Success by Design with Lauren Romer | Ep. 207

After eight years helping shape Raleigh’s startup scene at Raleigh Founded, Lauren Romer is stepping into something deeply personal.

In this episode of Biz/Dev, Lauren shares what it feels like to walk away from a role that defined a decade of her life and bet on the thing she has quietly been building all along: Romer & Company.

We talk about the emotional weight of leaving a community you helped grow, what it takes to trust yourself when the path is no longer obvious, and how working alongside founders for years can give you the courage to finally become one yourself. 

Lauren also opens up about how design, sustainability, and intentional space are not just aesthetic choices, but tools for building better lives and better businesses.

42 & Lawrence Website

Iris Coffee Lab Website

Cheer Wine Website

Lauren on LinkedIn

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] David: It is very exciting. It's very illustrious to be on the Biz Dev podcast.

[00:00:03] Lauren: Yeah. I only had to beg at an event to get on. 

[00:00:05] David: That is true.

[00:00:06] Gary: We did have to cut some pretty, pretty big guests in order to get you on, so yeah. 

[00:00:12] David: Is that right? 

Steven Spielberg was gonna be on, but we said absolutely not.

[00:00:20] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the BizDev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined Per Usual by the boring human, Gary Voight. What's up, man?

[00:00:29] Gary: Hello.

[00:00:31] David: Nice. That's more emotion than usually show. Well done,

[00:00:34] Gary: I guess I'm the boring human this week, so yeah.

[00:00:37] David: Sweet. More importantly, we are joined by Lauren Romer, who is officially the executive director of Raleigh. Founded. Welcome. How are

[00:00:48] Lauren: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

[00:00:52] David: Oh, it is very exciting. It's very illustrious to be on the Biz Dev podcast, so you

[00:00:56] Lauren: Yeah. I only had to beg at an event to get on, 

[00:00:59] David: that is true.

[00:01:00] Gary: We did have to cut some pretty, pretty big guests in order to get you on, so yeah.

[00:01:05] David: is that right? Steven Spielberg was gonna be on, but we said absolutely not. Lauren's gonna be here.

[00:01:12] Gary: some brothers from Netflix with a show called like Strange Stuff or something. I don't

[00:01:17] David: Strange stuff. to bump them. They were boring. Talking about boring people. I thought you were talking about Travis and Jason Kelsey. At first I was like, oof, that would've been a really big cut.

that would've been, yeah, that would've been big cut. 'cause we would have to ask about Taylor

[00:01:32] Gary: This insider information. Is Kelsey finally getting cut?

[00:01:36] David: men, they just lost so

[00:01:38] Gary: Yeah, they're not looking so good. Not looking so good.

[00:01:41] David: heart

[00:01:41] Lauren: They have no playoffs anymore.

[00:01:43] David: They're done. Mahomes got injured. The whole thing. I feel really bad 'cause that's that's a big deal. But

[00:01:49] Gary: maybe Kelsey can find feel really good. 

[00:01:51] David: you're okay with the injury? It is fine.

[00:01:54] Lauren: Yeah I'm okay with the Chiefs not being in a Kingdom anymore. 

[00:02:00] David: It's 

[00:02:00] Lauren: happy.

[00:02:01] David: It's fair. I'm sure. I'm

[00:02:03] Lauren: And my Josh Allen is pregnant. Did you see that? Probably not.

[00:02:06] David: Josh Allen is pregnant. That sounds

[00:02:08] Gary: you're talking football to David. You're really tapping a very limited little window of information.

[00:02:14] David: Yep. I only know it's on headlines and what my brother tells me which is rare. 

[00:02:19] Lauren: Josh and Hailey Steinfeld are pregnant. Josh Allen, Hailey Steinfeld, his wife. This is big news in my household.

[00:02:27] David: Wow.

[00:02:28] Gary: I thought one of them was married to Bieber or something,

[00:02:30] David: No, that's Haley Bieber.

What's Yeah, Hailey Bieber.

[00:02:34] Gary: don't know.

[00:02:34] David: Even I know that

[00:02:35] Lauren: I was like, who?

[00:02:36] David: man. Come on.

[00:02:37] Gary: wait, was she the new Hawkeye? I'm,

[00:02:41] David: Yes. Haley Steinfeld was.

