We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emilie Stooksbury a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Emilie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

We came up with the idea for New2Knox when I finally had the guts to admit something really embarrassing – I was lonely. I had graduated from a small college in Austin, Texas and immediately moved all the way to Knoxville, Tennessee for an internship. I figured making friends in this fresh season would be as easy as it had ever been, but I quickly learned what a lot of people know already… it is *really* hard to make friends as an adult.
I also simply wasn’t enjoying Knoxville. I found it a little bland and a little small and after a couple years, I was more than ready to hit the road back to Texas.
I admitted all of this (being lonely, hating Knoxville, etc.) to my roommate at the time while we were training for a half-marathon. (I don’t know about you, but running makes me delusional and – apparently – honest.) She was shocked to hear I disliked Knoxville (she loves it) and she was shocked to hear I was struggling to find real friends (I’m an Enneagram 7 – if you know, you know).
But she’s a go-getter. When she heard I was feeling this way, she assumed other people were feeling this way as well and she decided we should do something about it.
That was the first little seed of what would become New2Knox.
We started inviting the internet-at-large to parties at local businesses around town. We started an Instagram page documenting my explorations around town. We slowly started seeing relationships build – both relationships with people and relationships with this city. In the midst of this, *I also* finally began forming friendships and falling in love with city. (As it turns out, cities are way more fun when you have plans and friends.)
We learned quickly that I was not unique in this experience. Life post-college is hard. Making friends as an adult is hard. Getting to know a new city quickly is hard. We’re here to make it just a little bit easier.

New2Knox has morphed and changed as we (and Knoxville) have grown, but the same things still get me excited. I love finding out about friends who met through New2Knox. I love learning when people plan their weeks around our Events Round-Up. I love hearing local business owners say we helped them connect with new regulars. We love helping make a an unknown place become someone’s beloved home!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce business and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

Of course! It’s probably most easily summarized by our mission: New2Knox exists to connect people to Knoxville & each other by celebrating new spots, old faves, and creating community together. (While always appreciating a well placed emoji 😉) We hope you can have fun exploring and falling in love with your city – and if you need to find some new friends to explore her with, we will help you with that as well! Moving to a new city or even just entering a new season in the same city can be such a draining time – we just want to make it as easy and fun as possible for ya. One of the main ways we do this is with our “Hops.” New2Knox Hops are five-week experiences for people who are new to town or anyone who simply wants to build community and get to know their city better. Every week, your group of 5-10 people goes to a new local spot, samples what they offer, and gets to know each other better through intentional questions and activities. This is probably our favorite thing we do because it highlights some of Knoxville’s amazing small businesses *and* is a really purposeful and curated space for people to make lasting friendships! (Friendship is always the main goal, can you tell?)

How did you build your audience on social media?

We jumped on Instagram in 2015 or 2016 and at the time, there weren’t a ton of accounts focused on Knoxville specifically. I already loved exploring and loved writing – so jumping on Instagram and sharing my explorations with whoever chose to follow us felt pretty natural. Eventually I learned how to use a camera and that certainly made our feed more aesthetically pleasing 😂 But it was all very authentic – going around town and sharing spots I enjoyed, engaging with other local accounts, getting to know the people in our city. We posted consistently and put out content that people found valuable. Slowly but surely, we grew. As we grew, our content shifted as well. We still share our adventures around town, but now we also pride ourselves on being a resource. We’ll tell you about the best events happening this week and who has the best tacos and who’s the newest workout studio on the scene. (We’ll also tell you about it on our website, our email newsletters, and our TikTok.)
So that would be my advice: be authentic, post consistently, and post valuable things (things you’d actually like to see on your own scroll sessions) on multiple platforms!

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Being a business that literally revolves around human connection, keeping in touch with our people is super important to us! We do this in a variety of ways. First of all, we partner with a handful of local businesses all year round. For these businesses, we try to touch base via email and social media periodically, but we also make it a priority to sit down face to face once or twice a year and see how things are going. As far as people who participate in our Hops, we want to keep in touch with them as well! We host 2-4 events a year where *everyone* who’s done a Hop gets invited to one big ole party. This is an excuse to hang out with their Hop friends, but also get to know everyone else who’s participated in a different Hop this year. It’s basically just opportunity for more new friends!
As far as everyone else, we offer free open-invite events throughout the year and our DMs are always open!

Contact Info:

• Website: new2knox.com
• Instagram: @new2knox, @move2knox
• Facebook: New2Knox
• Other: TikTok: @new2knox Pinterest: New2Knox

Image Credits
Rachel Fugate, Emilie Stooksbury, Bailey Rose