The Apex Podcast

Building Bridges Beyond the Business Plan: Entrepreneurship, Social Harmony, and the Power of Events w/ Mercedes McElley

February 28, 2024 • Apex Communications Network

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Have you ever wondered how a leap of faith into entrepreneurship can redefine not just a career but a life? My friend Mercedes joins us to unravel her transformative journey, a tale that ebbs from the allure of the courtroom to the dynamic pulse of event planning. She lays bare the trials and triumphs of her path, from coordinating weddings to overcoming the tumult of a global pandemic and a personal health scare. Mercedes’ story isn't just about the logistics of events—it's a candid look at the resilience needed to navigate life's unpredictable tides.

Picture the thrill of starting anew, the fresh zeal of building a business from the ground up in a city that's not yet home. With Mercedes, we pull back the curtain on the realities of entrepreneurship—how an idea that sparks at the dinner table can ignite into a venture that connects communities. Whether it's assembling a wedding coordination business or crafting the fabric of Date Columbus and Date Cleveland to enrich the dating scene, the conversation journeys through the practical steps and emotional commitment needed to turn passion into profession. And it's not all paperwork and planning; it's about valuing your worth, setting boundaries, and the sweet spot of pricing confidence that comes from experience and expertise.

Beyond the balance sheets and business models, we zero in on the essence of human connection. We celebrate the joy that springs from kickball leagues and social mixers, as Mercedes and her team curate experiences that cut through the digital noise, fostering real-life interactions. It's a reminder that the core of entrepreneurship can also be about bridging gaps and building communities, one event at a time. So, if you're curious about the heartbeat of starting a business with friends, or you're just looking for inspiration to take that next step, this heart-to-heart with Mercedes might just be the nudge you need. Join us as we explore the art of entrepreneurship and the beauty of bringing people together.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Apex Podcast. As always, I'm your host, john Almacy, the CEO and co-founder here at Apex Communications Network, which means that I get to be the one that does a lot of the forward-facing activities. If you are a new listener on the Apex Podcast, welcome. You've probably heard things all over the place, ranging from neuroscience and psychology to entrepreneurship and business building, to nursing and anime, depending on what day of the week you decide to tune in.

Speaker 1:

Today is not going to be just a random episode of RJ and I rambling about the latest and greatest inside of the agency space, but I actually found a guest. You are going to be listening today to me and my friend, mercedes talk about her career, her journey into entrepreneurship and then her passion for allowing people to connect and form relationships in person, which is the exact reason why I reached out, because I think that that is super, super important. I hear all the time how much people wish that there were more opportunities to hang out with people and have an excuse to gather in person. So, mercedes, thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to talk about it. I tell pretty much everyone I meet about what I'm doing and people tend to love it, so thank you for having me excited to dive in.

Speaker 1:

You are very welcome. So I will start off and we can kind of keep it simple but kind of meta. Right In your mind, what kind of got you interested in this space and by this space I mean let's start with the events with Mercedes, which is your company. So what prompted the idea of I need to go solo, I need to start my own thing? And why the event space?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the answer is pretty simple. I've done events since I was like 14 and a half, so I've pretty much done it. I'm going on, yeah, I guess 15 years now, which seems crazy.

Speaker 2:

I started working weddings when I could start working and kind of worked my way up, ended up going to college, worked weddings on the side all through college. I was supposed to be a lawyer, was super interested in international relations and I kind of feel like I took the easy way out instead of going to law school. I was just really good at weddings so I just kept doing it and I enjoyed making money, not taking on more student loan debt. So I ended up just sticking with weddings and events. I always say weddings, but I did corporate social baby showers. I did everything from like a $1,500 wedding to $150,000 wedding, so I've kind of seen it all. So I was in Cincinnati for the most part, bounced around to a couple different venues. I was with one venue for almost 10 years, everything from operations to sales to coordinating. I just kind of fell in love with the industry at an early age and was just kind of good at it and I really liked being good at my job. So just kind of kept going. And then COVID happened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, where's the butt? Like all of that, yeah.

Speaker 2:

COVID ruined my life. So for people listening that are in the hospitality industry, they get it immediately when COVID happened. So I was an operations manager at that point. I had 12 ballrooms underneath me with several corporate spaces. I was working. I was managing three blocks of Covington, kentucky, so we had multiple buildings including a boutique hotel, a 500 person ballroom that was being built at the moment in the middle of COVID. We were building and opening this new space. So I was managing, yeah, like 70 people, and then COVID happened and we all kind of know what happened.

Speaker 2:

During COVID, people went home and they made more money sitting on their couch, which I don't blame them, I'm not, yeah, I'm not. I did too. I got laid off very briefly for I think it was like six to eight weeks when the company that I was working for basically realized they were going to run out of money because they were currently building like a multimillion dollar property in the middle of COVID. So I did. You know all of the rates with building that property skyrocketed at that point. So I lost all my staff very quickly and I was actually in Kentucky at that point.

Speaker 2:

Bashir, I think, did a good job, but it was very much. One week we could host weddings, the next week we couldn't. The next week it was like 25 person weddings, the next week, you know, 150, and then maybe back down to 25. So it was just extremely volatile.

Speaker 2:

The funny thing is I lasted all throughout COVID doing that and then it was like, basically, when normalcy came back and we started doing just regular weddings again, I ended up in the emergency room with what I thought was a heart attack and it was my first panic attack. It was my first day off work in four months. I was staying at home on a Sunday, first day off, and thought I was having a heart attack, did not know what was happening, went to the ER turns out was not a you know, had my EKG done, all was well and I ended up taking a vacation after that. And I went on vacation with my dad and my brother and they, by the end of the camping trip that we took, said the only thing you've done this entire time is bitch about your job. You have to quit.