[00:02:43] Gary: Oh, Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. Yeah. He's been off the

[00:02:46] David: Oh my gosh. This is why he's not allowed to talk. Lauren. This is just right here is why we don't let him talk. Let's get her to talk, say something intelligent, Gary, so you can shut up now. We like to start off with some fun little questions. So you're a local person who I've known I should say I've known you for, gosh, at least seven years now.

'cause I think that's when you started at Raleigh founded, which wasn't called Raleigh, founded back then. But I'm gonna ask some local questions. Here we go. Favorite coffee shop.

[00:03:14] Lauren: 42nd and Lawrence.

[00:03:17] David: Oh, wow. I've never been to that one. So that, that, that's super inside baseball. All right. I thought you that's two blocks from

lab.

[00:03:24] Lauren: No, I am, Iris is okay, but Iris is definitely not my favorite. I was actually just talking to Laura from American Underground about Iris, 'cause that's her favorite. And I was like, no offense, but why? But 42nd and Lawrence is this cute little old lady who owns it.

She's super sweet. Every time I come up she's you want a pup for your dog? And they just have really great stuff. So 42nd and Lawrence,

[00:03:47] David: Very good. All right. Snow cream. Do you make snow cream? Do you know what snow cream is?

[00:03:54] Lauren: I feel like barely. It's like ice cream made outta snow.

[00:03:57] Gary: It sounds like something you're not supposed to do. I'm from Connecticut and No you don't.

[00:04:01] David: Serious, even as connect. Okay, so I thought this was more common. Apparently it's not. Gary was like, what is snow cream? And okay, so every time it snows, which is rare here in Raleigh, every time it snows, we put out a big bowl and capture all the snow and we put in, I think it's Eagle brand. Into it and stir it all up.

You have to eat it very quickly.

[00:04:25] Gary: Eagle brand be icy Eagle brand, is it condensed milk? I think it's condensed. Milk Eagle brand condensed. I think that's, I always get condensed milk in the evaporated milk. Confused. But I think it's condensed either way. It's super sweet. But you mix it up and it's like vanilla ice cream, but it's like the best vanilla ice cream ever.

[00:04:42] David: I can't believe Connecticut doesn't do this. 'cause you guys get snow all the time there anyway. It 

[00:04:46] Gary: Yeah, no, 

[00:04:46] David: but you 

[00:04:47] Gary: eat real ice cream.

[00:04:48] Lauren: Yeah,

[00:04:49] David: Alright. it's fine. Just pee all over my childhood. That's fine. Actually, 

that's not even my childhood. It's my adulthood

[00:04:55] Gary: I thought you were gonna say something like you, you add your kids'

wine or whatever garbage that stuff is.

[00:05:01] David: Cheer. Wine is delicious. You get up, you get out. You're just not allowed to talk

[00:05:05] Lauren: Cheer wine is delicious.

[00:05:06] David: I can mute. Can I mute him? Do I have that power? I don't. Darn it. Okay. 

Alright. let's talk about cool stuff. Like Raleigh founded,

[00:05:17] Lauren: Cool.

[00:05:18] David: you are the executive director. What does that mean?

[00:05:22] Lauren: that means that I oversee our company. So we have four founders of Raleigh founded and we now have four locations. Three of them are in Raleigh one on NC State's campus, and then one in Cary. And we create spaces for entrepreneurs and startups to thrive build community, collaborate with one another, and really grow their businesses.

[00:05:41] David: So for people who don't know y'all's story. Give me the 30,000 of you 'cause it's a really great local story.

[00:05:48] Lauren: So we didn't really have coworking in this area at that time, back in 2013. Actually maybe it was late 2012. And. We were really looking, this area was really looking for community and collaboration with one another. And to get Raleigh put on the map. 'cause we had a lot of startups coming from here.

Nobody really knew about Raleigh and the great things that were happening there outside of our area. Even people here didn't really know what we were doing. So our four founders came together 'cause they wanted to. Help entrepreneurs in that way to get them on the map and to give them flexible lease terms, coworking so that you can actually build and scale your business somewhere, but also not get stuck in a 10 year, five year lease.

Because when you're scaling a company, you don't know if you need a space that's about this size of right now, or if you're gonna need the whole floor in, the next couple months, just depending on how things go. So they all got together and, thought that it would be a good idea. And so they started making some calls.

