Runnin' down a dream in Pine Ridge
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The Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota sits in one of America's poorest counties, with a poverty rate estimated to hover above 50%. It's also where Devyn Valandra has started a business, now with support from one of venture capital's most successful investors.
Why it matters: Devyn isn't competing with Dario or Elon. But what he and others like him are doing is just as challenging — trying to grow in the literal and figurative badlands.
Backstory: Valandra's startup journey began his senior year at Stevens High School in Rapid City, when he took an intro to business course. He wasn't a coffee drinker, but classmates were, and he was interested in combining it with sage — a plant with spiritual meaning to Oglala and Sicangu Lakota like Valandra.
- "My idea got selected so I spent the semester thinking about how to build it up, but the drink itself really didn't work at first," he explains. "It was super bitter. I had to keep trying to find the right mix."
- The ultimate result was a brand called Wakhályapí, which Valandra kept working on while studying at Fort Collins College — where he sold in dorms and entered pitch competitions.
Fast forward: A key meeting for Valandra was with Clay Haddock, a young Silicon Valley executive who has his own ties to Pine Ridge.
- "When I was in college I applied and got a social internship grant that led to me living on the Reservation for three months. It was very different for me — I'd never rode a horse before — and I was on the younger side so made a lot of friends at the Red Cloud school and quickly learned that a lot of them were super entrepreneurial."
- Haddock would go on to form the Woihanble Fund (woihanble means "dream" in Lakota), a mentorship and grant program for young adults in Pine Ridge. Valandra's coffee startup was an early participant.
VC connection: Earlier this year, renowned venture capitalist Bill Gurley wrote a book called "Runnin' Down a Dream" and created a related foundation that provides microgrants.
- Haddock sent a cold email, which led to the foundation sending books to all Woihanble Fund companies and then to Wakhályapí getting picked as part of the foundation's first cohort.
- Valandra says he plans to use some of the proceeds to work through complicated state licensing rules, so that he can roast his own beans (currently he outsources to East Coast roasters).
- "Entrepreneurship brings different opportunities for yourself and also for members of your community," he says. "I want this to work not only for me, but because then I can share that experience with younger people."
The bottom line: Bill Gurley tells Axios that the Runnin' Down a Dream foundation is looking for more partnerships. Please find more information here.
- Also please be sure to check out Woihanble Fund. And, of course, check out sage-infused coffee from Wakhályapí.
