Musa Kamara, Deen Entertainment: Managing an event planning company for non-profits

[Music] all right everyone welcome to another edition of founder wisdom podcast rapid fire edition today we are with musa camera he is ceo and founder of dean entertainment musa can you tell us a bit more about your life story so a quick bit about me um born and raised in west africa sierra leone for the most part i spent about 20 plus years in the united states

in the east coast in washington dc and um so i'm 29 years old a lot of my a lot of my my my business started around 20 2019 that's when i started my company and then from there i'd love to share more a little bit more depth about my company what we do exactly how we service the community yeah what's your your business story and what do you guys uh so we started in 20 2019 um i actually registered my company while i was incarcerated so what we do is we do a lot of community relations um we work with the community as far as with non-profits organization and some of the businesses in the dc maryland virginia area nice um that's that's pretty cool uh what values is that your company and tell us

a bit more about the story behind the business you can get a bit deeper on that one yeah well so i went well when i was in costco i was trying to pretty much find what i wanted to do when i when i come home and then for me i wanted to focus on what i love doing more and and having a deep religious root which i'm muslim and giving back as far as charities part of our our pillars so i was like you know what how can i turn this into a business that's fulfilling two at the same time so upon my release i've already registered my company while i was incarcerated so when i came home we started servicing non-profits in the area and we had our first uh millennial gallery in 2021

it was a woman in parliament um we we donated some of the proceeds to an organization that worked with uh teenage girls interesting thing what um i mean the judicial system in the u.s is quite uh interesting to say the least i think there's like huge challenges on that level how is your company helping improve that um actually right now this year in 2022 we we're doing

a prison reform gala so we are actually going to partner up with an organization called casa bridges and they work with some of the juveniles in the dc maryland virginia area particularly dc so the court of their like quarter-point kids instead of the kids going to juvenile detentions they will be clear there was you know appoint these kids to them doing mentorship and things like that so

i'm going to further our partnerships after the gal and i have a lot of other different things i'm doing from a grassroot perspective working with juveniles so at least we can stop that trajectory to go into prison and things like that because the policy is another thing we have other organization that works on policy me i'm trying to work on the juvenile perspective of it and for

sure i think um when you're a kid i i sure had my altercations with the law as well i went and i just wrote a linkedin post about that a couple seconds before i opened this zoom convo with you i think we're put in environments with quite a low ceiling it's like putting a shark in 50 meter cubic of water you know like the sharks gonna struggle and he's gonna cause trouble you know he's gonna break the cage and probably eat someone um i think education is a well first environment you know but i mean you can't control that environment most of the time and then i think it's education i think you know we we all need mentors to step in uh sometimes it's not necessarily your parents which is the the mentors that

life provided us but i think we we need you know like higher mentors to to step up so very important i'm looking at your website here um so i see branding fundraiser millennial gala social media marketing so you do consulting and all of these kinds of things so what service do you typically pro which one is that the most popular service you provide and is it targeting

non-profits or you also target other businesses um for the most part we we target nonprofit right um where it goes into the community relations and integrating them within the community they're trying to service depending on their agenda so as far as businesses business is kind of like a a if it's one of those like pick and choose kind of projects depending on how you know serviceable it

is and is it going to get us off of our agenda so as long as it aligns with what i already do what we already do with nonprofit organization i take i take those though those contracts and so it's not it's not a regular thing that i do with uh businesses because like i said my main focus is working with nonprofits because that's their day-to-day operation working

with the community which is something i like doing when when you were incarcerated um were you planning um the business and how did you take that time to kind of reflect because i know that a lot of people they they go in gel and they they go out of their words right like yeah they get accustomed to that environment which is very harsh um it depends depending

on where you are incarcerated and um how how did you use that time productively i mean i read a lot uh i read a lot of books uh this is the cellmate i had he was a big reader at the time i really wasn't but he kind of got me introduced to it where it was just books all over every time i'll come into sales there's books all over the place so um he ended up introducing me to so you know be able to read more i got more in depth with my religion i started picking up good habits you know i'm happy i could say that and those those habits was disciplined i stayed on that course you know they're getting up early and making sure that that your morning is at a certain

pace so that the rest of your day you know can we can be able to be more more fruitful you have you know so the discipline aspect of it was was was set in place all of those things that i knew was constructive that i built from prison i just took it when i once i was released and obviously that comes with the work and now and all these different elements that i put into myself for sure and why do you think that you tried while others um get worse in that environment and do you think it is like the strong majority that get in worse shape when they they go to jail than when they go out or into my mental shape or just physical shape yeah mental shape well well i think i

