Niche

We had a blast meeting with two of the three girls from Scout Fox Productions! Gabby Woodland, Kati Baird and Jaclyn Edmonson are documentarians currently working on a documentary series called The Gentrified Us. Having met at MTSU, all three girls have backgrounds in film, directing, editing and production. After college, they started a film production company called Scout Fox Productions and most recently are working on a project that hits close to home, the gentrification happening in Nashville.

We got to sit down with Gabby and Kati out in Marathon Village and get to know a little more about them and how they got started with Scout Fox and their thoughts on The Gentrified Us. Having just recently came up with their roles within the company, Gabby is the producer, Kati is more on the creative side with editing and concepts and Jaclyn is the director. Scout Fox Productions started in 2015; rolling with the phrase “fake it til you make it”, all three of the girls felt compelled to quit their full time gigs and make Scout Fox their main gig. Kati states, “It’s been a good ride with what we are trying to achieve so I wouldn’t change anything about what we have done to get this far.”

The idea behind The Gentrified Us was originally aimed at being a feature film, but once the girls started interviewing people and developers and the idea started growing more than they had imagined, they decided to change it to a docu-series focusing on different areas of Nashville. Word of mouth has been huge for the series. Having been able to sit down with someone from the Affordable Housing Agency, they found out Megan Berry is the first mayor to fund $10 million for affordable housing in Nashville. Gabby mentions in the podcast, “Gentrification specifically means that low-income areas are becoming middle-class areas purposefully displacing people”. Hopes for the documentary are that people will become be

Cale and I were stoked to get the opportunity to sit down with Beth Inglish, a multidisciplinary artist who serves the community by creating connections through art exhibitions, creativity workshops and consulting. She is founder of the Nashville Creative Group, a group of artists, photographers, musicians, painters, whatever your creative niche may be that meets once a month to network and discuss creative topics.

Her background brings her from marketing school in Texas to the Virgin Islands working on a sailboat to the creative city of Nashville, TN. She has been here a little over nine years and absolutely loves the hospitality and creativity of the city. She currently works as a consultant for other artists with a focal point on the emotional side of art. She is also working on her first wall sized canvas attempting to fulfill a vision she has had for quite some time in her home studio.

Beth has had her hands in all sorts of different projects throughout middle Tennessee. From creating the Nashville Creative Group with over 1000 members, to working with the Entrepreneur Center hosting a pop up art gallery, to creating images for the 12South Community Art Exhibition, to designing a 40 foot mural on the rooftop of a downtown Nas

This week on Niche, with Jamie participating in philanthropy work in Africa, Cale takes on hosting solo with Matt Bizer. Matt is a multi-platform content producer, director, cinematographer, live stream, and event manager. He floats between New York, Nashville, Austin, and the rest of the known world with an appetite for innovative projects,  good music , and the perfect wave.

Matt is the co-founder of innovative content production company Robot Fondue and co-founder and Executive Producer of Luck Productions who host the annual Luck Reunion at Willie Nelson’s Luck, TX ranch.

Matt states he has had lots of “happy accidents” in his life, however, one will find that Matt’s success is due in part to hard work, a few hard knocks, and the amazing and supportive friends and mentors Matt has encountered in his life. 

Robot Fondue is a collaboration of Matt and fellow creatives.  Robot Fondue’s mission is to create memories through the art of storytelling.  Matt tells us that part of the growth plan for Robot Fondue is to find other creatives, bring them into the fold, and allow them to expand and grow.

Luck Reunion is Matt’s other great endeavor. Luck Reunion is a movement dedicated to cultivating and celebrating the evolution of our American roots. The goal is to attract musicians, artisans, and chefs, who like the outlaws and outliers before them, follow their dreams without compromise.

Matt’s belief is that with those “happy accidents” and great opportunities comes a great responsibility in giving back through such organizations like Make Music.  His philosophy is, “no bad vibes… you keep around you the people that are good and that makes everything better” and as he states, “It is about being open and transparent and building those good relationships.”

Nashville has allowed Matt to refresh and to catch his breath and with both Robot Fondue and Luck Reunion growing and expanding there is always the possibly of other great successes on the horizon for Matt and the creative world.

Audio Editing by Andrew Freels

This week Niche interviews Nashville’s own, Sam Davidson, a local entrepreneur, public speaker, author, and recently the co-founder of Batch.  Batch sources locally crafted items and goods while creating a unique gifting option available for sale online and in its current brick and mortar location within Nashville’s Farmers Market.

The interview brings us insight into Batch’s creation, secrets to Batch’s success and its plans for continued growth and expansion.  Batch’s business model has provided them with three years of growth; both online and in other local cities here in the south. The aim is to one day apply that model in a variety of other locales throughout the US.  Sam states, “We have grown in parallel with Nashville.” They are even on the precipice of opening their second storefront in Austin to compliment their online offerings for Nashville’s favorite “comparison city.”

