Armond Davis, Founder & Managing Partner, The Paragon Group - Minority Report Podcast

In episode 145, Erik and Kerel talk with Armond Davis, Founder & Managing Partner at The Paragon Group, an investment group that focuses on minority and women-owned businesses. Growing up in St. Louis to a family of educators, Armond has always had a thirst for learning and knew he wanted to be a businessman at 7 years old after a “take your kid to work day” at his mother’s tall office building. He earned an MBA in Finance and another MBA in commercial real estate investment and eventually blended his love for investments and operating businesses in 2006. After people telling him his education was inferior, almost going bankrupt, and making a lot of mistakes, he realized his journey from investments to business owner and back to investments was all meant to be.

Armond shares the mindset he has and that he looks for in founders who he wants to invest in, his thesis that minorities and women will outperform anyone else at anytime, the importance an abundance mindset plays in investing and business, how he takes his losses or other people’s criticisms and uses them as fuel, and the value and priority he puts on community and mentorship.

“When you understand why you're doing something, then it's much more difficult to get knocked off your path. And once you've identified what your purpose is, what your reason for being here is, then you can commit to that. And when you move within that purpose, the universe rewards you.”