Inside Renae Bluitt’s She Did That Founder Forum With Bevy Smith, Necole Kane, Fe Noel, and More

The She Did That creator gathered 150 Black women in business at Shell’s Loft in Brooklyn for a day of candid conversation on building, protecting, and owning what they create

Photography: Nigil M. Crawford (@lordnc)

The inaugural She Did That Founder Forum was already in full swing before the doors of Shell’s Loft opened on October 5. Roughly 150 Black women entrepreneurs lined the Fort Greene sidewalk, many of them arriving alone, and within minutes compliments had turned into introductions and introductions into the question Renae Bluitt built the day around: What are you building?

Presented in partnership with HelloBeautiful under the theme “Built by Us. Better Together,” the forum carried the mission of Bluitt’s documentary She Did That from the screen into a single room, years after the film first brought the journeys of Black women founders to Netflix audiences. Host Yunice Emir, head of corporate communications at Moët Hennessy USA and founder of The Conn3ct, opened the day by bringing the animated room to a hush with a moment of gratitude and presence, then guided a program that moved from career pivots to intellectual property, burnout, AI and the art of the exit, while a marketplace of Black women-owned brands, including Brooklyn Tea, kept the room shopping and connecting between sessions.

Own What You Build

The morning’s panel on leaving the 9-to-5 brought together Bevy Smith, Ingrid Best of IBest Wines, Jenée Naylor of 12PM Studios and Brianna Arps of MOODEAUX, four women who each found her way to entrepreneurship by a different road. Smith pressed the room to think twice before selling what they create, Best spoke of building her brand with “head, heart and courage,” and Arps offered a line many attendees wrote down word for word: “Write it down. Words are spells.”

Ownership took on new urgency in a fireside chat between Felisha Noel of Fe Noel and intellectual property attorney Casey Handy-Smith of C. Handy Law. Noel spoke candidly about watching one of her signature robe designs copied by fast fashion, reflecting on her early years with a confession many founders recognized: “I spent my time trying to be seen.” When an audience member asked who her designs are for, she answered with quiet certainty: “I am a Black woman who makes clothes for women.”

Building Without Breaking

The afternoon, moderated by iONE Digital senior vice president Allison McGevna, asked whether every business should chase scale. Kayalin Akens-Irby of Sela Health, Jenesis Laforcarde of The Jenesis House and Ria Graham of Kokomo traded honest reflections on growth, delegation and the toll of doing it all, with Akens-Irby urging the room, “Do not allow yourself to become too small for what is happening in your soul and in your life.” Graham delivered the line of the day: “I don’t want to become my future self while abusing my present self.”

Keisha Mabry Haymore then turned the room into a classroom with a live AI workshop, as phones rose toward the screen to capture every step. Her guiding principle drew nods across the room: “The A is artificial and the intelligence is the human.”

The Other Side of the Game

Bluitt brought the day full circle by moderating its closing conversation on acquisitions, exits, and ownership with two women who have built brands big enough to sell. Lisa Price founded Carol’s Daughter in her Brooklyn kitchen, sold it to L’Oréal USA and bought it back in 2025. Necole Kane built xoNecole into a lifestyle brand acquired by Will Packer Media in 2017 before launching My Happy Flo, her plant-based period relief brand. Kane also appears alongside Best and Graham on HelloBeautiful’s Best in Business cover, created in partnership with the forum.

By the close of the day, the women who had arrived as strangers were trading handles, filling notebooks and lingering long after each session called them back, proof that the theme on the venue walls was more than a slogan. Built by Us. Better Together.