In 2019, Tiffany James followed a friend’s advice to invest in Tesla stock. When the brand’s valuation skyrocketed in 2020, James’ $10,000 investment grew to over $2 million. James had planned to use some of those earnings to start a candle brand. However, she noticed the conversations she was having online about investments and trading were attracting hundreds of Black women.
Soon, Modernblkgirl (MBG), the online community James had started on social app Clubhouse, had over 100,000 followers, most of them women of color seeking advice for mastering the stock market. She realized she had a new venture and mission on her hands.
“Even though I was not the most qualified at the time, I knew that what I did know worked. I had studied a trillion times and learned a formula that worked, and I knew I could find like-minded people who had experience to help with the mission and show Black women to do what I did,” James recalled.
Today, MBG has earned over $3.5 million in revenue and amassed thousands of members. James has also continued to grow her personal investments, pulling in $4.3 million in a bear market. She plans on using some of her earnings and her degree in computer science to launch a full-scale AI restaurant in LA. Now, she’s excited to continue MBG’s mission to empower more women to create their own financial legacies.
Like many of the women she was teaching, James once struggled to break into the world of investing. She first learned about the earning potential of the stock market in 2015 after attending a conference with her mom, but she didn’t have the funds or the knowledge to make any significant investments. By 2016, as she started her career, she used money from her salary in events and hospitality to make small investments. Eager to learn more, James joined online communities seeking direction and support, but she was often met with hostility and harassment, especially from men.
“I learned that people in that setting, unfortunately, just weren’t open to helping women,” James shared.
That gap is what prompted James to start discussing finance on Clubhouse, and as her audience grew, she transformed that community into a brand and movement to teach Black women the fundamentals of stocks and trading. Through MBG, James offers free learning content, paid courses, one-on-one training, live events, and a community space all designed to help women find their footing in financial literacy. MBG also offers access to qualified financial advisors and top-notch finance technology and artificial intelligence.
“When we first started Modernblkgirl, I said that I wanted any investor here to have the same things any major institution would have. So, we do. I think tech is part of our competitive edge,” James said.
In the two years since the brand started, MBG has guided over 225,000 women to enter the market. The membership is diverse, with women ranging in ages from 16 to 65 and coming from countries in the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and around the world.
James is proud that members have been able to use what they learn at MBG to transform their lives. Member success stories included professionals who were able to earn enough from investing to transition into new careers they were more passionate about and nurses who could afford to take time off during the traumatic peak of COVID-19. Some students from MBG’s non-profit arm, Teen University, were also able to grow the $500 they were given at the outset of the program into thousands of dollars that helped cover their college tuition. Ultimately, many of the women of MBG benefitted from the financial freedom and security that comes with investing.
“There was a woman in the community who was able to start with $250 and build that to $60,000 over the course of a year and a half. It came at the perfect time because she got sick and needed treatment that was very costly. Because of her investments, she was able to use her money to take care of herself and her family,” James shared.
These kinds of success stories—small consistent wins with big impacts—is what James wants the most for her community members. While she knows firsthand what it’s like to have once-in-a-lifetime stock market wins, she knows those are rare. James never wants her members to operate from a gambling mindset. Instead, she focuses on giving them the tools to make regular gains.
“Whether a woman puts in $20 or $10,000, I want her to be able to be consistently successful in any market conditions. I want women to find something that works for them where they have a platform or system that can get them money whenever they need it,” James said.
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