Your First Million: Why You Don’t Have to Be Born into a Legacy of Wealth to Leave One Behind

One of the few Black women to break into the boy's club of Silicon Valley offers her secrets for how anyone can build a legacy of wealth and impact.

Having lived nearly her entire life below the poverty line before going on to attain wealth and success as an entrepreneur and investor, Arlan Hamilton knows that money is power—but not for the reasons most people believe. Money is power, she says, because it provides us with options: to pursue our passions, take risks, and change our situation in life.

In Your First Million, Hamilton argues that entrepreneurship is the quickest path to attaining that power—particularly for those who haven’t had much of it in the past— shows how anyone—no matter what they look like or how much money they have—can tap into all the new tools, platforms, and sources of funding available to get their million-dollar idea off the ground.

Readers will learn: how to identify unmet needs in the market, raise money in ways that preserve ownership, choose the right collaborators, create multiple income streams, and turn their unique knowledge and experience into a profitable businesses—while reinvesting in their communities and empowering others to do the same.

If we can change who gets to decide what new ideas are worthy, and who gets to turn those ideas into reality, not only can we change our own circumstances—we can change the world.

About the Author

Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated minimizing disparities in tech by investing in high-potential BIPOC and LGBTQ founders. Since its founding in 2015, Backstage has raised $20 million and has invested in more than 200 startups.