Tangled Rabbit (00:00) Welcome to Untangled, a podcast for founders and people considering becoming founders. This is where building a business gets personal. Each episode features honest conversations with founders about standing out in crowded markets, defining what makes them and their work different, and building something that actually fits. I'm Beth Elliott, and I'm glad you're here. Let's jump in. Beth Elliott (00:26) Welcome to this episode of Untangled. Today, I am joined by Dr. Natasha Knight. Welcome, Natasha. Natasha Knight (00:34) Thank you, Beth. I'm so happy to be here. Beth Elliott (00:36) I am too. Natasha, you are in the very beginning phases of your business. So I love working with founders and helping them to align their passion with the real needs of customers. Will you take a couple of minutes to tell us about yourself, your background, and what you're hoping to get out of today's untangling session? Natasha Knight (00:44) Yes. Absolutely. So I actually am a public health professional by training. I have worked in public health for the past, I don't know, 15, 20 years and have really enjoyed that field. And recently, just sort of as a project to find my fun, that was one of my goals for last year was to find my fun. I took a course in interior decorating and home staging and had a great 12 week experience and realized that this is something that I do all the time without realizing it. Right. So we sold a house last year and we had an open house and feedback from the realtor was everyone was asking who's your stager. And I was like, me. I was like, I didn't pay anybody to do this. It's just how we, how I, you know, styled our home. I wasn't even thinking of it as doing interior design or staging. It was just getting our home ready for sale, tidying it up a bit. And the realtor said, well, you have an eye, you should explore it and see. And so that led to my tying that in with my find my fun. And afterwards I decided I wanted to practice with some folks and came up with some ideas and providing those. complimentary design services to try to figure out like, what do I want to do in this space and what does that look like? And how can I combine that with public health? And then the other part of it was how can I make it affordable? Because I was taking this class and it's like thousand dollar Ottomans. And I said, well, that's not accessible. How do we make this something that everyone can enjoy, particularly because I think interior decorating and design should be more about wellness and how we feel good and how we are able to function well in our spaces as opposed to trying to have a home that looks like it should be on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens or on an episode of your favorite HGTV show. So here I am trying to figure out how to connect all those dots, ⁓ public health, wellness. interior decorating and maybe a little bit of coaching because I have a background and doing some coaching too. So that's it in a nutshell. Beth Elliott (03:21) So when it comes, when you talked about wanting to understand like first steps, it's really, is it really around putting kind of a nice bow on what is this offering? Natasha Knight (03:34) I think that is part of it. I did a little bit of mind mapping over the past couple of weeks when I had some downtime to try to figure out like, what do I want to do? And I realized that I found the most joy so far in not just helping someone, like giving them suggestions, but also coaching them afterwards, right? When they had some follow-up questions and how do we make this space work for our family and then getting the feedback from them, not so much about like what I said to them or, you know, the session in particular, but the, oh my gosh, this has made such a difference in our ability to spend time together as a family. So I think that is, it is trying to figure out what does this look like as an offering. Maybe, I think that's the big. That's the big thing is probably, where do we go next? Where do I go next? If I'm going to sort of frame this as interior decorating or interior design coaching. Beth Elliott (04:42) what you've been talking about so far in your experience as you've been making this transition sounds like you've been working largely with families. Natasha Knight (04:51) yes, actually all three people who signed up, it's like, I need this space to work for me and I needed to work for my family. ⁓ So that is a big part of it, right? There's certainly a desire to think about the family in general. I also have a soft spot for people who work from home and entrepreneurs. So what do they need to do well in their space to be productive, especially if they're at home 90 % of the time and have to be in spaces that look the same all the time, but then how do you make it a space where you can work and work well and feel good? I feel very, I from your show title, it feels very tangled to me right now, because there's so many things, so many ideas that I have. that I could do. that's why I said figuring out what might my first steps be. Beth Elliott (05:44) So as you're talking about this though, are you thinking going straight to consumer or is there a possibility that you'd want to be in a corporate space? Natasha Knight (05:58) I think that... Beth Elliott (05:59) And even let me back that one up a little bit, not even necessarily corporate, but selling your services to people who build or into hospitals or into, like there are many places you could sell into. It doesn't have to be straight to the consumer. It can be into larger entities. So what are your thoughts about that? Natasha Knight (06:10) Hmm. you I hadn't thought about