Batch curates those unique types of gifts that Sam hopes will lead Batch to be a premier gifting solution for those people looking for that one of a kind gift.  He states in the interview how he would like “to bring Nashville to the people.”  Batch’s uniqueness demonstrated by its use of local artisanal crafts, handcrafted notes, and the engaging purveyor’s stories provides Batch with a compelling and competitive brand.

Batch has been a learning opportunity for Sam, which he hopes to create more teaching opportunities to use in his public speaking or future written works.  Sam’s authentic leadership style shows in his attitude, whether it be from how he believes in and treats his employees, his engagement with the purveyors, and his commitment to the community of Nashville.

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of the conversation is when Sam mentions the culture and community within Nashville’s entrepreneurial and business scene. Sam is a very big believer in accessibility of people and invites anyone to contact him advice, feedback, or just a simple chat.

This week on Niche, we spent some quality time with founder and “head editorialist” of Noble Nashville, Collin Czarnecki. In just a few short months, Noble has grown from one-man startup to one of Nashville’s go-to news sources for all things creative.

A journalist by trade, Collin had struggled to find meaning in writing for mainstream local news. While he loves Broadway and the great things happening there every day, he saw newspapers — both hard copy and digital — covering the same types of stories week after week. Local news just wasn’t local enough. Enter Noble Nashville.

“Noble is a completely digital platform designed to highlight Nashville’s culture, community, and the conversation surrounding it all,” Collin tells us. He designed the platform to be hyper-local and makes it a point to cover artists, musicians, and other creatives that haven’t yet had exposure in local publications. While Noble serves up relevant news about the creative scene citywide, Collin aims to foster a sense of community at the neighborhood level. By the end of the year, he hopes to implement hyper-local message boards and allow locals to submit their events to Noble’s online calendar.

But why did Collin choose Nashville? A Chicago native, Collin was sucked in by Nashville’s young population and rapidly-growing creative scene. He attributes much of Noble’s success to Nashville’s natural enthusiasm for collaboration. If the timing was right, Collin says, he would consider building similar hyper-local news platforms for other cities; however, it seems that nowhere else in the country is exploding with young creatives the way Nashville is right now

Noble Nashville’s launch party was this past Friday, October 7th, at Bridge Below Space, a street art-covered warehouse, in North Nashville. Noble’s also a sponsor for Athens of the South, a pop-up art event packed with music, painting, spoken-word poetry, and just about every other kind of art, on October 22nd in East Park.

Make sure you check out the whole podcast for more about Collin’s journey from disillusioned college grad t

Had an absolute blast sitting down backstage at Marathon Music Works and talking with creative entrepreneurs, Henry Pile and Tom Melchior. These two are overwhelmingly involved in so many great things happening in Nashville right now, one of the biggest being Concept56, a Jagermeister ground breaking project catering to young creatives. Nashville is the second city in the US chosen to be a part of this project all spear headed by Tom and Henry. They put together a team of five talented creatives from Nashville, all above the age of 21, and went through a 6 month process during which they designed and produced the event of a lifetime. This event is called Retrograde and will be happening this Saturday, October 8th, at 8 PM at Nashville Sporting Goods Co on 8th Ave.   

Henry Pile is the general manager for Exit/In, Marathon Music Works, William Collier’s and Hurry Back. He is also co-owner of Tom, Dick & Harry, a marketing and consulting agency based out of Nashville. And lastly, he is an account executive for Fox Fuel Creative and a writer for Native Nashville.

Tom Melchior is the director of marketing for Exit/In, Marathon Music Works, William Collier’s and Hurry Back. He is also the community manager for Red Bull Sound Select, head music columnist at 12th & Broad, and a band manager for the Cordovas.

It was awesome to hear how these two hustle daily, whether it be juggling family, managing their time with either their full time or part time gigs, and making time to enjoy all that Nashville has to offer. Both gave fantastic tips on how they transitioned from corporate America to the start up lifestyle and give an “in” on what it takes to live this kind of life. “Everybody is trying to figure out how to get ahead. The difference is a lot of people want to work together to get there and you can find those people. Folks like Tom, folks like the guys here at Marathon and Exit, the people at Red Bull, all of these people want to figure out how to work with big communities of people” says Henry in the interview. It’s a very common theme among the creative community in Nashville. Everyone is super willing to work together and build each other up and this is one of the things that makes Nashville so unique and desirable.

Henry and Tom gave us a few extra tickets for the big event, Retrograde coming up this weekend. Be sure to shoot us an email or reach out on social media for tickets. Follow Concept56 on social media at Concept56Nashville. The event is a free event, you just need to register through the website using a code you can either find on social media or on tickets. Lots of excitement around t

On this episode, Cale and I sit down with Spencer Rowland, co-owner of Escape Experience, an interactive experience with the objective of finding clues, decoding messages, solving problems and escaping a room in under sixty minutes. We had lots of laughs getting to know Spencer and learning the ins and outs of how he started the business with his brother and cousin.

Native to middle Tennessee, Spencer went to Sewanee, University of the South where he played basketball and got a degree in math. He moved out to Denver as an actuary, but wasn’t finding fulfillment in this career. His brother, cousin and himself had always wanted to start a business and while they were in Nashville one day, they went to the Escape Game and had an absolute blast. Having web design, custom construction and electronics backgrounds, they believed they could definitely start something similar to the Escape Game.