Speaker 1:

So I Shout out to dad and brother.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so well. And the other thing is they were like we have a job we can hire you, move to Columbus, you know, we'll give you a free place to stay. So it worked out really well. So thanks to them, yes, for I mean it's. It's. It was truly a life changing moment, like my life all through my twenties was not a life.

Speaker 2:

I gave my entire life to working up this corporate ladder that once I was kind of near the top, I realized did not exist. I was making like $56,000, working 80 hour work weeks, managing 70 employees that were paid I kind of hope my old boss hears this podcast because they refuse to pay them wages that were acceptable. Mcdonald's and Wendy's were paying more than we were and we were requesting these employees to give up every weekend, every holiday, to work someone else's big day, to work a wedding or to work a Thanksgiving buffet, and I just morally and ethic ethically could not do it anymore. So, yeah, dakota, and my dad said you have to quit. So I went back to work from my vacation, gave them like a six or eight week notice, which was ridiculous. I should have never done that, but I cared too much so gave them this big long notice ended up taking like a couple weeks off in between, and then I moved to Columbus and started working for my dad and my brother and and what did they do?

Speaker 1:

Like what was the position that you had to pay?

Speaker 2:

I'm going way in here. I can do this whole podcast without you asking me anything. So my dad owns a logistics company. So we've been my dad's been in business for 46 years. So I now deal with truck drivers every day totally different world, but it's not that different. All I do is coordinate things. So I'm coordinating vehicles being picked up, being delivered, so I'm talking to the dealership it was bought from the end user, the leasing company that might be involved.

Speaker 2:

So when I came up here I lived with my dad briefly. They didn't think I was going to stick around, so I didn't get a place and then it's going on. I think like two and a half years of working for my dad now, which kind of leads me to starting my own thing. And then one of my brother, just really seeing what working for yourself can look like really inspired me to like never, ever, ever want to work for someone else again, even working for my dad. He tells me all the time I act like I'm the boss here. My dad is pretty much in heading towards retirement right now, so he's pretty much letting me and my brother run the show, which is really nice. I'm pretty much kind of all agree upon the work life balance. You know we don't schedule things on the weekends. I'm doing a podcast in the middle of my work day right now. My dad super supports that.

Speaker 2:

But I will say, last January, working nine to five for my dad, I got a little bored and I was like, well, I now know how easy it is to start a business and I miss weddings, I miss coordinating for people and having that connection.

Speaker 2:

So my New Year's resolution last year was I'm going to start my own business and by I think it was like the end of January, I had my website, my Instagram, all the basic things you needed up. And then I think my first wedding was March 7th. So very quick, just to get a client, I actually offered to do hers for free, just to get kind of my foot in the door in Columbus, because all my wedding connections were in Cincinnati. I really had to kind of start fresh here. So, yeah, did her wedding in March and then from her wedding I got two other referrals that then led to more and then, like two months later, I started a second business state Columbus. So so it very quickly went from not owning any businesses to owning to, and this year I'll be added as ownership to my dad's company, and it's just been a fun ride, yeah you go from zero to serial entrepreneur in the course of two years.

Speaker 1:

Look at that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, it sounds weird.

Speaker 1:

Maybe not as weird as it might come off initially right, At least not for the audience that would be listening to this conversation right now. I think the majority of the people that that listen are either, you know, RNs with side hustles that own their own LLC or consultants with multiple LLCs that they do business under. I know one gentleman I actually met with him this morning that has a holdings company that his LLCs all like pay rent to and set up structurally to make sure that that you're avoiding Uncle Sam as much as you possibly can.

Speaker 1:

And all of that is in a long your way, yeah yeah, no, I think it is.

Speaker 2:

I think this is probably something like you said you talk about all the time like once you kind of get your foot in the door a little bit or you you test the waters. I guess I should also bring up like last year, prior or prior to me starting any business on my own, I was hustling, I was dog sitting, house sitting, like I made 1000 bucks one week, just like doing nothing, sitting in these wealthy people's home that lived like two houses away from where I currently currently live. I think seeing that little bit of just like extra money and like taking it like I Uber, I did Uber, like I've done all the little easy side hustles and it's just like getting your feet wet and then you're like, oh, this is easy, like I think it's like the just a mindset shift.

Speaker 1:

Agreed, agreed. I grew up not healthy.

Speaker 2:

And now, seeing the ability to make money, you just now want more money and you see how easy it is and how much money is out there to be spent, and it could be yours.

Speaker 1:

Right, I work with a nonprofit called Tom Todd here, local to the Canton area, and they are now servicing Canton, akron and like starting to approach up to Cleveland, but basically the 77 corridor here in Northeast Ohio. They're really service but they specialize in teaching middle school kids entrepreneurial thinking, right, so this is like they're teaching them design thinking. They're teaching them how to identify problems in the community, ways to navigate political connections or permitting. They're teaching the basics of LLC formation and finances and stuff like that. Because, to your point, I now that I'm six years in to owning a business, and now multiple. You know, for the first three years it was just a single business, but at this point there's four that I have ownership in. So I think look at it as simple, right, you may look at it as simple at this point and it blows my mind how many people are like oh, I could never like started LLC. I was paperwork with the state and I'm like don't listen If somebody's tried to charge you $300 to file a LLC 99, jump off a cliff.