that to be quite honest. I did think about if at some point, if I were to make a career pivot, right, what would I, I had a nice conversation with Chat GPT the other day and I was just like, you know, if I were to have a conversation with ⁓ an architecture firm that was looking to infuse health and health equity into their design. Beth Elliott (06:35) Mm-hmm. Natasha Knight (06:49) why would they look for someone like me and how would I make that marketable? And I say that, of course, having a full-time job and not being officially on the market looking. But if I were, I only thought about it from that perspective. I did not think about it from the perspective of providing services to a firm. I guess maybe in like a, I don't know if it would be consulting or that B2B model that you that you sort of teed up there. Beth Elliott (07:22) Let's lean into a little bit on your public health background. Can you tell me more about that? Natasha Knight (07:27) Sure. I have focused primarily on health disparities, right, in my work, health disparities and health equity. So my research focused heavily on African-American families and chronic disease and obesity prevention. And now I work in a space where I provide public health expertise for people who are looking for ⁓ a body of work that focuses on people who want to quit tobacco. And recognizing that a lot of times people smoke or use other forms of tobacco because of stress and the perception that using nicotine products helps them relieve stress. I've worked in academia doing research. I've worked in the federal government planning outreach and education programs, and now working in private industry. overseeing that body of work. So that's my public health background. really, really tightly condensed into. Because like I said, it's been 15 to 20 years that I've been doing this work. Beth Elliott (08:27) Mm-hmm. Mostly on the research side. Natasha Knight (08:36) Mostly on the research side, except for the past six or seven years where it's been more focused on the strategy and how do we pull together social impact programs that are appropriate for the company that I work for and that have the desired outcome, which is to provide those resources for people who no longer want to use tobacco products. Beth Elliott (09:02) So as you're looking at this next shift, is there something that's leading you to want to go on your own versus seeking companies who do this kind of work? Natasha Knight (09:15) I think that there's, there's, feel like there's maybe more freedom to explore if I go out and do something on my own. that would, for me anyway, there's like an element of, being able to do that and my current work at the same time, more than likely. there's like, I value stability for my family, even though I love change. I'm open to change, but only if it gets us to a greater place of stability. But being able to sort of explore this and explore where it goes while I'm still working where I am, I think is part of the draw for me to sort of explore it on my own. Beth Elliott (10:02) So you're in that portfolio building exploration, what could I offer, who's interested in what phase and not necessarily I'm ready to take the leap and we're gonna go all in and spend the family savings on making this thing come to life. Natasha Knight (10:18) yes, ⁓ that's exactly where I am. We're building a house right now, so I have to be very, very measured in what I do. I'm grateful to have the support to be able to do the exploration, but it is very much the exploration phase of figuring out who wants this and what is this ⁓ first. But once I figure out what this is, then who wants it? And then... Beth Elliott (10:23) Hahaha! Natasha Knight (10:46) If there are opportunities that come from that, that's a whole different thing. But when we'll cross that bridge and we get there. Beth Elliott (10:52) when we started setting this up, I Googled, I want to say it was public health. I took your challenge statement and I took the keywords from it and put it into Google. And there are companies who do this work and talk about the importance of this work. It would be interesting to find connections with some of those folks and talk about your passion and figure out where are they finding. Natasha Knight (11:11) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Beth Elliott (11:17) their footing. A couple of them were in the UK. So then that also tees into how much interest is there in the US versus abroad. But then being able to get a flavor for how do they sell this, who are they selling it to, and what interest are they getting from others that indicate that this is the thing that they need to sell. as you're looking at your own business. I would then ask, how have you found the people who are interested in your work so far? Natasha Knight (11:51) Really just word of mouth and having conversations with people via LinkedIn. Once I finished the course, I made a post on LinkedIn and Facebook and just invited people to come have conversations with me. There were about five people who raised their hand and were interested, haven't completed the process with all of them. Also just reaching out to some realtors who I know may be interested in the home staging side of things because I wanted to explore both sides to see sort of what gives me the most joy and what ⁓ process just sort of felt the most natural to me and less like I was having to force something. So just really reaching out to people and saying, hey, this is something new that I'm doing. ⁓ Is there an opportunity for us to work together or are you interested in having a conversation about a space that doesn't work for you in your house right