We were lucky to catch up with Emmanuel Amido recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emmanuel, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

Although comfort is wonderful, it frequently has a hidden cost that comfort’s greatest tool fails to reveal. We, all 8 billion of us, are made to serve a purpose. That purpose might be to knit the best sweaters to ever come in contact with human skin or to be placed in the same ranks as the knowns like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or the unknowns like Sophie Scholl. Most of us fall somewhere in between knitting and life-costing activism.

Comfort is being fortunate enough to have a salaried job with amazing benefits, including a retirement plan match. Comfort is when a ship safely sits in the harbor, but is that what we want—ships not taking risks of going into the deep seas for food, transporting goods, and exploration?

Leaving the comforts of a salaried job to start a business is risky, and there may not be a reward in the end. And that risk is amplified when you have dependents that you will impact by the decisions you make now. I cannot tell you where AgroTech Noire will be 5 years from now, but its success will impact so many lives and change narratives; that’s why I’m taking this risk. This is not my first time on the rodeo

P.S. The reason why people are reading this article is because someone at some point decided to take a risk and launch this publication using a laptop that a risk-taker had created.

“Those who won’t take measure of their own strength for fear of antagonizing their own weakness”. -Sophie Scholl

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Emmanuel Amido, a brand storyteller, founder, and chief editor at AgroTech Noire (agrotechnoire.com), a digital content news site with a focus on agriculture and entrepreneurship. The site features articles, videos, and podcasts that highlight the impact of agriculture in our lives, sustainability, food, and our planet’s future being tied to agriculture, the need for African Americans to be a part of the conversation on the growing and innovation side of agriculture, and the importance of black land ownership for wealth creation and retention.

My family migrated to the United States in 2001. A graduate of Central High School in Memphis, TN, I attended art school for a year before transferring to and graduating from the University of Alabama. Unlike many college students, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life since my junior high days. I’m grateful for that because I never had an “entry” into the industry; it happened gradually over nearly two decades.

Besides being a proponent of entrepreneurship and the agriculture industry through the content I produce at AgroTechNoire.com, I offer brand storytelling, video production, photography, podcasting, and branding services.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I had gotten plugged into the creative and entrepreneurial community earlier in my career. I had to learn a lot of things the hard way, which, a case can be made that that’s actually a good thing. But I’m also a strong believer in learning from those who learned some lessons the hard way, so I don’t have to deal with the heartache. There are a lot of resources out there.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Word of mouth. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I had a single client come through an internet search or sales funnel. I never really pushed for that because I had enough referrals to keep things going. But I’m at a point where I need to grow a team, so I need to dust off my SEO and sales funnels to make that happen.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.agrotechnoire.com
• Instagram: @agrotechnoire
• Facebook: @agrotechnoire
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuelamido/
• Twitter: @agrotechnoire
• Youtube: @agrotechnoire
• Other: My personal website www.emmanuelamido.com

Image Credits
All images taken by Brandi Rinks