87DECEMBER 30, 20 19 FORBES.COMT H E M O M E N TBryant left his Wall Street job but started sharing
small-scale investment ideas with friends, including
his future Harlem Capital cofounders, who began
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have all these really cool opportunities. Do you
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We had $50, 000 in 30 minutes.” Then one day in
2015 , over dinner in a cramped Harlem apartment,
Bryant, Tingle, Pierre-Jacques and John Henry—who
completes the Harlem Capital quartet—realized that
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been building an airplane in midair,” Bryant says.
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a mission.THE MOMENT OF INSPIRATION
As Bryant and his cofounders searched for
entrepreneurs to invest in, they found that the buzz
was most often surrounding the same type of faces.
It occurred to them just how little venture capital
goes to people of color and women and set a goal
of investing in 1,000 diverse founders. While this
new MO for Harlem Capital Partners was inspiring
to its founders, it wasn’t especially motivating for
the investors they approached. By Bryant’s estimate,
they’ve heard the word “no” hundreds of times.THE MOMENT OF CHALLENGE
THE MOMENT OF SUCCESS
B
efore opening Kato, the trendy Taiwanese
restaurant celebrated by food critics and
LA hipsters alike, Jon Yao almost quit the
kitchen. Having run out of money while interning
for several chefs, he moved back in with his parents
and agreed to lend a hand with their startup idea:
a lunchbox service for university students in Los
Angeles. Within three years, Yao helped them
launch the business, quickly transformed it into a
chic restaurant and earned the greatest accolade in
modern cooking: a Michelin star. The way he tells
it, he failed very far upward.And of course, occasionally, there are yeses. One of
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minority stake in Harlem Capital and invested in its
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Harlem has invested in startups like animal care
service Wagmo (founded by a woman); menstrual
supply company Aunt Flow (founded by a woman);
and gig economy marketplace Jobble (founded by
a black man). And Bryant will continue to seek out
people who believe in his work, he says, returning to
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be along for this ride. But we’re going to Mars, and
then we’re going to Venus and then we’re hitting
Pluto. So, see you there!”Yao’s parents had spotted what they believed to
be a need in LA: grab-and-go meals for students.
“They thought it would be easy,” Yao says, but
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concept wasn’t working. What was working was Yao’s
latest hobby: hosting friends for elaborate dinners at
his house. The meals impressed his parents’ business
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lunchboxes, why don’t you do what you were doing
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10 - course tasting menu for $118. The cheap facility
they rented became the restaurant’s sleek 27-seat
dining room, and Yao’s role changed from “son
helping out” to head chef.THE MOMENT OF INSPIRATION
CHEF JON YAO GOES
FROM LUNCHBOXES
TO A MICHELIN STAR
businesses owned by people of color and women,
who receive as little as 3% of VC funding.FORBES BRANDVOICE WITH IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN | PAID PROGRAM