Creator Spotlight: 99 & Saint Claire
Meet Sara, the founder of 99 & Saint Claire. She’s busy developing dope brands and developing badass CEOs. She doesn’t have time to send reminder emails and create new links for each new event. She discovered Mixily from Sax of Reality Bites, and making the switch was a “no brainer.” Mixily gives her design control and easy to use tools. Sara has been helping us develop new features for Virtual Venue. We’re excited to share more about Sara and her awesome community.
Introduce your business
99 & Saint Claire is a creative studio located in Austin, Texas that specializes in dope, custom designs, and supporting digital creators become badass CEOs through education, community and support. Our community, The Strategic Hustlers Club is an online group of designers (brand & web), that have connected from around the world to learn and grow their businesses.
How often do you host events? How are you using Virtual Venue for your community events?
We host events on an almost-weekly basis, and are using Virtual Venue to do so! Our model is rapidly shifting towards an open event market, so any of our members can host their own event within the group when they want. For this reason, we're really excited to partner with Mixily for our members to create RSVPs, offer paid seats, and even have their own branded VV when requested.
What’s an upcoming event you ere organizing that you’re most excited about?
Because we're the Strategic Hustlers Club, it's our motto to work smarter, not harder, so in March we'll be offering a weekly Monday morning meeting that will be a blend of a topic towards running our business more efficiently, then using the Pomodoro method to implement that new ideal.
Have you always hosted virtual events or how have they become part of your business this past year?
Thankfully for us, we've always been an online community since 99 & Saint Claire launched in early 2019. But we're excited to expand the way we connect with our audience in new ways!
Any positive results of hosting virtual events?
I think the best part of The Strategic Hustlers Club is that our community includes entrepreneurs and freelancers from more than 8 countries. So it's really incredible to see everyone come together to talk about things like project pricing, and lift each other up so everyone wins. There's no competition in our group.
If someone was looking to host an event for their first time, any words of wisdom you would give them?
If I can give any advice, just take a breath - running tech, watching the video chat, and actively listening at the same can be really stressful, so if you get overwhelmed just do what I do - blame Mercury in Retrograde (even if it's not LOL).
Since using Mixily Virtual Venue and Ticketing, what is your favorite feature? And how have they helped your business?
My favorite feature of Mixily is definitely the Events builder. The entire experience is the easiest to navigate - and the best part is Mixily auto-sends reminders to those that have said their coming to your event. So it's less admin work on my end & gives me more time to develop the attendee experience from the curriculum side.
Why are you using Virtual Venue instead of other video chat tools?
Prior to Mixily, I was in HARD denial about using Zoom. I hate the platform and the restrictions that come with it, so I was using Google Meet instead, but the recording quality is terrible! Also, branding is really important to my business - we love the color black over here, so when I was introduced to Mixily, and saw that the platform was a HIGH QUALITY, clean design switching over was a no brainer.
Do you have any pre-event rituals to get you in the groove like a favorite drink, snack, song or outfit?
I am the real life Lorelei Gilmore, if I don't have a fresh cup of coffee, nothing good happens.
Any new favorite podcasts, books or TV shows you’ve discovered this year?
I will always recommend Ear Hustle. They are hosted by Radiotopia and film episodes inside San Quentin Prison in SF. The podcast is really special to me because I have a parent incarcerated that I'm not allowed contact with, so this podcast gives me insight into what life is like on the inside - and educates listeners on what it means to be incarcerated, something that not many of us explore.
What is your favorite or most used emoji?
I use 🔥💀🤘 multiple times a day.
Where can readers learn more/sign up for upcoming events/follow on social.
We just launched an Instagram for The Strategic Hustlers Club, so you can follow along here - @thestrategichustlersclub or become a member here - https://www.99saintclaire.com/member-signup
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