Creating Community: an Interview with Julia
[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us about yourself.
[JULIA:] I went to The New School in Syracuse and I graduated with an advertising degree with an emphasis in new business design and development. I started a company while I was in college called WAYV. WAYV is an experiential agency in which we work with brands big and small to create activations out of shipping containers and trailers and move them around to different campuses across the country. I also started Home from College right in the beginning of the pandemic. I was actually building a completely different business that was going to have a physical space – think of Soho House meets a clubhouse space on campus – an inclusive environment. It would be a paid subscription by universities to give access to brands and products. Students should have access in second and third market schools so we're not in big cities. We were planning on launching that in January 2021, then coronavirus had different plans for us, so we pivoted the whole business and created Home from College, which is an online platform and community for college students. Think LinkedIn meets Masterclass specifically for the college market.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What inspired you to create both of those businesses?
[JULIA:] I started WAYV because I went to a school in Syracuse and there's not a ton going on nearby. It's in a third tier campus where there's a pizza place that's pretty much it. I realized there was so much more to the college experience that I was isolated from because I was in the middle of nowhere and I didn't go to a big city school. I couldn't learn about alternative career paths that worked for my major, it's just hard to get outside the classroom experiences in ways that felt more real-world. I'm a big brand person, I developed brand relationships and I realized all brands want to do is reach college kids, but there was no way for brands to easily access this target audience. I spent a year going to hundreds of colleges across the country, building relationships with students and understanding their pain points and their journeys. What was the difference between a school in Arizona versus Duke versus Ithaca? I was understanding what the identity of students was so we could provide value on their campuses. The thesis has always been that there isn't a brand of the college market to help support students throughout that journey. What I built was specifically for when students are physically on campus and don't go to a school that has a lot around it and it's hard to get exciting cool things to happen. It’s a similar vibe with Home From College but thinking more pre-professional. You go on LinkedIn and you think, “There's nothing for me on this platform. How do I even communicate with people that are more senior than me?” There's nothing consumer-facing or approachable about it as a college student. It's like college students trying to be professional adults, when really, you're not that and you shouldn't be that. We wanted Home From College to be a platform to help support students in defining who they are, what they're passionate about, experiences they may not have gotten on their own, and help guiding through that period of time when there isn't a guide and you're isolated. They are both within the theme of supporting the college demographic because the industry clearly needs to be disrupted and it hasn't been and hopefully coronavirus will help that.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How did you manage to start a business in college while balancing schoolwork?
[JULIA:] I definitely did not balance it. Somebody said to me a while ago, “There's no such thing as work-life balance.” It's the same thing in college, it's about work-life integration. I am somebody who has always prioritized my professional life over my personal, social life. I never loved the college thing, I wasn't a big party girl. Senior year I didn't care about my grades and I was like, “I have so many opportunities in front of me and support and mentorship from professors and grants and pitch competitions, why am I not using my last year to suck everything I can out of college and just make it happen?” I remember October of my senior year, thinking, “I'm going to compete in every pitch competition I can. I'm going to go to as many office hours as I can. I'm going to build relationships with as many professors as I can so it can help set me up for life.” If I didn't do that, I don't think I would have had the ability, financially, to do this after I graduated, or the like skill set to do it.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What age did you decide you wanted to become an entrepreneur
[JULIA:] I've always been somebody who's done outside of the box things. I made up my major in college because I didn't like what they told me I should do. I took all alternative assignments in class. I told all my professors I never wanted to take a test, I always wanted to do an alternative creative option that usually didn't exist – I just had to make it up. I'm a graphic designer so I used to design study guides for the class instead of taking a test. I grew up with a learning disability so I always had to find a better solution for myself. I may not have been the normal, mainstream student in that way so it pushed me to think outside of the box. It’s always been who I am. I had some internships throughout college where it was very structured and I realized I just would move faster than the structure would let me and I could do it but it would be limiting.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What obstacles have you faced in the industry as a woman?
