Tagan Horton
Name: Tagan Horton, also known as TheTagan
Current Job: Founder, Founders Get Funds Co-Founder, TTX Digital Upside Podcast Host Currently looking for a role at a start-up focused on content creation, go-to market strategy and managing relationships.
Favorite restaurant in town? Angie’s Soul Food. The oxtails are everything!
Favorite thing about Cleveland? I live in a city yet I get to see beautiful beaches, waterfalls and even some amazing golf courses. Once that has gotten your attention, Cleveland will continue to unveil itself like an onion. From the people you meet to the underground stories you learn, there is always something more to a story here in Cleveland.
Q: What is Founders Get Funds? Founders Get Funds or (FGF) is an online community connecting Black solo founders with finance options that allow them to scale. We build community through our content, virtual events and FGF Clubs. Our community includes founders, finance experts, suppliers, lenders and investors. Currently, we are working on bringing our community that has grown across multiple platforms to one central home.
Q: Tagan, you spent a significant time outside the United States. Can you explain how your international travels have impacted your entrepreneurial journey? My Junior Year at Spelman College, I studied abroad in Dakar. I worked with L’Entente Feminine, a Rotating Credit and Savings Association (ROSCA) with over 200 women founders. For centuries, individuals have come together to create these ROSCAs or savings clubs with family and friends and help each other save. How does it work? Individuals within the club make fixed contributions of money at fixed intervals. In a rotation, each member receives the club’s total contribution. Once every member has their turn in the rotation, the cycle restarts.
While working with L’Entente Feminine in Senegal, I saw women grow from a couple items of inventory to owning their own shop. However, they still lacked the resources needed to hire employees. I wanted to raise money for them by creating content telling their stories and sharing to social media. However, raising U.S. dollars in Senegal was impossible from my experience. Additionally, the women did not have bank accounts. My efforts were stunted, and I left feeling like I wasted an opportunity to empower others. However, when I returned home, I was still mad that the women of L’Entente Feminine lacked access to the resources to scale their businesses. I wrote a senior thesis on the “The Impact of Microfinance Institutions and Mobile Banking on Entrepreneurship In West Africa” (find it in French here). My theoretical framework aimed to prove that Microfinance solutions, especially ones with a focus on community like savings clubs, increase entrepreneurship in these communities.
Soon after I became a founder and started meeting more Black founders in the U.S. I began to think back to the women of L’Entente Feminine. Their experiences had similarities with Black founders in the U.S. Through more research, I learned that 93% of Black businesses are self- funded. Additionally, only 107,000 of the 2 million Black businesses have employees. Then, I imagined digital ROSCAs for founders. This network would connect founders in West Africa with founders in the U.S. In September of 2019, I began putting this idea into action through Founders Get Funds (FGF). All my experiences abroad have shown me that there are many isolated communities experiencing similar problems. My goal is to use technology to empower and connect these communities.
Q: How has your schedule and work changed since COVID? I moved to Cleveland just a few months before Covid-19 hit to start working at a start-up. However, the company began seeing the impacts of the pandemic and ran out of money. As a result, I was furloughed and then fired. Though this left an easy opportunity to pack my bags and go back to Atlanta, I chose to stay. Despite being 100% virtual for most of my life, I still feel very connected to Cleveland. The friends I have met along the way, my VFA support system and of course my Jumpstart fam have made this city feel like something I am a part of. Due to that, I feel invested in the city’s growth.
I believe that technology is a tool that can empower communities and inspire global connections. During the pandemic, I have met so many people from home showing me that virtual connections can value even in a post-covid world. Outside of attending virtual events, I have been hosting them too! FGF’s 1st virtual event, The E-commerce Extravaganza, had over 80 attendees with 100% attendance rate. Creating that space for our audience allowed us to meet new members and spark conversations on scaling an e-commerce business as a Black founder.
Q: Much of your time is spent developing organic content, can you talk about the YouTube channel and podcast you're working on?
Yes! We create content that inspires communities historically excluded from the "traditional finance market" to build trust and businesses together. This includes a podcast, blog and YouTube channel. Our podcast is in Season 2 with over 20 episodes.
Now, the FGF community can engage in real-time conversations about our content through the #live-feed channel in our Slack community.
Q: You aren’t originally from Cleveland, why did you move here? At Spelman College, I studied International Studies with a concentration on Economic Development. During this time I tried out careers in nonprofits and international policy. Ultimately, I realized that I liked defining problems and designing solutions and pivoted to entrepreneurship. This led me to the Venture For America Fellowship. VFA connects recent graduates with start-ups in emerging cities like Cleveland. I remember when I was at VFA’s Selection Day in Columbus before I had been offered the fellowship. I met Gloria Ware who is based here in Cleveland. She told me, if I ever end up in Ohio, to give her a call. I never expected to be here, but it was that first act of kindness that made Cleveland that much easier to say yes to.