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Angela Yee On Going From Employee to Entrepreneur, And How You Can Too!

“I didn’t have money growing up… I never thought I’d ever be able to even buy a house.”

Media personality and serial entrepreneur Angela Yee was the latest guest to stop by BET's Black Coffee on Friday (June 28). The Breakfast Club host and Juices 4 Life BK owner sat down with hosts Marc Lamont Hill, Gia Peppers and Jameer Pond to discuss everything from relationships and career, to doling out priceless business advice to aspiring entrepreneurs. 

While on the topic of business, Yee, who has been in the radio industry for 15 years, and will be celebrating the third anniversary of her juice bar this year, was asked by host Hill if she always saw herself as a businesswoman. Surprisingly, the fiercely ambitious, veteran radio host humbly admitted, "No."

"I didn't have money growing up. So I never really thought about it. Like my parents aren't entrepreneurs, they always worked a job since I was young. My mom works for New York City transit, and she's worked for New York City transit since I was a little kid, and my dad, he's had various jobs, and now he works with my uncle. My uncle is a dentist so [my dad] manages the dentist office."

The Brooklyn-bred Yee, who currently owns several properties (including three homes in Detroit, one of which she recently sold), revealed she never even dreamed of owning one home.

"For myself, I never thought that I'd ever be able to even buy a house. Sometimes when you don't have it, and you're not surrounded my entrepreneurs, you don't think about it. So, for myself, [when] I started making a little money, I started investing, then I started having opportunities and ideas. I've always been an idea person, so I've always been great at having ideas, just not having the resources to make them happen."

Yee, who plans to release a book in the near future, advised viewers to educate themselves on investments and money management, while encouraging more people to look into free business courses, training and certification opportunities.

"I'm very into educating myself. got my 'Minority & Women Owned Business' certification, which I encourage people to do, because there is a lot of access that comes with that. But it's all things that I'm learning. There's all these free classes that you could take down at the small business services that you should take, because it really will help you so much in business. So I'm a big fan of always getting more education in what it is that you're doing.

A lot of people want to start a business, and their like, 'I wanna start a business, give me some money to invest.' Where is your business plan? Are you investing money yourself into your own business? How is this going to work? People think that they can just come to you with an idea and have money."

Watch the full episode on Black Coffee's official Youtube, here!

Tune into Black Coffee live, every weekday, at 10am EST, on BET's official Twitter & Facebook pages!

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