And quickly, within 45 days, they had over 500 people that said they wanted to be a part of this in some way, either to get support or support the entrepreneurs in our area. So they realized it was much bigger need than they thought. And so they ended up getting a larger space as our first primary location, which is in the warehouse district.

[00:07:00] David: Very cool. So my, my history here goes almost all the way back to the very beginning. I'm one of the oldest members, I don't know what you call it 'cause I'm not a member anymore. I'm a sponsor, but. I've been there a very long time. So I've been in all these locations and I'm a huge fan of Raleigh founded.

And so it's a lot of fun to have someone here. Like I said, I've known Lauren for a long time, since she started there. It's a great organization that helps startups in a myriad of ways. One of my, I was at an office there for Big Pixel, was stationed there for seven years and the Warehouse one.

And what was funny is we were, I was just talking to somebody about this the other day. Two doors down from me was Pendo when they first got started, and they are now this gazillion dollar company that has the top five floors of the, one of the newer high rises. And they started two doors down from me and I called it the clown car.

Office because it was a double sized office, but they stuffed so many people in there 'cause they were growing so fast. It was hilarious. It was literally like, 40 people in there before they finally had to leave and get another place. But they were just, they just kept packing them in there. But to see their founder and stuff, their initial stuff, that's gotta be your biggest success story, right?

Pendo. It's gotta be

[00:08:15] Lauren: Depending on how you define success story. And biggest yes, but yes as far as number of employees becoming a unicorn, yes, they are our biggest success in that way.

[00:08:25] David: And they love Pink Boy, 

[00:08:27] Lauren: love pink. And I love pink,

[00:08:28] David: if you're not from Raleigh, if you haven't been downtown Raleigh, their building is just they have the top five floors, so they have naming rights and they have this big open area. I don't know how to describe it, but you can see it from the street and it is just flaming pink 

and you can see it from all over.

It's a cool building. Don't 

get me. It's very cool.

[00:08:46] Lauren: It's, isn't it our, at the time when it was being built, I think it was the tallest building in downtown Raleigh.

[00:08:51] David: Was it really? I Yeah. I think that was, or at least that was a request that Todd had. That's what he wanted.

That's fair. That's fair. if you're building a building, you want it to be the tallest. Yeah.

[00:09:02] Lauren: Yeah.

[00:09:03] David: So why did they being the founders, the city, I mean it was, this was a big joint effort. They saw a need, but why? Entrepreneurs have been here forever. What was the need they were trying to fill?

That wasn't, it seems like such a no-brainer. Like why hasn't this always existed?

[00:09:22] Lauren: Yeah, that's a great question. I think that. And a lot of other areas. Obviously coworking is everywhere, but the way that Raleigh and the triangle collaborates is not the same. Even though there are the coworking spaces or office spaces that say they do collaboration, there's WeWorks, industri, all that everywhere.

We're really focused on bridging the gap for entrepreneurs. So bringing in the resources, like having you as a sponsor and bringing you in our doors and having you like in front of all of the members that we have, really helps them be able to build their business and know who's reputable in the area to hire when they're having to bring people in.

And yeah, I think for us in this area, everybody wants to help and support. But that's something that I think is a lot more, more rare from what I've heard, where people like moving to the triangle.

[00:10:08] David: Yeah, that is one of the things I consistently hear about our area, which is called the triangle. We are friendly, which that sounds like isn't everybody friendly, but no, the answer to that is clearly no. And the other thing I always hear is, and I'm certainly a benefit from this, no one says no to a coffee meeting.

Not really. They might need to squeeze you in or whatever. But very few people will just say, no, I don't have time for this. Which I've heard I'm not an expert at this, but in lots of areas, there's a lot of hoops you have to jump through before you can talk to important people, for lack of a better term.

And here I, people just, really important people have no problem meeting with you. And I think that is so unique about this area, especially in our entrepreneurial space.

[00:10:57] Lauren: Yeah, for sure. Like Scott Wino, ISS a great example of that. Like he'll tell you like anybody who moves to the area, if they message him on LinkedIn, he'll meet with them. And I was just talking to a friend of mine, Kennedy, who moved here from Wisconsin. And her husband's works for FedEx. And so they, map it out where they might move next.

And I'm like, don't you love it here? And she's I really do. Good thinking about his career and what's best for their family, but she's I have made more friends here in this short amount of time and having a baby and being on maternity leave. She's only been here for seven months and she's made like a great, she's part of the community now.

