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Pinky Cole, founder of Slutty Vegan restaurant gifted LLCs to every member of the Clark Atlanta 2022 graduating class.
In her commencement address, Cole, an alumna of the HBCU, told students she was gifting them a path to entrepreneurship.
“I have partnered with Varo Bank to provide every single graduate in this audience with a new LLC and a path to entrepreneurship,” Cole informed graduates. “Every single graduate in this audience will leave this stadium as a business owner!”
According to Black Enterprise, Pinky Cole used her speech to share her own story of setbacks and success.
Pinky Cole encourages students to fail in order to “find aspiration in the losses”
At one point, Cole recalled, she “had a business and then lost everything”.
“My car got repo’d, got kicked out of my house, went flat broke, almost lost my mind,” she said. Four years later, Cole now “owns and operates a $100 million vegan brand”.
“You think I was gonna give up because of some failure?” she asked. “Hell no. And neither will you.”
Pinky Cole’s gift of them more than 800 LLCs reportedly cost upwards of $400,000.
And even with that gift, she told the soon-to-be-graduates that she hoped they, too, experienced failure.
“I’m telling this to you, the class of 2022,” Cole said, according to 11Alive News in Atlanta. “I want you to fail.”
“I want you to fail so hard you become an expert in failure and you get a PhD in failology,” she said. Cole said she wanted students “to fail because failing is not failing at all – it is finding aspiration in the losses.”
Business creation and entrepreneurship is one of the best ways, according to Forbes magazine, to build generational wealth. Pinky Cole’s gift to students will allow each of them to create, expand and establish their own footprint within the business world.
“It is my BUSINESS to make sure these graduates have a plan!” Pinky Cole said in an Instagram post after the commencement ceremony. “Today was a good day!”
Very good article. Congratulations to all the graduates.