Unconventional Mentor no. 37 - Renae Bluitt

“Everyone has a story that deserves to be told." - Renae Bluitt

As soon as I started watching the documentary She Did That, I knew I wanted to feature Executive Producer Renae Bluitt on this project. Unconventional Mentors is all about learning from the stories of other women and highlighting their success to inspire you to build something of your own, and this is something Renae is doing in so many different ways and has been doing throughout her career.

Renae Bluitt is a film maker, digital content creator and the producer of She Did That, a documentary about Black Women entrepreneurs and their experience of running their own businesses. Renae’s mission is to champion the work of Black Women and to inspire women all over the world, something which runs through all of her work.

Renae comes from a family of entrepreneurs, something she discusses in the documentary as being quite rare for a Black family where she grew up. Her dad makes an appearance on the film, talking about how he would have liked her to join the family funeral business, but could see that Renae was going to do her own thing.

Renae started out her career in PR, working for someone else before realising that she wanted to set up her own agency. In the documentary she talks about working long hours in her day job, before coming home and working on her own clients. Most of the women featured were working for someone else when they started their own business and they talk about how tough this can be.

In 2009 Renae set up her blog In Her Shoes, with the aim “to empower, enlighten and uplift women committed to realizing their dreams.” It started off as a passion project to provide inspiration to other Black women who were starting out their journey to become entrepreneurs, but it has become an award-winning blog with a huge reach.

In 2016 she set out to make She Did That, a documentary about Black women entrepreneurs in the US today. This documentary shines a spotlight on all of the brilliant things Black women entrepreneurs are doing in America (and there are lots here in the UK too!) which is something that Renae has been doing throughout her career. It also highlights the structural inequalities Black women face, as well at looking how a lack of representation and support is fuelling women to create something for themselves.

The documentary takes a look at the wider business landscape, with stats and figures about the world of work as well as showcasing the personal highs and lows of the women involved. From a lack of representation to the funding gap for women of colour, this documentary takes a look at the setbacks and successes of some incredible women and I found it to be so inspiring.

What I also loved about the documentary is the breadth of the topics that were covered, not only did we get to hear the stories of each woman and how they came to start their business, but we also learnt about the challenges in the wider world. The section on tech start-ups featured Jessica O Matthews talking about how few women there are founding start-ups (17% in the USA) and how an even smaller number of these are women of colour, with only 0.04% of these founded by Black women. She highlighted how important representation is and talked about the missed opportunity by not having more black women in the tech space. Recognising how important representation is, Jessica moved her company to Harlem and has created an initiative to get Harlem residents trained in technology.

The section on funding a business was tough to watch, I was aware that as women, in particular Black women, they would face challenges when it came to pitching for funding for their businesses, but it was still horrible to hear them talk about their experiences. Melissa Butler, founder of the Lip Bar speaks about being dismissed for funding on Shark Tank (like Dragon’s Den I think) both because she was a woman and because her business is a beauty product, something the men she was pitching to just didn’t get. They missed out as she was the first independent lipstick brand to be stocked at Target. The documentary also looks at generational wealth and the challenges Black women face when selling a business, being accused of being a sell-out. I learnt so much.

And it wasn’t just the wider business world, this was a holistic look at being an entrepreneur so each woman shared the setbacks they had faced, and also discussed the positive things they do to be on top of their game such as prioritising their mental health and looking at how to collaborate with other women so that everyone gains. The support of partners, friends and family were also discussed.

The thing I struggle with the most in running my own business is allowing myself to have an ambition and vision for my work that is more than just each individual task. Watching She Did That and hearing all of these stories got me excited for what I could do with my business.

"As a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I've been committed to telling women's authentic stories throughout my entire career. From PR and marketing, to blogging, and now, filmmaking, everyone has a story that deserves to be told."

I love the way that at the core of Renae’s work is lifting up and celebrating Black women and their businesses. Whether that is through her blog In her Shoes, or directly helping clients with her agency, or telling the stories of incredible entrepreneurs to a global audience. Renae’s work is all about sharing the stories of other women, so I have come away from the documentary with a long list of women to find out more about (some of whom will be featured on my Instagram project this week). What I am most inspired by about Renae is the way that her passion to tell the stories of these brilliant Black women is the thread throughout her work. In a video interview with Sheen Magazine Sheen magazine she talks about not being sure what platform her next project will be on, but that she does know it will be about continuing to tell the stories of these brilliant women to inspire

Mentor Advice: Focus on the impact you want to have, not how you are going to achieve it

The advice I take from Renae Bluitt is to let your passion for your work drive your decision making. In each aspect of her career, whether it is in PR, writing a blog or making a film, Renae has been focused on telling the stories of Black women entrepreneurs to provide inspiration and motivation for other women to have the ambition to start their own businesses. How she has done this has evolved and developed, but that core mission has meant that all of her work is delivering on how she wants to make an impact in the world.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about my own bigger purpose. I want women to feel empowered to create careers they love, so that they not only have the financial security that comes from a career but that they go home from work every day feeling fulfilled and that they are working towards their bigger purpose. Looking at how Renae approaches her work I know that the focus needs to be on my mission and the how to do it will work itself out.

You can find out more about Renae and her work here In Her Shoes can be found here and She Did That is available to watch on Netflix and I would highly recommend you do.