For creative practices
Who this is for
You make the thing, sell the thing, invoice for it, and then chase the invoice. You answer the emails, run the Instagram, price the work, do the taxes, and somewhere in all that you’re supposed to be making again.
Nearly everyone who comes to us says a version of the same two sentences. I know I need systems. And: even if I had them, I can’t run them alone.
That’s two problems. Most business support solves the first and leaves you alone with the second.
One to nine people. Creative practices, service businesses, makers, anyone selling something they made or something they know.
What’s usually the problem at this size
The work is almost always good.
What’s missing is the business systems you didn't know you needed when you first decided to make a creative living.
Selling your own work is hard. Knowing which parts of your practice you want to monetize, how you want to talk about it, and how much you should charge for it are not just business questions. They are conversations that could expose much more vulnerable layers of your practice and your creative agency in the market.
Doing all this without proper systems is sheer cognitive load that could bury the creative inspiration behind your work.
Luckily, there are blueprints for the business side of the problem: a defined offer you can say in one sentence, pricing built from what delivery actually costs instead of what feels askable., a clear idea of who it’s for, and a way of reaching those people that doesn’t eat the week.
No single blueprint or workshop series can solve all those at once, but one can be flexible enough for you to actually use and keep building on.
That's the hope.
Our solution: The Seed Series
We know you need flexible solutions that should be at least partially usable in a DIY model. We have designed the Seed series to be flexible enough to complement what you have already built (or aspire to build).
The five series are built to cover five core business areas. Each one covers a different part of the business. You can take a single workshop or the full series or even all five across a year.
Germinate
Product and pricing
what you sell and its relationship with the rest of your creative practice, who it’s for, what it costs to deliver, what you charge
Prune
Product design
what the thing actually is, and what to stop offering
Sprout
Brand
how you position your offering, what it sounds and look like as a business
Train
Client delivery and operations
the systems that hold once there’s more than one of everything
Bloom
Marketing and
marketing systems
who you are trying to reach and how and how that becomes repeatable
How it works
You submit a Soil. We send you a recommendation for the best mix of sessions that would give you what you need without having to commit to a linear project. You will leave each session with an actionable business blueprint. Something you can DIY or continue in the residency.
Each session is $150; each sequence $650.
The Stem Residency
Twelve weeks. $2,000.
The workshops decide what should happen. Stem is where it happens.
Two days a week at our space or yours:
Admin day. The long one. You bring your own unglamorous work — the invoicing, the listings, the follow-ups — and do it alongside other people doing theirs. No programming and no agenda. It exists because admin is the thing that doesn’t get done alone.
Office hours. The short one. Bring what’s stuck, and we work through it.
A full series beforehand is encouraged, not required. If you’ve completed one within the past year, what you paid comes off the price.
What you leave with
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An offer you can say in one sentence, and a price built from real cost to deliver
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A brand narrative that matches your creative identity
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A way of reaching people that you can run again next month without us
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The parts of delivery that were improvised, written down
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A rhythm you can keep going on your own
