What life experiences propelled you into the entrepreneurial space and made you decide to be your own boss?

I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. My paternal grandfather was the first Black dentist in Oklahoma and the first Black person to be appointed to City Council. My father was the first Black ophthalmologist in the state of Oklahoma, and he had two private medical practices in different locations. My mother, who is now a Higher Education Senior Associate VP at The University of Oklahoma, once was a long-time entrepreneur in social sector spaces, and founded numerous nonprofit organizations, schools, and programs. Her mother was a career-long educator and one of the first teachers to integrate the Atlanta Public Schools.

To this end, I grew up observing that if you want to accomplish something or make a difference in the lives of others, you just put a plan together, and execute against that plan. My parents and grandparents gave me and my younger sister the gift of believing that anything is possible, and that our locus of control is internal to ourselves rather than the outside world. (My sister is also an entrepreneur. She’s a Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine (ND) and has a private practice in Colorado.)

Having had these formative experiences in childhood, I feel fortunate to have had two parents who modeled not only the feasibility of being one's own boss, but to some degree the expectation to do so. They also instilled in me a belief that work should not feel like work, and that we all have a right to pursue those professional avenues that will make us feel most fulfilled and most like we are meeting our life's purpose.

Being led by these beliefs, the first five years of my career was spent in classrooms as a teacher, followed by three years of teaching and preservice teacher preparation and supervision in higher education. It was during my higher education teaching career that I simultaneously began pursuing doctoral studies and became more keenly aware of the multitude of research-to-practice gaps that exist in our educational systems. These gaps only inspired me to have more questions and delve into deeper rabbit holes of inquiry. One of these rabbit holes was so deep that it ended with me completely changing my doctoral studies trajectory and transferring out of GA State University's College of Education and into Emory University's Department of Psychology. Because of this switch, it took me ten years to complete my doctoral degree! Many people thought I was crazy for starting all over, but the end result was that I finished my program at Emory having deep expertise and experience in not only education and educational practice, assessment and intervention science, and policy, but also deep expertise in human development, cognition, research methods, and the overall science of learning and human development.

At the same time that I was pursuing doctoral studies, I began delving into entrepreneurial endeavors that were tied to my academic interests, so I co-founded a dual language immersion preschool and then a K-8th grade language immersion charter school. My children were young at the time, so in creating these schools I had created high-quality, research-grounded environments in which they could play, learn, and develop. Simultaneously, I contributed to the creation of lab schools in which ideas could be brainstormed, tested, and iterated upon in real time. The freedom that came from both of these realities was invigorating for me, and I never stopped from that time forward. I continued to immerse myself in training and learning opportunities that would allow me to add business knowledge and skills to my educational and scientific knowledge and skill sets, and as a result began being tapped to serve as a consultant and advisor for other founders and organizations who were trying to start schools, innovative programs, and technological tools. To this day, each of my entrepreneurial ventures, including Village Nanny, have come from a place of recognizing a problem or need and trying to create high quality, research-grounded solutions while simultaneously continuing to create opportunities that will give me the freedom to continue walking in my life's purpose.

What do you enjoy most about being a founder?

There are several aspects of being a founder that are enjoyable to me. The first is that I truly enjoy having the ability to create fulfilling and purposeful employment opportunities for people and having the autonomy to create people-first and family-first flexible work environments and cultures.

Another aspect of being a founder that I enjoy is having the freedom to daydream and vision as big of a vision as possible toward meeting a societal or other need, and not having anyone get in the way of making that vision a reality except for myself. I enjoy not having to hear someone say: "You can't do that." Instead, I have thought-partners and colleagues around me who might say: "Let's think about the best way to do that." Or they may even say: "Let's think about the most strategic timing for that." But there is no one to tell me that I can't see what I see, or to get in the way of making my work toward that vision a reality.

Finally, as a founder, I also enjoy being part of an ecosystem and community of other founders. The journey of a founder is a unique experience and one that I have found transcends space, time, and in some regards even demographics. I enjoy being able to be part of a community of people who have had similar experiences or journeys, and can draw from one another's lessons in both business, and all that comes into play for a founder's life in general.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started your entrepreneurial journey?

I wish that someone had told me how challenging it can sometimes be to be such a big picture visionary with high expectations! I have founded or co-founded several other successful ventures, and one common thread is that the beginning phases of start-up can feel very lonely as you're trying to sort through your vision and how to execute against your vision in your mind, while simultaneously communicating this vision to a team effectively and bringing them along for the journey in a way that promotes buy-in and investment. Part of what I think makes this challenging is that there are fewer entrepreneurial-minded people in the world than non-entrepreneurial-minded people. Therefore, hiring for start-up ventures can be challenging because most people bend toward wanting a large degree of stability and certainty in their jobs or work. Over my years of experience as an entrepreneur in both for-profit and nonprofit sectors, I have learned over time that there are specific mindsets and dispositions that make someone a good fit for a start-up venture, regardless of their specific content-focus or operational focus within an organization. Starting out, nobody had told me this and it was something I had to learn.