now? Beth Elliott (12:50) Mm-hmm. Yeah, I could see that realtor who was the first one to talk to you about who did your staging as being a great advocate for you. Natasha Knight (12:57) Yep, yep, yep. And if I had, I'm recovering from a procedure, but had that not happened, we would have worked together on a staging project, but she's a full-time builder. So there will be opportunities for us to do some projects together in the future, I think. Beth Elliott (13:14) Mm-hmm. And thinking about the conversations that you've had with people so far, what lights you up the most as you're talking to them? Natasha Knight (13:22) It still goes back to that individual who has a space and they send me pictures and like big question mark, like what do I do? And I can look at it and see all the possibilities of what they can do, how to make it without having of course been in the space to do all the things you would expect a designer to do, like take measurements and. make note of all the small things, but from those pictures I can give them whatever I can. when I'm able to recommend something that doesn't cost them a lot, but can make a pretty significant difference in their space and they have a light bulb moment and I see that or I hear that in their voice, that to me is what is most fulfilling to me in those types of conversations. Beth Elliott (14:10) the people who have reached out to you Is there, what's the impetus for them reaching out? And when I say impetus in my mind, I'm like, you've called out they're selling their house. I would often see something like they're building or they're redesigning their house. Like in terms of having an architect or a construction person come in, where are those spaces that these folks are coming to you where you're like, yes, I'd love this piece of it. Natasha Knight (14:28) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. ⁓ They're the folks who maybe have been in their homes for a while. So maybe they're not in a space where they're completely redesigning or renovating their home, but they're the people who have been in their homes for a little bit and are frustrated. So their space doesn't tell the story that they wanted to tell. Their space is perhaps not cohesive or they can't figure out. how to arrange the furniture or it needs to be multi-purpose, but right now it's just kind of chaotic as opposed to intentionally set for it with different zones. So these are the people who really have a pain point with their frustration of some sort with their space that they've been living in and can't seem to find a way to get it to work for them. and their families whether it's their home office or or their family room or what have you. Beth Elliott (15:39) What's the level of complexity that comes out of working with you? It sounds like some of this is very low lift. Like, we can make some minor adjustments. there, like, tell me about the extremes of what's the low impact versus what could you see that's a big outcome coming out of working with you? Natasha Knight (15:51) Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So the low impact is those, those small changes, right? Those maybe one-off conversations where we have a call. They send me the pictures. I send them a very, depending on the project, a detailed design or mood board and say, here are some things with some DIY recommendations. Like here's some things that you can do to make it a better space for you. I think in my dreams, if it were to be like big impact, it would be, like I said, more of a longer term coaching engagement where I would be able to coach people over a few months to over time, create the space that they need. I would love to do things that are either based on their strengths. love the StrengthsFinder, the Gallup assessment. If I could help people either design spaces based on their top five, home office, or if they wanted a space that was designed specifically for folks who are in their family who are neurodivergent, or if they needed trauma-informed design. ⁓ my big picture or big dream would be to design spaces that really spoke to the individualized needs of that person or that family so they could be more productive. Like I said, feel good. If you're working from home, you feel good in front of the camera and like the camera, the space behind you, like it, it all works don't feel like you're in, like I said, a space that is working against you and frustrating. But that's the big thing is how do I create spaces that work for the individual and really speak to their needs and help them. feel like they're in a space of wellness more consistently when they're at home. Beth Elliott (17:54) I am likely an undiagnosed neurodivergent. ⁓ So there's a lot of things that are resonating in this space. But the thing that then pulls out from that is. Natasha Knight (17:54) Yeah. Okay. Beth Elliott (18:09) I'm trying to think of that very unique person who's like, I know I need something and I don't have the eye for it, but I want to spend months with somebody helping me help myself do this thing. and make it right and I'm trying to fit like have you seen that person in the wild? Natasha Knight (18:32) I think yes and no. So I can speak for myself, right? we're moving into a new house, right? So I have to design this office, home office space, blank slate. I need to do this for myself, right? So if I could hire someone to help me map out my zones in my office where I'd... do different things and even have different spaces in my home for the neurodivergent folks in my family. I would love that. I don't know that I've come across others. I did have one person who reached out to say that they were having trouble