My Story Through Spaces

A Four-Year Entrepreneurial Recap in Four Minutes:

Environments are powerful. They matter more than we think. They can influence our buying habits, work ethic, emotions, and creative ability. Whether you run a company, coffee shop, household, school, or even church, creating the right physical environment is vital to your desired outcomes.

Throughout my time at the University of Missouri, I've had the entrepreneurial opportunity to construct three unique environments, all for different purposes. As I prepare to graduate in May, I thought I'd tell a bit of my story through these spaces I've built:

The Bridge: Space #1

In 2016-17, my friend Blaine and I had the opportunity to construct a retail storefront in the heart of campus called The Bridge. When we came to campus as freshman, we saw so many students trying to do entrepreneurship alone. We wanted to create a space for student and alumni entrepreneurs to bridge their products to the entire student body all in one place. With a mission to Empower the Creative, The Bridge was born.

After pitching our idea to university officials, we were given access to construct our store in the MU Student Center, the heart of student traffic on campus. It was a huge success.

The Bridge was created out of an old print shop (pictured). We walked into tile floors, office ceiling, and beige walls, and we turned it into a vibrant consumer-facing retail environment.

We wanted to create a space that was visually stark compared to what students were used to seeing within the building. Knowing that passing students naturally experienced change blindness, we wanted to do everything we could to make students double-take as they walked by. We hung pendant lights, had a repurposed wood wall, utilized industrial piping, and played music way too loud.

We exceeded the program's leading annual sales revenue benchmark after only 20 days of being operational. After our first year in business, the university asked us back again for another year. In the two years of being open, we nearly reached six-figure revenues, partnered with 30+ student and alumni brands, led 35+ student interns, hosted five outdoor markets and community events, and celebrated our business exit with Bridgefest, a campus-wide student concert.

Relevant Youth: Space #2

After year one at The Bridge, we had nearly 20 students helping us out with marketing and advertising for our numerous in-store student brands. We noticed a massive desperation from students to get hands-on experience, and our business was able to provide that for them. We began to ask: "Could we create a space for student creatives to get a more relevant educational experience?" That question led to the birth of Relevant Youth.

In summer 2017, after seeing what we accomplished with The Bridge, the university granted me a $50,000 budget to design and build out the future office of Relevant Youth.

Right down the hall from The Bridge space, there was an underutilized room completely filled with furniture. It seemed the only students really getting use out of the space were freshman pledges getting some needed mid-day sleep. It wasn't a very high traffic hallway, but it was central to students on campus. It was a perfect place for an office.

This was the first-ever office design I created:

I remember sitting at my kitchen table in St. Louis with my mom sketching this out. It's awesome how things that once existed in your mind can come into the tangible world. This sketch was the view I wanted people to see from the hallway.

This was the final bird's-eye view blueprint:

After launching the company in fall of 2017, we were able to have a creative office for our newly-formed 40-person agency.

I designed the space to serve three main purposes. I call them the 3 C's: collaboration, creation, and community. This picture (right) shows our collaboration area. It has a presentation TV, whiteboard walls, mobile furniture, and seats up to 10 people.

The middle area of our office space is our creation area. I wanted this area to promote individualized creative work. Filled with private work desks, Mac computers packed with the full Adobe Creative Suite, a printer, and a window view, it's the best place to grind out work of all kinds.

Finally, community. I wanted to design a third of the office to be centered on relationships. I believe relationships are at the heart of every good business. With a couch, chair, and an Edison bulb chandelier, this is a space that promotes conversation and friendship.

After launching in fall of 2017, Relevant Youth has now empowered nearly 150 undergraduate student creatives through our model of education. We've served clients of all shapes and sizes, ranging from startup and local business, to nationwide tech companies and our own university. With plans for scale in 2019 to Kansas City, Relevant Youth is just getting started.

The C-Suite: Space #3

My most recent venture, The C-Suite. After three years of growing my entrepreneurial network and starting two companies that supported creatives, I began to see a lot of student business owners on campus without a designated place to work. I felt their pain. Before Relevant Youth got built, I had to sneak into abandoned faculty offices to get work done! There wasn't a place for owners to, well, call their own.

Right down the hallway from Relevant Youth, there was this crusty old beige board room (pictured). Most university rooms look like this. Ugly patterned carpet, a single whiteboard, and a lack of creative energy. I, again, pitched to the university a new idea. This time, it was a creative coworking space for students.

By the time the space idea got approved, I was two weeks away from getting married. To finish on time, Matthew and I held the first-ever sleepover in Relevant Youth after a work trip to Columbia. Thanks to my helpful brothers and fiancée, we finished the entire buildout from start to finish in only 10 days.

We brought in vinyl flooring, pallet wood, vintage diner furniture, refurbished lockers from the art school's dumpster (thanks, David), new shelving, and most importantly WHITE PAINT. Goodbye to 50 Shades of Beige!

As the smallest space I've designed to date, it was very important to maximize the space available.

After seeing how well the 3 C's worked within Relevant Youth, I divided the space up in the same fashion.

Julia found a leather diner booth on Facebook Market, acting as the community element to the space. It put up a fight getting through the door, but ended up fitting perfectly.

Using two pallets and three wood doors cut in half, I created an elevated standing work desk area towards the back of the room for individual work creation. We reused three of the white pendants that were in The Bridge, and we partnered with a local chalk artist to personalize the space with our mantra: Make it Happen.

We took the same repurposed wood wall from The Bridge storefront, re-repurposed it, painted it white, and hung up the bike. We gave the dumpster lockers a needed makeover and found a dry erase boardroom table, completing our collaboration element to the space.

The C-Suite currently has 15+ student owners regularly using the space as members. We've recently partnered with the Trulaske College of Business and Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization to further our mission on campus for years to come.

I'm beyond grateful for the opportunity I've been given these past four years. I'm grateful for the trust my university had in my vision, the many loving hands that built these spaces alongside me, and the countless relationships that were formed within these walls.

Environments are powerful. When constructed with intention, amazing things can happen.

With Gratitude,

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