This Black Founder is Disrupting the Warranty Business | Clarence Bethea

03/28/16 • 33 min

Clarence is the Founder & CEO of Upsie, which is a free mobile app that now gives us the power of making warranty decisions directly to the consumer. Clarence has worked with several startups and Fortune 500 companies & previously helped launch other ventures.
He had this frustrating laptop warranty experience, and realized there was a significant opportunity to reinvent the warranty industry. And so using his wealth of business knowledge and new found passion for improving the warranty experience, he worked to make warranty purchasing simple, fun and educational for consumers.
In this episode, we discussed:

What inspired Clarence to get into entrepreneurship
What he was doing prior to Upsie and how his prior failure helped his start with Upsie
His process to go about raising funds to get Upsie started
Talked about a fear he had getting Upsie going and how Clarence overcame it
How he's been able to bring brand awareness to Upsie
The effect of family on his life and business
How Clarence keeps motivated and out of comfort zones
Why it's important to volunteer & give back

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Blazer Nation, go out today and find a way to rise above, go way beyond and keep blazing your trail.

Join our community at TBPod.com

And connect with Stephen A. Hart: Twitter | LinkedIn

#BlackExcellence #BlackSuccess #BlackMen #BlackWomen #BlackEntrepreneur #BlackLeader #BlackPodcast

What inspired Clarence to get into entrepreneurship
What he was doing prior to Upsie and how his prior failure helped his start with Upsie
His process to go about raising funds to get Upsie started
Talked about a fear he had getting Upsie going and how Clarence overcame it
How he's been able to bring brand awareness to Upsie
The effect of family on his life and business
How Clarence keeps motivated and out of comfort zones
Why it's important to volunteer & give back

Blazer Nation, go out today and find a way to rise above, go way beyond and keep blazing your trail.

Join our community at TBPod.com

And connect with Stephen A. Hart: Twitter | LinkedIn

#BlackExcellence #BlackSuccess #BlackMen #BlackWomen #BlackEntrepreneur #BlackLeader #BlackPodcast

Previous Episode

Choosing Your Board of Directors, Mentors and Sponsors | Tyvi Small

Tyvi Small is the Director of Diversity & Community Relations at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. His advice will help you with building diverse connections, overcoming fears, developing relationships and he also shares the importance of blooming where you are planted and mentoring & sponsoring others in our community.
Tyvi graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor's Degree in Communications and a Master's Degree in Education He's currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Prior to his time in Knoxville, he was the Education Coordinator and Assistant to the Mayor for the City of West Palm Beach, FL Tyvi is also very involved in his community: He serves on the board of directors of the Knoxville Area Urban League and Leadership Knoxville He's an active member and board member of the Knoxville Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. He's also a board member of the Development Corporation of Knox County.
In this episode, we discussed:

What Tyvi does within his role at the University
His advice on getting a board of directors, mentors and sponsors
An example of how his sponsor, Phyllis Nichols, helped his growth by connecting him with others of influence
Tyvi's fear of public speaking and how he overcame it
Lessons he learned from Susan Packard, Co-Founder of HGTV at the Women in Business Summit
The two people he'd most like to have dinner with, alive or from the history books
How the decision to attend college turned into a defining moment on his journey
Dr. Samuel Wright's influence on us both attending the University of South Florida
Some of the things Tyvi does to keep from getting stuck in comfort zones
Setting, writing and looking at your goals and getting accountability partners to realize your goals
Fundamental lessons to lead his team
Why it's important to volunteer & give back

Blazer Nation, go out today and find a way to rise above, go way beyond and keep blazing your trail.

Join our community at TBPod.com

And connect with Stephen A. Hart: Twitter | LinkedIn

#BlackExcellence #BlackSuccess #BlackMen #BlackWomen #BlackEntrepreneur #BlackLeader #BlackPodcast

Next Episode

Pioneer for Black Women in S.T.E.M. | Monica F. Cox Ph.D.

Dr. Monica Cox is a Professor and the Inaugural Chair in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. Her research is focused on the use of mixed methodologies to explore significant research questions in undergraduate, graduate, and professional engineering education; to explore issues of intersectionality among women, particularly Women of Color in engineering; and to develop, disseminate, and commercialize reliable and valid assessment tools for use across the engineering education continuum.
In 2011, she became the first African American woman to earn tenure in the College of Engineering at Purdue University In 2008 she also earned a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), which is the highest honor bestowed by the US Government on outstanding scientists and engineers. Monica is the Founder and CEO or Prepared to Be A Pioneer, where she serves as a speaker and consultant.
In this episode, we discussed:

The point she recognized her interest in S.T.E.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
Her early stage mentors, including her parents and professors at Spelman College
Her strategic approach to attaining the degrees she did and her desire to become a University President since the age of 19
We spoke about her new job at Ohio State and what her day to day there is like right now
We talked about perseverance and how she was able to push ahead through some of her road blocks as a pioneer
How often she looks at her goals and tracking them
We talked about what we as a community and for those of us as parents, can begin doing to expose our children to S.T.E.M.

All our stories on this podcast are made available for free. Please listen, subscribe, rate and review our show, as it helps improve our ranking in the various podcast directories and helps others find us more easily.

Blazer Nation, go out today and find a way to rise above, go way beyond and keep blazing your trail.

Join our community at TBPod.com

And connect with Stephen A. Hart: Twitter | LinkedIn