When Dante Clemens, co-founder of Origin Studio House, decided to leave the world of architecture for entrepreneurship, she embarked on an adventure that would lead her to champion a community-driven oasis in Austin, Texas. Her story, a testament to the transformative power of following one's passion, unfolds in our latest episode where architecture converges with digital production, and where the essence of community shapes the heart of business.
Our conversation meanders through the architectural soul of Austin, revealing how the city's history, climate, and economy have carved unique spaces for gatherings and growth. Dante's endeavor, Origin Studio House, stands as a beacon of inclusivity, providing a 'home' rather than a mere house, where 'micro invitations' and cultural familiarity create an atmosphere of warm embrace. As we explore the creation of this welcoming Black oasis, we glean the subtleties of space as a storyteller and the delicate craft of designing environments that resonate deeply with local culture.
Dante's tale does not end with aesthetics alone; it's also about the art of networking and the seamless crossover of skills from one industry to another. Our discussion travels from the tangible structures of buildings to the digital frameworks of user experience, celebrating the fluidity of professional identity. With Dante's insight on the horizon, Origin Studio House stands ready to expand beyond Austin, aspiring to lay foundations in new cities and cultivate further connections. Tune in for an episode rich with lessons on entrepreneurship, community, and the boundless potential of skillful adaptation.
When Dante Clemens, co-founder of Origin Studio House, decided to leave the world of architecture for entrepreneurship, she embarked on an adventure that would lead her to champion a community-driven oasis in Austin, Texas. Her story, a testament to the transformative power of following one's passion, unfolds in our latest episode where architecture converges with digital production, and where the essence of community shapes the heart of business.
Our conversation meanders through the architectural soul of Austin, revealing how the city's history, climate, and economy have carved unique spaces for gatherings and growth. Dante's endeavor, Origin Studio House, stands as a beacon of inclusivity, providing a 'home' rather than a mere house, where 'micro invitations' and cultural familiarity create an atmosphere of warm embrace. As we explore the creation of this welcoming Black oasis, we glean the subtleties of space as a storyteller and the delicate craft of designing environments that resonate deeply with local culture.
Dante's tale does not end with aesthetics alone; it's also about the art of networking and the seamless crossover of skills from one industry to another. Our discussion travels from the tangible structures of buildings to the digital frameworks of user experience, celebrating the fluidity of professional identity. With Dante's insight on the horizon, Origin Studio House stands ready to expand beyond Austin, aspiring to lay foundations in new cities and cultivate further connections. Tune in for an episode rich with lessons on entrepreneurship, community, and the boundless potential of skillful adaptation.
Hey everyone.
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Speaker 1:Once again, welcome to another episode of entrepreneurial appetite, a podcast based upon a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses.
Speaker 1:And today we have Dante Clemens, co-founder of Origin Studio House in Austin, texas, with her business partner, brittany Williams.
Speaker 1:Origin Studio House was recently named the best community hub by Austin Monthly, and so it's interesting. So I have mentioned maybe two or three times previously on a podcast that I was part of this fellowship called the Notley Fellows, which started in Austin but had expanded to San Antonio for some time before they ended the fellowship, and so as part of that Notley Fellowship, I was like going through, looking through, like all the black people that had been a Notley Fellow ever two years ago when it started in Austin, and so Dante was in that first class, and so I hit her up to see if she'd be willing to be on the podcast. And so here we are, making connections and leveraging a fellowship that I used to be a part of, but at the very least it gives me some thought to say that like I can reach out to her and say what's up. And so before we begin, dante, could you just tell us your story, what's your hero's journey and how you got to do what you're doing and how you got to be who you are?
Speaker 2:That's a loaded question. Firstly, thank you for having me. I'm excited for this chat today. I'm originally from New Orleans, louisiana.
Speaker 2:I wanted to be an architect my whole life. So I was really clear since about the age of eight that architecture was what I wanted to become. I played with dolls because they lived in doll houses and that was just like my jam. I don't know if you remember Micro Machines as like my jam. Every week I would get allowance of like $10 and I would go and buy a city block for like $7.50. And so I just would build out this like city in my bedroom and I would play with the cars and everything. And I didn't know it then. But it's like urban planning is what I was into, but the only language I had was architecture Like that was what I knew existed. So I applied to one school undergrad and got in and studied architecture at Louisiana Tech University for five years, graduated and started practicing architecture and I hated it. I did not enjoy it. I worked on this was post-Catrina New Orleans so I was able to work on residential work informally, just through my network of my family, my aunts, people that they knew that needed drawings done for their homes and that was cool, that was fulfilling. And then professionally, in my day job, I worked on large-scale commercial projects. So some government things, some academic spaces. My high school in New Orleans was torn down after the hurricane because it flooded so much, and so my firm was able to actually like redesign a high school in its place and I worked on that project and that was beautiful. But there were some parts of the work that I didn't find fulfilling and so I left New Orleans and moved to New York and enrolled in a graduate program at Pratt Institute in design management and it's like an MBA for designers.
Speaker 2:While I was studying architecture, I was the creator that I always had like the Wall Street Journal under my arm while I was going into studio for architecture, and so I had a minor in business. So business was always a language that I was semi-fluent in. I wasn't super confident or comfortable, but it was a language that I was learning how to speak for myself. My dad read the Wall Street Journal. Since I was a kid, I was always around those types of publications, and so going to grad school and like with a business focus felt natural for me.
