The Miracle in Detroit
In April 2015, almost a full year after I co-founded my tech start-up company Wyzerr, I began preparing to shut it down. We were negative -$60 in our company bank account, and our website Wyzerr.com was in danger of expiring because we couldn’t afford to pay the domain fees---a whopping $12. Our email servers were also down because we could no longer pay the monthly Google mail subscription fees. It was probably because our emails were down that I ended up getting a phone call from an unidentified number out of the blue.
The woman on the other line explained that she was with an organization called Power Moves, and they hold pitch competitions and workshops across the country to help Black and Brown startup founders. They were having a pitch event in Detroit and wanted me to present Wyzerr there. The competition had a cash prize of $40,000 and all I had to do was show up. They were covering my airplane ticket, hotel, and food. I was excited and immediately said yes. My heart sank when she told me that I needed to book my airplane ticket on my own and they would reimburse me for the expenses once I arrived in Detroit. This presented a huge problem because I didn’t have the money to pay for said ticket. Heck, I couldn’t even afford the $12 to keep my company domain up. However, she was clearly a huge fan of Wyzerr so I didn’t have the heart to decline her over the phone. I promised this stranger that I would book my ticket and see her in Detroit. I had no intention of going to Detroit.
The first day of the competition arrive and obviously I am not in Detroit. The woman, who to this day I don’t know who she is, called me and asked me where I was. I was too embarrassed to tell her I didn’t have the money to go to Detroit so I lied and said I missed my flight and wouldn’t be able to get there after all. She paused and then firmly said “Natasia I think you really need to be in Detroit this week. I think your life is going to change if you come.” She was so persistent that I felt bad continuing to lie to her so I finally admitted that I didn’t have the money for a plane ticket. I looked online at flights out of LA to Detroit and by then, there was only one flight that would make it into Detroit in time for me to pitch at the competition the next morning. The flight was over $1,100! The stranger on the phone told me to book the flight and offered to give me her credit card over the phone. At this point, I thought it was all very bizarre and figured I couldn’t accept a $1,000+ flight from a stranger. There would obviously be strings attached. I didn’t want to create more debt for myself so I politely declined and hung up. A few minutes later, I get a text from her with a screenshot of the flight confirmation. She had booked the flight for me. I was in shock and thought “wow! God really wants me to be in Detroit!” I quickly pack a bag and have my mom drive me to the airport. I was headed to Detroit!
Power Moves Detroit 2015 Pitch Line-Up
Hotel Woes
I arrive in Detroit early the next morning with absolutely no money. I ping a friend, Mike Farley, in New Orleans if he could book me an Uber to the hotel from the airport. He immediately obliges. It was 5 am his time. God bless friends like Mike Farley. He did so much for me in a season of my life that I couldn’t do much for him in return. Anyways, I get to the Westin Book Cadillac Detroit hotel and try to check in. I decide to be honest and transparent upfront with the front desk clerk. There was no point in beating around the bush here.
“Hi, I’m checking in. I’m here with the Power Moves group. My room is already paid for but I know you need a credit card for incidentals to check me in. I have a credit card that I could give you but it has no money on it, so it will get declined. Could you please just check me in?”
The guy looks at me with a bewildered expression and says “Nooooo. I’m sorry, I can’t check you in without a credit card for incidentals. It’s our policy.” I sighed and decided this wasn’t a battle worth fighting. It had been a long morning already and I wasn’t going to waste my energy arguing against hotel policies. I walk to the lobby area to survey the room for a sofa in a dark corner that I can take a nap on. As I settle into a couch, the same front desk clerk comes up to me and quickly hands me a room key and says “Hey! My boss was behind me so I couldn’t check you in but here, go! You’re all set!” I start to sputter one of my long winded gratitude speeches “thank you, you have no idea…” but he shoos me away so I scurry off.
Preparing for my Pitch Competition at The Westin Book Cadillac Detroit
Game Time
By the time I get to the competition later that day, I am on cloud nine. I am feeling GREAT about my chances of winning this entire thing. At this point, I’m thinking to myself “Clearly I’m going to win the $40,000 because God has allowed so many miracles to happen leading up to this moment. I KNOW I’m meant to be here.”
I go up and pitch. I do really well but…I don’t win. I was devastated. Not so much because I didn’t win, but because I was hurt that all of these crazy impossible events would happen only for me to go home in the same exact situation I was in 24 hours ago. Is God bored? Did He not have anything else to do than to bring me all the way to Detroit to send me back home broke and even more defeated than I already was? While I’m sulking in the corner, a gentleman approaches me and says “Natasia? You should have won. You have an amazing company. Just wow. You should have won.” He introduces himself as Rob McDonald, one of the founders of the Brandery accelerator program. My mood immediately shifts because I was very familiar with the Brandery and love their entire concept. I had actually applied to the Brandery with a different company years before. He then tells me “If you want to join the Brandery, we have a spot for you. We provide $50,000 in funding, a branding agency to work with you, and this year, we actually have apartments for you and your cofounders.” He gave me his contact information to follow-up and he was true to his word. Within a month, my co-founders and I moved to Cincinnati, OH to join the Brandery accelerator, which not only ended up being a game-changer for Wyzerr, but one of the best experiences of my life and changed the trajectory of my career and life forever.
Hindsight is 20/20
The stranger on the phone that invited me to Detroit was right. My life did change as a result of that trip, but not in the way I thought it would. I didn’t win the $40,000 cash prize, but I met someone that helped me do more for Wyzerr than the $40,000 would have. I’m not sure I would have moved to Cincinnati, a city I had never even thought of visiting, if I had won the cash prize. I would have stayed in sunny Southern California and bootstrapped from there…and likely run out of cash again in a few months. In hindsight, it’s obvious that God’s only reason for having me in Detroit was to meet Rob McDonald and join the Brandery. God’s plan for my life never included winning the cash prize. I didn’t know that until months later when I closed my seed round of $1.5M. I was focused on $40,000 when God was focused on giving me $1,500,000. God’s plan for my life was so much bigger and better than anything I could have imagined.
