Today we’d like to introduce you to Berto “TPG” Horne.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Berto. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am originally from Detroit, Michigan, raised by a single mother who sacrificed so much to provide for me. At a very young age, I saw what it looked like to hustle. In high school, I lived in Colorado, I went to all the elite basketball camps in the country and towards my senior year I was losing interest. I did not want to be the box in as just an athlete so I started to take my studies more seriously. I was always on honor roll, but I was placed in remedial reading. I took extra time out in my day to perfect my reading skills and started to read more Black literature. It was so refreshing, it gave me a sense of being. I knew then, I wanted to go to a college that promoted Black Excellence. My track coach went to Hampton and told me to check out HBCU’s. My mama even graduated from an HBCU but never forced it on me. All of a sudden, I was interested in a black college and Morehouse became my dream school. I knew I didn’t have the funds, but I was going to figure out a way. Thank God, for my amazing counselors at my school, they were fully aware of my story and approach me about applying for the Bill Daniels Fund, it’s the last dollar scholarship that covers your remanding balance for four-years + tons of other benefits. After serval interviews, I was selected and have received five other scholarships for college.
I know this is a lot, but I say all this because my mother literally left her job and relocated with me in Georgia from Colorado. When I got to Morehouse, I never noticed there were so many different types of black people. I was intrigued. I quickly had to catch up to my peers, these Men of Morehouse were on point. I started to watch the upperclassmen and other Morehouse Men and studied how they move, from talking to women to even the jobs they were securing. I started to save my work-study check and bought suits and other dress clothes then sneakers. I realized I needed to create a brand for myself to do well here. I got involved in organizations I thought I could have a true impact on. I first became a Student Ambassador with the Office of Admission and shortly after became a Presidential Ambassador for my college president.
I started my personal lifestyle brand, TPGent (The Perfect Gentleman), it was my way of teaching myself how to become this renaissance man. I would take the information I learned on campus and took it to the classroom for the students in 3-12th grade. By my junior year, I got my first industry internship with Ciroc under a lady name Ashley Cleveland, because of her you know TPGent. I was able to see how to brand myself in college, I had an internship with the Coca-Cola Foundation & the Chick-fil-A Foundation, but nothing gave me a better understanding of branding then my time under Ashley. I worked under Ashley for two years as her assistant brand manager for Atlanta and it was a great platform to brand myself, especially in undergrad. I worked with a popular spirit brand that Diddy was the face of and locally to my friends they saw that in me, someone who passionate about his community, loves to hustle, and like to have fun all in the same 24 hours. Post-graduation my brand was doing well, but it wasn’t bringing in enough money for me to do it full-time. I took a job with Coca-Cola in their leadership program in sales and marketing.
While doing that, I also did custom suits for a clothier called Commonwealth Proper, still working for Ciroc, as well as throwing weekly Sunday brunch parties in Atlanta. I would wake up at 5:30 am and would do everything in one day and go to sleep around 2-3am. I would do this so much and had to quickly learn to step away from projects and to focus on a small batch of projects. Once my brand started to pick up, I stepped away from hosting different parties. I started to invest more money into my brands and traveling to get the word out. I would fly up to New York during my “vacations” and meet with people who could help me with my brand. I set up a coffee meeting at one shop and met over 3 people in the morning. I would reach out to all the podcast shows with people on social media and set up interviews. I knew I had to get the word out there. I did that 2 a year for 2 years straight and it all paid off. I was able to get picked up for a tv show on Aspire and did a couple of pilots for some big networks. The job at Coca-Cola was perfect because I worked remotely, I was supposed to be meeting with clients, but I would work from home. I would set up meetings for my personal brand during my work hours. My co-workers never knew what I did outside of work until my brand started to get bigger.
After being Most Eligible Atlanta for Jezebel Magainze they caught on. One of the opportunities that they found out about was March 2018 for SXSW. They saw a flyer of me, I was booked to go out there to speak and once I got back they brought it to my attention. A decision had to be made, either I got more involved in my role or it was time for me to go. March 16, 2018, 1:00 pm was my last day at Coca-Cola. It was time for me to invest all my time into TPGent, I just signed a nice deal with Crown Royal to be one of their National Brand Influencer. I knew Atlanta was a smaller market so I had to figure out how to make money behind the scene, so I started a digital marketing company The Perfect Curators (TPCurators) in August of 2018. I continue to work with brands and represent them, I am currently a brand ambassador for the HIGH museum and the Macallan scotch whiskey. I have a few more deals in the works and I cannot wait to do more
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My road has been an experience, I came from an environment that I would have never seen myself doing what I am doing today. My struggles have been life lessons, I have learned so much on my journey. I have taught myself so much, literally, if I do not know how to do something I could literally teach myself. I have always invested in myself first and will continue to do so. When I first started my brand, my classmate would laugh about it. Which is common and I watched tons of interviews that people said the same thing so It only motivated me. I learn Diddy said people who make fun of you or judge you are hating and wish they were in the same position you were in. So, it motivated me, but what motivated me, even more, as my supporters. I had so many people supporting me when I first started. My challenges are challenges, it’s life. People spend so much time talking about bad stuff, just change it. Life is never going to be perfect, just different type of obstacles are you get older. It is fun to me sometimes, when I first started and I was running low on money, I would start to get stress, but then I had to quickly switch my perspective and it became a game on how I could hustle up extra legal money. That’s literally how I started my marketing company. So what seems to be my lowest points, become my greatest moments!
So, as you know, we’re impressed with TPGent & TPCurators – tell our readers more, for example, what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I run a lifestyle brand called TPGent (The Perfect Gentleman) and TPCurators (The Perfect Curators). TPGent, I am a personality, a brand ambassador, and philanthropist. I work with luxury brands and help them create content and introduce their brand to my audience. I was a brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz USA and the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium at the same time. I continue to work with schools and will be launching TPGent Foundation Fall 2019. TPCurators is a digital marketing company that also provides marketing strategy for local and national brands. I am currently with 5 brands and working on signing 1 more by the end of 2018.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
Currently, I am currently on my growing both of my LLC, however, my non-profit is next up. I also want to diversify my portfolio, my next goal is ownership. I will be getting into owning. I have a couple plans for a creative space as well as getting into investing into real estate, My goal is to be able to generate revenue without time being a factor, currently TPGent I have to be involved and TPCurators will be run by my employees sometime in 2019 and I will just bring in the bigger deals.
Contact Info:
- Website: tpgent.com
- Email: admin@tpgent.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/tpgent
Image Credit:
TPG or TPCurators
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