Jamar Williams

Introduction: A Creator and an Articulator

Taryell Simmons: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Rise Urban Nation. I've got my brother from another mother in the building today, Jamar Williams, founder and CEO of PromoDrone. Jamar, how are you doing?

Jamar Williams: Excellent, man. Good to see you, and thanks for having me. I'm feeling super fortunate and inspired, so thanks for helping me keep that going.

Taryell Simmons: For people who don't know you, who is Jamar Williams?

Jamar Williams: I always say I'm a creator and an articulator. I like to build things, and I like to talk about the cool things I build, whether it's drone products or songs. I've always been fascinated with creating, and once something is created, finding a way to talk about it excitedly. I'm a mouthpiece for life.

From Baltimore to the Mic

Taryell Simmons: Take me through the music journey and how you transitioned into being founder and CEO of a drone business.

Jamar Williams: It goes back to a little street in Baltimore, Maryland, where I was born.

Taryell Simmons: I've got to give a shout out, because I'm from the DMV too.

Jamar Williams: Always. Props to Baltimore. I had a mom and a dad, but not in the same house after a certain point, like a lot of kids in my neighborhood. I had a lot of idle time and found ways to attract trouble. Then one of my good friends, Shannon, spit his first rap to me. I thought that was just for the guys on TV, but if he could do it, I could try. I did my first talent show in the eighth grade. My dad was a cop by day and a musician by night, and he wanted to keep me on the straight and narrow, so we bumped heads a lot. Music was a way for me to stay out of trouble.

Jamar Williams: After I got arrested at eleven, my dad moved us from the city out to the suburbs, and it was a culture shock. When everybody in your neighborhood is Black, you don't even know what racism is. That's how sheltered I was. My dad built me my first music studio in our basement, a computer running Cakewalk. I started writing my own lyrics and realized I was talented at it.

Jamar Williams: Then I went to William Paterson University in New Jersey, and that's where diversity really set in: Hispanic, Asian, Black, white, Indian, everybody on one campus. It forced me out of my comfort zone, and I got love from all around. College was the tipping point for a kid who had been expelled from high school and arrested at eleven, and whose dad once saw his face up on a wall where it shouldn't have been. My music blossomed. I had a stage, an audience and a voice: college radio, performances, freestyling in New York, shows at little nightclubs off campus. My struggle was never smarts. It was focus, consistency and discipline. College was my first taste of real discipline. The kid who was expelled from high school scored over a thousand on the SAT and even had a little scholarship.

Teaching, Banking and Losing the Suit

Jamar Williams: After graduating, I went back to Baltimore, put out an album from my basement, and needed something to pay my school loans. I was a substitute teacher for a few months. The students were my audience and the stage was the front of a classroom, and I started to understand how important my voice could be in a different way.

Jamar Williams: An engineer on my album had a wife who was a bank operations manager, and she told me I'd be great there. I started as a teller making about eighteen thousand dollars. Within two weeks, they made me a relationship banker. I learned about the customer experience, building trust, and helping people with their financial future. I moved up fast because I love people, and my salary went from eighteen to thirty, sixty, ninety. I was a corporate guy.

Jamar Williams: In 2008, after almost eight years in banking, I lost my job in the financial fallout, and I had a slight identity crisis. I was so used to being the guy in the suit that when the suit was removed, I didn't know where to find my value. I met a beautiful woman, and we moved to San Diego together. I invested my banking money into a home studio and started performing all around San Diego. SoCal is the land of experimentation. You believe you can do anything here.

A Pig, a Camera and the First Drone

Jamar Williams: San Diego is wild. I met a couple whose business mascot was a fancy pig living on their urban farm in North Park, and they wanted me to write a song for it. We shot a lavish video about how spoiled this pig was: Range Rover, red carpet, nails painted. Welcome to Southern California.