think they're worse when they when they go on because for the most part some people get defeated with the time that they're that they did they get you know we talk about 10 15 years or plus or whatever the time is and you're just in a small compound doing the same thing every single day you know uh for me personally i was just looking at okay you know what exactly it is that i could be able to start developing and i focused on that i really was not i really didn't get into like the prison politics and trying to be you know hanging out and stuff like i had goals i wanted to do i was okay well and i was i was in terrible shift i wasn't fat but my breathing was terrible i

had i had a bunch of things i was just terrible i wanted to fix and and i just kind of focused on that i kind of focus with individuals that they you know they they they spoke a lot about some of their personal goals that they wanted to do so so the the the space of who i was hanging out with you know that that obviously changing that and that helped uh dramatically because it was nothing in the prison itself it was not like no programs and nothing like that you have to just kind of use your mind and your imagination your creativity as well okay yeah and people you hang around with that's super important um getting back to the questions because yeah i've got interested by that part of you um what is

your what top values do do we see in your business like what what do you value in your business and what um what of these values have came from uh your time in jail or your your past you know what can we see in your business um that transcends um the business uh honestly is always about integrity it's always about integrity putting your best foot forward because

i feel like once people can feel like they rely on you then you can be able to perceive from it i'm not going to say it's about perfection and things like that but integrity is about making sure that you'll be able to keep your word and make sure you put in the effort and they see these things so when it comes to that when it comes to our values integrity to me is it is at the top of that list yeah for sure it is uh certainly a value of mine as well honesty and over communication you know and doing what comes out of your mouth you know and action over words as well strongly valued here what does your morning routine look like right now man i get up at 4 30 in the

morning i pray from prayer i go work out working out you know shower this down in the third go give me some coffee then i start getting into meetings and and i have like i have this my book right here it's one of my favorite books it's what i'll be reading like most of the time every morning robin's my man yeah he's right yeah so this is one of the books that i read most of the time every morning so that's kind of like how my morning routine is yeah i recommend also the 5 a.m club by uh yes yep i got that too that yeah that book is a game changer it's a game changer i love the biohacking part you know the you know he recommends uh stuff that is basic to me

right now but wasn't back in the days like sun exposure and yeah physical activity he's big on that high intensity trainings and so forth so that's super cool although i don't i've tried the 5 a.m thing and 4 a.m i think you know like training for an iron man right now like huge recovery you know like at least nine hours sleep since i'm training like a madman

so but yeah that's what i was talking about um okay i mean are you uh soloing your business or do you have employees like how do you find players well as i don't have no employees so what i do is i contract through different resources that i might need so if i'm taking on a project and i might need a decorator i might need a videographer photographer

whatever content creator i'll just 1099 and just contract through them because for the most part a lot of the brainstorming is kind of done by myself so i've been doing this for three years you know putting these because i what i do is it's kind of like even though like i'm contracted it's kind of more like a partnership i do with these non-profit organizations interesting it certainly

is a an interesting niche um that you're in and yeah i can see that the value of that in events you know especially after covid people like want to do things uh physically you know and these events when it comes to non-profits you know like i've seen um these as very successful if you invite a bunch of let's say a hedge fund managers and they they all

start outbidding one another at these events you know so that can be pretty cool and pretty successful not for for non-profits what about your sales strategies how do you get your clients um referral referrals is always the the the number one because word of mouth is still the best marketing tool you know you know everybody uses the instagrams the linkedin facebook all these different things but word

of mouth to me is always my my top two that i use then i utilize instagram showcases some of our past um events reviews and things like that and people will generally just email me and they'll be in contact with me by the way are you focused in the washington area or do you do nationwide um for right now i'm doing the washington dc area um just just because i have a good pulse about what is going on in the area who's to reach who to reach as far as from the from the government local governments and different areas that i could be able to have a pulse on i think for me to be able to start going nationwide i have to be able to get a pulse on that community or or partner

with somebody have a proposal in community because again it's about being effective rather than just trying to see money man that's because you know the quicker you grow the quicker you fall so i'm trying to take my time and make sure i have a pulse on every community i'll potentially expand interesting so talking to you you know you had a rough past what mindset advice would you

have um for young people out there people that want to get in entrepreneurship what have you learned from the past and what makes you the the warrior that you are today i'll tell you two things man and we always undermine these things just because it just sounds cliche right i'll say have a good discipline and have patience because now uh having failed attempt for different um issues

