The SmallBizChat Podcast: Building an Innovation Ecosystem with Felecia Hatcher

Melinda Emerson

3 years ago

The SmallBizChat Podcast: Building an Innovation Ecosystem with Felecia Hatcher

Felecia Hatcher is an Innovation Powerhouse, Personal Transformation Speaker, Entrepreneur, and Author. Following a successful career in experiential marketing working with tech companies such as Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, she started a gourmet popsicle company with her husband. While building a hugely successful catering company and working with strategic partners like Paypal, Google, and Airbnb, Felecia and her husband also founded Code Fever to help other people become creators of technology. She now spends her time working with the Black Center for Innovation, advising startups, entrepreneurs, and students to build a business with limited funding. Her goal is to rid communities of innovation deserts, and she has been recognized with numerous awards, including Empact 100 Top 100 Entrepreneurs Under 30 in 2011 and honored as a 2014 White House Champion of Change for S.T.E.M Access and Diversity.

Felecia joins me today to share her unconventional journey from working in marketing to becoming a successful entrepreneur. She reveals the vital elements that black entrepreneurs need for startup success when moving into the tech industry. She shares how she got the idea for her business book Start Your Business on a Ramen Noodle Budget and how you can use those ideas to launch a business with minimal capital. We discuss how digital marketing during the pandemic helped to level the playing field and why she believes the execution of goals is highly personal. She also shares how she is working with the Center for Black Innovation to give communities the tools they need to succeed in tech and why she is passionate about removing ‘innovation deserts’ from minority communities.

“We have to give our goals, our gifts, our genius a destination and tell it where to go.” – Felecia Hatcher

Listen to the podcast below:

This week on SmallBizChat Podcast:

Felecia’s journey into entrepreneurship
The key elements for startup success for black entrepreneurs in the technology industry
How Felecia got the idea for her business book
How you can monetize a business idea with little or no capital
Why digital marketing in the pandemic has leveled the playing field
Why Felecia believes the execution of goals is personal
Felecia’s work with the Center for Black Innovation
How Felecia is working to rid communities of ‘innovation deserts’