“I had never started a venture before and I think it can be intimidating to want to pursue entrepreneurship if one doesn’t have any background in it whether it be through a family-owned business or even through starting a side hustle.”
Jiménez immersed herself in the Darden world, pursuing a leadership role with the Executive MBA Entrepreneurship Club. She served as its co-president, which allowed her to become connected to Darden’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Jiménez’ concept was a finalist in the UVA Entrepreneurship Cup, and she had an opportunity to develop her pitch through professor Greg Fairchild’s “Entrepreneurial Thinking” course. From there, she landed a spot in Batten’s summer incubator, and, subsequently, her first client for InColorStock through professor Damon DeVito, who also invited Jiménez to participate in his “Venture Velocity” course.
“I can honestly say if it wouldn’t have been for Darden and its amazing entrepreneurship ecosystem that I would not have started my first company,” Jiménez said.
UVA Today caught up with Jiménez to learn more about InColorStock, as well as her job as managing producer at POLITICO.
Q. What is the most unique thing about InColorStock? Do you have any competitors?
A. What sets InColorStock apart is that it is the only marketplace solely focused on licensing the work of photographers and videographers from racially diverse backgrounds and that is solely dedicated to featuring stock content depicting people of color in the U.S.
Yes, there are well-known stock content sites such as Getty, Shutterstock, and UnSplash. But InColorStock is fully focused on stock images and stock videos that depict Black and other people of color in an organic and authentic manner. InColorStock’s tagline is “culturally intelligent stock content for the real world.” In many of the larger stock content sites, users often have to dig through a bunch of stock content to find the images featuring people of color.
I must say that the racial injustice movement that gained broader acknowledgment in 2020 spurred the major stock content sites to feature people of color more prominently. But this is a very recent development and there is no telling how long it will hold.