Bulletin:// 05172024
"Creators are a Hospitality Business"
I’ll be honest! I didn’t know if I wanted to do a full weekend post like I did last week or break it up like usu for the weekend. I have a huge thing I want to end this on — it’s a banger really — so it’s own post it gets! I might even sit out next week because it’s that much of a banger.
I also can’t believe we are more than halfway through May! It feels like the cusp of Spring and summer, which is a time I always love.
Speaking of: one of my favorite summer songs FOREVER is Summerboy by Lady Gaga. Summerboy and Starstruck are my two favorite songs from her ever, since like 2008. I have a feeling it will go viral this summer on TikTok. So, I wanted to say it here first. :-)
Also, good potential future trending audio to get on if you want to roll that dice.
I made my Voluspa order, which I am so excited for! Each month or so, I like to make an order for our home and curate the scents. This month’s theme is Birthday!
Norma Kamali is a brand that has been on my radar in a major way lately. I especially love the jumpsuits. There are so many that come with a variety of my favorite clothing features, such as thumbholes, stirrups, and feminine necklines. I especially love this one — it gives me 50s / Grease vibes, which I think is especially fun for Summer, especially with heels, sunglasses, a silk scarf, and a Barbie ponytail.
Have you heard of the brand Dragon Diffusion? It’s a new discovery of mine! The woven bags are made on demand and take about 10 weeks to complete. They are absolutely beautiful and, for the quality, pretty reasonably priced. My absolute favorite color is Forest Green.
Finally, I want to end this bulletin with something that has been on my mind since the second I heard it. I’ll actually probably do a personal (aka paid access) post on this in the future.
Before I get into things, I’m not sure how many people know this about me, but I’ve been doing this online thing for a little over a decade now.
To rewind: I was in my late 20s, living in Healdsburg, and getting ready to move to San Francisco’s Marina District. I had just left my final (or so I thought) hospitality/wine aka industry job, and would enter the corporate world within months. That whole shift was when everything began. Before entering the corporate world, I started my blog, Champagne at Shannon’s (RIP pour one out for C@S).
That blog actually came first before I got back into the workforce. I worked back office in an investment bank and then a tech start-up. In fact, they knew about my blog and Instagram in any of my interviews and knew I was actively trying to grow both. They also knew it wasn’t just a hobby or passion project. Also, both didn’t care (in a good way) and honestly, to this day, I still believe that.
Funny enough, I think there would be a conflict of interest if we had the same talk today, especially since the start-up is now a huge corporation. I definitely think I would have to choose between the two versus how it was from 2014 to 2019.
People didn’t take blogs / Instagram in the bonafide serious way that they do now. In 2014, I actually felt so late entering everything when I did, but in reality, it was still quite early. (by the way, it’s never too late — that’s the biggest cheat code of all)
Before I even moved to wine country and entered the online world, I lived in Dallas, Texas, for years, deep in the belly of the restaurant beast. My background and degree are in Hospitality. I know I talk about being a sommelier and wine in general all the time, but hospitality and the industry is a huge part of my background, as is Dallas.
I never talked about this when I was publicly blogging and later influencing. In fact, many didn’t even know I was from Texas, let alone a Houstonian (many just associated me with the Marina in SF), or even a sommelier, my education, or my background in the industry, which was actually where I cut my teeth. It’s also a very intense industry; to this day, nothing has been more intense than my time in the industry in the 2000s/2010s, especially during my time in Dallas.
It’s funny because all I wanted to do in my late 20s was leave both the industry and Texas when, in reality, it’s a major part of my core being and identity. Always has been and always will be. Maybe that’s why I fought it so much? Now, I embrace it fully, and I'm having the most fun doing so.
At the time in Dallas, as a working sommelier (I’d even talk about this on the floor all the time), I wanted to create an app that was basically an AI somm. Through algorithms, it would connect the user to a world of wine, what to order, how to talk to the sommelier, tips from a network of somms, explore restaurant wine lists with notes, somm selects from various establishments, etc. There would also be a place to photograph and tag the wine you are drinking to share it, where you are drinking it, and who you are drinking it with, as well as a caption or quick blurb on it (this was before Delectable and Vivino). I always had the image of a couple on a date, and one of them sneakily using the app under the table to order wine and impress their date. Also, this is long-scrapped, so if you want it, you can have it.
Anyway, I also like to think I’m ahead of the times and tech-savvy. Though I was always online and understood the power and future of it all, others saw it much earlier than I did.
Though I’ve never met her, while living in Dallas and working in some hot places, I always heard of Amber Venz Box. We are very close to the same age and were both active online. However, I was just chronically online, and she was a blogger.
I really started to hear about her in 2014 — I was finally blogging, but she had started a company by now. This would actually become one of the most monumental companies related to blogging and the future influencer world, RewardStyle (which is now LTK). In fact, if you were to ask me in 2014 what my biggest goal at the time in blogging was, it was to get accepted to RewardStyle.
When I say monumental, it’s an understatement. I would even go as far as to say that she is possibly THE reason why bloggers, influencers, and creatives are compensated the way they are, in both logistics and numbers, and are being taken more seriously as time goes on. And she saw all of this in 2011.
