Inspiring Conversations with Red Claybon of Spirit Gallery

Today we’d like to introduce you to Red Claybon.

Hi Red, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My journey started on the southside of Chicago, where I was born and raised. I can remember moving through my high school years with uncertainty about the career path that I wanted to pursue. I didn’t get clarity on that until I took a class called “foundations of entrepreneurship” my junior year, and that changed everything. I knew that I wanted to pursue business, and eventually entrepreneurship. I loved the concept of building a business model around an innovative product or service. I pursued my undergraduate degree in Marketing at the University of Houston, and shortly after I started my career at Colgate-Palmolive. During my time there, I jumped into several roles across sales and marketing, continuing to sharpen my skillsets and prepare me to run a business of my own one day. After about 5 years working, I decided to go back to school for my MBA at USC. I dreamed of living in LA since I was young, and getting to explore this city as a grad student was a time period that I will never forget. As I moved through my MBA program, I began to realize that I wanted to make an impact in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. I also learned about the importance of digital literacy, and I wanted to create a resource for underprotected/marginalized communities to use for their empowerment. Spirit Gallery was born from my passion for art, education, and DEI. It was created with the desire to drive thought leadership and innovation within the DEI space, while also helping people expand their digital literacy. I have been running my business for 3 years now, and it wasn’t just my MBA journey that helped prepared me for this venture. The preparation also came from the foundational entrepreneurship class in high school, the experience that I gathered in the workforce, and the hundreds of conversations that I’ve had with other entrepreneurs,

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Not at all! Some of the struggles that I’ve encountered have been a lack of funding (it has been difficult to secure investments/grants). Instead, I’ve had to bootstrap the start of my business. In addition to the lack of funding, I also launched Spirit Gallery during a time of major economic downturn. The poor economy has arguably been a hurdle since Spirit Gallery’s conception. The last hurdle I’ll touch on is the widespread divestment from DEI in response to the new administration. Companies have cut back on their DEI-related budgets, and schools/non-profits are at risk of losing their funding if they don’t comply with the new anti-DEI legislature. These three factors have been pretty significant hurdles, especially for a Black solopreneur who’s business focuses on developing DEI-related educational material!

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Spirit Gallery is a BIPOC-owned education-technology company offering eLearning courses and workshops for individuals and organizations. Our content falls into two main categories:

– diversity, equity, and inclusion
– ethical artificial intelligence

Spirit Gallery provides unique eLearning material that is informed by psychology, neuroscience, and the undiluted experiences of underrepresented groups. By providing organizations with content that supports their diverse communities, our vision is to advance cultural belonging and expand AI literacy.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I’ve had great support in my life and in my entrepreneurial journey. One of my biggest resources has been Future Founders. I participated in their Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, and this program gave me solid insights on how to build my business, as well as a cohort of other entrepreneurs just like me. We were able to share resources, keep each other encouraged, and help brainstorm solutions for the common issues that arise with running a business. I am so grateful for that experience. I also have to give credit to the Consortium. I received a Consortium fellowship to attend USC for my MBA. Not only did I receive a full tuition scholarship to attend USC, but I also joined a supportive community of diverse business professionals.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spiritgallery.net
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/redclaybon