sort of with their family room and their ADHD was keeping them from being able to see what they needed to see to get the space. ⁓ styled or designed or functioning and or organized in a way that functioned for them. ⁓ But I don't know that I've seen what you're asking. I think that's part of what I'm hoping to determine in the exploration phase is are there people out there that need this? And if not, then what else might I do with all of these things to connect the dots? Beth Elliott (19:47) The coaching piece is interesting. Like when you're saying like, man, I'd really love to kind of be with them on this journey. Natasha Knight (19:55) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (19:56) The other thing that is good to have in the back of your mind is, and I want to get paid to do this. Right? And so it's, there's a bit of a dichotomy to say, Natasha Knight (20:04) Yes, for sure. ⁓ Beth Elliott (20:12) I want to be able to give them easy adjustments in their house that they can do on their own and have it be a DIY, which very much to me says is probably going to attract people who don't want to invest money into having somebody help them do it because I shouldn't say help them do it, but they would, I think they'd be more price conscious. Natasha Knight (20:35) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (20:35) in aligning with somebody who's going to charge what would be a fair wage to bring this creative expertise into their homes. Natasha Knight (20:47) Yeah, and that kind of is at odds. I, my whole thing is to make it accessible. I don't want to be a designer who's charging. When you're charging people, you know, three or 4,000 in some places to do, like, it's just, it's so inaccessible. And that's part of my goal is to be able to make it accessible, but it has to still be business smart, right? Like I can't just. Beth Elliott (20:53) Yeah. Natasha Knight (21:17) can't do everything for free and I can't do everything for $100 a project, right? So I totally get that part. And I think that's part of the rub for me. That's part of my pain point in all of this is how do you do it in a way that honors that accessibility and affordability, ⁓ but still honors ⁓ my intellectual property and my expertise and my time. Beth Elliott (21:23) Mm-hmm. I think that's the crux of every business owner of, I really want to be helpful. I love my service. I want to, like, this is the thing that you would do for free when nobody is watching. Cause your brain just naturally does it. And in those spaces, it's very easy to undervalue what you bring to the table as you're trying to find your right market. Natasha Knight (22:04) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (22:06) So as you're going through this, I would challenge you as a part of your boards to say, OK, if I did something like this, how many clients do I think I could get a year in this space? And if I charge this much, how much am I going to be making? And that gets to be a really fast reality check on how many clients do I need in a year in order to put food on the table. Natasha Knight (22:34) Yeah. Beth Elliott (22:38) with the business that you're building. The other thing to look at is. do you want this to be a lifestyle business where it's you alone? Or are you looking to surround customers, your clients with a more robust offering, right? I can send a painter to you. have my, and maybe they're not hired people, but maybe it's your network of referrals of painters or furniture movers or architecture or. construction folks or what does that bigger scale look like as you're servicing your clients for everything they need and then where do you fit into that equation? Natasha Knight (23:22) I don't think I've gotten to that point yet. Like in my mind, this is something I think in part because I'm still looking at it as something that I do in addition to my full-time work that I had not gotten there in my thought process. In my mind mapping exercise that I did the other day, I was like, I don't see where I would have worked with someone or a team, right? There are, I think, always opportunities to refer people, you know, being on networks like, is it alignable where you can refer, you know, connect and refer to other businesses. I think there's always opportunity for that. I just had not thought about being in a space where I would be. leading a team in this, not with this model that I was thinking about. Beth Elliott (24:14) All right, so very much an individual. You do the work. You do the design work. And then the person you're working with is the one who does the actual physical manual labor. Natasha Knight (24:18) Mm-hmm. ⁓ Yeah, I think and also because it's I live in a very rural part of North Carolina. So I'm also thinking about if I were to limit this to ⁓ in-person services in this area, one, there's not going to be nearly as many people who work from home. There may be people who want the broader family design type services, but ⁓ or family space design services. But if I'm going to find an outlet for the work, it likely will have to have some virtual components simply because of where we live. Like there's like 50 or 60,000 people in this county. The county itself is largely farmland and manufacturing and you just don't have the audience for the work from home or. Beth Elliott (25:06) Mm-hmm. Natasha Knight (25:22) There's some entrepreneurs here, of course, there's plenty of those, it's not what you might find in a larger city. Beth Elliott (25:28) So there's an opportunity, too, as you're looking at this, to look at associations. there are associations out there and I can connect you with the one I'm thinking of afterwards