[JULIA:] There haven't been many times where I felt disadvantaged for being a woman, which is a rarity. I felt more ageism than isolation for being a woman. 99% of my meetings are with men and there have been many situations where I have been not only the youngest in the room by about 20 years but the only female as well. That's just something you have to get used to, but I don't feel like it's disadvantaged me. I think it's just made me come to a realization that you have to work well with men and you need to be assertive. I'm very opinionated, I definitely let that be known. There have been one or two scenarios where I've been in conversations where people address a conversation to my business partner because he's a man, when in reality, I'm his boss. It's an interesting dynamic to see how people have preconceived notions or want to fall into specific communication structures because of stigmas.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any advice for college age entrepreneurs who want to start a business but don’t know where to start or where to get funding?
[JULIA:] I was talking about this with somebody the other day who started a program for Cornell students who think, “I have an idea but I don't know if it can be a real business, I'm not even sure where to go.” It’s interesting because either you're gonna do it and you're gonna make it happen or you're not. I think it's a hard balance between people who need to figure out if the idea can actually be a business or if it's just a passion project, because they are two very different things and you need to be open to hearing if it can actually be a business. If you're struggling, thinking about starting a business or you have started a business that’s pre-traction and pre-revenue, I would highly encourage you to talk to as many people as you possibly can. It's something that I did. People's theories about not sharing your ideas with others – I don't personally relate to because if you can talk to people who have 20 more years of experience than you, you should probably do that. When I graduated, I had upwards of nine meetings a day with people across different industries picking their brain and asking their feedback, thinking about how I could change things. I think that should be the first step everybody takes, just to see what the feedback is because even if you don't agree with their opinion and you don't see eye to eye with them, it's a good data point and if you hear that thing coming up over and over again, maybe it's something to consider. With that said, take everything with a grain of salt, don't completely change your business because somebody says to.
Regarding funding, if you're a college student, it's never going to be easier to get money because you have the student card to play, which is huge. I won a substantial amount of money in pitch competitions my senior year. I competed every weekend in a pitch competition which was the most amazing practice for me to help get money to get started. There's a bunch of college-based venture funds, there's one called Dormroom Fund, there's one called Rough Draft Ventures. There's grants, there's all these things you can do to get money. iFundWomen is an amazing initiative that supports funding women owned businesses. I highly recommend not raising money if you can, it's a grueling, stressful, exhausting, depleting process.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Did you have a mentor or someone at your school helping you when you were starting these companies?
[JULIA:] The reason I started WAYV was because during my freshman year my dad came up with this concept for a pop-up in one of the most highly trafficked areas on campus. I convinced Lululemon and a bunch of other companies to start selling products in that space. Companies made almost $100,000 in that location and I was a freshman in college, I had no idea what I was doing and my one of my mentors, who was an entrepreneur in residence at my college said to me, “Julia, there's something here. I don't think you're ready to make it a business yet but keep it on the back burner.” His name is Mike and he has been a mentor of mine for eight years. We talk three times a week, we have become family, and he's my rock for everything. But I have different mentors for different categories. If I need sales help, I go to John, if I need fundraising help, I go to Mike. Arm yourself with a support system because there isn't one perfect mentor for everything you need. Find that database of people, which all for me, started because of college. I didn’t randomly get them off the street, it was very much one connector to the next connector.
[UNPUBLISHED:] We noticed both of your companies cater to college students. Is there a specific reason you chose that demographic?
[JULIA:] I think I built these companies for myself. I was thinking about the pain points of students who are experiencing things similar to me. When I was building WAYV, I went to 92 campuses across the country. I would have freshmen who I've never met drinking coffee with me crying about how isolated they felt or how they have culture shock coming to the south if they're from the Bay Area. I realized no one was supporting these students and it's such an interesting age because it's the first time you're alone. You're experiencing things the first time, you're able to break out of your shell without preconceived notions and there's no one that supports you – schools are supposed to but they don't. I'll probably build businesses for every period of life I'm in, if I can. For right now this is an area and an age demographic that hasn't been disrupted in this way. I'm open to all areas and all kinds of companies but I think I've been seeing what's around me, within my age range, and thought this was a big opportunity.