and then you gotta you know be disciplined having a good resume and something that they can continue because if you have a good discipline whatever opportunity comes in the future you're already kind of walking into it being prepared you know what they say you know core preparation i mean for proper preparation these poor performance so if you're if you have your if you if you're performing well

it's because you prepare well then that's generally well what tends to happen and i mean discipline and patience they kind of go hand in hand um to me having been in the game for 10 years in the entrepreneurial game i mean discipline is like second nature so i don't reflect on it anymore but yeah like i mean that's the basic basic if you don't have discipline to

have a schedule to do your workout every day you want to have some kind of routine you're in deep waters absolutely and the patience right like once you're on track and once you're achieving these goals as alpha male sometimes we always want more and yeah we need to you know be patient and tell the tiger to stay in the pressure you know like when is the time

so yeah i mean good advice right there um what are your favorite softwares that you use on the day today so you say my my favorite self what software is yeah like uh my favorite self words like like words of encouragement i know software's like uh for example i use software yeah oh software okay but for the most part like um i don't really use a lot

of software so if we just saw my like i'm mostly on this zoom if you want to be honest i'm mostly on zoom like maybe from um nine a.m to maybe four p.m i'm literally back back on zoom you know but um other than the in-person meeting i'm always on zoom so because a lot of these we're trying to we're trying to you know get away from the internet thing to kind of do a lot of in-person needed but it's still a little bit ficky because of covid so zoom is where i am spending a lot of my time to be quite honest so how do you organize yourself have a an agenda or a calendar what do you use uh calendar you're in accounting yeah yeah yeah yeah he's gonna save life yeah that's

true [Music] you know those kind of absolutely because you know when you have a lot of things jumping around you know you need these reminders because we always on our phone we cannot live this thing right here we're always holding it up so once i get that notification i'm like oh man i got to be somewhere so i definitely use calendly um definitely use on zoom and

sometimes some people just want to just do google me either one of those video chat things are always good yeah well it's it's efficient you know because this podcast i do in person versions i'm in cancun mexico right now and i've discovered that the pains of doing uh meetings physically again you know but it's also cool to meet people physically there's a lot of advantages i wrote

another pulse of that today um but yet like i think if you are back to back every day and talk to a lot of people one of the top advantages for that is that you get a bunch of different pieces of data you know and as a founder you can stack that all up together and draw magnificent conclusions that can help your business so i love getting in front of a bunch of different people on a weekly basis i just get smarter as a result and i think as a ceo that's our main role you know get in front of people talk to people and produce uh magnificent uh results out of it so what's your greatest mistakes that you've made in your life in your business and what did you learn from them in

my business all my life which one yeah both with life honestly it is not a particular decision right i think it's just um some of the ideas that you know that i had normalized at our earliest earlier age because you know one is not is not sufficient because it was just a lot of drastic drastic bad decision that was made because of you know the elements and

the ideas i started putting in my mind started feeding myself at an earlier age but when as far as with with a business i think that um i i i undermine you know patients where i was going back to patients that was to me that's probably one of my biggest mistakes i undermined patients because my business plan kept changing it kept evolving i would okay well this

is now you know so i had to keep going and revamping different things and that is really just the norm and when you're starting up your business you know either revamping your business plan evolving it or something but you have to still keep going because there's new movies you just asked me already about software technology new things are coming into play some information she didn't have but

there's all these different things coming into play that i didn't know about so for me those are like the uh two thing particularly yeah i mean it's such a fine line with patients you know do i put an end to this experiment of mine or do i keep on grinding and you know see the the light at the end of the tunnel so i mean that's why decision making skills is a skill that so few have and that's so many uh successful ceo have so i mean great uh great advice right there uh question number 10 because we've got five minutes left what's your best investment ever it can be an investment of time money energy okay uh okay well time time i'm be honest with you right because if you if you're able to

invest your time in something that is constructive it will it will evolve for something much greater right so even when it comes to some of some of the things that i actually researched that i found out about about the industry that i'm that i'm currently in led me into having you know some some great partnerships with some with some um businesses in the area like some of

the hotels i have contract with so some of these things is what really evolves if you're not investing in your time and making sure that your time is because i read a quote one time right it was like a manage your focus instead of managing your time so i kind of i kind of uh put both of those things together whereas okay whatever time and window i have i have to manage and focus and i'm laser target on yeah yeah for sure good good advice your focus is uh is incredible and yeah like focusing that time on knowledge and talking to people is one of the best investment ever um what's your your best health hack so if you have a bio hack like i don't know working out or uh stretching like what's your

