Yolanda Barton kept a diary.
Not of her wins. Of every time Seattle said no.
She told me this in the middle of a conversation about entrepreneurship, about the Sharks Precision Pitch competition she built through Urban Impact, about coming back to this city after years away — and about why she came back at all.
“My first yes was Urban Impact. And then after that it was people saying — Atlanta got you. They’ll help you there.”
So she went to Atlanta. She built. She won a pitch competition of her own with her daughters sitting beside her, mouthing the words. And then she came back to Seattle and said: no one else should have to leave to get the support they need.
That’s why she built it.
Seattle Creates Genius But Doesn’t Always Create the Outlet
Yolanda said something that I’ve been thinking about ever since.
“Seattle creates so many brilliant people. But there aren’t as many opportunities for us. So you create this genius and you don’t create the outlets or the opportunities for it to flourish in this city. And that’s a problem.”
I felt that. I’ve lived that.
There’s a version of me that spent years showing up to community events with a camera and a love for storytelling, hearing “not now” and “you’re not the right fit” and “that’s not how it works here.” And like Yolanda, I had to go around it, over it, through it. It took longer than it should have. But here we are.
What Yolanda is doing at Urban Impact — through the Ignite Accelerator, through the Sharks Precision Pitch competition, through monthly workshops and CEO fireside chats and youth entrepreneurship programs — is building the outlet that should have always existed. Creating the ecosystem Seattle keeps producing people for but rarely builds structures to sustain.
And that work hit me personally in a way I want to be honest about.
Working ON It, Not Just IN It
Here’s something I hadn’t done in a long time.
When this episode was recorded, I had not yet gone through Urban Impact’s accelerator programs. I produced that stage — the lighting, the cameras, the step and repeat — before I ever considered sitting in those seats.
But something about being in that room moved me to stop and do something I’d been putting off: work on the business, not just in it.
In January, I enrolled in the Ignite Accelerator at Urban Impact.
What I want to be clear about — because the framing matters — is that the EC Method isn’t something the accelerator created. The methodology I use with every client, the Impact Architecture™ framework, the Snapshot-to-Blueprint-to-Production-to-Platform system — that’s fifteen years of work. Twenty-five years of showing up as a storyteller and a community builder with whatever tools were available. My friend Sean Goode said it best on this very podcast: “You’ve never been a photographer. You’ve been a storyteller your entire life. Photography was just the medium you chose for a period of time.”
He was right. The EC Method is what I’ve been doing since the beginning. It just didn’t have a name.
The accelerator gave me something different. It gave me space. Permission to step back from the day-to-day and actually look at what I’d built. The mentors, the curriculum, the other participants — emerging entrepreneurs taking their first real steps — they gave me a mirror. I got to test the Impact Snapshot™ on real people in real time. I got to help other participants think through their positioning and their story while simultaneously sharpening my own.
I walked in thinking I was going back to basics. I walked out with the language and the system I’d been living without fully naming.
I’m currently in the Sharks Precision Pitch — the same program we filmed, preparing to stand on the same kind of stage EC built — pitching the methodology that was already inside me, finally systematized.
I built the stage. Then I sat down. And sitting down is what made everything clearer.
They Don’t See Themselves As Big As I See Them
Something happened during the Sharks Pitch event that I want to name publicly because I think it’s the most honest thing I can say about why EC does what it does.
Before the event, Yolanda shared her vision with me. I listened. And then I pitched back — not a line item, not an invoice add-on — but what the event could be at its full potential. Better lighting. Multiple camera setups. An interview station for entrepreneurs to tell their stories. A step and repeat for the photos their families deserved.
Yolanda’s response after seeing the impact video: “You didn’t just show up with the basics. You showed up with it all.”
And here’s what I told her — something that apparently needs to go on a shirt: I do it because my clients don’t always see themselves as big as I see them.
That’s the truth of what EC does. We come into spaces where resources are finite and ambition is enormous, and we try to close that gap. Not because there’s a line item for it. Because a blind man who memorized his entire pitch deserves a stage that honors that. Because entrepreneurs who’ve heard nothing but no deserve a moment that makes them feel like yes is their normal.
I know that feeling. I’ve been in those shoes. Which is exactly why I’m back in that accelerator right now — not because I need permission to do the work, but because even the person building the stages sometimes needs to sit in the seats.
Documentation Is the Gift That Keeps Giving
Something I keep saying — and this episode proved it again — is that documentation without intention is just footage. Documentation with intention is evidence.
I’m always telling organizations: hit us up early. I want to be at your April event, not just your gala. How can we help capture that story throughout?
The entrepreneurs who pitched in that room deserved to have that moment preserved. And now it is. When Yolanda goes to funders next year, she doesn’t just have a story. She has evidence.
That’s what EC builds. Not just beautiful video. Evidence of impact.
What Yolanda Is Building Next
River XR — Yolanda’s own company — uses virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence to recreate history and bring it to life. She’s collecting stories from elders in Seattle. Preserving sacred history beyond the verbal. Making it interactive and experiential.
And she’s doing all of that while also running Urban Impact’s economic development arm, building monthly pitch competitions, launching CEO fireside chats, developing youth entrepreneurship programs, and planning a legal clinic for new entrepreneurs.
She said: “I’m an entrepreneur supporting entrepreneurs.”
That’s not a tagline. That’s a life.
The Invitation
If you’re an entrepreneur in Seattle — or anywhere — and you’ve been hearing no: Urban Impact is the yes that changes the sequence. Find them at urbanimpactseattle.org.
And if you’re leading an organization doing work this important — EC is ready to help you document it at the level it deserves. Not just for the event. For everything that comes after.
The Impact Snapshot™ is fifteen minutes. It shows you exactly where your storytelling strategy is holding and where it’s leaking.
Your work deserves to be seen as big as it actually is. I’m still learning to see my own that clearly. We all are.
Carlos Imani is the Executive Producer and Principal of The Elite Collective, Seattle’s leading Impact Architecture™ firm. He hosts Elite Insights, a podcast about community, craft, and the architecture of meaningful work.