People know her. And it's just from, people saying yes to meetings and being open.

[00:11:35] David: So you've been around for, I think seven years. Is that right? Am I saying that right?

[00:11:39] Lauren: February will be eight.

[00:11:41] David: Okay, so almost eight. We'll go with eight. What has changed for you in watching Raleigh founded Grow? 'cause you've been a lot of roles before you were 

the head cheese. What has changed good and bad in the area and Raleigh founded for you over that eight years?

[00:11:57] Lauren: Yeah. I think a big thing that changed was. The way that we talk about ourselves. Being Raleigh founded Communities, one, we've gone through different brands. So when I started we were HQ Raleigh an HQ community 'cause we were in Charlotte and Greensboro as well. So we did truly have a different name.

Now we're Raleigh founded parent company being founded communities with Carrie founded as well. But I know when I started I actually had a friend that was an intern. And they really liked her, wanted to hire her, but she had another semester of school, so I said, do you have any friends? So she recommended me and she sent me her intern onboarding so I knew exactly what was going on with the company.

So I would nail the interview and I still was like. I don't know what this place is is this a cult? And then I looked at their website and I was like, this, all they're saying is they build community and they collaborate and they're change makers. I'm like, whoa, lot of buzzwords here. What is this weird place?

[00:12:50] David: It's definitely a cult. Yeah.

[00:12:51] Lauren: Yeah. So I was like, it was just very confused. And it wasn't until I did the interview that I realized, oh, this is a, this is an office space. There was not one mention of that on the website, nothing about coworking. So that was a big change that I brought up to them. And I was like, my dad was an entrepreneur.

He owned a business in Florida. It was a concrete company. So I never really thought about him as an entrepreneur. I thought of him as like a business owner. But I was like, you guys are isolating or not being inclusive to people who don't understand this language. Like having all this jargon on the website, just being like, you have to be high impact, high growth in order to be a part of this.

I don't, one of our core values is to embrace diversity and inclusion. And so I'm like, you're not living that core value by not being, having be open to people who don't understand this. So that was one big thing that we changed was really looking at the website and being like, okay, we are at our core, a coworking real estate.

Office space. But that's not why we exist. We, that's part of us, but that is our core. So if people don't know that, then how are we gonna to continue to have this business? We're also a B Corp, so we care about. People in the planet over profit. But something I really like about being a B Corp is that you have to think about profit though as well, because if not, you can't sustain the business and you can't keep living out your mission.

So that kinda like language piece changed. And because of that we have seen a lot more like women in the space minorities in the space that are business owners and people that aren't business owners, that are remote workers or yeah, they're the only person in the area, but they. They really want to meet people and be around people 'cause they understand the value of human connection.

[00:14:22] David: I've always thought if you have catalyst on your homepage, you're not done yet. You gotta keep working on, 'cause no one knows what that word means. They know what the word means, but it's that's such a buzzy term. 

It's come on, let's di bring it down a notch. There was an old saying, if the word solution is in your mission statement, you're not done.

Because it's just, that means nothing to anybody, but 

everybody puts it in there. 

They're building solutions, but

[00:14:48] Lauren: Yeah. That was something too like that I have noticed over the years is like people who just say that they're a consultant, and then I'm like, what do you consult?

 What do you do? Yeah. I'm like, what do you do? And they're like, just like jargon, buzzer. I've said Instagram reels about this too.

And I'm like. Yeah, I don't know if you can't like, show me a concrete example of what you've done, pull up a client, show me something that you did for them. Then I'm like I can't be, I can't recommend you. I don't know what you do.

[00:15:12] David: When I was young. 'cause I'm old, entrepreneur meant unemployed like that. That was just what you said when you weren't working and now that's consultant. I am a consultant. It's like that's the hole you fill with, Baxter Consulting for two years while you were looking for a real job like this.

[00:15:31] Gary: But

[00:15:31] David: I have,

[00:15:32] Gary: now you have to be a fractional consultant. 'cause that's even buzzier.

[00:15:36] David: Oh man, I do love those. Then that's a real thing. Don't get me wrong. That is a real thing. There are real companies that really do fractional stuff, but there are so many people. Who aspire to be fractional, but they absolutely are doing nothing. But they could be if you would just hire them and it's fine.