Jamar Williams: The guy I shot that video with, Evan, went into business with me doing video projects, and we moved from commercials into real estate, because it's transactional and fast. I could use my customer service skills from banking, and he could shoot and edit. One day Evan asked, "Do you want to help me build a drone?" This was seven or eight years ago, before you could buy one for fifty bucks at Walmart. He and his roommate ordered a DJI kit for about three thousand dollars, and the parts took months to come in. You had to solder rotors and calibrate motors to get it to fly. So this kid from Baltimore became almost a little scientist, and I found it fascinating. We became one of the first companies in San Diego using drones for real estate.

Jamar Williams: Because drones were new, we got looks, stares, people cursing at the drone. But it made people take their faces out of Instagram and Facebook, look up and point their phones at it. Ding, ding, ding. If they're pointing their phones at it, what if I put a message on there, a banner or a logo? Everyone instinctively looking at the drone becomes an impression. That's how PromoDrone started. People were responding out of curiosity and fear. Curiosity is good. Fear we want to change into comfort, and fear is alleviated by information. Most drones are clandestine. You don't know who's flying them or why. Putting a digital display on a drone demystifies it.

Drones for Good: Emergency Response and the Future of Flight

Jamar Williams: We started with advertising, but our new push is public safety and emergency response. After floods and hurricanes, with a lot of damage and people out of power, drones with digital monitors can communicate with neighborhoods: help is on the way, here are directions to rally points. We can communicate two ways if someone is injured, give medical instructions, and pinpoint their location so responders can go straight to them. You save time, money and lives. In EMS, stress is the number one factor in a successful operation, not technology. If we can de-stress the operator with technology that makes the job easier and helps them bring someone home safely, that's our mission. Eventually that grows into an infrastructure with eVTOLs, electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. A drone arrives first for reconnaissance, sends information back to a vertiport, and an eVTOL goes in autonomously to transport victims without putting anyone else in danger.

Taryell Simmons: I love how you've been able to evolve, pivot and innovate, not just in this business but your whole life. And your timing was right: you were early into drones.

Jamar Williams: I pinch myself. It's like being on the internet before there was a www. We're about to announce a major OEM partnership with a globally recognized drone manufacturer. On pivots: to know how to pivot, you need support. The mind needs exposure to grow, like a plant needs exposure to the sun. Where we come from, physically or mentally, we're often in the shade, and sometimes you need somebody to pull you out and encourage you. I've had great people help me see my own greatness, so my mission now is helping as many people as possible tap into the greatness inside them.

Building a Team, Raising Capital and Facing Fear

Taryell Simmons: What made your pivot successful, and how do you think about employees versus contractors?

Jamar Williams: I brought on a valuable partner who gave me new perspective. We still have a great advertising market, with targets like Disney. But the pathway to success lies in infrastructure, not just innovation. Drones need systems, laws and partnerships to scale. If you show the FAA and aviation leaders how you're saving lives and improving disaster search and recovery, where big budgets already go, it speeds your ability to grow. Now drone technology, battery life and affordability are converging with regulatory support, infrastructure and public acceptance. When you're thinking about a pivot, ask for advice. Your business has an emotional state, and you want to keep it healthy. Sometimes you have to break up with the old one to get with the new one.

Jamar Williams: Most startups don't have the bandwidth for employees right away. Your most powerful tools are your equity and an innovative solution people believe in. First, be a good person who does good business, and you'll attract the right people. Even your failures fail you forward. Focus on the bounce back, not the setback. It took me years to find the right team. A co-founder and several marketing partners are no longer with the company, but I kept my equity. Now I have a great partner with equity who works as a consultant, plus advisors who help because they see the vision. We've been part of ConnectAll, the Inner City Capital Connections program and about six cohorts.

Jamar Williams: And founders, don't be scared to look for money. Minority founders do lack access to capital, but accountability is part of it too. The uncomfortable whys are the most important. Was I going after money the right way? Was my business sharp enough? Was I relying only on people I was comfortable with? Now my circle is diverse. We've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a major OEM is investing in us. Believe in yourself, and do the work to make yourself believable. You can't fool yourself.

Taryell Simmons: What's your all-time favorite business book?