Speaker 2:But being in New York just opened my mind up to a lot of things, and from there I just started dabbling and so I got into what was called digital production at the time and I was able to really learn that so many skills from architecture carried over to this industry that I didn't know existed.
Speaker 2:I wanted to work for ad agency and some on website projects and iPad application projects, and I'm leading those projects with the developers, but also talking to the client about their business goals and what their goals are in terms of strategy and making sure that the quality of what they're looking for is carried through the project.
Speaker 2:So I'm able to use like both sides of my brain and that, and I realized that there was a lot of money in it.
Speaker 2:And I realized that it was also becoming known as product management, and when I discovered product management as a field, I was like, oh, I hit the jackpot, because now I get to be a designer, I get to be a strategist, I get to be a marketer, I get to be all the things that I've learned how to be in grad school at Pratt Institute without being perceived as not being focused but able to be like my dynamic self in a way that was valuable, and so I continued through that path both in New York, and that path led me to a job here in Austin, texas, and I moved here in 2015 and kind of went through the tech route both at startups and ultimately at a larger company called Twitter, before I got into Origin Studio House as a full-time pursuit.
Speaker 2:And Origin is wild because I'm able to reference all these prior experiences and prior ways of thinking and prior practices and it's like one entity that combines, I think, the best of who I am and who Brittany is as well, and so I'm able to just kind of converge all of that in one entity. So it's been exciting.
Speaker 1:Can you talk a little bit about the full transition, because in the episodes that I've recorded so far for this season, there's a lot of founders who are still at the point where they're working their job and they're working on their business and so you were able to get through that hard point where you're doing both. Talk a little bit about that part of the experience.
Speaker 2:I think in hindsight, things connecting away that make it sound easy and it makes it sound like it was this fluid experience and whereas in reality it really feels like it's fluid. And so I think now in this season of early 2024, even the last six months can sound like it's been a fluid journey, but it hasn't been. I was working in tag. I started kind of a concept in Origin. It wasn't even Origin, but I was concepting this need, this desire, this void that I was experiencing here in Austin around community and space in like late 2019. And I was just like a coffee shop, because in my mind and my business brain, a coffee shop is just a really simple business. It's so simple. Origin is not simple at all, but the coffee shop, conceptually, is super simple and I just had a notebook and I was just kind of updating my thoughts and talking to some friends about it. And those friends ultimately led me to meet my business partner, brittany, and we combined forces on this and it ultimately became Origin. But I never had a plan at first of what this would look like in terms of my daily life, daily practice, the balance of this effort with my full time job. I was at Twitter that most recently, and there was a hostile takeover, and I think one thing I have learned to do is, a to trust myself and B to like read the tea leaves if you will. And so when things start to happen that are beyond your control, literally like there's a swell of moments and pushing me in a certain direction. I think some of it is like strategy and kind of knowing what you want to turn your shoulders of. Like I want to go in this direction with this energy that's behind me. You have to steer yourself a bit. But there's also surrendering. I think that, whether you call it intuition, whether you call it like just divine presence and knowing if you're a faithful person and you pray, like there was a lot of surrendering that I did with the way Twitter was being changed, the way it was morphing, and so, as I was laid off from Twitter, I said okay and I knew it. I knew it because I stayed at Twitter through all of that and I was like where'd it happen? I'm not going to jump shipping or get another job. I already have a job. Like origin is at a point where it's got some legs on it. We've been able to validate some things. I'm able to see that there's actually a market demand for this. I'm not just jumping out the window without a plan. We were able to test things and I felt like if I just were able to put my energy behind it 100%, I'd be really, I think, excited and satisfied with the outcome. So, as I was laid off from Twitter, I was like I'm just going to do this full time.
Speaker 2:Prior to the hostile takeover at Twitter, I just had a regiment from myself of like Saturdays was the only day of the week where I could wake up and, like literally control my morning. Really, the weekends is the only time I could do that. So I get to decide what my 10 am looks like versus my 12 noon. And so I would devote Saturday mornings to origin at least four to six hours a day, and I would work Wednesday nights on origin. And that's just what I set up for myself. Monday and Tuesdays Monday was always a slow day for me. Tuesdays I work late at my day job. Wednesdays nights I would always work on origin. Thursdays would be social time. Fridays are relaxing time. Saturdays are origin time. And then Sundays were just like whatever I was feeling for that day. But I started out just two days a week with origin, and so, like I said, once Twitter started to morph into what a doubt is, I just decided that I would just follow that momentum and focus on origin full time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's go back even further and let's talk about the origins of Origin studio house, but I think there's something I want to like provide some context for for the audience, right, and if you're not familiar with Austin Texas, like Austin has like this house culture, right. And so, like I remember, when I lived in Austin 20, I got there 2010 through 2014, so right before you got there is when I left and you would go to South by Southwest and there would be Spotify house, there was this magazine and they should have all the concerts I cannot remember the name of that house these have, but they just have all the concerts during South by Southwest in this fader fort.
Speaker 1:Fader Fort was kind of like a house yeah yeah, fader Fort would like the spot, but it was almost the same thing as a house, right, you go there, you could get products, you could listen to the newest music, listen to the newest things. I remember when your converse had a house. There's a whole street in Austin called rainy Street where the community decided to Sell their homes but they got re-zoned as like a bar district and all these houses are now bars. Right, and so talk about what it means the history of Oregon studio house, but also it being in that context of like house culture in Austin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm not a historian, I'm not even an architectural historian, but I do think that I am an urbanist in a way that I love cities and I love like Understanding, like how they take, and it's how my brain works when I'm experiencing a city, even as a visitor or a guest or traveler. Right, and there's economics of cities, like what are they literally importing, exporting, what do they produce? And that oftentimes directly impacts the architectural fabric of a city, the building typologies. I think there's a climate and the weathery response to how a building is built. But then there's also just like, what is the use of it?