We all have to do stuff like that to a point. It's like using the royal we, when you're by yourself working, starting in a company. I get it. It's fine. I did that. My line though, and I won't mention any names here, but I remember there was someone down the hall from me at Raleigh founded years ago that. They talked about all their offices. They were in a similar business to me. Not exactly but close a services company. And I'm all by myself in my office. Like I, I still am all by myself in my office 'cause they're all over the place. But they would you go to their website and they had six offices and I learned that they just had a contractor there and they would put up an, they would say, we were all over the New York, LA and I'm like.

But where are, like, I'd meet the guy I be, I'd talk to him. I was like, where do you get all, oh, he is oh, they don't, they're just part-time. Like that to me 

is the line

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[00:17:21] David: So we've been talking a lot about Raleigh founded, but you're going out on your own. Tell me a little bit about that.

[00:17:25] Lauren: Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah, Rome and Company is the name. So focusing on interior design and residential real estate primarily. I've been doing, actually I launched that website back in 2021. I was just like, I've always loved interior design. Like in the back of my mind. Wish I was school for that. Since before I started at Raleigh founded, so like end of 2017. So before I was executive director, I was doing a lot of real estate on the side. And then I've been able to do some interior design here at Founded. So our carry founded location and our North Street location. I designed those, and then I have also had some smaller residential clients as well.

So yeah, sometime next year you'll be hearing more about RO and company, and I just actually today made my LinkedIn for it and Instagram. So fully launching next year as a, as full-time and gonna be transitioning. Thank you. Thanks.

[00:18:22] David: have you done the LLC thing? Have you gotten, are you, wait, are you just a DBA? Gimme the specifics there. You're a D, BA sole proprietor. Doing business under Rome and company

[00:18:33] Lauren: Yes, but we'll be doing LLC next year

or it's, it's on my list. It's on my

whiteboard.

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say is that I have a friend who's a general contractor, so we're gonna be partnering up on some stuff. And he was like, do you have an LLC? And I was like, no. And he was like, honestly, the only reason that I like having it is because when somebody writes me a check, they write Blue chip consulting or Blue chip construction instead of Joe Hooker.

And that makes me feel like more professional. And I was like, yeah, that's, I honestly like, I like that. 

[00:19:04] David: So you've wanted to do this for a while. What? What's. Why 2026?

[00:19:10] Lauren: I've been at founded, it'll be eight years in February. And when I joined Row Founded, I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. When I went to college. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, like I did always love, like interior design. And I've always like, when I'd take personality tests remember in high school it was like, you should be the CEO or a manager.

And I was like, of what? Like, how am I just gonna become that? 

[00:19:31] Gary: Industry.

[00:19:33] David: man.

[00:19:34] Lauren: So I was like, how do I, yeah. How do I get this job? So when I started at, I really founded I started to figure out like what I really liked. I was pretty much fresh outta college. I was 22, and so I was like. I really like helping people.

I, and like I got to explore more of that design stuff while being in the space. And I'm very particular about how things are spaced out and every time like, I don't run the properties anymore, but when I come in, like I fluff all the pillows and I push all the chairs in and move everything just so like crazy person.

And so like I just started hearing more people be like, wow, you're really good at this. And we don't have a huge budget at founded. We are still pretty scrappy startup-like, and so being able to design spaces on a budget also showed me that like my design eye is good. Because if you have a lot of, if you have a lot of money, it doesn't mean you have great taste, but it is a lot easier to get away with not having great taste when you have a lot of money.

It's just all lined up. And then also being around entrepreneurs all the time and seeing them live out their dreams. And some of these businesses, I'm like, what the heck is that? What do you mean? And they just believe in themselves so much and they leverage the resources.

And I did start this, the website, the company for rumor and company in 2021, but I definitely didn't have the confidence that I have now to be able to run a business. I've been running Raleigh founded. Pretty much on my own for about three years now. Going from running, four buildings with thousands of customers to running my own thing, it's not like it's gonna be easy, but I feel like I have good experience.

And it's gonna be, a smaller scale and, thinking about what are, how can I put my energy that I'm putting into founded into something that I really love Interior design.

[00:21:11] David: This is very exciting. That means 2026 is a very fun year. So what does that mean for Raleigh founded? What does that timeline look like roughly for you? What is the plan there?

Because that's a big deal.

