Get to know: Bold Xchange

What inspired you to found Bold Xchange?

A few years ago Danielle was searching for Black-owned brands to buy family Christmas gifts, but she mostly found listicles with outdated links and defunct companies. The only one-stop online shop listed products from a smattering of brands in various categories, but with no consistency in quality, inventory, or shipping times. That was when we realized this wasn’t just something we wanted to be easier for ourselves—we wanted to create a platform that made buying black easier and enjoyable for others, too.

So, we started to do more digging into how the buy Black experience could be improved. It took about a year and a half to launch the first solution. We took our time to read and learn - not just about startups but also about the underlying challenges of Black entrepreneurship in order to inform our social impact mission which is a huge part of Bold Xchange.

What do you hope to get out of Lighthouse and acceleration?

At our previous accelerator (Venture for America), we developed a strong foundation for the company from a regulatory and legal standpoint. It got us to the right place to be able to grow and hire and get into the next phase of growth - now our challenge is figuring out how to make Bold Xchange larger than Danielle and Doug!

At Lighthouse Labs, we are working on getting things on paper, creating processes, and developing an infrastructure that will allow growth and not have the idea be swallowed up by the size and scope and potential. At every step we have seen that Bold Xchange can be bigger than we ever thought and we anticipate being able to grow quickly and intentionally during and after the program!

We only just started at Lighthouse but have already made amazing connections and are getting access to the right resources for our particular needs and stage of business . Working with our lead mentor, Art Espey, has been a game-changer - we’ve had two calls in the first week and he has already been so helpful. We’ve been looking for that high-level mentorship for a while and we got it in week one at Lighthouse with Art and our alumni buddies - Alex Burlingame (Upchurch Chocolate, LL15) and Ace Callwood (Painless1099, LL15).

How did you and your cofounder meet and how do you divide and conquer?

We met in college in 2012 and started a writing platform together in 2016 and now we are co-CEOs of Bold Xchange!

Danielle has been full-time on the business since July 2020. A journalism major in college, Danielle started her career in magazines before working at an early stage startup for two years, wearing a range of hats, including that of strategist, marketer, content creator, and partnerships manager. She handles pricing, fulfillment, inventory management, marketing, and customer support.

Doug, who has a B.A. in business administration, started his career in marketing at a Fortune 500 company before leading social media at a venture-backed startup. He then decided to attend law school and is currently completing his final semester. Doug handles finance and accounting, compliance, brand partnerships, and customer retention.

Together, we tackle business development, strategy, and content creation. We’ve also been dating for 8.5 years - so we know how to work well together at this point!

What are the most exciting moments of your entrepreneurial journey thus far?

Being selected for the Arch Grants and deciding to move to St. Louis - was pretty exciting. It was also the biggest infusion of capital - $50,000 - that we had received and it signified a decision to truly go all-in on Bold Xchange and uproot our lives for the business.

Also - the first order we got from someone we didn’t know - we were at dinner and trying not to check our phone all the time but we still looked. It was a moment of realizing the true potential because our friends and family aren’t going to sustain the business alone. When we got that order we felt like we might be onto something a lot bigger than we previously thought.

Entrepreneurship can be a tough road. In the difficult moments, how do you stay focused on moving forward and making progress?

Our beta version, two years before what is now Bold Xchange, just wasn’t really working and we made the tough decision to shut it down. We had to ask if we were done completely or if we were just pausing - and of course the story continued but it was a huge moment to decide. We continued to work towards what became the current version - but it taught us that effort doesn’t guarantee success.

All of the months of it not doing well sucked, but once we took a step back and began revalidating our concepts, it was very liberating. We moved from selling products to reviewing them and our newsletter grew a ton. That audience became the basis for our Kickstarter which helped us launch the new version - we took lemons and made lemonade.

With the new version, we didn’t have that “is it working?” feeing - we saw it working from the start.

What founders or companies do you admire?

We really admire Tristan Walker of Bevel and Sara Blakely of Spanx - we’ve listened to every single episode of How I Built This and look to those lessons for tough times. We also love Jewel Burks Solomon who founded Partpic before selling it to Amazon and becoming Head of Google for Startups in the US. We really resonate with folks who had a personal issue and dug a bit deeper to solve it - the ones who sort of stumble upon entrepreneurship and go from there - like we did.

What is your entrepreneurship motto? Advice would you give to people who want to found their own business?

We are not “sleep when you die” or “hustle or bust” people. We work hard, we listen to the podcasts, we watch Shark Tank, all of that - but there are other things we know we need to do to be our best selves and bring that best self to our business. Resting, eating well, and taking care of each other and ourselves are all priorities in order to be succesful entrepreneurs.

How can someone support Bold Xchange?

You can always browse our collection at boldxchange.com! And if you or someone you know is interested in corporate gifting, email us at hello@boldxchange.com!