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Combs Enterprises President on Shop Circulate platform: ‘This really is a start of a revolution’

Tarik Brooks, President Combs Enterprises, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss Combs Enterprises' plan to launch Shop Circulate and aiding black-owned businesses.

Video transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: Well, today is the first time Juneteenth is being celebrated as a federal holiday. So let's chat more about supporting Black businesses. Sean P. Diddy Combs has launched an all-digital marketplace called Shop Circulate to support Black businesses. We're joined now by Tarik Brooks, President of Combs Enterprises. And we also have Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal here with us for this conversation.

So Tarik, I want to start with you. Talk to us about Shop Circulate, how it works, and how it can drive traffic and revenue to some of those Black owned businesses.

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TARIK BROOKS: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, and happy Juneteenth to each of you. Shop Circulate is an idea that really started back in 2018 when Sean Combs watched a documentary about the Greenwood community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, commonly known as Black Wall Street. And he was amazingly impressed by the fact that this community, at the turn of the century decided it was up to them to create their own environment for economic empowerment and did that through doing business with each other.

And obviously as everyone knows, Black Wall Street was destroyed in a tragic massacre. But what we are trying to do with Shop Circulate is have the spirit of that community live in a digital environment. So we are going to create an online marketplace that encourages people to learn more about Black businesses, support those Black businesses. And through a system of rewards and gamification, we're going to create incentive to encourage people to come back on the platform, return and continue to spend money with those businesses.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: That's awesome. And Diddy is a very busy man these days. He's also going to be launching the Excellence program along with Combs Enterprises, an endeavor which basically is a virtual boot camp for aspiring entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups. So what's the plan for that program, and how is he hoping that this will continue to open doors?

TARIK BROOKS: One thing that is authentically tied to the ethos of Combs Enterprises is the power and importance of internships and mentors. Andre Harell was a great mentor, gave Sean his first job as an intern at Uptown Records and his career launched from there. And so it's very important to us to make sure we continue to spread that energy with young people today.

Young people today are looking for opportunities to break into industries that have been difficult to break into. And we believe with this program, by leveraging our robust network of people, both in front of the camera, behind the camera and executive offices to give people an understanding of what these careers really entail, how you can be most properly prepared, and how you're going to be successful throughout your career.

And so the idea is not only will we create amazing internships for these young people, we're hoping to develop real mentorship relationships that these folks will have fostered throughout their careers.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And you mentioned mentors. And I think it's so cool that Ray Dalio is actually a very big mentor for Diddy. So I'm curious how those conversations shared between the two, how that shaped Combs Enterprises and the decisions and the strategy that you guys have.

TARIK BROOKS: It's amazing. Prior to working at Combs Enterprises, I worked at Bridgewater Associates. And the impact of the culture there and Ray's principles was profound on me. And so one of the things I did when I joined the company was share those principles with the entire company.

And I was fortunate to be able to introduce Sean and Ray and help them build the great relationship they have. And what's interesting is even though they come from very different backgrounds focused on very different industries, you'd be surprised at the amount of value alignment these two men have.

When you think about how they approach business, their relentless pursuit of the true-- they're very much in line. So in a lot of ways they were kindred spirits that just hadn't had the opportunity to meet yet. So it's amazing, and Ray continues to be a great mentor for us as we move forward building different businesses and attacking challenges every day.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And it's awesome that you were able to bring those two together as well. I want to get back to this Shop Circulate with Salesforce. It's going to feature Black-owned businesses across lots of different sectors. For folks hearing this now and want to be part of that, want to have their business be part of that platform, how can they do that, and what criteria are you using when you think about businesses that you'll have included in that?

TARIK BROOKS: So our core premise is we want to create a platform for the wide array of Black businesses. So we expect to have a diverse set of articles-- from home goods, to fashion, to music, you name it. We expect it to be a wide variety of products. And we're going to build the platform. So it's nimble enough to be able to support different industries and different categories.

We're hoping that Black businesses who are interested go to Shop Circulate, register to get on our email list while we're in development. We are right now working very intensely with Salesforce and Deloitte in the development process. And we're hoping to launch the platform in time for the holiday season this year. So we hope as many businesses as possible come register.

And then for companies, major corporations, technology firms, other institutions that feel like they should be a part of something like this, we encourage them to reach out. One of the things we think about and that we expressed to Salesforce and Deloitte was this for us is not really just the development of another online marketplace. This really is a start of a revolution.

And the message to the African-American community is we've been in this struggle long enough to know that we can't wait for somebody to come save us. We have to do it ourselves. And we're trying to do that by empowering these entrepreneurs who then become the catalyst for economic growth in the communities that they live in.

ALEXANDRA CANAL: And Tarik, very quickly before we let you go here, Combs Enterprises has a very diverse portfolio. So when it comes to Diddy's investment strategies, is there a common thread or something that he looks for when trying to make those decisions?

TARIK BROOKS: So one of the gifts that Sean has is he has the unique ability to see transition moments in culture. When you look at his success from Bad Boy, to Ciroc, to Sean John, these businesses were all built at inflection points where mainstream culture was moving in a direction, and he was able to, kind of, build a business that fit that gap perfectly.

As we think about the things that we invest in, there are a couple of things that we look at they're critically important. One, it's got to be a great sound business with a sound leadership team just like any other investor would look at. But when we think about our involvement, we say how are we uniquely suited to be able to help beyond the dollars that we put in?

So we don't look at as many deals as a true VC shop or anything like that. But what we do is try to carefully select unique opportunities for us to put capital work where we have a unique advantage to be able to help accelerate that business. And so something that we look at every day, we have a great network of venture capital firms that we work with, we're part of the Culture Leadership Fund at Andreessen Horowitz. So we benefit from having a great pipeline that extends beyond just Sean's name and celebrity.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right, Tarik Brooks, President of Combs Enterprises, Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal. Thank you both for joining us. And happy Juneteenth to you both.