Tell us about an experience you had as an entrepreneur or in starting your company that exemplified one of Camelback's core values: "Belief in Mission + Vision"; "Unafraid of Failure"; "Constant Learner"; "Humble + Hungry"; and "Give First."

The value that resonates most with me as an entrepreneur is "Give First." In all of my entrepreneurial endeavors, I have come from a place of adding something or giving something to a community or group of people that didn't exist before. And while I believe in creating solid, sustainable business plans and revenue models, I also hold a deep belief in the inextricable tie between giving for the sake of mission and purpose, and the ultimate rewards and benefits that are always reaped from giving from that place. It's best summed up by one of my closest mentors, Robert Blazer, Founder & CEO of Your DeKalb Farmers Market, who says that businesses that are "life for life" are the most successful. In other words, when we create something that is solving a solution and meeting the needs of others and the world at large, the universe will reciprocate and take care of us. It's not something we have to think about or worry about. Therefore, I view my role as a social entrepreneur as creating ventures and solutions that are "life for life."

Let's talk about your legacy. What is your vision for the kind of world you hope to create through your venture?

I love this question because Village Nanny is all about legacy! I view Village Nanny as a way for me to pour all that has been poured into me (my knowledge of early care and learning, human development, education, language acquisition, the nurturing and love that I received from my own family, and an entrepreneurial drive without limitations) into the world for others. I also hope to infuse into the world my understanding of, and first-hand experience with, the importance of having extended family and/or extended networks of community and support in order to live a healthy and balanced life and meet one's goals.

To this end, I hope to create a world in which caregivers who use our app have the opportunity to acquire knowledge and skills that will not only promote their economic and social mobility by building a thriving caregiver and referral business, but will also translate into how they care for and develop their own children, and in turn their children's children, for generations to come. Through our curated credentialing options, we are gearing up to transfer and build capacity, by leveraging not only formal research and best-practices in the science of learning and human development, but also by leveraging the shared knowledge, wisdom, lived experiences, and expertise of the caregiver and family communities in culturally relevant and authentic ways. This will allow us to ultimately create an extensive resource bank through which people can continue to learn and share in community.

Simultaneously, my vision for families is to create a world in which no family has to go without the support and care that they need to extend their village. In modern times we have become so disconnected from family. Most families are not intergenerational families in which children, parents, and grandparents are all under one roof. My vision for Village Nanny is for our app to be so universally accessible that it creates a paradigm shift in what families view as not only feasible and accessible, but beneficial, in terms of their family's village and needs.

Overall, I hope to create a more caring, community-centered world in which children and elders are cared for in the ways that serve them best, a world in which more people have embraced the notion that it truly "takes a village,” and to leave a legacy for our own children.

What's your favorite book or podcast that you draw entrepreneurial inspiration from?

My favorite entrepreneurial podcast is "How I Built This with Guy Raz." It is a podcast that features well-known entrepreneurs who tell the story of how they built their successful ventures and brands. I enjoy listening to this podcast for both the unique experiences that each entrepreneur has, as well as some of the common threads that emerge across interviews.

We know balancing the demands of entrepreneurship and life can be challenging. What are some of your favorite ways to prioritize your self-care?

I prioritize my self-care by carving out time to work in my garden with my children, and going to my gym to just get in the hot tub and sauna. I also make sure that I prioritize making as many of my children's school events and programs as possible by looking at their calendars for the school year and blocking my calendar ahead of time with as much notice as possible for sports practices, games, track meets, or dance rehearsals. I always try to remind myself that my work isn't going anywhere, but that I will blink and all of my children will be off to college, or my mother will be too old to independently get on an airplane. Keeping this perspective always helps me prioritize.

I have also learned to put up boundaries around my work schedule. For example, for the past four years I have blocked my Friday calendar from all meetings. I only budge from this boundary when it is absolutely necessary to hold a meeting on a Friday (which rarely happens), and I allow my team to have the same boundary/standard for their work-life balance.

Anything else you want to share about yourself and/or your Camelback Fellowship journey?

I want to share that in addition to the legacy and impact I want to have in the world through Village Nanny, my even larger goal is for this venture to become a unicorn (and ultimately decacorn or larger) company, large enough for us to be able to have a transformational philanthropic impact in the world. There are so many deserving organizations and people doing good and impactful work, and my Co-Founder and I plan to ultimately be able to leverage a large portion of the revenues generated by Village Nanny to create a foundation that has a disruptive philanthropic model. In doing so, we plan to become trendsetters and guides for others in the philanthropic space to mirror. This is only the beginning of the journey, but I also know that we can get there faster than any of us might imagine, so with each move that we make I want to keep this larger ultimate goal in mind.

I also want to share, once again, how much gratitude I sit in to be part of the #CamelbackFam, and I'm truly looking forward to embarking upon this fellowship journey in partnership with each of you, my fellow cohort members, and the Camelback Alums.

2024 Fellow Focus: Dr. Brandi Kenner + Village Nanny