Jessica Ebony: What Does It Mean to be a Dangerous Negro?

When I was in undergrad I dreamed of being an entrepreneur one day. I thought of a few great ideas:

Dorm Cleaning Service…..Documentary Filmmaker…..Life Coach for the freshmen

My ideas never came to fruition until now (dorms are too disgusting…documentaries take forever to make…freshmen want advice for free). Even though it didn’t work out for me, I always admired the people who did start successful businesses in college.

I decided to interview one of the owners of my favorite t-shirt company, dangerousNEGROApparel to see what it was like to start a business in college. Tre Baker and his friends began their company in undergrad and I discovered their t-shirt line at an Engineering Conference back in 2006. Tre describes the business as: “A method of spreading positive propaganda. T-shirts are like walking billboards, you might as well advertise something positive and meaningful every once in a while.”

Lets see what he has to say about starting a business as a college student and the purpose of dangerousNEGRO:

JE: How did being a college student benefit you when you started your business?

TB: I had low overhead since all my expenses (rent, meal plan, utilities) were taken care of, and I had extra scholarship money that I used to help fund the business. And you have all the resources of your school available to you, like research, professors, funding, etc. Plus people are more willing to help college students succeed.
If I hadn’t started my business so early I wouldn’t have been able to get into Harvard Business School straight out of undergrad. By starting my first business at the age of 18, I already had work experience by the time I graduated.

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