Synopsis

Fonz Morris began his journey in Bed-Stuy where, as a young man, he decided that he was not going to become a victim of the streets, or a criminal statistic like so many other Black men before him. Fonz Morris designed his own path to success. He worked his way into acceptance at the prestigious HBCU Morehouse College. He put himself through university by working the bar at one of Atlanta’s most high end strip clubs. He taught himself design between classes during his senior year at Georgia State. His determination kept him working at his own company while holding down other full time positions. The hard work paid off when he secured angel investments for his own start ups. Twice.

Then it fell apart.

Facing all that he had built crumbling around him, Fonz drew on the experiences that had made him the man he was. He began again to design his path, founded on the principles he’d built through his journey. This foundation drew on the lessons growing up in Brooklyn after losing his mother early in life. This came from the strength he had learned from being accepted to his dream college, and needing to transfer when he couldn’t afford the tuition. It was the resilience he had developed up after the strip club closed and he found himself sleeping on friends’ couches, still working towards his degree. The durability he drew from to survive two house fires. The self belief developed from knowing his work was worthwhile. The determination to keep working, putting failure behind him, letting these lessons guide him as he created his own path and designed the future he wanted.

Fonz’s story is about wanting more out of life, for him and his family. It’s a story of how he was able to do what some describe as unthinkable. It’s a story for anyone who has dreams of being an entrepreneur and reaching success, anyone who has ambitions of creating yourself. His path includes moments of deep resilience, overcoming the highs and lows of working hard on the grind, taking risks like you have nothing to lose – because, essentially, you don’t. It’s about how to avoid negativity, accept mistakes and failures in a way to learn from them, how to balance the past with the present, how to stay true to yourself and your own path, how to keep focus and determination through all the noise, how to connect reality to your own dreams of self design.

Sales arguments

• Fonz Morris is an inspirational driven self-starter who navigated his own path out of the violent streets of Brooklyn, to attain a university degree and start down the road of entrepreneurship. He suffered personal loss and set backs along the way, drawing on his own resilience and tenacity to push through and achieve his goals.
• Fonz Morris has broken through in an industry with only a 5% rate for African American employees. His success in this has been both with large corporations, including Netflix and Coursera, and as a founder of start ups where he secured angel investments to develop his projects, including funding from the Lomax family, one of the few Black venture families in the USA.
• Fonz Morris is a frequent speaker at industry and community events, including AfroTech, where his perspective and insights on design and business are in high demand. He works to assist designers, start ups, and other entrepreneurs through initiatives including with First Round, Flood Gate, and SignalFire. He is an active mentor through tech and community initiatives.

Similar titles

• Heavy. Kiese Laymon. Like Heavy, Self Design follows the journey of a strong Black man growing up in America in the late 20th century. The baggage both men carry differs, and their journey takes different directions. Fonz’ journey travels through business and entrepreneurship to the world of Silicon Valley.
• The Tao of Wu. The RZA. Like the RZA, Fonz followed his own path from the boroughs of New York to achieve his dreams, as a self taught producer. Both men faced large personal losses and deep self reflection along their journey. A strong drive in self education, an unfaltering self belief in their talents, and deep seeded resilience is common in both books.
• Manchild In The Promised Land. Claude Brown. Brown’s memoir of Black achievement was a seller of over a million copies recounting his path out of Harlem in the 1950s. Self Design is a similar tale, showing Fonz Morris following his own path out of Brooklyn of the 1990s out of a community plagued by the crack epidemic, drugs and gangs.

Audience

Self Design will appeal to readers 20-40 who have experienced set backs in following a dream, particularly POC, entrepreneurs, and designers.