Speaker 2:And a place like San Antonio has stunning architecture, old brick buildings, because there's an Architecture of production there. There was industry there, whereas Austin is the younger city, there's not so much industry. We don't have a lot of warehouses here. We do have homes, and those homes, to your point, through all these other forces, economic forces and racial forces and so on, get rezoned and they become these other districts that for us now in the 2020s, we're like why is it just all these small homes? And it's like, well, who used to live in those homes?
Speaker 2:Is we don't have warehouses like that in Austin to find a brick building in Austin is quite unusual, and that's one of the things I do love about San Antonio is just like oh, there's like history here and the buildings tell that history. So I think some of that is just like the actual history of Austin and what Austin culturally produced, historically right, and so if you think about even tech and tech come takes up space in terms of like skyscrapers now Capital factory and so on, at least like bigger buildings. So I think the fabric of the city and what it is architecturally for us, even when we were thinking about origin as a space, we were like, okay, we could be unit a of some ground floor condo building, right, and it's a warm white box and like that's fine, but architecturally there's not a lot of story to it.
Speaker 2:And then there's to your point, this fabric where there's these homes, and it's like you can take over our house and it becomes something that hopefully feels really warm, feels really inviting, maybe feels relational and structural in some ways. So from the beginning we thought about what is a tangible experience of origin and what does it mean for space, and we decided that we didn't want to start with a warm white box. You need a ground floor of some building. But to say that we were super prescriptive about it being a house, I mean, we didn't know. I think we were open to it. But, to your point, that's what's available, even from a commercial lens in Austin, I think there's just it's easier to get into a house because these districts aren't changing and becoming more commercial when historically They've been residential. As I mentioned, origin for me started I was just this desire to create like a third space for people of like. I was living in Austin and it's gonna sound weird because the city has changed so much. So I do have a lot of optimism for Austin. That's also why I live here, while Austin is now my home. It's my place of residence.
Speaker 2:I can travel the world and I always enjoy coming back here and I like to tell people like who complain. I'm like there's some cities, my urbanist brain but like there's some cities that are like input cities, like I go to New York to take notes. I leave some there. I know that city too. I'm comfortable with New York, but New York is always changing because money's always moving and I'm not mad at that about New York. But New York is that place like she's always Regenerating. You can go to a restaurant. It could be your favorite. Then you go in one time you like oh, they change the chef or they change owners and you can taste it. But it's a city where, if you want the best in Broadway and play is if you want the best in Architecture, if you want the best in what Chicago actually could contend for the best architecture. But if you want the best for museums and art, if you want the best for music in some ways, if you want the best for fashion, like New York is where you can go and study and get those things.
Speaker 2:I'm not looking to Austin for the best in fashion. I'm not looking to Austin for the best in even what blackness can become like. That's just not Austin's reference. But Austin is quiet enough that I can do outputs here. Like I can think I can hear burst chirp, I can like breathe. I don't have distractions, except for the distractions I create. Whereas it's so stimulating is I could never produce anything in New York because there's just so much stuff that I'm ingesting. I know I'm time. So it's like I live here because I can create here and I think as a creative at least I find the joy and the beauty of living in Austin for that.
Speaker 2:But when I moved here for the first year I didn't have any community. I was just calling myself like throwing out from New York because, again, new York is all the stimulation. But then I started to look for, like where are the cool kids at like, where the cool black kids at like, where they? Yeah, I would get to stop signs and like looking left and right and try to count black people at stop signs. It was the wildest thing. Like I just did not see people of color and I went through a very like long, hard process of Finding people on Instagram, trying to see where they hung out at and just realizing that there was no place for the flag in the ground. Like community shows up here even on these days.
Speaker 2:And so some people started to like organize in smaller groups and that helped me explore Austin. Like if I would leave my house with the destination in mind and then if I wanted to go to that same place the very next day. It'd be a totally different experience. The community was gone. Like when people came to visit in town, there was no reliable places I could take them what they would also be able to interact with the black community here.
Speaker 2:It was just like all these like cultural gaps for me, and so I got involved with an organization not not leave, but another one and ultimately became vice president of that chapter when it was all about community and it was all about these young black professionals that found themselves here for economic opportunity but were missing each other and missing like the things that we do and we're together, and I was on the professional development committee there, so I was doing all these like workforce, workplace development, things like how to negotiate your salary or a negotiator race, like all these like tactical skills, but afterwards we would just have happy hours and just want to be around and it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:And so a couple things that I noticed from there that really led the seeds, a plan of the seeds for me was, personally with origin, was people were like I came here for a job, I'm here for this job, I'm gonna stay here 18 months, maybe 24, and then I'm out. I'm going to Houston, I'm going to Dallas. What is more of us is more of this, like this cultural infrastructure Essentially is what they were getting at where Austin doesn't have that, and I'm tired of working so hard for it. I'm tired of this being the only environment which I'm able to find it.
