We were lucky to catch up with Melissa Desrameaux recently and have shared our conversation below.

Melissa, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?

The most important lesson I learned in a job that has helped me as a creative is not to limit creative ideas by thinking within a budget. The co-founder and owner of Fresh Wata, Tricia Costello, taught me this lesson pretty early on within my creative endeavors through events. Fresh Wata helps design, build and produce experiences and event environments for a lot of recognizable brands throughout the country. I was tasked to assist in developing a creative proposal for a client’s incentive trip in the spring of 2013. After a half hour of giving it some thought and looking into what we had previously created for their events, I checked back in with the team to confirm the budget. I recall my shock and confusion when Trica answered, “It doesn’t matter. Just put together your best ideas. Pretend you have $100 million if you need to.” Hearing that changed my approach to pitching talent, entertainment, ideas for engagement and social activities. Thinking outside of the box meant thinking outside of a budget. Fast forward six years, I worked with a client who requested two to three ideas for creative installations to serve as photo ops within her event. I shared my top six ideas, and she ended up moving forward with every concept I shared. Oftentimes clients will increase their budget for ideas they love.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I operate an 8,000 square foot event space off-strip in Las Vegas, Nevada named StarBase. I also assist in producing some of the epic client events that take place in our venue or offsite with our parent company, Fresh Wata, an experiential production and event design company. The most special part of what I do at StarBase is giving people space—space to celebrate, build community, develop new concepts, build business, connect with an audience, express their creativity or individuality and share their passions. Our attention to detail, the level of organization, customer service, and creativity is what sets us apart from others. I also write poetry and I am working on publishing my first book, an anthology that will include poems I haven written since the age of fifteen up to present day. I am excited to collaborate and position my art alongside visual artists commissioned to create and submit artwork inspired by my poets. Connecting with someone on a personal level or in a private realm (particularly the heart or mind) via poetry is one of the most fulfilling things I do. My poems are meant to remind readers that they are never alone in their thoughts, feelings or experiences and there is no shame in sharing them.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

The most significant pivot I have ever made in terms of life choices surrounds my undergraduate studies of mass communications with a concentration in public relations at Florida International University. This pivot helped strengthen one of the most essential competencies for life and business that can be applied to any industry. I made the pivot after expressing my intentions to study creative writing to my father. His immediate disapproval initially hurt my feelings but helped me establish an incredible career path. He wanted me to broaden my perspective and think in terms of practicality—not just my creative ambitions. By my junior year I understood how this direction better positioned me to enter the job market with more opportunities to apply my passion for connecting with others, exchanging information and building environments for events and hospitality. Having such a keen awareness, in depth knowledge and diverse understanding of how to be an effective communicator (both spoken and written) has opened doors to build relationships and trust amongst individuals in both personal and professional settings. Having invested four years in learning the best practices, mediums and strategies for communication has led me to excel in roles within organizations and consulting on projects that might appear to be unrelated to my degree. Regardless, I will always attribute my successes to the time invested in the discipline of communications.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Here I am at age 29 with some significant investments in Bitcoin and a desire to help create opportunities for others by launching concepts that have both a creative and social impact for local nightlife. With nine years of experience in event production and marketing, I felt poised to pursue an endeavor alongside (but separate from) my position at the Las Vegas Review Journal. I decided to support a good friend in promoting a New Year’s Eve celebration aimed at creating an experience for the underground electronic music scene that was emerging in Las Vegas. I assumed the risk of taking on his project under my business license because I was fully aligned with its goals, understood and had experience in fulfilling the plans, and it seemed like a no-brainer. Yes, the risk was massive although it started off relatively small. What began as a $5,000 commitment to a close friend evolved into an $18,000 investment which unfortunately did not yield any financial return much-less a scenario where the burden of the investment was shared with anyone else. I learned a valuable lesson of having proper agreements in place and assessing risks objectively, independent of personal relationships. Overall, taking the risk did not pan out anywhere close to what I had imagined, but it was life-changing in building my confidence, establishing professional boundaries and motivating me to continue taking risks. I joked with friends that it was cheaper than grad school but taught me invaluable lessons in a real-life setting. Within four months of the NYE event, I was already in the middle of plans for another NYE event that was fully funded outside of my own contributions!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.starbaselv.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meleauxyeadot
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meleldes/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@starbaselv/videos

Image Credits

Tiffany Rose; Cole Curtis; Tosh Monday; One 7 Communications; And Studios