Even the early technology used which was called liketoknow.it (hence their current name LTK) was incredibly innovative. It was designed so that if you synced your Instagram to it and liked someone’s photo, you would get an e-mail with affiliate links to the item. You got the item, and the creator got a commission. I know this sounds mainstream now, but in 2011-2013, this was incredibly ahead of the time. This IS why it’s so mainstream now.
Anyway, this week, I listened to a podcast that really stuck with me:
The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast featuring Amber Venz Box on How to Build a Billion Dollar Business & Lessons Along The Way. On a side note, Lauryn Bosstick is another invaluable one to both the online industry and my personal online journey.
& wow, I do not think I’ve had a podcast resonate with me so much. Not only did I find her fascinating, but it also made me realize how little I knew about her. I heard so much about her and had an idea of her, but I didn’t know her at all. Everything I thought I knew was wrong. I really didn’t expect to have so many similarities with her. I also didn’t expect to have such a similar personality to her.
There were two things she talked about that struck me to my core. I honestly don’t even know which one to lead with! Both were so incredibly powerful to me.
I guess I’ll start with her passion for creatives. She had been in this world for almost a decade before I was, and she has seen it evolve even more than I have. She is passionate about creating a world for the creators to succeed.
She had also seen how brushed off this world is and how the big companies both mocked digital creators while wanting them to work for free. Keep in mind this was mocked because this world was about to (& it sure did) change things up for mainstream media, celebrities, and celebrity culture, and they knew it. She very much fought against this.
Online life may look fun and glossy, and now people, both brands and peers, take it kind of seriously, but that was not at all the case in the 2010s, let alone the 2000s. And I’ll argue it’s still not fully taken seriously (but mostly by peers rather than brands) despite the very serious money and backing behind it. It’s so much more than just “posting online.”
Hearing her root for creatives and her passion for creating jobs that allow people to utilize their creativity really resonated. To me, that’s one of the ultimate goals to achieve: creating something so great that it gives other people their dream jobs that actually didn’t exist before.
Thanks to something you brought to life, it brings to life new jobs for others to create is the ultimate. It is also something I hope to do for the creatives in the Hospitality industry, especially somms. More on that here:
Which on that note, she said something that made me stop everything I was doing the second she said it.
I also wrote it in SO MANY places, so I could never, ever, ever forget it because it was that important.
The second she spoke these words, it shook my very ground:
“Creators are a Hospitality Business”
— Amber Venz Box
Creators are a Hospitality Business.
Y’all — when I TELL YOU this shook my core. It shook my core.
I actually felt seen for probably the first time ever with everything that I’ve been working to create. It’s so refreshing to have one of the most significant players in the digital world to see things through this lens.
This was one of the most comforting, beautiful, eye-opening in the best way quotes that really got my wheels turning.
It combines the two things I am the most passionate about: hospitality and digital content creation.
Though I was always working to create a hospitality-inspired destination, seeing it now in this way has made things technicolor. It brings a whole new facet and dimension. It’s not just about being a hospitality-themed destination but about serving your audience an incredible online experience. It also brings a whole new definition to my degree and education.
In the past, I struggled a lot with leaving the industry with my degree, education, and time there. I often felt like I was betraying my degree and a world I loved. Sure, I had the passion, but I also actively & willingly left it. How passionate could I be, really? I never knew what I was supposed to be doing with my Hospitality degree, but now it is more crystal clear than ever.
If I truly succeed with what I am working to create, then that means I helped give others a platform to succeed. And the cherry on top: It turns out it was a hospitality business, after all. Running a successful hospitality business is more than running a physical establishment — it’s also the experience you create for others online, which!!! In turn, it makes the internet a better place.
I want to say it made me rethink everything, but that’s not true. It reiterated everything I believe in and reminded me why I was so passionate about what I was creating. Since 2018, I’ve been all in on cyberspace versus any physical industry, but I am doubling down even more now. Not to mention, as we enter Web3 and leave web2, online experience is everything.
Creators are a Hospitality Business
I hope this quote inspires you as much as me. For those who are passionate about the industry, I hope this quote ignites a spark in you. I hope it makes you want to create. And I wish you all the success in the world in anything you create.
I also strongly believe that if more creators created as if they were a Hospitality business, the online world would be a fun place to be.
On another note, something else I am bullish about is that Hospitality is the only industry that cannot be robotized (which btw doesn’t mean it won’t be), but THAT my friends, is a Substack for another day. That might even be a whole new Substack on its own lol
Signing off on this bulletin with the definition of Hospitality! xx sSs
hos·pi·tal·i·ty
/ˌhäspəˈtalədē/
noun
the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.
Similar: friendliness, hospitableness, welcome, warm reception, helpfulness, neighborliness, warmth, warm-heartedness, kindness, kind-heartedness, congeniality, geniality, sociability, conviviality, cordiality, amicability, amenability, generosity, liberality, bountifulness, open-handedness
Opposite: unfriendliness, rudeness, disrespect, impoliteness, incivility, discourtesy, insolence, audacity, surliness, brashness, shamelessness, vulgarity, boorishness, ungraciousness, inhospitableness, arrogance, thoughtlessness, indecency, conceit, pretentiousness, inconsideration
"Texaspacific is renowned for its hospitality"
the business of providing food, drink, and accommodation for customers of restaurants, bars, etc. or guests at hotels.
"he said that young people learn valuable skills by taking jobs in hospitality"
food, drink, and entertainment provided by a company for business associates.
"business trips and corporate hospitality"