Speaker 2:I heard that repeatedly so I was like, okay, that's just a validated problem. And then, on the other side of it, we as leaders in this org were always looking for space to just host people. Like where can we go to Host people when they feel safe? Well, when the clock hits, whatever the time is, we don't feel like we're being pushed out. There's a shift change. Or somebody started blasting rock music and you're like, okay, the vibe, I gotta go.
Speaker 2:Now it's like these, like subtle ways that remind you that you don't own the space you're in. And Between the two of those things and again my optimism and appreciation for Austin I was like there's just an opportunity to contribute to the culture, infrastructure here through the lens of like permanence, or at least semi permanence. Like what does it mean if you have a place you can go to six days a week? What does it mean if, like, you can go a Thursday and a Friday, and the next Friday too you can go? You know what I mean. And it's just like that was opportunity I saw. And so my business brain was like I think there's something here that if I were to like tinker with this, I think it could become impactful and fruitful, and for me that's how origin was born when you started talking about the music changing.
Speaker 1:I should go to Benu coffee shop and Benu man, that coffee used to hit. Now Benu might be playing Wu Tang, and it literally by like one o'clock in the morning. It's like some weird. Like I'm like, what is this? So I appreciate the fact that the switch doesn't happen, that there's a place you can go to where you just don't have a moment, where, like, your spirit is filled by whatever Vibe that you need and all of a sudden the music changes and there's a shift in like now, why am I here and I think that's very important in a city like Austin or another city that is prominent, up and coming but maybe doesn't have the same foothold of black community and culture? So that's much appreciated. I want to get into some conceptual pieces, right, and so could you describe for us what origin studio house is?
Speaker 2:Conceptually or tangibly.
Speaker 2:The house is a place of safety. It's a place where you can be nourished on many levels you can get a warm plate of food, a cool cup of something or a warm cup of something. It's a place where you really just feel safe and you feel like it's designed for you, where your needs are really prioritized and hopefully met before you can even articulate them. That's what origin is, and I think it's a place that celebrates the beauty of blackness and it celebrates the art that we make, and Art can take many forms, from like fine art to actually culinary art. It's even spatial art when we think about interior design and architecture. It's a place for the artists. It's the artist playground. It's where artists come to be inspired and to share their stories and to meet one another and for people that support the artists To also be able to come and meet one another and meet the artists themselves. So it's a really a gathering place that's really just anchored in community and the beautiful aspects of community.
Speaker 1:So when I think about Soho House, I think about, like this international hotel slash club. Right, I don't get the impression that that is exactly what Origin Studio House is for black people. I know it's not international, it's meant to be very localized. It doesn't come off to me like a club, but it is a community, right. Is it a club, though? But I mean it could be Talk about like how you like are cultivating community in this house. Now it's interesting. Now you got me thinking, because I'm thinking about all the things that you just said, and it's like it's a house, but in some ways it's a home too, right? So I guess the real question I'm getting at is like, how do you make Origin Studio House a home for people in the time that they're there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a couple aspects to your question that I want to touch on. I think Soho House is a model, and it's a model that is continuing to scale, and there are aspects about it that I think are quite successful. I do like the idea of having a brand that I trust and knowing that if I go to India or Morocco I can have a similar experience similar body care products, similar teas, similar cookies. I can probably order similar things off the menu if I want to kind of stay with what I'm familiar with and it is a standard of care that I'm expecting because I trust in that brand.
Speaker 2:Origin is in the earliest stages of the company. Right, we haven't yet had our grand opening for our space regarding like our full like F&B operation of food and beverage operation. We've danced around the restrictions and constraints both from the permitting processes and as well as just like funding processes too, like for us. We are ingenious in that Like we like the constraints here. That's the design side. Where's the constraint? Oh cool, that's a hard wall. We can go this way. Designers are the only like classification of person that can literally like imagine a blank sheet of paper and like know how to like start over, because designers create and they create with an understanding of like I'm solving for this problem, and constraints don't stop designers Like that's just legit how we are trained, and so I think we bring that into origin.
Speaker 2:But we decided early on, although the revenue models are strong, that a membership based model for us is not where we wanted to start. I think there are so many walls in a city like Austin where people feel boxed out of community and feel like things are inaccessible, that that is not at all what we wanted to start. I did not want to build a business that required membership dollars to stay afloat. I think we can grow into that. I think there might be a segment of our customer base that would want something like that, but from the beginning that's not what it's about.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about making it home, it's the fact that there's a front door that's open to you. Like you go to your grandma's house, you can knock twice, or maybe you got a key, but you know she opened that door, you know you're welcome there, and I think that's the real. The bigger part is the welcoming of it and that's the hospitality lens that shows up in everything that we do. It's always an invitation. So that's why we don't have a membership model. I think economics, like I said, are strong and they are compelling, but that's not at all the core of what this is about. I think it's about people feeling like it is an open door. We don't have to put a gay flag in the window. We don't have to put an African flag in the window, like you feel it. It's resonant because the same way we feel microaggressions, we can flip that and make those micro invitations.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:In marriage. A blouse plan that's an invitation. You smell something cooking and feel that's an invitation. It's instance burning at the front door that's an invitation.
Speaker 2:So if you take that and you flip that into a design language, right, like, what are the consistent ways in which we're going to send cues to our people that they are welcome here? We don't have to say a word. There's not a copyright. You don't have to make a diversity statement. You don't have to do any of that, because if you really embody it and I think that's the language we speak, because we are, that's legit where our heart is.