best health hack how do you keep yourself healthy and i'll go to sleep early i'm an early bird um i'll probably be in bed 9 30 at 10 o'clock and i put my phone on dnd uh i don't because it's definitely sleep early and working out consistently yeah i can see that the discipline here it's very hard for um someone to go to bed early um especially when you're an entrepreneur you know you have all these things you know me i try to read before bed and sometimes i can read for like an hour or two you know and i i go to bed quite late actually so good job on that discipline is what i see in you so do you have a favorite quote of yours that you often uh loop in your

mind well uh the like mandela had this one quote when i was younger that kind of stuck with me when he said uh but he said um it was something i was about freedom he says um no easy walk to freedom right uh that was one that kind of stuck with me at an earlier age um as far as for me currently there isn't one because i like when you read robin sherman's book you're kind of getting a new quote that you like every day robin sherman and then i'm reading another book called um ego is the enemy yeah i started on right healthy yeah yeah ryan um and uh i i just thought on this chapter where they said um um those who speak don't know and and those who don't speak know right

and and i was like you know what like you know like i love books like that because it's kind of like a refreshing and stimulating your mind to start you know going in depth and um but as far as something has always stopped him he's always been that mandela quote um no easy walk to freedom yeah most of the quotable people that you that people listen to

um they've done the hard work right so spending uh 27 years in a prison cell i mean he did the [ __ ] work you know and i'm gonna listen to him for sure so yeah the quote is uh is very accurate and yeah like reaching freedom uh not only as a black man but you know like as any individual is something that's very hard freedom from your demons freedom from your environment freedom from the people that you know try to hold you to them and sometimes you need to break these connections you know so freedom is a very hard freaking thing you know and um i'm grateful that i have a good part of it in my life so good quote right there i have top top advice for young founders out there my

top advice i think i said it earlier i have patience whatever it is you're trying to have patience it's not going to happen in 30 days 60 days 90 days some of it might actually take years yeah it's just the reality of it decades decades you know we have where people that it look like it's overnight but you really did biography they have been doing something for

15 years you know and then another key thing is appreciate every small accomplishments you know not overworked you know overwork yourself where you kind of just over overlooking something that you did that is really a boost you know because those those small accomplishments is a boost that keeps you going give you energy and make you understand okay well you know what i'm on the right track you

know it gives you that self satisfaction so though those are those are my two things i would tell any young founder that is that is coming up that are starting their their business have patience and celebrate the small wins because those gratefulness yeah enjoying the viewing it's very accurate for younger people like they live in the instant age with a tick tock you know and they and

some of the tick talkers are almost instant success so much it confuses the brain the one percent we always compare ourselves to the one percent but the reality is that the 99 they hustled for like 10 years to get there so very good and accurate advice uh two last questions here uh you quoted a lot of books what's your favorite book is it well i guess you

named it the robin sharma one you have an idea that you'd refer for us well another one i'll say is the alchemist the alchemist is the game changer um i read that the alchemist yeah the brazilian guy right yeah yeah brazilian yup he from brazil um i read i read he was the first book i actually read in prison that was the first book i read and then um when i when i when i got released last year i picked up the 5 a.m club those are my two favorite books so the 5 a.m club and the outcome is those two bulls kind of give me a purpose outside of religious reasons thank you for that and last question what does future look like in your field again the event uh planning world for the

the non-profits is bright the future is definitely bright right now i'm actually uh getting ready to to to have my second annual gala july 24th um this one is about prison reform and our honorary organization it's called casa bridges of the the organization i told you about that works with juveniles earlier um and then from from there is just um introducing our next sector of my company

which is going to be financial literacy so you guys kind of have like a an announcement from us which next year will be financial literacy and i'm excited about that um that one right there is going to kind of do a lot of positive effect it's going to teach a lot of people in very very much in depth about financial literacy you have a one-on-one teaching seminars

and things like that before we get together so that's going to take a journey of itself very inspiring man where can people find out more about you so as far as so my our company website is www.dean with spell with two e's dean entertainment.com and on instagram is dean underscore entertainment and then for my personal uh instagram is i am underscore underscore dean so yeah all right

my man well people can also find you on linkedin musa camera with a king yeah with a k yup nice uh nice talking to you i think we dropped a lot of wisdom so yeah let's keep touch and i'll keep you advised when this will be online all right all right man i appreciate it take care man you