Jamar Williams: The most influential books for me as a leader are about the business of life: The Power of Now and The Four Agreements. They strip me of my ego. No matter the success or awards, I'm a human being. For straight business, every founder should read Venture Deals by Brad Feld. If you're dealing with funding, contracts, lawyers, partnerships or ownership, that book is the business bible for startups.

Taryell Simmons: What is the scariest thing about entrepreneurship?

Jamar Williams: The responsibility that comes with success. When you sign the deal, people are relying on you and there are no more excuses. You have to honor your word, one of those four agreements. Many people settle for the chase, because it gives them an easy out. But fear also brings motivation. I'm inspired by what these results will do for my family, generational legacy, and complete strangers whose lives might change through some connection I'll never see. That's what I'm here for.

Taryell Simmons: If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?

Jamar Williams: I wouldn't change a thing, because the things that were negative built me into who I am right now. But if I cloned myself from scratch, I'd have that clone realize his greatness earlier and focus on internal development sooner. I'm only 43, and I'll be learning until I'm in the grave. I encourage exploration and diversity of thought. When I was growing up, a buddy of mine saw his mom murdered on the steps two buildings from our house. When I got arrested at eleven for breaking into abandoned houses, my dad said, "I can't let my son be a statistic." If I'd come from a different background, I probably would have just been taken home to my parents. That shouldn't be normal. So I wake up humble, inspired, with fire in my belly. The CEO title doesn't mean much to me. I've been an assistant vice president at a bank, and losing that suit taught me never to rely on titles to define who I am. PromoDrone is only as good as it helps other people become.

Advice for Newcomers and What's Next

Taryell Simmons: What was your first job?

Jamar Williams: Scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. In college, I sold Cutco knives door to door through Queens and Brooklyn until my shoes wore out.

Taryell Simmons: What steps would you give someone who wants to get into your industry?

Jamar Williams: First, get a mentor who has gone down the path you want and has the bandwidth to expedite your growth. That's been the saving grace for my company. Next, find groups and associations and become a voice, not just a participant. We're actively helping build the regulations and infrastructure and sitting at the tables where the industry's direction is decided, even if it's a local chapter. Then think bigger than yourself. Focus on the greater good and you'll get your share. Help bring out greatness in others and be a valuable asset. That builds trust, the number one thing in life. When people trust you'll follow through, they bring you opportunities. So be visible, think bigger than yourself, and be a sponge.

Taryell Simmons: If you take nothing else away: build trust and add value. Where is this industry going?

Jamar Williams: Autonomous. Drones will be parts of fully scalable ecosystems. When 911 operators get calls, auto-deployed robotics will go out, saving time and people power. Costs are going down and efficiency is going up, so you'll see mass global deployment and more vertical takeoff and landing. Within the next fifteen years, for what people pay for a Bentley now, you'll be able to buy a luxury eVTOL flying vehicle. You'll land at the mall, charge it like a Tesla, and there will be subscription services like Uber flying from vertiport to vertiport. There are about seventy eVTOL companies with platforms ready to go. Infrastructure is what falls behind, and drones are ushering it in.

Taryell Simmons: What projects are you working on, and where can people find you?

Jamar Williams: We're on standby for our big OEM partnership announcement, an original equipment manufacturer. Then we'll officially develop our Generation Two beta platform, a flying unit with digital displays, ready by Q1 2023. We're kicking off a million-dollar raise to build out our personnel, and we're registered on SAM.gov to take government contracts and demonstrate our technology to the most reputable emergency response agencies. Business happens for us on LinkedIn, and we have an Instagram page, promo.drone.

Taryell Simmons: Any last words?

Jamar Williams: Thank you for having me and giving me the time to tell my story. People like you giving us these platforms keep our spirits going and make us feel that what we're doing really matters.

Taryell Simmons: Brother, what you're doing really matters. You're Black history in the making, and I hope when they tell your story, they tell it right and inspire the next generation. I'll put his links in the show notes so you can connect with him. Thank you again, King. That's the end of our show. See you all next time.