Speaker 1:

It's $99. Go to the website. Put the least amount of information you possibly can on the LLC incorporation paperwork. You can file for your EIN number for free with the IRS. Don't let anybody try to charge you for that. And then you're good, take that to a bank. Get a business bank account, maybe if you're really like going crazy with it and you have a little bit of capital. Find a decent bookkeeper. But that's it. You can learn how to get on your website.

Speaker 2:

You can do other stuff you figure out yourself. I think bookkeeping is so easy. That's one thing.

Speaker 2:

Maybe, for your brain. Yeah, I mean no, but I'm terrible at math, but like it's so simple you pay people and people pay you and you have a quick books account that you pay like 30 bucks a month for and you put it in there Like I always thought that was the part I wouldn't know how to do. And then when I started working for my dad my brother is our accountant, he handles all the books and it's genuinely so easy. The only thing I would say is, if you have some capital, the thing that I'm going through right now is get a good lawyer that knows what they are doing, that understands your business, for any sort of legal operating agreement. That is the thing we are doing with Date Columbus right now.

Speaker 2:

That's like you got to put some time and effort into that. That's kind of the complicated part. I think bookkeeping like setting up an LLC. My brother the other day just set up one for himself and he asked me how to do it. I'm like dude, it's like literally pick a name and give them $99. That's all you do.

Speaker 1:

It's so easy. You can say it takes like three weeks for you to get an email, but you typically get an email within like 48 hours.

Speaker 2:

You're a business owner, here you go. It's honestly like it's so cool that it's that easy. But I'm over here like it shouldn't be this easy. You should not just allow anyone to go out and do this. But then I'm like, well, what's the harm If they don't start the business?

Speaker 1:

you could go out and pick 100 business names and just you can have the paperwork if you really want, but you can't really until you start bringing in revenue and all that other kind of stuff, you're not really a business owner. You might have an LLC, but there's a difference between having an LLC, being a CEO being a founder.

Speaker 2:

Doing something with it. Yeah, and that, honestly, it's the nice thing with me, like with events with Mercedes, like it allows me the freedom and flexibility to pick and choose my clients. So, like date Columbus took over a lot last year and I had some health issues, so I was like I'm just not going to take on anymore clients, right, and nobody's telling me I have to Like.

Speaker 1:

I always say that one of the things that I love about like having my own agency at this point versus like being the ICU nurse or being in the military right especially the military I mean you sign the dotted line like they own you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you have no control there.

Speaker 1:

You have no control for anything. And then in the ICU's and stuff like that, I constantly felt, you know, taking days off. I was what was called a float nurse. So I was certified on not only the all the ICU's in the hospital the surgical, medical and cardiac but I was also ER trauma based certified. So every four hours they could move me to whichever unit was the most on fire and I was like the backup that would come in and like try to help smooth things out. I loved it. I've been gentle and junky. Love staying on my toes, love like intense life or death situations. It's a great job. But every time I would take a day off because I was one out of four people that were certified to do that job I'd have to put my phone on do not disturb and shut it off to not have an anxiety attack because I constantly be getting texts like hey, there's three patients crashing on this unit, like we really need backup, and you'd be like I'm going you know, learn, kind of take that off.

Speaker 1:

And now, as an agency owner, I was just talking to a client last week. Didn't get the greatest vibe, so I talked to my team and we're like we're going to give them what's called the Pita tax the pain in the ass tax, Right.

Speaker 1:

And so your bill? Yep, we up the bill. And if they take it, okay, cool, Then they're willing to pay 30% more margin on it. All well and good, it's worth the time. But you know, if they're, I'm not willing to engage with somebody that I know is going to be, you know, over the top. If they're not, if we're not being compensated.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2:

That makes you the same thing with my dad's business. I've done it with two brides now where it was just like. I am a very like. I don't do. What is the word I want to use? Like, if you're going to be an uptight over the top bride, I don't want to deal with you. And if I don't think you should be getting married, I don't want to deal with you. Like, if I love you too as a couple, I will say it. I will say it all day long. I don't need your money. If I don't think, if I don't like you too, I'm not going to work with you. And that's a cool thing. I think you know I'm talking from a very privileged like place here because, like, I have a job that pays my bills. A lot of wedding planners out there would never say that publicly on on a podcast. But yeah, that's the nice thing about where I'm at. I can take work on that I want and I can say no to whoever I don't want.

Speaker 1:

And if you've had such a depth of experience, like I was in the consulting space, which sounds very similar to the way that you approach you know stuff. In the event space you're in, people aren't paying you because you are qualified right To do something. They're paying you because you have X number of years. You've seen X or Y types of situations. You know you've dealt with weddings from 1500 to 150K Like no, there's all of these other functions that go in, and once you've dedicated 15 years of your life to really understanding an industry, you can take that step back.

Speaker 1:

You know, and be able to say, um, you know, I kind of know at that point intuitively whether or not this person is going to be a good fit for me or not and be willing to say yes or no.

Speaker 1:

It is a privileged place to be able to come from it and say I don't need the revenue necessarily, right, because that's not everybody's situation, right. But if you're listening to this right now and you're in maybe years one, you're two, you're three and you're thinking, holy shit, like I'm never going to be able to get to this place that they're talking about right now, I can confidently say that you will be able to get there. If you like, continue to work down that line. Um, but it's not. You know, I, at least 50 times a day, I'm getting a message on LinkedIn or something popping up in my Instagram that's like make six figures in the next 90 days, buy my bullshit course for $199.99 or whatever. And because of that perceptions out there, people think, oh, I can do this in a year, I could do this in two years, no like.