[00:21:22] Lauren: Yeah. Yeah. Probably sometime in quarter one will be when I will be officially exiting. We might be doing a little bit of part-time stuff. There are some like big projects that are happening in 2026 for founded. So I wanna make sure that those are taken care of and we aren't hiring exactly for my position.

So Jason, who's one of our founders, he's been the most involved throughout the years. He's gonna step in a little bit more and, we have three, right? We'll have five people on staff full-time, and three of them have been here for quite a bit. So Rebecca, Greg Umra Mills, and Isabella Deer. They'll all step up into director roles.

So Rebecca's already our carry director, but she's gonna kinda serve as a team lead liaison between the owners and, the community and our team. So she'll be a community director and then Bella will be programs director and Sariah communications director. So all of those kind of help them with their career plans for the long term.

And also really support our organization in ways that they already are. And Bella already runs all of our events. Rebecca's already my go-to. And Sara, I already handles all the communications like you were on the podcast with her. She's amazing. So they'll, just all become me.

[00:22:33] David: It's like Voltron. That's beautiful.

[00:22:35] Gary: Hey, you could

[00:22:36] Lauren: gonna be so much better,

[00:22:37] Gary: become a fractional consultant for him too.

[00:22:40] David: fractional. CEO. That's beautiful. So you are in a unique position. Most of our guests are just, either they've recently started it or they've been running a long time. You're pre new business, which is very unique 

[00:22:58] Gary: but with lots of experience already.

[00:23:00] David: W that's where I, so we 

define, and since you are new to our podcast we have this word that we use called a slog.

And the slog is the time from when you start your business officially to when anyone cares. And that can be anywhere from days, weeks, months, and often years. Now, your pre slog, which is what's so fascinating about this, you haven't even started your slog yet. But you have so many contacts, everyone knows you.

Do you predict, and I'm gonna have you back on later and see if I'm if your prediction's right, do you predict that you will be able to hit the ground running or 'cause of all of your contacts and et cetera, et cetera? 'cause you just know everybody. Or do you pre predict that it's gonna be a little rough getting started like most businesses are?

Nothing, specific to you, just curious.

[00:23:48] Lauren: Yeah, I think one, I'm a really risk averse person, so like I said, I made my website in 2021. It is gonna be 2026 when I officially do this full time. And. I do like to have a salary. I like to feel secure. Like I'm in the process of building a new house right now, and I didn't really put this together.

I'm like probably shouldn't switch jobs and be an entrepreneur 

[00:24:14] David: For someone who's risk averse, you sure are juggling a lot. 

Nice. 

[00:24:17] Lauren: we're doing a lot right now. Like you said, like I do already have experience in this and I do have. People who know who I am and have been able to physically walk through a product that I've done I think North Street is a really great example of something that I can just be like if you wanna see my work, like you can go to the office and see it.

And we, I can talk to you about the design choices that I made and why, and how beauty and aesthetic leverages community and brings people together and how you can have functional design and things like that. I'm not gonna say like I'm gonna kill it, like I'm not gonna make my salary next year, but, the salary that I make now.

But I think that I'll, be able to pay my bills and take care of the things I need to do. Probably not gonna take a lot of trips next year, but, in 2027 I'm thinking that will, be in a better place. And I'm gonna also do residential real estate also on the side. So on the

[00:25:05] David: Perfect time to jump into the real estate market, so you

[00:25:08] Gary: Yeah, I was gonna say, it's a good thing you got the design part of it too. 'cause.

[00:25:11] Lauren: yeah, and that's what I enjoy is like every house that I've bought, I've flipped in some way. It just, it was an okay house. And redid the floors new fresh paint like, just the furniture that I had when I sold my house that I hadn't carried. Offers. I was very overwhelmed, honestly.

Like people were calling me and they were like, you're, you didn't do your showings correctly. 'cause I was my agent myself too. And I was like, no, all the showings are just booked because it was in the middle of COVID. You couldn't have overlapping. So I was like, the weekend's booked. I'm sorry you can't come.

And then everybody that came through that put in an offer was like, can we also buy all the furniture that's in your house? We like exactly what you did. So the person who got my house ended up getting my furniture as well. 

[00:25:48] Gary: You keep getting affirmation that this might be the right call. So yeah,

[00:25:52] Lauren: Yeah, I'm excited.

[00:25:54] David: So do you have existing clients ready to go Q1, Q2, 

or are you just 

[00:25:59] Lauren: Um, I, 

[00:25:59] David: blind? 

