exposed students of color to finance careers and had the opportunity to intern on Wall Street. I continued on the finance internship track throughout college and, upon graduation, accepted a full-time role as a sales and trading analyst.

Working on Wall Street was a really formative experience, though a few years in, I couldn’t help but think about how I had been tracked to pursue a finance career without giving much thought to any other opportunities or industries.

Starting my own business required an enormous leap of faith, as launching Jopwell marked the first time my parents did not support a major decision I made. No matter how well thought out our plans were, my parents did not understand why I would leave a stable career in finance for what seemed like a lofty and unlikely goal. Still, I saw a unique opportunity to address a growing challenge for the future of our workplace. Once I set a goal I believe in, I work tirelessly to reach it. Jopwell is no exception.

My cofounder Ryan and I connected instantly. As two Black men with similar educational opportunities, we had both been placed on specific career tracks at a young age, which led us to jobs on Wall Street. We recognized how privileged we were, and we also talked a lot about how and why clear tracks had been laid out for us (mostly through diversity recruitment programs) long before we fully understood what a career in finance entailed.

Our time on the trading floor helped us understand the crucial need for a diversity recruiting platform to help all leading companies find great talent, while also empowering underrepresented ethnic minority candidates to find jobs they love. We knew there had to be a better way for companies to recruit diverse talent than relying on referrals from existing employees and occasional visits to diversity-themed conferences. After months of research and planning, we launched the Jopwell platform in January of 2015 to introduce a pipeline of thousands of candidates to our partner companies.

For my family, though, tech entrepreneurship was not a viable career option in part because no one in our community knew much about it. The framework for discussing concepts like venture capital and back-end development simply did not exist. To go down this path myself, I had to overcome a steep learning curve and build a network of others who had been there. I also had to be okay with the reality that my family was not going to always understand my decisions.

My foray into the unknown world of entrepreneurship is sown into the mission and focus of Jopwell to facilitate learning and create context for other professionals and students. Jopwell acts as a resource that I didn’t have when I started my career, introducing amazing talent to the breadth and range of existing opportunities that are out there.

A few weeks ago, my parents visited Jopwell’s new Manhattan office, where they were able to see firsthand what we are building and how we are growing. They met our team of more than 20 brilliant, dedicated people working towards a common goal, and I think that was an important moment for them. They could see the reach of our community, and I could see them growing to understand my decision to stray from the traditional path to pursue a career I am deeply passionate about.

I continue to be incredibly excited about my career as an entrepreneur, and my biggest motivation is knowing that, through Jopwell and the tools we are creating, I can help others feel that way too.

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is among Jopwell’s partner companies.