Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Mandi Young. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Mandi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

I started, as many people do, just not quite satisfied with what was on the market. As my husband and I planned our wedding, we struggled to find a venue that felt true to us and who we were while also meeting moderns comforts and needs – like real bathrooms. Throughout the wedding planning, we kept talking about how we were shocked there wasn’t a venue out there like we wanted. We were already looking for land to move out of the city, and decided to expand our search for bigger plots of land thinking maybe we could build what we had been searching for.
Finding land was a lengthy process, but fully developing the ideas of the venue and the construction took even longer.

We started with just rough sketches, and added lists of requirements and limitations that further developed those ideas into our first wedding venue. As the venue got up and going, my husband stepped aside allowing me to handle the operations and marketing until we decided to build a second.

I fell in love with the process of connecting design decisions to profitability, and figuring out how to put numerical value onto creative decisions. Designing and owning wedding venues allowed me to create a canvas for other people to make it their own easily with each wedding. This grew into more opportunities that allowed me to help business owners in other areas too. Allowing them to better display who they are and attract the customers they’d been dreaming of.

It was a long journey to get where I am today where I am managing multiple businesses and employees while still prioritizing my family and freedom. It took years of just trying things and letting go of perfection. You don’t have to have perfect branding, logos, service offerings or anything to just start trying. The more you are putting yourself out there and honing your skills will inform how to make the branding better, the service offerings better, etc.

I know far too many businesses that never really get started because they felt like they had to start with every detail polished and perfectly lined out. In reality, just doing and going for it will get you much further. You can always go back and redo things later.

I look back at my career, it was never a straight line path of one decision conveniently falling into the next. Rather it was a series of decisions that was following curiosity, moments of joy, and the drive to create something different and better. I had said many times in my younger years that I didn’t think I could make it as a business owner, but the more I listened to myself and kept working towards the next “thing” that was were I naturally fell into – giving up a decade long corporate career. I was only able to do that after gaining confidence in myself and my skills and realizing it was time to go all in and bet on myself.

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

I’m Mandi Young, owner and designer with Trailblazer Design Agency. As a designer, I work to help business owners create spaces that are more than just 4 walls. I work to connect their stories of who they are and their passions with a physical location that immerses their ideal customers into that experience. I always aim to empower the business owner and help them reduce some of the overwhelm and decision fatigue.

I’ve worked as a project manager, from software to construction, and even opened and build two wedding venues from scratch. I know from first hand experience how the design of a space impacts a business’ profitability and how it needs to integrate with the branding, and customer journey. All of these key pieces are so inter-related, and that is what makes my services different is that we care for it holistically instead of individual parts.

The second venue I designed and build was one I am most proud of. I had collected vintage house plan books and mid-century modern furniture for years. That venue felt healing to my inner child because it was the first time I really allowed myself to push the envelope more with style choices. I didn’t worry as much about mass appeal, but more about creating an experience and diving deeper into the style choices. I was able to secure many bookings for that venue just by my design proposals alone. Being able to get couples on board and believe in the vision so early allowed me to step fully into a design role I had been nervous to fill.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

For my wedding venues, I initially started by cash flowing the project. My husband and I had spent our weekends working on condemned properties and making them safe and loving homes again. We reinvested the money we made each time into the next home, and the next until eventually we were able to buy the land and build our first wedding venue. We kept the first venue small and “budget-friendly” reminding ourselves we could grow, improve, and change over time as we made more money and learned more about the business.
I am glad we had to stick to a budget of what we could cash flow. As we improved things and added more things, we were able to do so with clear minds and data, not just by hypothesizing.

As I branched out into the design business, I kept that same approach. Sticking to what I could cash flow, knowing that as I could invest back in later I would be doing so with more informed decision making.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I started the wedding venue business while I was still working full time as a project manager. I am so grateful I did, because I was able to approach the business with a bit more ease. Not every “sale” was a make or break for me, which gave me more room to test different ideas out and explore my creativity, but also allowed me the freedom to say no to clients that I didn’t feel like were going to be a good fit for me.

I did find myself torn for many years about working my corporate job and keeping the venues as a side hustle, or expanding the venue. It felt like my degrees, professional licenses, and pretty much my entire adult life was revolved around climbing the corporate ladder. I had set myself up to go far. It felt like there was a war in my mind about which path would be the right path.

At one point, I ended up getting a call from a recruiter. They described a job that sounded like my dream job. I had a phone call with the hiring manager, and then came in for a panel interview with 4 leaders in that company. The recruiter called me back faster than I expected sharing that they were actually offering me a new role that they had designed for me and around the skills they saw I had. It struck me that I had spent barely 2 hours with this company, and they saw that I had strategic skills and leadership that they needed to grow and modernize their company. I surprised myself when I turned it down, it was the dream job. But I knew then, that I was selling myself short to continue to work for someone else. That I had to bet on myself and go all in. It still took another year before I was able to be fully self-employed, but I made calculated and strategic decisions to set myself up for success and make that leap with confidence.

As the venues grew, I started the design business as a “side hustle” of the wedding venues. Now that I have employees and standard processes and procedures that allow for the wedding venues to run well without my constant input. As the venues have needed me less and during the winter slow season, I found myself yearning for more creative endeavors and opportunities to help other business owners love their businesses too.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.trailblazerdesignagency.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trailblazerdesignagency?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mandi-young-m-s-pmp-b0955795/

Image Credits

Personal Photo with Daughter, & photo with paint brush – Hanna Sher Photography
Family photo around firepit – Illuminate Photography
Photo with candlesticks – BG Studios Photography
Photo of venue courtyard – Love Leigh Photography