[00:26:00] Lauren: I have four leads that I'm looking at on my whiteboard right now.

[00:26:04] David: Love it. Love it. Alright, so I'm gonna jump ahead. This is what I call my blue sky question. You got a brand new company, squeaky Clean. Dream with me a minute. What is five years? Assuming all things good happen, I'm not worried about I, and I'm gonna reinforce this. I just heard, oh, I never remember his name.

You're gonna know who I'm talking about 'cause I can't remember his name. The founder of Solito.

So he was giving a speech the other day at an event I was at, and he gave most of the speech. I don't remember, 'cause that's, it goes right through.

But he said something, this is where I think this blue sky question comes from. He said, most people prepare for failure. They plan for plan B, they plan for, this is gonna go wrong, this is gonna go wrong, but they don't plan for success. Success is an accident, success is, oops. Because it's, it seems like it's wrong to plan for success.

'cause that's egotistical, that's, when I succeed, when I reach $5 million, like big numbers, in his case, he's done extraordinarily well. But. He was like, you need to plan for success as much as you plan for failure. And boy that hit me. So I think the blue sky question comes from that same idea.

All good things happen. Where is your company in five years?

[00:27:16] Lauren: I think we've got a couple employees that are handling some things, we'll have enough clients that it'll be, I can't just do it on my own. But I'm not looking to do this to hugely scale and do anything crazy. Like I want to have a work life balance. I wanna start a family. And so I wanna make sure that.

That I can do that and not just have a company baby. So yeah, success for me in five years looks like all my bills are paid and extra and I'm doing beautiful work and all the clients are happy with what they have and I'm getting referrals and I'm not having to grind to find new people to work with.

They're just coming to me.

[00:27:55] David: Okay. I love it. I've been, I really enjoy that question because the answers I get almost, not a surprise is the wrong word, but they're not what I expect. Like some people are like, I'm gonna sell it. Which that blows my mind. It's like I 'cause big pix. I've been doing this almost 13 years and the idea of selling, it's like foreign to me.

And so people are like, yeah, no success to me, sell it. And other people, it's I want something small. I'm fine with that. And I just love that. So that's very cool. I just lost my train of thought. Gary, do you have a question before? Matt, this is for you too. He should search his own name to know when it's time to cut us.

Did you have a

[00:28:31] Gary: Yeah, no, I was just gonna mention, and I'm sure you've thought about this before too I do have a couple of friends that started their own interior architecture business. Outta school. Actually after they graduated school, they both worked separately at different agencies and then about two years after that, they came together and started their own.

One of the things that they found was key to their growth was really good partnerships and relationships with the high end architects and custom home builders in the areas, and just cultivating those relationships and the networking from there. Really help them kinda solidify. Of course they do great work as well, but that got 'em into the door to prove themselves over and over and keep building that way. So

[00:29:13] Lauren: Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I definitely think, just from being at Raleigh founded, like the more you can partner and talk to people and let them know what you're doing

[00:29:21] Gary: lots of experience with the networking scene over there. Which then again, this, were you gonna say something David?

[00:29:28] David: I'm not sure if what I'm saying is. Podcast specific, so probably boring, 

but it might be interesting when we turn that thing off, Matt. Okay.

[00:29:37] Gary: Okay.

[00:29:38] David: Were you saying something? I said, did

[00:29:40] Gary: All right. 

[00:29:40] David: No. Okay.

[00:29:41] Gary: me, yeah. I was gonna bleed that into our last question. Yeah.

[00:29:45] David: it in.

[00:29:46] Gary: Alright. So with your experience from watching Raleigh founded in all of its amalgamations grow, and then starting your own business. You would have an interesting perspective to give us the three pieces of advice for a new entrepreneur, and this could be even for yourself.

What are three things that you're gonna focus on?

[00:30:06] Lauren: I love it. So the first thing is to be curious, but also follow your intuition. While I have been running founded and especially going from, operations and community manager, when like Jess left and becoming the executive director and then Jason going out and doing Blue Co. And.

Kind of just being at the helm by myself, I had a lot of people coming to me and saying, oh, Raleigh founded should be doing this. You should be doing this. Like just a lot of ideas, which is the space that we're in, being surrounded by entrepreneurs and innovators that's to be expected.

