When traveling the path to success, no one is ever guaranteed a success story. “The biggest challenge is understanding how it’s done, or understanding how it should be done. You know, if you never really know how to ride a bike sometimes you have to get on and fall. Unfortunately, if you fall in the business that just means that it does not exist anymore. So my biggest challenge is really connecting ourselves with the right level of mentorship, advisement, investors, and even people on my team.”
Giving back to his alma mater and the youth happens to be a deep passion of Williams. Within the past nine years, the mogul has returned to speak to students, raised thousands of dollars for the university, and also created an organization titled SOLO. “I think it’s very important to give back,” Williams tells BE Modern Man. “When you grow up in a community, you tend to imitate people you want to be. When I saw business owners, that was the one thing I wanted to imitate.” Despite being a fairly new organization, SOLO has already raised $4 million, traveled the world, received a plethora of awards, and most importantly, shared a road map for others.
“As I started to understand technology, I also started to see how technology founders that we’ve all grown to love, create a road maps for us,” says Williams. “A BE Modern Man is a man who lays down the blueprint in terms of how you innovate, accelerate an idea, and become a catalyst in this industry. Those are the things that inspire me and I want it to inspire others.”
The BlackEnterprise.com team acknowledges Rodney Williams for continuously giving back to the youth and paving the way for those inspiring to pursue a career in technology. We look forward to seeing how his innovative ideas improve the world of technology.
It’s our normal to be extraordinary. Follow @blackenterprise and join the BE Modern Man conversation using #BEModernMan.
–written by Tara Strigler