Speaker 1:

I mean you have to put in work, start up in the first five. So mentally you have to at least budget five years of your life. Think of it like you're going out and getting another bachelor's or you're getting some type of degree. I'm going to dedicate my life to this for the next five years. If, at the end of those five years, I'm less happy than I was when I started, then maybe I need to reevaluate. But do not like base your level of success in year one, year two. Even if you're just making incremental steps forward in those early stages, that's positive. And then eventually you can get to a place where you can, you know, dictate whether the types of clients you want are, you know yeah, absolutely yeah, and I think that's the goal right.

Speaker 2:

Like you want to be able to say yes or no. If it's your business who you work with, I think being in a position where you have to take every client is a position you want to get out of as soon as possible. But I mean yeah. I mean it was interesting because when I first started this events with Mercedes last year, I lobald my pricing the first couple of months because I was like I have all this experience but I've never done this on my own. So there was this mental place that I was in where I was thinking Okay, what are the basic level coordinators charging right now? I need to be there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a little impossible.

Speaker 2:

I did that the first couple and and then I just like realized, like man, this $895 for 12 hours of my time is not worth my time. I would rather hang out with friends on that Saturday or whatever. And then I very quickly was like, okay, you have all this experience, it doesn't matter that you just went out on your own. You still have 15 years of experience behind you working for all these different places. So I Like quadrupled I don't even know what the numbers is and a bride booked me at that number and didn't flinch at the price and I was like she's definitely gonna. I did not think they were gonna book me at all and sure enough they did, and it was just like the immediate Boost of confidence. I was like, oh, I can do this.

Speaker 2:

Like there's a company here in Columbus that I think they've been around for like five years. I was reading their bios and they're like the top-notch company in Columbus, like they do weddings in Italy and France, like they go all over the place. And I was reading their bios and I have more experience than all of their coordinators combined and they're charging I mean five to ten thousand dollars for like your minimum package, which is like it's the highest end in Columbus that I've seen and like I'm still more qualified. So it was like rethinking what I'm capable of. And then also, I think, just a lot of people they doubt or get insecure about what other people are willing to pay them and I'm just like put your number out there If they say no. They say no, that's fine, but don't lobel yourself so much. Like I don't ever buy anything that's the cheapest, so if I find some coordinator.

Speaker 2:

I'm not gonna think they're worth it. So I think it's really, like you know, getting the confidence when you first start out to just do it and if people say no, they say no. But as soon as you book your first client you are then starting kind of your base from that first client. If you start your base way down low, it's gonna take you three of your five years to get back up right where you wanted to start.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's especially prevalent if you have previous experience to the space that you're stepping into. Right if you're. If you have, you know, as the head of community with Indy collective, which is basically we're like a 10-week Independent accelerator. So whether you're an independent consultant, solo Purdue or business owner freelancer, you know across all the spectrum we go from zero To the end of 10 weeks and we see people that come in that have 20 years of experience in supply chain logistics Consulting from corporate America and we see people that come in. They're like I have worked as a graphic designer for two years. I hate it, I'm gonna start my own Freelance consultancy right. So like very wide range of people, and I've got the chance to sit in office hours and consulting sessions with hundreds of these students as they come through as the head of community.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that I've noticed consistently is is Whether you're fresh entering the space or you have that 15 years of experience, every single person outside of maybe three or four outliers that are just like wildly confident people for no reason have had that imposter syndrome pop into their head of like, ooh, even if I do have the experience, I'm not going to charge what I'm worth right off the bat and the people that come in that truly have very limited experience Are like there's no way I'm ever going to be able to charge X, and so both sides of the spectrum you have to be able to kind of get out of that headspace into your point. You have to allow the market to tell you know and that's what I always try to reinforce with people as they're coming through that cohort, they're going through the accelerator. Don't let yourself tell you know, let the market tell you know, put your number out there and if people tell you to shove off, then lower it. If you put out a low ball number and somebody Doesn't even question it, they close your sale on the first call. That's a terrible sign. Like you should go through at least a little bit of back and forth and they will politely try to negotiate you down and then stick firm at your price and they'll pay it the majority of the time.

Speaker 1:

But you have to get used to kind of that business back and forth. Did you find that you know starting your own thing and kind of moving into the serial entrepreneur space that I know you kind of mentioned? Like working with your dad and brother Kind of showed you how easy it could be, or kind of gave you a little bit more that confidence. Are there qualities that either of them have that you kind of were like oh, like I can see why this is necessary in business, or I need to emulate that more, or you know Things that you kind of picked up on watching them do their thing, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So they are opposite of each other, which works really well. So my dad is a huge risk taker with certain aspects of Basically like the things we me and my brother both are like no, we shouldn't do that, we shouldn't touch that. For example, like for me, people that don't understand like we ship vehicles. So there are sometimes like very large vehicles that really should not be hard to get to, vehicles that really should not be hauled because they might be over height or overweight or we don't have the Easily accessible like capability to get the right trailer for it or something. So my brother will turn these moves down All left and right. He's like I don't want to touch it.

Speaker 2:

These are typically very expensive Vehicles or units, a lot of like very commercial heavy-duty Duty stuff, and my brother will always say no, no, no, he doesn't want to touch it. The liability with how expensive the vehicle is, we'd rather have someone else do it. And my dad's always the one that's like nope, let's do this, this is where we're gonna make a lot of money, we're gonna do it correctly. This is how you grow. You know, we'll figure it out. He's always just like we'll figure it out, I'll get it done. And he always does.

Speaker 1:

Hell yeah.

Speaker 2:

Me and my dad go back and forth quite a bit but he I mean, he does get it done like we took an electric. So there's a bunch of new electric buses that are going into schools right now and we just moved almost a hundred of them and these are very heavy, very expensive units that, like my brother wanted to say no to, and we made a lot of money Transporting those buses and it paid a salary last year probably and it was like the risk that my dad was willing to take. So I think it's really good, like the thing I'm learning, especially now that I have business partners, which is a whole fun, whole different world from owning your own company where you're the only person responsible for everything. But it's interesting watching them balance each other out. I think it's really good. It's, you know it's good in business. I think it's good in like relationships, like to have kind of your opposites and you find a way to Compromise and meet in the middle and make it work. So that's been like a good learning lesson, I think, watching them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. I mean having that back and forth pendulum dynamic. Right, I have. Are you familiar with traction or the entrepreneurial operating system?

Speaker 2:

I believe I've traction's a book, correct?

Speaker 1:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

I believe I've started it. I don't know if I've actually finished it, though, but it is in my Kindle right now.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha.

Speaker 2:

It's not familiar, so go ahead, it's very.

Speaker 1:

I mean, basically it's just like an operation. It's manual, right for companies that think more entrepreneurial or are still founder led like the original owner is still the founder, so that there's a little able to be a little bit more of that entrepreneurial spirit in it, whereas companies that are, you know, five, ten years removed from the original founder maybe in the second or third generation of the family, typically are more, you know, let's stay stable and keep everybody's bills paid, type thing, like you, kind of lose that a little bit. So Traction divides roles in the company into a couple of different buckets, right? So you have the visionary, you have the integrator, you have the guardian and I forget what the other one is. But essentially the visionary and the integrator are exactly what you're describing, you, your dad and your brother, right? So the visionary is the one that pushes everybody out of their comfort zone on a pretty consistent basis, and it's the integrators responsibility to try to mitigate the visionary. They're not gonna be successful and the goal is to never be 100% successful in shutting the visionary down. Yeah, all is to make the visionary aware of risk that could be potentially associated with the decision, and then it's up to the visionaries intuition To make the call. Yeah, it sounds like you guys are at least back and forth. Just, you know from the five, ten minutes that you've been talking about it. They have a pretty good idea of that balance back and forth and to your point. You're gonna get into it. That's healthy. You're gonna debate, you're going to try to work through problems.

Speaker 1:

If you walk into a room, if you're listening to this right now and you own a business and you're like, oh well, this is, you know, great, I walk into the room and like nobody ever questions what I do and like we just kind of get things done and nobody's ever bringing things up. I'm here to break your bubble. That's a terrible situation to be in. At that point. It means that either your staff has lost so much respect for you that they don't even want to try to correct you anymore. You're so dominating or micromanaging in the process that they're not even willing to try to point out ways to improve, or you have stagnated and you just have a group of individuals that don't see a future for themselves at the business and they're just trying to get by.

Speaker 1:

All of those situations are bad. If you walk into a room and you bring up an idea and nobody is willing to comment on it or try to make it better, that's a terrible place to be. So I'm a little, you know, bubble popper for anybody that thinks that maybe they're running something great Because nobody's actually contributing. But it you're absolutely right, it is a totally different ballgame once you get into working with partners and all that other kind of stuff. So maybe this is a great way for us to transition into how date Columbus kind of came into existence and what exactly it is right. Obviously, people can get the context clues from the fact that it says date and Columbus in it, but from what I understand, it's so much more than just singles meeting singles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the way that it came about was very simple and Probably shouldn't have happened the way that it did. It was just two girls out out for drinks and boy talk. And then a third one joined after a bad date and we were all just trash talking dating apps and I Don't know like three, four IPAs in. We were just like let's just start our own dating and real-life events. And we sat down and I still have the receipt today. It had all the different names written out that we could be called it was probably 1030 and we called it a night, picked a name, I think I went home and I don't know if I did it that night or the next day created a Gmail, created an Instagram Setup event, bright, and then the following week we walked around Grandview and found our first venue and we didn't know.

Speaker 2:

I mean, we knew the concept. We were like we are just going to bring people together. We don't really know where, we don't know what we're going to do when we get there, but I want you know 100, 200, whatever number we could come up with in the same room and everyone is in that same room because they're single and they're looking to meet other single people. So, backing up a little bit, I briefly knew Rachel, one of the business partners, through it's actually kind of through her business. So she runs the Beauty Boost, which hosts events for women. So it's very similar, but it's basically like empowerment events. So she will do a very similar thing where she'll rent. Well, she'll go into some sort of venue, whether it's a yoga studio, a wedding hall. She might have vendors there that are all kind of like based around like women empowerment, so women in Columbus. And she's in 26 cities now.

Speaker 2:

So I met her through the Beauty Boost slash. I coordinated one of her best friends' weddings. So her best friend was my first wedding last March and at the wedding Rachel had just went through a breakup. Rachel realized I was single. Most of her friends are married. At this point she was like you know, we're both single, let's hang out, let's get drinks. So the first night I met her is when we founded Date Columbus. So it did, it happened very quickly. And then Ruella was at the same bar restaurant that we were at. She was on a first date.

Speaker 1:

Rachel and Ruella knew each other also through Rachel's company I had never met her before she worked at the same restaurant so she's the one with the bad, and so she was literally like I'm done with this, and then walked over and sat down with you guys.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Rachel like waved at her. She saw our came over and was like, oh my God, I just had like the worst date, nice to meet. You Sat down and we were just like, hey, we're planning to put together like in person dating events. Do you want in? And then they told me that on the side she's a dating coach. So it was just like we had two event planners, a dating coach, all sitting around the table having some cocktails, angry at you know, dating apps or whatever. And yeah, we just said we were going to do it. And it's how many months in are we started? I think our first event was last April, so it started basically last March was when we decided upon the idea. And then, yeah, we had I don't know a couple meetings. I made a logo, posted it and then basically went viral on Instagram and now all of our events are selling out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that that's something super important for people to hear. So if you get the idea right, some of the best business ideas, some of the coolest companies that I've ever worked with or worked for, have similar stories back of the napkin math in a bar, pissed at some problem that you can't figure out how to solve by yourself. That's actually the majority.

Speaker 1:

That's probably one of the best formulas to come up with business right, like it finds something that you have the skills already kind of in motion for that. There's a large group of people that are upset at the same thing and have not made a move to try to solve the problem yet. And it doesn't have to be something super flashy, like people always. You know, I kind of am going to be kicking myself here, but a lot of people look at marketing agencies or stuff like that and they're like, oh, I could be a social media manager, I could do this, I could do something in tech, I could do consulting, I can, you know, start this more in depth? Or like a flashier type business where I need to have all this kind of stuff going on. I know people that sell like specific 3d print parts for a manufacturer that can't keep up with volume and make boatloads and they just have four 3d printers in their garage and that's it. And it's not a sexy business. It's a small little, very specific part. But they found a niche, they found a gap in the supply chain. They knew they had the capability to do it and they just started doing it.

Speaker 1:

Same thing with y'all. You get that idea, you put it down on the back of the napkin. You go home, gmail accounts are free. You can design a basic logo inside of Canva or Adobe, you know, depending on what you're capable of. And then when you start to grow and you actually start to bring stuff in, then you can start asking questions about okay, I need an accountant, I need a lawyer, I need some of this other stuff. I have partners involved. Let's look at an actual operating agreement and then it is kind of a pain. You have to work through it and I will never be a fan of like we've had to redo two different operating agreements. I had a co-founder exit the company two years ago that like tried to sue me and all this other kind of stuff. So like, there are risks that come with business. It is what it is and that part's not fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that part's not fun but it's necessary and you can get it knocked out and it's, in the grand scheme of thing, it's a very, very small portion of the experience, so I love that. I want to double click on. You've said it three different times now that one of the reasons why you're starting this is because you're frustrated with dating apps. Out of that conversation, you know the angry, you know raging against the world with cocktails and coming up with a date Columbus idea. What about dating apps really triggered you guys and like, why do you feel that meeting in person or creating that space for people to come together is the alternative to that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think we all three probably have different answers here, so you have their info if you want to hear theirs. I think for me I don't know the word that you would want to use to like describe the way I think about this, but I'm very let's like take it back 1000 years, like how did human beings behave? What did community look like? And then you look at present day. We sit on a laptop eight hours a day and then look at your screen time on your phone. It's maybe another six hours that you're spent swiping on your phone. So for me it's two parts.

Speaker 2:

I think COVID and working from home has ruined a lot of people's social skills, social life. If we're being general and it's like for me, especially now, like I'm busy, the last thing I want to do is sit on my phone more than I need to be swiping at a face, and you know. The other part is like, literally like pre-covid there were definitely. You know you're still in an office, you're looking at a phone, but for the most part people were around other people. And now I know a lot of my friends, like they said at home, like the only time they go out is to meet up with friends and then you take into account so many people that are transient now, where they moved to Columbus in the middle of covid. They have zero friends here. They don't know how to meet people. So, for me, date Columbus, which, like I want it to be so much more like I want people who are in relationships eventually, like I want to have these different community spaces, but it's like I want people to have relationships that are real, that are with people that live in the communities, with them. Because if you don't know anyone in Columbus and you live here, like you're not going to care about Columbus, you're not going to care about the city. You live in the people that are surrounding you.

Speaker 2:

Like, once you start to build relationships with people that may live down the street or two blocks over or whatever, like you might need someone to walk your dog one day. There are. So like once I started doing this and talking to people that are attending my events, it just like motivates me more. Like there are so many people who genuinely did not have friends. Like maybe they did have friends and then all their friends are now married with two and three kids. We all have those friends where you know. You talk to them three times a week. Then they got married. They had all these kids. You haven't heard from them. They don't even text you back anymore. Sure, you still love them, but like if you needed someone, they're probably not going to be there, they're busy. They have this busy life that doesn't really exist with you in it anymore.

Speaker 2:

So it was like once, especially like my kickball team. So date Columbus did a kickball league. We actually ended up with three teams and it was just like I like cried some days, like the community that was being built with all these humans that had never met each other. They, you know, initially were single. They were coming in looking for love and then it was just like they ended up with 40 best friends.

Speaker 2:

Like I have a group chat now that I can't even keep up with, from people I've met with date Columbus and like so many people that are literally like thank you so much. Like you know, I didn't meet my partner or some have, but like for those people that are just like I've made like three girlfriends and we hang out now every weekend and so for me it's like community, like now that I'm like deeper into it, I'm like I don't even care if you find the love of your life. I'd rather have 15 friends, then one boyfriend, and it's just like creating this much bigger need that human beings have, that we've always had, for community. Like humans have a like I don't know if scientific desire is the right way to say it, but, like you, look at depression, anxiety, suicide rates in teenagers right now in early 20s, kids that went through college and covid like. The rates are skyrocketing and it's because we live on our phone we don't have in person connection in a way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So for me it's like I don't know what the exact term is, but, like you know we are, there are portions of our nervous system that are oriented towards community. I mean it's ingrained super, super deeply into us. I I realize that like very early on in life because I have had the the privilege of living half of my life here in the US and then my mom's an immigrant from Slovakia, so I mean I've got to spend, like you know, almost every summer growing up, and then I also went to school there for a semester and like fourth grade, fifth grade, and so you know, cumulatively years of my life have been spent in Slovakia and Italy and all over Eastern Europe, and the way of life is totally opposite of the way Americans live their life. It is like back, like totally flipped on its head like 180 and a good way, like the community.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so like, so, like picture. You know, over here you have like a birthday right and if you have the privilege of having like a decent extended family, you know maybe you have aunts and uncles that come over or you have some type of celebration. You may get a cake, you know some presence, you sing happy birthday and then everybody disperses once the food's done. You know like it sometimes can feel very transactional and that's if you have a good sized family right, and the American family said, slowly been shrinking, people aren't having as many kids, people aren't. You know, you're not invested in that as much. In the generation before us was kind of the same way. They stopped at one or two, whereas the generation before that was, like my dad's, one of seven kids.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's normal.

Speaker 1:

Right, exactly. And so in Slovakia it's still very much so that you know, the majority of my family over there has at least three, if not more, and you have a birthday. You go around the village and, like, get shots from the neighbors and they're blessing you and toasting with you, and you walk to the same church at the end of the village. You go to the grocery stores within walking distance. You can take a bus into the city and then when you go into the city, there's like events that will literally shut down entire blocks for people to gather and and have a good time together. And it's very much so like it's very much so still. Yes, you can go to your neighbor to get the cup of sugar, but the neighbors also peeking through the blinds to figure out what's going on in the neighborhood, you know. So there is kind of that trade where, like, everybody knows everybody, everybody knows everything that's going on.

Speaker 1:

There's no, I'm not sure, but it's, yeah, it's a blast, right, because you don't. It doesn't feel like you have to work to find friends, right, I could walk down to the park. I remember riding my bike down there and I don't know who I was going to meet that day, but I was going to meet somebody. You're going to play soccer together because they you know, they don't play basketball in Europe, it's mostly football. But well, soccer and they call it.

Speaker 1:

But you know, that way of life, I think, translates over here, which is why I was also so attracted to that model. Because, you know, and again, when I first on it on Instagram because I'm a single Pringle and I was interested in that portion of it but then, as I started diving into it more, I was like, oh, this is way more than just like romance, right, giving people the ability to meet. Okay, yes, you have this pretense that everybody single there, but one of the reasons that I think dating apps are so hokey is that you're meeting up with a pretense, right? So when you go to a massive event like that and yes, there's kind of this assumption that everybody there is like eligible, but you still meet organically and it's not I'm showing up here because we're on a date, because we're doing this like this is how things need to go, or whatever that looks like the relationships are able to build organically.

Speaker 1:

You may find somebody that you really click with and over the course of a couple of months you realize like, wow, we really do click really together. And then somebody grows up. You know the guts to, you know try to relationship forward. But it happens a lot more naturally versus swiping, having a little bit of conversation showing up, and then you're like oh, like, we're on a date right now, versus being in that kickball group and just watching people interact with other people, which is so important versus just, you know, knowing that person in an isolated dinner. But okay, yeah, jump in, I'm rambling, now go for it.

Speaker 2:

No, it's the interesting thing and it's kind of I'm just an asshole so I like watching. I don't know how to say this, so I almost feel like, are you okay?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're good, you just timed that perfectly with a simple one.

Speaker 2:

So basically, I have this like weird goal that my partners I mean I like openly. I'm very blunt and honest with everyone. But like I want, through this, through date Columbus, I want to force people I gotta wait till you're done drinking I want to force people to grow a pair, whatever, however you want to phrase that, that's not the best way for me to phrase it, but like the thing is that when I first started date Columbus, so we had to go out and physically like recruit right, like our IG didn't have over 10,000 followers at that point like I was physically so what I did? I went to bars and any guy that I thought was attractive, or maybe even not attractive, but he was looked like a single guy. I walked up and I said, hey, are you single? That's how I would start it, which is not the best way to start it. I've learned because they have no idea what I'm going to ask next.

Speaker 2:

But it was so uncomfortable, right, for the first, like weekend doing it so uncomfortable. I was at a point where you know I didn't walk up to strangers and say, hi, how are you in the grocery store? Like I wasn't talking to people? Right, like I, I was living like most people live, like you kind of do your own thing, you go to the store, you're not going to know anyone, you don't need to talk to strangers Living in this very me world, right? And then I started walking up and I was recruiting.

Speaker 2:

I had to get single people to come to my events. Do you know how many people I just walk up to? Now, it's practice and that's the thing that I want to like. Tell everyone that comes to all my events. You have to practice. Nobody is good at this. I went on a date last night. At the end of the day I wanted to be like very bluntly, like hey, are we doing this again or not? Instead, you go home and you text it, because you're a baby and you don't have the skill set to say what you want to say in person. And so you know, we've been doing this since last March and we've had, you know, maybe, two events. Well, one event a month last year and now we're doing two events a month and I'm like watching people at my events and they're still so awkward. They don't know what to do, they don't know what to say, and I think it's the best thing as long as they keep coming. You have to practice.

Speaker 2:

You have to practice. Everybody knows what to say. You know how to walk into a group of four people that are already having a conversation and it's like I think I'm hoping it builds confidence in people and they learn how to navigate it. It's like if you're not good at doing this and you come to four events and you don't meet anyone, in my mind it's not that my events aren't working, it's that you're not working.