Speaker 2:That's our posture as a business and those are the subtle things that we do that people can't even describe, like they don't even know, but they're like this feels like and it's like yeah, and we've had some people from the diaspora come and they're like this feels like Kenya, and we're like yeah, because we started these things, these are our references and I think those are things that don't make it to the front page of a website, but those are elements of hospitality that are embedded in the brand and embedded in the experience, and I'm excited for us to continue to create those types of experiences, even outside of this physical house that we're occupying.
Speaker 1:I need you to say that word again Micro invitations. Yeah Listen, I need you to do a quick definition of what a micro invitation is. I thought that was absolutely profound. I don't know if that's written down somewhere already, but just give us your definition of a micro invitation.
Speaker 2:It's not written down, but I think when you show up in a space, like I said, and like I've worked in coffee shops like this is legit what I do from a consumer lens, it's what I've been doing right, and now I'm in an operator lens, right, and so I'm able to think about every aspect of the experience that I've had that I didn't enjoy. And, to your point, if I'm sitting at a coffee shop and I already have my headphones on because I don't trust whatever y'all got going on sonically, right, I already got my noise canceling joints on, I'm in my flow state and I'm jamming out and I got a Chardade sticker on my laptop, so maybe the barista sees that and starts playing Chardade. I'm at a barista, tell me, oh, my God, I'm cool. I'm inspiring you to think about other ways in which you can make people like me feel comfortable right.
Speaker 2:But I'm sitting there jamming and then at two o'clock when that rock music starts playing, bro, you've killed every flow state I ever had going on. I'm better off at my own kitchen table now, yeah, to be in it. And I'm not saying that's a microaggression, I'm just saying it could be the way we, as black people, move through this world and we feel slights. Or somebody asks you what do you do? And that's the first question, not how are you? Yeah, but they ask you how do you deserve to be in this space? Yeah, that's a microaggression.
Speaker 2:So it's like we can flip that and say, okay, what are the things that are resonant, what are the cues of safety? And it's so beautiful when people are like I smell the incense and I just have to come over. Yeah, that's an invitation. Oh, I heard this. This baseline feels like, yeah, huh, that's an invitation. Oh, y'all are playing like South African house. I was just in South Africa. Yeah, that's an invitation. It's like when you just like do the things that are culturally significant, culturally resonant, and then don't go to the fabrics that we commonly see, which is like, again, the rainbow flag in the window. We're never going to have a rainbow flag at origin because I'm doing something wrong. If you feel like you can't show up in the wholeness and fullness of who you are and you rely on a flag to tell you that it's a place of safety for you, the flag don't have to do that. So much wait for the flag to carry that.
Speaker 2:This just something's off, I think, if that's what we have to rely, on yeah, so it's really those experiential signals I think that we can put out and I think copywriting is part of it. But more than that is the experience of like what you're eating, what's cooking, what are you smelling, what are you hearing. How are people treating you when you come up? Or they're smiling, are they like? How is it for you to walk through that front door?
Speaker 2:Because I think our experience is culturally as a people can harden us, or they can allow us to kind of get into this futuristic, fanciful world where we get to create from scratch. Like what does a black oasis look and feel like? And that's how we started origin, literally by conversations about what it felt like and what it would be way before we got into the physical realm. That was our way of kind of creating this fantasy. It's our little world. You can come through that gate and it's your home. And we're doing it wrong if we have to rely on symbols and even explicit words to make people feel like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting that, like black isn't in the name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not, it's really interesting, so I'm Because racism isn't in the name of so many things that are actually racist or things that are toxic to us. You know, you don't pick up a bag of Cheetos and it says cancer on the front, like they bury so much. So it's like okay, as a designer, let me flip that. How do I bury in the love, how do I bury in the care, how do I bury in the thoughtfulness? Because what I love to hear once we were able to birth this and share this with people is like people have a million ways that they describe origin and as a copywriter for origin, I struggle with that. I'm like how do I even like explain what this is or explain what it means to people? So sometimes the easiest thing I can do is put a camera on and have people tell me in their own words what it is. Because to the artist is one thing, so the chef is something else. To the person that loves to just be put on a dope, blackness is something else. So the person that just wants a place to sit when nobody's going to harass them is something else, and I think the only rule we have is like please, no pets. Like y'all have 80s, everything else in this city. This place is for people dawg. Yeah, it's not for your dawg, right, it's just it.
Speaker 2:I had a mentor tell me you're going to lose a lot of money like that. He was like you're going to lose a lot of money like that. It's going to cost you $3,500 a week. I said we'll make it up somewhere else. We got a lot of tentacles in which we can bring in $3,500 a week. I really just sometimes pets get better treatment at black folks. That's true. We had a hard line on that from day one. Personally, I'm allergic to dogs. There's also that and there's not, I think, a lot of consideration for people that have allergens when it comes to pets. So that was our number one thing. That's really our only publicly stating hard line.
Speaker 1:So this is a quick side note. Pet culture in Austin is at times very rude.
Speaker 2:I'm really man. I'm in an organic grocery store and there's a huge 60 pound dog walking past me and just flicking hair all over the peaches and I'm just like, come on, y'all Like and I get it. People, I get it. Love you pet. Just curb your dog at the door. This space prioritizes the people.
Speaker 1:So this is DJ and Austin that goes out to Zilker Park. I was like maybe you want her to, you know what I'm talking about, right, and she goes out there and they have sometimes they'll sell some food or whatever, and you bring your blanket and your snacks. Man, these people dog, just come up all over my food, all of it like get your dog. Anyways, let me stop talking about that. So, okay, segueing back to what you were just talking about and how you don't necessarily have to signal the welcome with the flag or some other bold statement. It's buried in the ethos of Origin Studio House. And this goes to my question about like Austin getting a black.
