“We sort of lived paycheck to paycheck, like a lot of African-American families do,” says Black Entertainment Television founder Robert Johnson, “still do.”
From his humble beginnings in Mississippi to becoming the first self-made black billionaire in the world, Johnson has made a name for himself by focusing on an untapped market. With no prior business experience, he was able to turn $15,000 into a media empire. Today, BET, the world’s first black-oriented cable channel that Johnson founded in 1980, can be seen in almost 80 percent of American homes.
Not every venture Johnson started found success. A BET clothing brand and chain of themed restaurants crashed sooner than they ever took off. But before he had time to lament the failures, Johnson was already on his way to launching something new. How did Johnson manage to go from a childhood of living cheque to cheque to becoming the first self-made black billionaire in the world?
We weren’t a welfare family, but we knew that if I wanted a bicycle it meant that somebody else wasn’t going to get something else. Or if you wanted to go to college, you knew your parents couldn’t pay your way to college.
I failed miserably. I couldn’t get up in the morning. Still can’t.
I knew that if we had a box of cookies in the house, you made sure you got yours fast. It made you make decisions quick…If you talk to anyone from a large family, the tendency is you want to chart your own course, because otherwise how would you get recognized?
BET was a business opportunity waiting for someone to put it together. When an African-American attains a level of success, he or she becomes the primary go-to person for any other business deal. The broader community does not look for anybody else. They say, I’ve got my Bob Johnson, I’ve got my Oprah. And that’s it. And it just stops.
What I try to do as I’m going up the trail, I try to bring with me other African-Americans who can then use my experience and gain credibility from what I’ve done to be their own successful person. We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just painting it black.
Today, if I were to put on jeans and walk into a jewelry store, and I could probably buy the jewelry store ten times over, but the jeweler’s going to look at me as a black guy in jeans who probably can’t afford it, and maybe who just maybe might steal something.
If there’s something I can do and I feel it should be done, I just want to do it. I just don’t want to leave it undone because I’ll sit back and say, why didn’t I do that? Why didn’t I start that business? Anything that has to do with money, I want to be in that business. I’m in business to make money. You can do well and do good. But at first, you have to focus on the blocking and tackling of running a good business.
Evan Carmichael