that, for instance, help people with disabilities and help them with equity and accessibility within their own homes. those might be great places to partner and being able to say, I can offer this design service in a space that helps your community be more successful within their environments. Natasha Knight (25:57) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I Beth Elliott (26:11) The thing that I'm mulling on is this piece of marrying that passion was something that's going to be profitable for you in a way that if you ever did want to have it be your full-time gig that that was an option. Natasha Knight (26:24) Hmm. I don't know if that exists and in full transparency. I don't know if I ever want it to be the full-time thing. There is, like I said, there's stability that comes from working with an employer in terms of the compensation, the benefits, especially healthcare benefits at this stage in life don't think that it's wise for me to just toss it and say, okay, we're gonna explore for two years and try to do this full-time. So I don't know that doing it full-time is something that I want to do unless it were like a true career pivot, right? Where I did find an opportunity to work in a firm or some type of design. focused organization that would need my health and health equity focused expertise. Beth Elliott (27:19) So then looking at this as a side business. I hate to make assumptions and I know that you've said, feel that you've repeated things a couple of times, but just to be clear, so if this is a side business. What would be the goals for you as you look at the next years? Natasha Knight (27:38) Two years, this is really a creative outlet for me. This is where I would get a lot of my fulfillment. ⁓ I do a lot of strategy work in my full-time role and that's challenging and sometimes fun, challenging in a good way, mean. It allows me to use my public health and research background in a very different way than I have in the earlier years of my career. And that's wonderful. And there's still some level of fulfillment that I simply, I don't get it at work all the time. And I don't think that I'm alone in that. And not to say that the... work itself doesn't have any level of fulfillment. There's just something else that I'm looking to provide for folks and that I would find fulfilling. And I've felt a bit of that or a great deal of that actually working through the course and then in my sort of experiments and conversations with people after. So the next couple of years, it's really a way for me to don't want to say give back because it is giving back, but it's more than that because there likely will be some like profit gained from it. I won't be doing all this for free, but it's a way for me to really have a creative outlet, connect with people, and do things that are very different outside of work. I like to have things to do. So this is a fun thing to do and something that actually Beth Elliott (29:11) Hmm. Natasha Knight (29:14) I think makes a difference. Beth Elliott (29:16) you talked about trauma-informed, you talked about strength-finder, you talked about neurodivergent. Are there any other passion places for you? Natasha Knight (29:24) I have thought about being able to do this in like nonprofit spaces. I think that's probably the only thing I haven't mentioned. So like if a community center or Boys and Girls Club or something needed to be redesigned for ⁓ the communities they serve, that would be the other thing that I would love to do is to be able to, or even if you've got, for my MBA capstone, my project focused on domestic violence survivors and finding a building to be able to design, to either renovate or build a, or a property where they could build from the ground a perfect world, I would have been able to actually help them design the inside. in a way that made sense for people who have gone through that type of life experience. So I can, maybe that would be like the four or five year mark. It's like, I would love to be able to do this type of work for an organization in the community in partnership with others, working with people who are in the trades, working with other organizations that can donate materials and other designers who can donate their time and their expertise. so yeah. Beth Elliott (30:47) And that's, think, where I'm scratching at in terms of there are places that do build things like community homes, whether it's kids who are getting out of the foster system or it's women who are leaving domestic abuse or it's there are spaces that have very home-like atmospheres. Natasha Knight (30:56) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (31:12) that and then you don't necessarily, it's not necessarily on you to worry about how are they going to fund this because the person that you're working with is working on getting grants and funding and working with government entities to secure how they're going to build these spaces because it's very much in that give back to the community type space. ⁓ And design is definitely a component. Natasha Knight (31:24) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (31:36) The thing that's important when you're starting your business is niching down to the point that you become referable. And I can see you having a few different spots, right? To get yourself started and get your feet ⁓ wet, leveraging that, really, to partner, to spread the word around you. And I'd have some sort of presence, whether it's on LinkedIn or an easy web page that talks about Natasha Knight (31:55) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (32:05) staging and how you do this in that ⁓ real estate space. Natasha Knight (32:07) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (32:12) That other space though of meeting the unique needs. Like I can see that being, I can see the realty thing being if you want to have that thing that grows the business, but as you're talking about that four year mark, how do you start positioning yourself as that expert in trauma response, in neurodivergence, in, and that's where I think a little, maybe a little more exploration in to what kinds of groups are out there, what kinds of associations are out there, who's building what for whom, and how can you position yourself to be the person who's best equipped to do that. ⁓ Being able to use some of your research and to build some case studies and saying, hey, we know that X, Y, and Z happen, and this is why it's important to think about environment as to reduce triggers and whatnot. Natasha Knight (33:08) Yeah. Beth Elliott (33:09) Being able to have that be the thread for you. And even as you're doing your work for the real estate agents, as you're meeting with clients and people get curious, wow, you have a really good eye for this. As they start digging in, being able to have that thread for them to say, yeah, my passion is really around creating these sanctuary spaces for people where they feel calmed and soothed and it plays to their strengths and. Natasha Knight (33:26) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (33:40) and getting those referrals in that regard. Natasha Knight (33:43) Yeah. Beth Elliott (33:44) I can see your business being bigger. if you wanted it to, if you get the positioning right. Natasha Knight (33:47) It could be, yeah. I do think anything is possible. I'm not opposed to the idea. If it's, like I said, I'm open to change if it leads to a place of greater stability. Beth Elliott (33:54) for sure. Natasha Knight (34:04) if it checks all the boxes that it would need to check for my family, right, then yeah, I'm open and I don't know what those boxes are off the top of my head. That would have to be a very long and iterative conversation between myself and my husband, but we would, I'm sure, and cause he wants to do his own thing and business and entrepreneurship at some Beth Elliott (34:21) Yep. ⁓ sure. Natasha Knight (34:29) We'd have to time that very, very carefully. I'm not opposed to it. It's just, is it the right thing to do? And does it disrupt the stability of our home? That's the main thing for me is making sure that that's not, I'm open to taking risk, but they have to be very informed Beth Elliott (34:33) Did get that? the things that I would ask are, is the real estate staging, does that scratch the itch enough? If not, what would that next level look like? Okay, we're talking about getting into families and helping them build out spaces that are on that DIY end of things. Is it something that you want to be the value person in that space? Do you, would you prefer to be aligned with somebody like a construction team or otherwise who can bring you into stuff so you're not selling your own things? You're just being brought in at the right time by the right people. And if that's the case, right, then who are the construction people who you're aligning with? Who are the, you're getting very specific on, I want to work with these kinds of folks. And then you could create like a cool community in that space. It's you're the designer and you have other people who would do the other things. Natasha Knight (35:53) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (35:55) ⁓ the watch out and you know it, the watch out is you can't do it all for a hundred dollars. You can. I mean, you can, if you're just looking to be like, Hey, I just want to scratch a creative itch and this gives me some coffee money. Natasha Knight (36:03) No. Yeah. Beth Elliott (36:14) And then the bigger, bigger one is like if you're getting some traction or you're like, this isn't a big enough itch to scratch. What does that look like? And it doesn't have to be in your own community. I guess that's the question. Like, do you have a passion for this being in your own community or are you OK with it being bigger? Natasha Knight (36:35) So there is a component that is, my husband and I would love to do something with affordable housing here in our community. We have our joint bucket list item that is around affordable housing that also does not discriminate against people who have been involved with the criminal justice system. And making sure that they have good housing opportunities. we moved back to North Carolina because we wanted to be closer to family and because we have this idea that at some point we would go after that bucket list item. So I can definitely see that ⁓ all of that tying together here at some point. And if I were to venture outside of this community, I could see myself doing special projects in other places, but this region of North Carolina, the Eastern part of the state, we have some of the poorest health outcomes in the state here. So if I can contribute to improving that and through this work, that would be a dream, right? I would just be up and down the coast doing. doing this work and that would be great, but I would love to be able to start in this community with that bigger itch that you talked about. Beth Elliott (37:56) What's your husband's, you talked about him wanting to go out on his own, what's his thing? Natasha Knight (38:04) He's a warehouse supervisor ⁓ by trade, but he wants to get into property management. ⁓ So he wants to be able to invest in some properties, improve them. His thing is he wants to be able to provide, similar to me in a way, I guess hadn't thought about this before. It's like when you