Speaker 1:And in a pre conversation for those who are listening, I was explaining to Dante, like honestly, how the words for like what the Austin black is.
Speaker 1:It's like a different thing. Austin is weird, but the black folks in Austin aren't necessarily we're not all of them but like there's a thing about Austin getting the black. I just don't have the concept of the words for it. Maybe what you described is part of what it is right, because when I see black folks in Austin getting together it's not always like a hard signal that like I'm super black, black, black, but they all know each other and one of the things that resonates with me when I go to Austin or when I go to an event with founders or people who are aspirational, trying to do things, is that people are always welcoming and willing to talk, like I've gotten so many guests from Austin to be on a podcast just like talking to them, and then somebody else will say, hey, you need to talk to this person or you need to talk to that person, and I think that's an undercurrent for at least one of the very positive things I see evolving in black culture in Austin.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that. I think when you move to a city for an economic incentive, right, you got a job. It's a good, paying job. It's enough of a good job for you to take the risk on a city you haven't maybe even been to in some cases. Right, and it's not cities that have their own like cultural reputation, like a Houston or even a Dallas to a degree, but Houston, especially like it's just like it's a hotbed of so many different like aspects of culture that you know you can probably find your mix of people there.
Speaker 2:I think when those folks come find their way in Austin, there's a hunger that can sometimes turn to a desperation to just be in community and that leads you to talking to people in a grocery store, that leads you to DM and people on Instagram like yo can we get a coffee? Like just in your 30s. Trying to find friends is a humbling thing and I think Austin pushes some people to those limits and some people like me. I got pushed to that limit and I created from that energy. I think other people move on from that energy, but what it does kind of create is number one. I think there's so many variations of blackness that I can't simplify them to an archetype. I think there might be several archetypes here, on the imagine there are.
Speaker 2:But even in my work with origin we don't create like very specific, hyper specific archetypes. There's like references that we might have like oh, it's a launch type, but like a kind of what we say a huckstable, like that's a type, the kind of type she might see, an HBCU, the anime type.
Speaker 2:So there's just like a typical black Austinite. I don't know if I would have the language to describe what that might be, because you're saying this and I'm like, okay, cool, let me think about if I recognize that pattern. But what I do find is that because people are here, often because of their skill set or something that they're really good at brought them here. The caliber of black folk here and the degrees of separation between you and somebody that's up to really dope stuff is short and really narrow Versus, like in LA, these same type of people you might have to do some work to reach them and even if you reach them, they may not be as responsive. So I will find that even an Austin, even for businessmen and women that are outside of our direct racial community, like they're very responsive. I've had coffees with people based off the strength of an email and I think that that is an Austin culture that makes doing business here very friendly.
Speaker 2:In a lot of ways I think the text is overlaying. That has its own thing from a political standpoint, but culturally, as a city, origin has gotten a lot of love and support and free game and free guidance from operators in this town who see what we're doing, believe in what we're doing, and they're like, hey, this is what I learned, this is quick, saying, stay away from that. This over here, like the guy that was telling me you're going to miss a lot of money and not saying yes to dogs, and I'm like, cool, thank you for that. Heads up. We're committed to this path. This is the way in which we're going to work around that, but I think that's an awesome thing too, and so I think the friendliness of black people here, the openness of black people here, the openness of the business community here, I think it's just traditionally Austin and that's something I'm excited to be for somebody else, from a business standpoint, as Origin matures.
Speaker 1:So I'm a LinkedIn stalker Like I'm a LinkedIn stalker, like, I looked at your LinkedIn profile and so I'm going to run through some things between the LinkedIn profile and between what I read on the website, right. So between you and your co-founder, right, there's the intersection of advertising, e-commerce, architectural planning and the arts and hospitality, and so talk a little bit about what it's been like to bring those intersections together and to do that with a co-founder who was also your co CEO. I'm going to add some context to this. I have another episode that's coming out and it's with a guy who is a DEI specialist. So he's a headhunter DEI headhunter for corporations and he said that DEI is zero sum because there's only going to be one CEO, there's only going to be one CFO, there's only going to be one chief operating office or whatever. So it's interesting to me that there are two of you who sit in the CEO seat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, I have a clarification on that. So Origin has one CEO. I am the chief executive officer of Origin. My business partner is a chief experience officer. Ah, but it's the OEO. Yeah, it was an acronym, but our focus is a really distinct.
Speaker 2:So, as you mentioned, like my background is in architecture, but I'm very, very comfortable in business, very comfortable in business, very comfortable in the aspects of business where it's like marketing, hell, bookkeeping, accounting, budgeting and business planning. Like I read 10 K reports for fun, like that is generally where I live. Like I'm a creative tool and I speak and I understand and I operate within the language of design, but I'm also fluent in the language of marketing. I'm also fluent in the language of advertising. I'm also fluent in the language of, to a lesser degree, accounting Right. So like that's kind of like the language is I speak.
Speaker 2:My business partner is fluent in design as well. She has a background in interior design, so that's already a compliment between architecture and interior design and we've rooted in that as a team. She's fluent in the language of hospitality. This is my first hospitality venture. I have learned so much and though I don't consider myself an expert in hospitality, I'm way more of an expert today than I was three years ago when I first started. But that's been my language of learning through her. But that's her strength, like she is and exists. And she's also and when I say hospitality it's not just in the guest experience, in the service design of it all, but also in the food side of it all, the beverage side of it Like that is a deep fluency and a deep expertise that she has.
