Pinky Cole says she lost ownership of her Slutty Vegan business– but bought it back

Cole, an entrepreneur and recent guest on theGrio’s ‘Masters of the Game,’ opened up about the challenges of doing business, downsizing her operations, and regaining control with the power of lessons learned.

Pinky Cole made a big announcement this week that initially left many of her fans worried, only for them to let out a sigh of relief with a round of applause.

The 37-year-old entrepreneur posted to Instagram after a long period of silence on the platform that she’d gone through a series of business challenges that led to her reorganizing and relinquishing control of her Slutty Vegan restaurant chain.

“The last couple of months, it’s probably been the most incredibly difficult of my entrepreneurial life,” Cole told her one million followers in a video posted to Instagram. “As of Feb. 13, the company went through a global restructuring. And as a result of that, that meant that I no longer own the company… I have gone through every emotion imaginable — Grief, sadness, fear, depression, uncertainty. 

“What a lot of us entrepreneurs go through, I have gone through. But I realized that as long as I continue to stick to my faith, God will always be by my side. And as hard as change is, it is necessary, but it’s always for the good.”

Cole then told her fans to swipe to see who the new owner of Slutty Vegan was, only for it to be a video of her dressed in a staff uniform walking into the restaurant.

The catchy marketing rollout was part of Cole’s rebrand under what she calls Slutty Vegan 2.0.

The restaurant boss explained in an exclusive with People that while her company was valued at 100 million dollars, she had 10 million dollars alone in corporate overhead.

She decided to downsize the number of Slutty Vegan locations, closing in places like Spelman College, and she gave up ownership of the company to an assignee.

This positioned her to buy the company back for an undisclosed amount and start fresh.

Cole also discussed recently surviving a terrifying car accident in which an object on the road– a mattress to be specific– smashed into her windshield.  She took it as a sign to figuratively rest and slow down after an intense year of grinding and setbacks.

While initially she feared some judgment in going public with her business’ ups and downs, Cole says the honesty will free future entrepreneurs, especially in the Black community, to not make the same mistakes.

In an interview for theGrio’s “Masters of the Game” series, Cole offered the following reflections:

“I want for our community to better understand how business works. When I first got into this game, I didn’t know nothing about equity. I didn’ know nothing about safe notes…there were so many things. Ain’t nobody teach me the answer, so I’m running a company, trying to learn these things, right, and not wanting to look foolish…

But at the end of the day, it’s okay to not know. But you got to go out and learn the information so that when you walk into these relationships with, let’s say investors, you already know what it is and you’re prepared and equipped. 

The second part about it is, when it’s time to raise money, you have to make sure that you have the right financial advisors in your corner. The right people that understand your business..and then they can translate it to you. Not knowing my number kicked me in the foot, because while I was just so focused on the passion I didn’t understand what was happening with my numbers and somebody else had to translate the thing that I created for me.

All of these things that I’ve learned in 1.0 has prepared and equipped me for 2.0, and I believe that it will help so many founders as they navigate through the elevation and growth in their business.”

Watch the segment above and catch the full interview with Pinky Cole on theGrio.com.