ATLANTA — In many ways, Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole is the modern face of Atlanta's entrepreneurial spirit.
Her empire has expanded over the last few years to include several stores around metro Atlanta as well as locations in three other states - Alabama, Texas and New York.
She's previously published a cook book - "Eat Plants, B*tch: 91 Vegan Recipes That Will Blow Your Meat-Loving Mind" - and now she's telling the story of her rise to success and what she's learned from it with a new book, "I Hope You Fail: Ten Hater Statements Holding You Back from Getting Everything You Want."
The book was released this month, and Cole sat down with 11Alive Anchor Aisha Howard to talk about it.
"You know, when I came up with the name of the book, I actually did Clark Atlanta University's commencement speech - and I'm like, you know what, I have to help people re-engineer bad things when they happen," she said, referencing the commencement address she delivered last year to CAU grads.
She used that address to tell the graduates of her own stumbles after graduating from Clark Atlanta in 2009, including the lows she hit of crying at an airport in Houston with no money and no way to get home until an airport employee helped her buy a ticket.
"Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because 13 years later, that same broken and broke little girl now owns and operates not one, but two multimillion-dollar businesses in the middle of a pandemic," Cole said last year.
"I'm telling this to you, the class of 2022," she said, "that I want you to fail."
That serves as the inspiration for her now-released book.
You can watch the full interview with the entrepreneur in the video player above this story or in the YouTube player below.