Speaker 2:So her being chief experience officer, she governs all of that. I make sure the economics of sound and she'll flag things for me like hey, we got to look at the cost of this and we work through that together. But she drives that side of the house. Like those incense decisions come from her. These like subtle things that make sure that like the house is doing the things in a physical experience that support our people and the spirit of safety. Like that's her. So we are separate. We function on and really have a responsibility for different sides of the business. We overlap a lot in discussion and conversation. We bring a lot of that to the center table when we kind of decide against all those things. But we're separate roles. We're totally separate roles when it comes to investor management, anything with funding, that's all me. That's truly a chief executive function, but when it comes to the actual experience, she drives all of that. So we have the similar acronyms with two separate and distinct roles.
Speaker 1:Back to my LinkedIn stocking yes.
Speaker 2:LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:So you have put yourself in positions to learn and to have influence in a number of organizations, right? So we already mentioned the Notley Fellowship. I saw that you had done some work with Black Girl Ventures and then I see that like you're sitting on a board right now. Talk about how those experiences matter in what you're trying to do and what you are creating in Austin. Do they feed into each other? How do you manage, having sat in those seats or seats that maybe you don't sit anymore? How have they influenced the work that you're doing now?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think and that's a cool observation, and I'm sharing this because I want to make it clear that it's for me and I think in general, like it's so much less about the title right To me it's about, like truly the function, like what are you there to do and, more specifically, what are the skills that either A you bring or B you're required to have? Right, and hopefully those things overlap as much as possible, because I learned from a mentor of mine that the more you can integrate your life, the happier you'll be. And I think, for Black folks especially, we get taught and I don't know if we're still teaching people this, young people but we get taught to compartmentalize. Cold switching, I think, is a component of that. But like I show up like this in this space, this is who I really am, and I show up like this in that space, and so we can contort ourselves if we're not careful. And I think one of the lessons I learned early on in my mid to late twenties as I was transitioning from architecture to this digital world and being able to articulate my value in that industry, is that so many of these skills they translate, they literally carry over and they're transferable.
Speaker 2:Nobody told me that. Nobody told me that, hey, like, a structural design plan is so similar to a wireframe and website it's the same thing. Nobody told me that picking finishes for an apartment project is the same thing as picking website colors for a brand kit. Nobody told me that. You know what I mean. Like it's so much of this stuff like UX of like, where's a button? What does the menu design look like? How is somebody navigating through an application, a web app, whatever? That's the same thing as a floor plan. Where am I guiding people to, course, through a building? I can walk in any building and tell you what the bathrooms are and the elevator is. It's just understanding the building systems right From my expertise. I want my web experiences to feel the same way, and so learning that lesson pretty early in my career, as I was pivoting out of architecture, has enabled me to have confidence in showing up, knowing that, okay, if I can do this thing in this space, whether it's from a tech company or whatever my day job is, who else values these skills? Where else are these skills transferable to? And so I don't look at it as so much as like okay, an architectural skill or this is an advertising skill.
Speaker 2:It's like I have the ability to break down something that's super complex in the very small steps. I have the ability to distill information down. I have the ability to create some scratch. I have the ability to problem solving these words in these ways and I can speak these languages to these types of people. And I think the fluency is really what it's about. It's like to speak the language of architecture, to speak the language of advertising, to speak the language of design, to now be learning the language of hospitality, like these concepts exist across industries. It's changing the language and once you can speak the language and they're like oh you get me.
Speaker 2:The CEO of any company has the same concerns. Like, at the end of the day, like that archetype of a person, that role in the company is concerned with the same types of things. It might look different in their industry, but once you learn that industry, you learn the patterns, and the patterns are generally the same stuff. It's people, problems, it's money, it's a client, a customer based thing. Like it just gets really simple for me and that's that distillation strength that I have that allows me to show up in these other spaces.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of this comes organically through my network. I did this thing even before COVID, before the pandemic, where I kept my network fresh and I'm not the person you put in a room and I'm gonna talk to 80 people in that room. If it's the room of 100 people, that's exhausting to me. I got confidently like reframe that to a point of like God, if I walk out of this room with two new connections, that's all I need. Send me my two, I'm gonna walk through and I'm gonna smile. But it's like if I connect with somebody, then I connect, if I don't, I don't, but I'm gonna walk out of there with those two. I just don't know who the two will be, but that's how I navigate through life and it's like before COVID I was still having like coffee conversations with people in my own network. What you working on, how you doing, whispin' up, it's on your mind and it just kept me aware of what they were working through in their own industries. But it allowed them to connect down to me. And so I had coffee with a guy that I used to work for who was like I forget you're an architect, I forget you worked at the Met. You should meet this woman. She's executive director of this art museum and I'm like cool. And then I met her and then she and I kept having conversations and I became like an advisor to her, like really informal, like you're concerned with this, with digital.
Speaker 2:Have you thought about this? I don't know, I might approach that problem in this way? And you show up helpful and then from being helpful, it formalizes into here's the board seat. Now let's formalize your relationship to this, let's formalize the responsibilities, let's formalize your giving, let's formalize these aspects. And then from there you're in a different room at a formal level, and then you show up in that room like how can I be helpful? Like I've never been in a board seat before at a museum, like what matters here? But it's still the same patterns that I've seen everywhere else. Ceo leader cares about these things. How are we doing? What are the challenges that are unique to this space? What are the challenges that are unique to this season and how can I be helpful?
