Arlan Hamilton | It's About Damn Time
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2020
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a kid, Arlan Hamilton loved music and eventually found her way into the world of live concerts, working as a tour manager. Along the way, she also published a magazine and wrote the popular Your Daily Lesbian Moment blog, that drew a large, devoted community, before pivoting into the world of venture capital where, with no connections, degree or experience, she built a fund from the ground up, while homeless.
Hamilton is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a venture capital fund dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are People of Color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has now raised more than $10 million and invested in more than 130 startup companies led by underestimated founders. In 2018 Arlan co-founded Backstage Studio which launched four accelerator programs for underestimated founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and London. Arlan was featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine in October 2018 as the first Black woman non-celebrity to do so, and her new book "It's About Damn Time" shares powerful moments and insights from her incredible story. Her book, It’s About Damn Time (https://amzn.to/2WmeXk3), takes you behind the scenes of the many moments along her journey.
You can find Arlan Hamilton at:
Website : https://www.itsaboutdamntime.com/
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/arlanwashere/
-------------
Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.
If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | So in 2015, Arlen Hamilton was sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport with nothing |
| 0:11.8 | but an old laptop and a dream of breaking into the venture capital business. |
| 0:16.5 | She was coming off of a year spent touring with bands as a manager, publishing her own |
| 0:21.0 | magazine and blogging, and she started to get really curious about the world of startups. |
| 0:25.9 | She just couldn't understand. |
| 0:27.8 | By so many of the people who were starting companies and getting funding were white and |
| 0:31.6 | male. |
| 0:32.6 | And she wanted a chance to invest in the ideas and people who really didn't conform to |
| 0:37.2 | this image of how a founder is, quote, supposed to look. |
| 0:40.8 | Problem was she had no experience, no connections, no degree or track record, but that didn't |
| 0:46.0 | stop her. |
| 0:47.0 | So Arlen devoured everything that she could to become a learning machine. |
| 0:50.6 | And in 2015, she launched a venture capital fund backstage capital on a mission to minimize |
| 0:56.9 | funding disparities in tech by investing in people of color women and the LGBTQ plus |
| 1:02.0 | community. |
| 1:03.0 | So backstage has now raised more than $10 million invested in more than 130 startups |
| 1:09.1 | led by underrepresented founders and also launched four accelerator programs in Detroit, |
| 1:15.1 | LA, Philadelphia, and London. |
| 1:17.1 | And in October of 2018, Arlen was the first black woman, non-selectuality, to be featured |
| 1:22.5 | on the cover of Fast Company magazine. |
| 1:24.8 | And in her new book, It's About Damn Time, she shares so many powerful moments and insights |
| 1:30.3 | sort of the backstory of this incredible journey, many of which we touched down into in today's |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Jonathan Fields / Acast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Jonathan Fields / Acast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.