Entrepreneur Uses Technology to Promote African American Businesses

Vincent Anderson Johnson, Jr. is an entrepreneurial visionary who created an app to promote Black businesses. 

“I love being an entrepreneur. I love the process of taking an idea from beginning to completion. Seeing the idea come to life brings me joy and excitement,” Johnson said.

He further explained that his XCLUSIT Clothing brand focuses on inspirational and motivational messages. It is also featured on the app.

The expert marketer earned a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University with a concentration on the Black community and Black church economics. While working at a church performing social media marketing duties after Johnson graduated, he came across a Christian classified ad. Johnson felt inspired to create a paper classified promoting Black-owned businesses in Nashville, Tennessee. 

“While working on the classified, I felt that this would be an amazing app [www.xclusit.app], so I taught myself how to code and went to work building what is now XCLUSIT,” Johnson said. “With XCLUSIT features, we give Black consumers a shopping experience where they can follow Black-owned businesses they love. They can shop, receive promotions and offers suited just for them and be introduced to new Black-owned businesses they desire to find.”

Johnson, who is the CEO of XCLUSIT, also explained that participating Black businesses can build their profile store, market their offerings to customers with short video reels, product galleries and promote their store on their follower’s timeline through the platform. 

He added, “XCLUSIT’s backend dashboard gives Black businesses the tools to build, grow and scale their business with the Black consumers that are on the XCLUSIT marketplace.”

Men and women’s boutiques, streetwear, shoe stores, men’s and women grooming products and accessories currently comprise the presence of 60 businesses on the platform. Business locations are in the Baltimore and DMV area, Atlanta and Nashville. 

Johnson, now a resident of Ellicott City, Maryland, runs the platform full-time. The beta version of the app launched in September of 2023. He has high hopes for XCLUSIT.

“Our goal is to become the world’s leading space to shop the genius of culture of Black-owned businesses, as well as remove this idea that Black people don’t support Black businesses. I have been an entrepreneur for over 20 years and I would say 80 percent of my customers have been Black people,” Johnson said.

He promotes the social marketplace that offers a personalized shopping experience with a spirit of commitment and determination to spread the word. Johnson’s in-person efforts include participating in pop-ups on weekends at The Mall in Columbia, located in Columbia, Maryland. While there, the entrepreneur can be found promoting XCLUSIT and his streetwear brand. 

Candice Herbon, a resident of Glen Burnie, Maryland, founded Nail Candi Press-On Nails. Her boutique is dedicated to providing press-on nails, affordable accessories and highly competitive pricing, according to nailcandimd.com. Herbon said that she learned about XCLUSIT via pop up promotions at The Mall in Columbia. Her small business is included on XCLUSIT’s marketplace. She has been using it since October of 2023.

Herbon explained, “While each initiative of my business is new and exciting, XCLUSIT, has been the most rewarding in boosting sales for my small business. My demographic range has been expanded to include patrons who would’ve never found my kiosk in Maryland. Thank you, XCLUSIT!”

Despite entrepreneurship’s role of bringing joy and excitement to Johnson, he has faced obstacles. When it comes to Blacks in technology, there is still a divide. McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility reported “Black households stand to lose out on more than a cumulative $350 billion in tech job wages by 2030, an amount equal to one-tenth the total wealth held by those households.”

With an expected, growing wage gap in tech roles, Johnson’s independent path to develop technology is noteworthy.

“Being ‘Black in Tech’ has many challenges, from raising capital to being respected as a Black founder in tech, but I think the most challenging is bootstrapping and having a bug in your app and trying to figure out where the money is coming from to fix the bugs, so that the app runs smoothly for the customer experience,” Johnson said.

He mentioned that growth remains on the horizon. The ability to show the diversity and genius of Black- owned brands is a powerful and rewarding fuel to the entrepreneur who aspires to show the world the diversity, creativity and genius of Black-owned brands. 

“Chat features are coming on the app, and we will expand into food and services in 2024,” Johnson said. “Our goal is to get to 100k downloads by fourth quarter of next year.”

Download the XCLUSIT app at https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xclusit/id1603494882.