MIAMI / ENTREPRENEURSHIP / INSPIRATION
Felecia Hatcher
Who is missing
from the room?
By Rob Urban
At Feverish Ice Cream, a job applicant could be handed a popsicle and asked to sell it.
Felecia Hatcher described that approach in a 2014 interview with Her Agenda. She wanted to see curiosity, personality, and the ability to think in the moment. A résumé could tell her where somebody had been. This small, slightly sticky audition showed her what they could do.
It is a fitting place to start with Hatcher, whose career has involved repeatedly questioning how people get selected. Selected for college. Selected for an introduction. Selected for funding. Somewhere inside each of those decisions is a judgment about potential, and she has good reason to distrust judgments made too quickly.
Today, Black Ambition lists her as its CEO. The organization founded by Pharrell Williams supports underrepresented entrepreneurs. Hatcher arrived there with years of building businesses and creating opportunities in South Florida, including work that helped Black founders see themselves in Miami’s growing technology community.
The popsicle belongs in that story. So does the person who never received an invitation to the technology event in the first place.
Potential
does not
always look
the part.
Hatcher’s own account of her early career starts with an unimpressive high school report card and a guidance counselor who doubted she would reach college. She found scholarships by making a case for the work she was doing beyond her grades, attended Lynn University in Boca Raton, and started a college preparation business while still a student.
She later worked in marketing for major companies, including Nintendo and Sony. Then, in 2008, she and her husband, Derick Pearson, started Feverish, selling gourmet frozen treats. Her origin story includes chasing an ice cream truck in heels and falling. There are more dignified ways to discover a business idea. Few are as easy to remember.
Feverish became a vehicle for branded events and custom products. The couple also used ice cream carts to teach young people about entrepreneurship through PopPreneurs. They eventually sold the company in 2015.
A freezer full of inventory
has questions.
That history gives her work with founders a useful texture. Selling a physical product requires decisions that a confident presentation can temporarily conceal: who wants it, what it costs, how it reaches the customer, and whether the customer comes back. A freezer full of inventory has limited patience for your personal brand.
The published summary of her Design Better conversation describes growing the business from her parents’ backyard to serving major corporate clients. It also highlights the small human touches that make an experience memorable, such as a handwritten note. For someone whose later work centers on technology, her attention remains firmly attached to the person receiving it.
Who gets to
make the product?
Hatcher and Pearson kept finding themselves among the few Black people at the startup events they attended. The problem was especially striking because they knew people who could benefit from those rooms.
Their response included Code Fever, which introduced young people to technology and entrepreneurship, and gatherings that developed into Black Tech Week. A WLRN interview from 2016 describes the earlier Black Tech Miami meetups and the desire to help people move from using technology to making it.
That distinction changes the invitation. Being welcomed as a customer is different from being taken seriously as someone who can build the product, own the company, or shape its direction. Hatcher was working on the latter possibilities.
The White House’s archived recognition of her STEM work connects Code Fever’s technology education with her earlier marketing and entrepreneurial experience. These were related parts of her working life: knowing how a product reaches people, then helping more people acquire the means to make one.
Let somebody
else be
the right
person.
The published notes for her Women Killing It interview add a less glamorous part of the story. As her responsibilities expanded, she had to learn to decline work, delegate, and ask for help. She described choosing a small number of priorities and letting other opportunities belong to somebody else.
I admire her willingness to make that choice visible. Declining an opportunity can be an act of care for the work already promised. Recommending someone better qualified also gives the next person a chance to become known for what they do well. A community becomes more capable when its most visible organizer can make that introduction without needing to remain the center of it.
The previous winner’s
next difficult year.
Black Ambition’s work is easy to reduce to its prize announcements. Those are the moments with a stage, a check, and an image ready for social media. The organization’s 2026 plans provide a more revealing view of what happens afterward.
Through The Deeper Bet, it announced that it would concentrate on existing portfolio companies instead of holding a national prize competition that year. The organization committed up to $1 million in follow-on capital, along with partnerships, visibility, and access to investors.
The choice is worth noticing because the next winner is often easier to celebrate than the previous winner’s next difficult year. A company still has customers to find and operations to improve after the photograph is taken.
Time to practice.
Room to ask.
There is also a Florida-specific route into the work. The 2026 Fundable Founders Learning Lab runs from August through October as a ten-week virtual program. Its curriculum covers customers, revenue, financial planning, operations, and preparation for investors. Participants are expected to attend sessions, complete assignments, and work with other founders. Applications for this cohort have closed. The program is free for selected participants and provides education and guidance rather than direct funding.
The program makes Hatcher’s larger argument tangible. Access includes the chance to practice, receive useful criticism, revise an assumption, and return with something better. They occupy most of the calendar. A founder who can ask a basic question before it becomes an expensive mistake has received something valuable.
The people who get overlooked are often asked to prove themselves without being given much room to practice. Hatcher’s work keeps addressing both sides of that problem. There are opportunities to be considered, and there are places to get better.
That is what I find encouraging about her. Her confidence in people comes with an interest in the conditions around them: who will teach, who will introduce, who will stay involved after the first promising moment. A good invitation has somewhere useful to lead.
Hatcher keeps finding practical ways to broaden who gets considered. Sometimes the intervention is a classroom. Sometimes it is funding or a room full of people willing to share what they know. And sometimes, early in the story, it is an employer setting aside the usual paperwork long enough to see what a young person can do with a popsicle.
About Felecia Hatcher’s work
Who is Felecia Hatcher?
Felecia Hatcher is an entrepreneur, author and CEO of Black Ambition. With Derick Pearson, she co-founded Feverish, Code Fever and Black Tech Week.
What is Black Ambition focusing on in 2026?
Black Ambition’s Deeper Bet initiative focuses on existing portfolio companies, with up to $1 million committed to follow-on capital and additional support. It is not holding a national prize competition in 2026.
What is the Fundable Founders Learning Lab?
The 2026 Fundable Founders Learning Lab is a ten-week virtual program for Florida entrepreneurs. It covers customers, revenue, financial planning, operations and investor preparation. It is free for selected participants and does not provide direct funding; applications for this cohort have closed.
Sources: Hatcher’s biography, Her Agenda, WLRN, the White House archive, published podcast notes and Black Ambition’s 2026 program pages. Checked September 2026. Reflections are Rob Urban’s.
I’m interested in the decisions that give good ideas a better chance. If you are working through one of your own, or would like to read more of my writing, meet Rob.