Purpose, Profit, and Proof: A Playbook for Black Founders | Bread & Butter Podcast - Ep 82 Ft. Mas

What if you could take luck out of business? In this Bread & Butter episode, Tayo and Eman sit down with Masibu “Mas” Manima, founder of Translate Culture (performance marketing for consumer brands) and Direct to Culture(connecting Black-owned media with brands), to break down how real growth actually happens. We go past “post and pray” marketing into a practical, test-and-learn system: form a hypothesis, run controlled experiments (ads), extract the signal, and iterate until you’ve built a repeatable engine.Mas explains why many founders start from pressure (job/finances) and how that can trap us in short-term thinking, chasing vanity metrics or leaning only on friends/WhatsApp. Instead, he shows how to treat ads as feedback at scale: identify your funnel stage (awareness → consideration → conversion), set the right objective, and measure what matters (email capture, CAC, ROAS, LTV). We get specific on lookalike audiences, retargeting hot lists, picking seasonal bestsellers, and how to validate demand cheaply before you go all-in, so you can stop guessing and start scaling.We also dig into the checkout reality: friction kills sales. If your site doesn’t support ultra-fast payments (e.g., Apple Pay), every extra step is money lost. Mas breaks down TikTok Shop as a once-in-a-cycle opportunity, why distribution beats product in the early days, and how bigger, less crowded markets (hello, pets) can be smarter than piling into the same niches. He’s candid about pricing, serving community without undercharging forever, and turning his biggest L (a failed home show that hit the wedding fund) into a career-defining W, proof that planting seeds pays off, just not always on your timeline.🎧 Tap in now, and don’t forget to Like, Share & Subscribe!The Bread and Butter by Emmanuel Asuquo & Tayo Oguntonade is not your typical finance or business podcast, it explores real-life stories of how money plays a part in our day-to-day life - with no boundaries, no secrets and no censorship. In each episode we invite you to be a fly in the room when we discuss money taboos, key financial advice and some of the hottest money topics online, often with well-known guests from influencers, athletes to musicians. Together we discuss money in a super relatable way, talk about the impacts it's had on their journey and the role it plays today. Topics will revolve around how money plays a part in parenting, living and working abroad, entrepreneurship and content creation & more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices