Luke: Talk to me about the transition from working for someone else to working for yourself, and what the biggest benefit personally for you has been.
Mandy: First of all there’s just great satisfaction in working for yourself that you just don’t get in any other way but also there’s no ceiling and there’s no floor. So your success is only limited by yourself. It’s all you — and I’ve always been a big fan of self-reliance and resourcefulness and having my own business has been a good way to dig into that, and I think that’s how I’ve been able to grow really quickly. The biggest challenge is really just how to scale that. And thankfully I’ve had really great people at other points in my career who have helped me figure out how to pull that together.
L: How did you and Justin Kropp’s partnership come to be and what about it makes you guys special as a firm?
M: Justin and I met in Design 101 together in 1999 and we also worked together at another firm early on in our careers. But then our careers took different paths where he went to MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) for his masters, he lived in Europe, he did a lot of digital work and development work, whereas my work has stayed more strictly in the brand and design side. So it’s great because now that we’re kind of coming back together he has a lot of capabilities that we can combine to offer a fuller service than a lot of strictly design agencies can, so that’s been really great.
L: What kind of atmosphere fosters your best ideas and your best critical thinking?
M: For me, I have to have a combination of a dedicated place to work — where I’m not there doing a bunch of other things, a place where you can just go there and dig into what you need to do — and a place that also has other outlets where, if I’m stuck on something and I think I can get an idea by talking to someone about it, there’s a lot of other people around. Sometimes I’ll just show something I’m working on to someone here whose opinion I trust and say, “When you look at this, tell me what you see.” So that’s really helpful to have people around but also have the option to have a dedicated space where you’re not just constantly distracted.
L: In what ways do you feel like SoW provides that kind of an atmosphere for you?
M: There are totally different atmospheres between the 6th floor and the 7th floor here. Before we had a private office on the 6th floor, Justin and I worked together on the 7th floor because it’s more set up as a community space and we could actually sit next to each other and work together better up there even without having our own dedicated space. And the vibe up there is very austere and chilled out and quiet and there’s less sensory stimulation going on, whereas the 6th floor is busier and has a bit more energy to it. So it’s kind of nice because, even now that I have my office, if it feels too busy down here I can just go upstairs and get that more peaceful vibe. And there are even other assets at SoW that I don’t even feel like I’ve gotten to tap into yet — like the different social events that they hold, or the game room, or the rooftop space — things that are great assets to have that I haven’t even fully enjoyed yet because I’ve been so busy. And further, there’s just such a great sense of camaraderie here between people from all different walks of life and types of business, even though we don’t work for the same company.
L: Can you give me any specific examples of that camaraderie from your experience?
M: [Laughing] The people here helped me get back into running. I’m a former triathlete and have run more seriously at different points in my life but less so until recently. We all got into this Rove app together where we had some fierce steps competitions where I’d run 6 miles over lunch only to see that someone else ran 8 and it was just fun to have this competitive motivator to get me running again. If I was by myself, I don’t think that I would have found that on my own, so that’s one component of being able to co-work that has been really great.
L: What drove you to co-work at SoW when you did?
M: I’m not a very productive at home worker. I’m distracted by a million other things — like laundry or other things that you’re confronted with when you’re in your own home — that I feel like I should be doing and I’m also a people person. I just feel like it’s very isolating to work from home. Before SoW even started, I had co-worked with the people at Tubatomic in another space and really enjoyed that coworking experience. At SoW first I was a floater and just sat out on the open co-working floor but now I work with Justin full time in our private office here.
L: What was it that drew you to SoW in particular?
M: I had some experience with SoW when I was working with another design firm called Widgets and Stone. While we were waiting for our new space to be built out we were temporary members at SoW. I just enjoyed being around the people that were here at that time, and now I’ve enjoyed meeting the people that I’ve met since I’ve been here that I didn’t know before. It’s just been a really great way for me to meet new people who, for the most part, do things completely in different fields than I do.
L: In what ways do you feel like you’ve gotten to experience that diversity yourself?
M: We have a lot of people that work in the creative industry in this building but we also have people like Rachel McCrickard at Motivo who’s a child psychologist, and I was talking to her one day and telling her how I’ve been having a hard time getting my toddler motivated to get dressed — she wants to stay in her pajamas all day — and she gave me all these great tips that I would have probably never would have gotten since I wouldn’t have a chance to encounter someone in her field if it weren’t for SoW. Another example is the ladies at the Women’s Fund — I really enjoy them and feel like I know more about what’s going on politically and locally than I would otherwise. It’s just been a good way to stay connected to what’s going on here in a lot of different fields and meet people that I wouldn’t otherwise have met because they’re just in different fields than I am.
Society of Work is a membership based shared office space that’s creating a culture for you to get things done. Want to join us? Set up a tour.