The first location was opened in Chattanooga two years ago and has been a huge hit. They just recently opened the Nashville location downtown this year and are set to open the first virtual escape room in Nashville at this location later this year. Spencer, his brother and cousin come up with the themes for each room and do all design and construction themselves.

The Escape Experience in Nashville was recently just nominated for Top 10 Escape Rooms in the Country! It was great to sit down and talk with Spencer and discuss how the business got started, plans for future growth and what the whole process has been like. Be sure to go visit Spencer at The Escape Experience in Nashville!

Audio Editing by Andrew Freels

On this episode, Cale and I sit down with Vic Bartley, a NHL hockey player who calls Nashville, TN his off season home. Vic grew up in Vancouver, Canada, playing ice hockey his whole life. At twenty-one, he decided to go overseas and play in Sweden with the Rogle BK. After having an amazing year, he got signed with the Nashville Predators and has played with them the last four seasons. He just recently signed a new contract with the Minnesota Wild.

Vic chats with us about his personal life, what it was like growing up playing hockey and how he never imagined he would play for the NHL. He talks about how the hardest part of playing hockey for a living is moving around so much, being away from family and friends and having to be on a disciplined schedule when it comes to eating and training, but playing for the NHL and living out his dream every day far outweigh any of the hardships.

Vic broke his foot in a game earlier this year and was out for the remainder of the season. While living in Nashville for the off season this summer, he trained with Mike Krajewski at MK Fitness focusing on strength training and getting his foot ready for this upcoming season which starts October 13th. He also gives us a little insight on his pregame rituals and routines.

We had a few good laughs with stories he tells us about him being an aspiring country artist as well as recording his first music video dancing Gangnam style. Vic tells us some of his favorite things about living in Nashville, the southern hospitality, real estate investments and how it is becoming a hockey city. We are super excited for everyone to listen in on this episode and be on the lookout for Vic this upcoming season as he plays defense for the Minnesota Wild!

On episode ten of Niche, we spoke with Laura Lea Goldberg, Certified Holistic Chef, about her cooking philosophy, building a business, and how she approaches a balanced life.

While Laura Lea has Nashville in her blood (her mother is a Nashville native), she spent much of her childhood in Baltimore, Maryland. When asked what she wanted to be as a kid, Laura Lea confesses that as a teen, she focused mainly on what she should be. As a result, she found herself studying law in New York City.

Quickly disillusioned by the reality of being a lawyer, Laura Lea decided to make a change. Recognizing cooking as a source of great joy, she left her corporate job and earned the title of Certified Holistic Chef at the Natural Gourmet Institute in New York. There, she learned about holistic health, nutrition, Eastern medicine, and the basics of entrepreneurship. While she knows how to work with a variety of clients, including those with certain illnesses, Laura Lea says, “I can talk to you about the nutrition, but I’m only one cog in the wheel of what should be a big group of people.”

Passionate about both healthy eating and home cooking, Laura Lea noticed that people tended to see a gap between the two. She sought to bridge that gap with her own business, LL Balanced. In love with the culture of Nashville, Laura Lea’s goal is not to put classic Southern dishes on the naughty list. Instead, she aims to introduce healthy options in keeping with the spirit of the original recipes.

In addition to her thriving blog and cooking classes, Laura Lea also has a cookbook in the works. The book, tentatively titled The Laura Lea Balanced Cookbook, will feature a few favorite recipes from the blog, but will largely consist of new creations. “I didn’t realize how safe I was playing it,” Laura Lea says. “There were so many things I realized I hadn’t offered people through my website.” With hundreds of recipes already published on the LL Balanced blog, from Buckwheat Hemp Banana Bread to Tempeh Sloppy Joes, what more could she have in mind? We’ll find out when the book is published in April, 2017.

This week we sat down with brothers, Will and Schuyler Anderson to talk about their business, Salemtown Board Company and learn what they are doing to make a social impact on the community of North Nashville.

Growing up around board sports in Florida, they were able to implement a love for the sport into a business that ultimately creates jobs and teaches life lessons to young men in the area. Will moved to Nashville for ministry and decided he would be able to make the biggest impact starting a for profit business. After finishing up school, Schuyler moved to Nashville to help Will run the business.

Without realizing Nashville was going to become the “it” city, Will moved into Salemtown and quickly learned how gentrification would soon transform the neighborhood. In finding this out, he was able to create and build Salemtown Board Co. SBC started in a garage in Salemtown, but as the area grew, Will and Schuyler were able to find a larger location in North Nashville where they could build a skate park in the parking lot and a woodworking room.

Salem town Board Co is one of the only manufacturer of skateboards in Tennessee. All the woodwork and painting is done by Will, Schuyler and the young men of North Nashville. They offer classic cruisers, cruiser boards, shortboards and longboards. They also offer a small line of t-shirts, hats and other goods.

It was awesome ge