Dallas sits down with Geena Jackson, founder of Bear's Lair and proud member of the shíshálh Nation, for a conversation about what it takes to build Indigenous entrepreneurs from the ground up.
Geena started her career in broadcast journalism, spent 13 years supporting entrepreneurs at the Squamish Nation, and then pitched a TV show to APTN during COVID with no budget, no production experience, and no data. She raised three quarters of a million dollars for Season 1 and $1.6 million for Season 2. Bear's Lair is now a national platform with a TV show, a podcast, youth camps that have reached 3,500 kids across Canada, and an adult entrepreneurship conference.
She talks about why every Indigenous entrepreneur she has met had a purpose beyond profit, what nations can do to actually support their entrepreneurs, and why the future of Indigenous economic development starts with 11-year-olds in a business class who learned "target market" faster than the adults in the room.
Plus: Lenny Joe's Passing the Question on who controls our economic destiny, and Let's Get Real.
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