Speaker 2:

Whatever process you're using isn't working, so you need to think about it and fix it, try something new, and that's why I feel like I'm an asshole, because I just want to fix people Like I want to teach everyone how to be more sociable and how to create connections, even if it's not romantic. I think it's just amazing if you can walk up to anyone, start a conversation and then know how to respectfully get out of it when you want to and not leave the other person feeling like shit, but just to be human. Be human with another human and have a nice conversation, get to know them, whatever it is you want to talk about, and it's like so many people just don't know how to do that anymore.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that you're creating a space for people to build that skill set in a way that feels and not everybody listening to this is probably going to agree with this but it is relatively low stakes. It is super low stakes, that guy doesn't like you.

Speaker 2:

You have 99 other ones to go pick from.

Speaker 1:

Exactly Low stakes and walk up to those groups. I would encourage people if you're listening to this and you are going to some of these events, like, do exactly what she's saying. You step up and walked up to a group. Maybe you've never approached a group of four people that are all having a conversation before. Practice that, go up and do that. Have the one-on-one conversations. I don't care if you're in a sales job. It definitely would apply if you're in a sales job, if you are a developer, if you work in retail, if you work in serving or bartending, if you work in logistics. When communication, being able to have conversation that doesn't feel transactional to people and that feels like you genuinely want to be present in that conversation for the time that you're there and then, to your point, being able to exit that gracefully without sounding like an asshole, is a skill set that is so much more widely applicable outside of just the dating world and stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

So the fact that that's a place that they can practice that skill set, I guarantee that the people that have come to the events and had the chance to practice that are seeing benefits in many other areas of their life because of that type of space.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I would hope so. I mean, I think kind of back to your initial question. Like dating apps, it's the most transactional, Like I don't know. I mean obviously it works, it definitely works. I mean I don't know how many weddings I've done where they met online. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but I do believe it doesn't work for everyone. There are certain human beings that don't present well on an app or they just literally don't want to spend hours on their phone talking. They'd rather just meet you in person and then the person on the other side isn't comfortable meeting someone that they haven't had four days of conversation with on an app first. So it's like it just doesn't work for everyone. So I think they come as the goal. Here we're providing another outlet that you can meet singles. If you're not into the apps, which I feel like people are consistently leaving more and more, I feel like especially those of us that are more and more.

Speaker 1:

That 25 to 35 range are really people that are pushing away from it, because a lot of us were introduced to those apps at the time where we were starting to learn how to date or court. I'm even back and forth on dating versus courtship and stuff like that, but that's a whole other gain of worms. But I think that consistently, the people that I talk to that aren't as excited about apps at this point are generally between that 25 to 35 year old range and I think it's years of feeling transactional and it definitely doesn't work for everybody. I do also know some people that have met on apps and they're fantastic couples. I love them to death.

Speaker 2:

I'm not saying I don't ever want to say the apps don't work, because they do every day, but it's good to have multiple options inside of your market.

Speaker 1:

As a person, it's good to have multiple ways of doing stuff, so I think that that's awesome, because previous to you guys starting this, that didn't exist. Now there's another option.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's so interesting.

Speaker 1:

Maybe it's just a resurgence. They used to do speed dating events all the time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Speaker 1:

All the time in, like the 70s, 80s, 90s.

Speaker 2:

No, they still do. They did exist. They have existed, like when I researched dating events in Columbus, like when we were getting ready to start this, I wanted to see if I had competition, and there are companies out there that do it. I just don't think those companies are being ran by 30 year old women. I think they're being ran from an entirely different perspective that works for a different demographic than what we're trying to hit. So they do exist. They're just nowhere near as big. I hadn't heard of them.

Speaker 1:

I don't think they're using social media to yeah, as you say, they may be out there, but I haven't stumbled upon any of those either. I have one lady that came through the indie collective program named Leanne, and she ran one of the largest like speed dating and singles event companies out in San Diego. She's a phenomenal woman, like really, really entrepreneurial. She now does email marketing consulting specifically for people, because that's how she got the word out. When she started the business originally in the late 90s, was through newsletter marketing and email marketing, but she talks a lot about how important it wasn't, how impactful a lot of her work in that space was.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, they may be out there, but they're definitely not as obviously like you all popped up in my IG feed pretty much instantaneously as soon as I started clicking on random date event stuff. My algorithm was like here you go, this is the thing. So you're doing your job. As far as discoverability and all that other kind of stuff, it has already been an hour, which blows my mind. I want to make sure that I'm respectful of your time. So A thanks for coming and hanging out. I know this has been a long time coming. We had to reschedule a couple of times, partially because you had some health stuff going on, so appreciate you like riding with all of the you know phone tag when I'm just going to come to my event.

Speaker 2:

So we need more single men.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I should be up in Cleveland If you're listening to. Well, actually, I'm not going to be able to publish this before Friday, so never mind, you'll miss the one that I am at Date.

Speaker 2:

Cleveland will have an event in April as well, so okay, rock on.

Speaker 1:

So if you're listening, to March and April.

Speaker 2:

Actually this is February. Yeah, we'll have more date Cleveland date Columbus, potentially date Chattanooga and Detroit coming soon.

Speaker 1:

And those are all IG handles right.

Speaker 2:

They will be. Yeah, two of them are not made yet, but yes.

Speaker 1:

Well, date Columbus, at least for sure.

Speaker 2:

Date Columbus date Cleveland you can follow now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Okay, cool, so you heard it here. If you have the chance to go to date Cleveland or date Columbus if you were an Ohio resident inside of either of those areas, I mean you can learn some more details about when Mercedes and her co-founders have going on. I do have the contact information for the other members of the date conglomerate team, so I would keep an eye out. If this episode really hit home with you or you're interested to hear about other people's perspectives or journeys inside of this space, stay tuned and I'm sure that I'll have the co-founders on the show very soon. So again, mercedes, thanks for coming and hanging out. Appreciate your time.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Thank you Bye.