But as like a young woman who. Has imposter syndrome. And this was my first time running a company. I was like, wow, you should be running this company. You have such good ideas. I was like, I don't know why I'm doing this. Why did I get this job? Just, it just started like really swirling around in my head of me not feeling confident.

And then, I started thinking like. And I used to, when I was younger, I would be like that's a dumb idea. You don't know what you're talking about. So I started, I got a little more open, so I opened up my curiosity, but then that I went too open, too curious, too accepting of other people's thoughts.

And so I lost my intuition. And then I started, thinking about it and I was like, no. Like I got into this role for a reason. I've been at this company for a long time. I know what's really happening. I know what's behind closed doors. And you have to really stay rooted in.

What your business is and not what other people tell your business should be. So curiosity and intuition. Kinda keeping those together. And then the other one is knowing yourself. And that's, I think, super important 'cause. One, you wanna be self-aware so that you can see what pitfalls you have as a leader or a coworker or anything like that.

And then so you can hire the right people to compliment you. Because if you have goals to run a business or grow a business, there's obviously gonna be things that you're really good at, but there's things that you're not good at. And that was something that was hard for me as well, running Raleigh founded because I, there's things I, I just hate doing.

Like I hate tech stuff. I hate. Google my business, all that like really stresses me out, makes me wanna my computer. And because when. And I realized I didn't have to do that anymore and somebody else could do it. I felt bad because I was like, this is the worst job ever and you have to do it.

And not everybody thinks that some people actually like it. And so hiring for the right person and asking the right questions like in interviews just because yeah, the business needs all of those aspects covered. And knowing that, yeah, not everybody. Hate the same things you hate.

And the last one is, don't hold onto what isn't serving you. So you know, if it's a friendship that you know you don't need anymore, or if it's a part of your goal for your business that that just doesn't make sense anymore. I remember a long time ago Raleigh Founded's mission statement was to be the largest like most inclusive community.

of Entrepreneurs in the Southeast, something like that. And we realized that like we held onto that, like we were in Charlotte or in Greensboro, we're expanding these different areas. But then we realized like we can't actually fulfill what we're trying to do, which is build community and in the area that you wanna serve.

If you're not really in that community. So we went to Charlotte, like we couldn't really support in the same way that we were supporting our Raleigh entrepreneurs because they weren't, we weren't in that community. And so we had to change that and tweak it. So that was something that the owners really wanted at one point, but they realized we couldn't fulfill that and we were just hurting the people that we were trying to service the most.

So yeah, those are my three.

[00:33:30] David: Love

[00:33:31] Gary: very good. So if anybody wants to learn more about you or your brand new business. Where's the best place to find you? You mentioned a website and LinkedIn.

[00:33:40] Lauren: Yes, so website is just ro and company.com. And then, yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn and I'll have an Instagram. That'll be fun soon. I have a meeting with the social media person tomorrow, and I have a branding and design meeting right after this, so we are going for it.

[00:33:56] Gary: Nice. We'll make sure those links end up in the show notes as well.

[00:33:59] David: wish I could do that with Teela. I have to deal with this Yahoo to do design and stuff. It takes forever. Oh my

[00:34:06] Lauren: yeah, I'm gonna work with Devin, but

[00:34:08] Gary: We could just leave it how you designed it, David.

[00:34:11] David: It is lovely. Shut up.

[00:34:14] Lauren: What is Teela? What

[00:34:16] David: What's that?

[00:34:17] Gary: Ooh,

[00:34:18] David: Oh I'll give you the whole spiel. You probably 

they, the podcast probably doesn't need to hear that, but I'll tell you about it. Do. They've already heard about it. It's like it's the same, it's like another 20 minutes. But I'll spare you. All right. Wrap us up. Gary,

[00:34:30] Gary: I already did. This is your,

[00:34:32] David: you do other, we're just chatting now.

[00:34:34] Gary: Yeah. No, you have to do the outro.

[00:34:36] David: this is what, no one listens to this, we're so professional.

Alright. Thank you everyone for joining us. This has been so much fun lauren, thank you so much.

[00:34:43] Lauren: you. Love being on.

[00:34:45] David: And on that note, we are out. We'll be back next week. Thank you everybody.

[00:34:48] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Jen Baxter, co-owner of Big Pixel and David's Wife. Yep. I finally took the mic or rusted it away from David. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, a US-based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software. This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel.

Want to connect, shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.