ON MY STOOP: Invest Fest, Connection, and the Power We Already Have

Aug 24

4 min read

ON MY STOOP

A few thoughts from Bryce

Family, let me tell y'all what has been on my mind.

I just got back from Invest Fest in Atlanta, and my brain is still somewhere between the Georgia World Congress Center and about 37 open tabs in my Notes app.

More than 31,000 people showed up this year — a record crowd. Black entrepreneurs. Investors. Creators. Professionals. Students. Builders. People who simply decided they wanted to know more about money, ownership, opportunity, and what comes next.

And the range was serious: investing, real estate, artificial intelligence, taxes, cryptocurrency, insurance, estate planning, entrepreneurship, marketing, content creation, business growth, venture capital and more.

That is not a small thing.

You can watch a YouTube video about any one of those subjects. You can read a book. You can take a course. But there is something different about walking into a building where tens of thousands of us are there, on purpose, to learn, network, build, grow — and enjoy ourselves while doing it.

The content was valuable. The energy was real. The concentration did something to me.

Invest Fest did exactly what a great convening is supposed to do: put talent, information, capital, access, culture and possibility in the same place at the same time.

The concentration is the lesson

None of the talent surprised me. We know we have brilliant Black entrepreneurs. We know we have investors. We know we have people building companies, creating culture, buying real estate, mastering technology, teaching financial literacy and figuring out new ways to create wealth.

The concentration did.

For a few days, you could walk through one building and find somebody who knew something you needed to know, somebody building something you needed to see, or somebody who might become a customer, contractor, referral source, investor, mentor, supplier, partner or door-opener.

That is more than networking. That is infrastructure.

And that is the thought I brought back to Wichita.

We don't have a talent problem. We have a connection and coordination problem.

That is not a criticism of Invest Fest. It is almost the opposite. Invest Fest demonstrates the solution: build the room, put people in proximity, give them useful information, create reasons for them to connect, and send them home with real next moves.

Now imagine applying more of that same intentionality here at home.

Connection is an economic strategy

Sometimes we talk about "networking" like it is exchanging business cards, adding somebody on LinkedIn, and promising to grab coffee until the year 2047.

I mean something more practical than that.

A strong network should help people become each other's:

customers and clients
contractors and suppliers
referral sources and collaborators
mentors and problem-solvers
investors and capital connections
partners and door-openers

The question is not simply, "Who do I know?" The better question is, "What becomes possible because we know each other?"

Next year, I want Wichita in the building

I don't just want to go back to Invest Fest next year. I would love to see us bring a real Wichita delegation.

Entrepreneurs. Creatives. Students and young adults. Real estate people. Barbers and beauty professionals. Nonprofit leaders. Tech people. Investors. Corporate professionals. Folks with established businesses and folks still working on the idea in their head.

Twenty-five of us. Fifty. Maybe one day a hundred. Why not?

But I want us to go with purpose. Before we hit Atlanta, everybody should be able to answer three questions:

What do I need to learn?
Who do I need to meet?
What am I bringing back to Wichita and putting into action?

And yes, it is Atlanta — bring the outfit too. Just bring a plan with it.

Inspiration is good. Implementation is where the compound interest starts.

Explore Invest Fest

What RRCBA has to do with it

RRCBA should not exist simply to put another organization in the room. The opportunity is to help build connective tissue between residents, businesses, institutions, capital, developers, organizers, young people and the people already doing good work.

We have enough logos. We need more linkages.

We do not have to reinvent everybody's work. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is help the right people find one another, share information faster, identify opportunities earlier, and get into the same room before the decisions have already been made.

That is part of what I loved about Invest Fest. The room was intentionally built. The learning was intentional. The access was intentional. The culture was part of it too. It made education feel alive.

That is the kind of energy I want us to keep bringing home.

I'm not asking us to think the same. I'm asking us to build in the same direction.

Bring your ideas. Bring your experience. Bring your questions. Bring your disagreement. Bring your business. Bring your curiosity. Just bring it to a table where we're actually building something.

Invest Fest reminded me how much power there is in simply getting the right people, information and opportunity into the same space.

Now we have to cook.

And next year, I hope a whole lot more of Wichita is in Atlanta cooking with us.