Speaker 2:And I think not allowing other people's titles to make you feel inferior or like a lack of confidence, but really just showing up and being like, okay, I have some skills or some stuff. I personally know how to do. I read a lot. I take classes when I can. If there's a question and something that I haven't yet been able to solve for myself, I will continue to have conversations with people as I try to pursue with that solution might be for me and my own business, and I bring all of that into every room that I'm in.
Speaker 2:I don't dice myself up and I think once you get one board seat, I'm trying to get two more. I'm actually on another board that's not yet on LinkedIn because it's a sensitive board. It's got just a lot of like stuff going on and it's about a physical property here in Austin, texas, that a lot of people have a lot of opinions about and none of us have it on our LinkedIn. I'm not bored with seat two, but that functions way different than the museum board I'm on and I'm like. Of those two experiences, which one am I enjoying more? What aspects do I like more? Because that's teaching me what I want more of versus what.
Speaker 1:I want.
Speaker 2:But the Black Girl Ventures thing was also super unique came through my network. I had a couple conversations that led to again a formal thing and I was a fellowship that I had, I think, for nine months. I went through that process with them and met some great people from that. My HR consultant for Origin now I met through that program. So it's relational and I think it's about being open and like we're having this conversation, we're meeting for the first time. I think that's exactly what it's about and not selling yourself short and, I think, being able to show up and have the conversations without letting the insecurities get in the way, but like being curious, like okay, what is the challenge? How might I be able to help? And at least to these formal things that in many cases I never see coming. I never walk into a conversation expecting something out of it. I don't know, who knows.
Speaker 2:Some shit never pays off, like some things. I planted seeds and I've yet to see the fruit of them. Like I just don't think about it. It's just part of it.
Speaker 1:So, oh yeah, you did, it was good. So we didn't close the time, so I'm going to ask these last three questions all at the same time, okay, okay. Question number one is what is you see as a future of Origin Studio House? Question number two how can we follow or support Origin Studio House? And question number three, because we have origins as a book club what books are you currently reading or have you read that have inspired your journey or just bring you some joy?
Speaker 2:I love those questions, thank you. So the future of Origin Studio House is we've been super active with events. That was our way to kind of test out menu options for our beverages. We kind of have data on all of our cocktails now to know what people like, what they don't like. How many people in the black community don't like mango as an ingredient? We've learned all these things over the past months, and so what that's allowed us to do is to be in a position to launch our food and beverage operation from a place of confidence, so that when I talk about a grand opening, it's really that component of the business.
Speaker 2:We've been able to already have art shows and engage artists through our events with the contemporary Austin and other events and partners around town like Big Medium. We've been able to already test out some food concepts as well on the chefs that we enjoy working with through these events, and also, too, we've been able to work on just like really this what we call Origin Sounds, which is like our music programming. There's so many artists in this town, as a capital of the world, who need gigs and who also come from our community that don't have a residency or a platform within our community where they can meet. So we've created that platform as well. In the last year, we produced a concert at City Hall and just really a festival at City Hall where we had black owned vendors there, we had coffee there, we had some merch that we were given away for people that was co-branded between Origin and the city of Austin, and we were able to put on a music festival, essentially with food trucks and everything. And that was incredible because City Hall rarely does that. It's not something that most City Halls do, but they were really celebrating that we all belong campaign and really wanted to have this crescendo moment that was community driven and community led in Origin's event production and cultural production led that. So we sit at this unique intersection of like this hospitality and like this cultural piece that touches artists of different types, including musicians and chefs, and so we've been able to activate all these different pieces, except for really like giving life to this kind of like six day a week operation that'll be on 12th Street to start here in Austin, texas. So that's the grand opening is really just around, like letting people know we're here now regularly, six days a week. So that's the future of Origin is getting to that part of where it's a consistent operation.
Speaker 2:I think there's also going to be other footprints that Origin operates within Austin specifically, I think what I would hope to create is more relationships with other cities around the US to kind of see where else might people need this. I think there are cities sister cities, if you will Austin that have similar concerns. Denver is one of them. People complaining now in New York about the loss of third spaces that are black, lead and black owned. This is a ripple effect. I think COVID killed a lot of businesses, so I think there's just opportunity for us to grow and expand beyond our current footprint on 12th Street. So I think that's the future.
Speaker 2:To support Origin today. Please visit Origin Studio Housecom. We have a lot of information there about how you can work with us. We post events there. Sign up for our newsletter so you will have all the information once we're ready to release it and invite you in. And as far as what I'm reading, like I said, for me, I'm building my hospitality muscle, both in the practice of Origin but also now. I've just gotten into understanding hospitality through like a framework right. Like what do people that lead hospitality organizations, how do they think, what factors are they contending with on a day to day basis? I want to be able to speak this language better to help my relationship with my business partner to grow even to a greater degree. It'll help my relationship with those future staff members that we're going to be bringing on, and so right now I'm reading Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Godara. I'm halfway through that book and I'm really deeply enjoying it. I have a bunch of highlights and takeaways in it so far, so that's what I'm reading currently.
Speaker 1:Dante, thank you for joining us today. We look forward to seeing the future of Origin Studio House. My wife and I will be visiting sometime soon and again, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Of course, thank you for having me. This has been a blast.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you liked the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.