provide people with nice looking homes to rent. as opposed to providing them with something that is run down, that looks like the landowner does or the homeowner doesn't care and that they don't, you know, they're only there for the rent check, then you kind of get what you pay for in your tenants. I do think that there's a variation to that, right? Where sometimes it's like your tenants are just going to be tenants. But I do think that he's onto something in this let's find some nice properties, make them, if they don't look good already, make them quality rentals so that people know that they can always come to the Knight family if they want a good rental that's gonna be taken care of, where the yard will be taken care of, where the property is well kept. we would be able to find good quality tenants because we provide good quality homes is what his premise is. And like I said, infusing that with helping people who have histories that often prevent them from being able to get good stable housing. But that's a nutshell. It's just a lot of, there's a lot of idea. We're in the idea generation stage right now with a lot of things. Beth Elliott (39:49) Because this could be cool. This could be so cool, right? Think about the idea of you're working with these folks who want a fair shake and you're working on these properties. It could almost be, that could almost be the coaching outlet, right? Natasha Knight (40:12) It could be to some degree. Yeah, it could be if you if I'm helping because there are some people I think who want to take care of spaces and don't know how like people if you've never had to then you don't know what to do. You're going to do what you've seen people who you lived with, you know, if you were fresh out of high school and going to get your first place. Beth Elliott (40:30) Mm-hmm. Natasha Knight (40:40) And if your parents didn't take care of their home, then you're going to do what you saw them do in many cases, not everyone. And then there are going to be some people who just, they, they hated it so much that they will find ways, right, to do better than what they saw. But I could see, I could definitely see a coaching element in there, like helping tenants. Like how do you become a good tenant? How do you take care of your space in a way that respects your landlords, but also just helps you take pride in where you live. Like you would invite someone over and be very happy to have them come over because the outside of your home looks nice and the inside is also welcoming and doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it is welcoming and it is a place where people can come and relax and just sort of be feel at home. Beth Elliott (41:31) Hmm. So imagine if you will, my parents were part of, transition of real estate through the years, we ended up with my grandparents' farm for a little bit, right? And it was down past Mankato and we'd hear from the neighbors of the stuff that was going down there and how things were falling apart and whatnot. So that's the watch out as being in that property management space. But so imagine then if you could take that. Natasha Knight (41:56) Yeah. Beth Elliott (42:04) And as a part of your vetting process, it's like, we are giving you nice homes to help build this space, right? But a part of your rental is going to be, I'm going to throw stuff out. And of course you take with it what you will, but we're going to meet on a monthly basis. I'm going to come to your home. We're going to walk you through the basics of homeownership or I shouldn't say home ownership, but rental. How do you take care of the space? How do you create these great spaces? like, depending on where they're at, you're be able to coach them in that kind of that rudimentary, let's get you on your feet. Just make sure you're taking care of yourself, taking care of the space. What's working, what's not working. ⁓ It gives you that confidence as the property manager to say, hey, this is a part of your contract. Natasha Knight (42:44) Mm-hmm. Right. Beth Elliott (43:00) If you're not taking care of the space, we are able to help you look for something else or move you on to something else. But we are committed to building a community that respects our spaces and whatnot. And we want to be there as an advocate for you. And then as they keep accelerating in that space, then being able to say, hey, I see that you are wrestling with neurodivergence. I see that you're wrestling with whatever, or maybe it would help if you did something like the StrengthsFinder and let's start. Natasha Knight (43:06) Yeah. Beth Elliott (43:28) turning your spaces into places that work for you. Natasha Knight (43:30) Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Beth Elliott (43:33) And then that doesn't necessarily have to be your full-time job, right? That can be his full-time gig as you're doing the coaching that gives you that bigger vision, but it's building the community that you want to see. Natasha Knight (43:44) Yeah, yeah. That would, I don't know how open, I guess when I'm, when the question that you asked me, have you found that out in the wild? I don't know that. I mean, you know people, you have the property inspections, right? Like once or twice a year. So I, I mean, I wonder, we would definitely have to explore to see how many people would be open to that. I don't know, would they be opposed to that type of coaching or engagement with their landlords? Because most people, they don't want to see the landlord coming. But if we set things up in a way that this is, we're here as your landlords, we're your housing partners, we're not here. And I think even that term landlord is something that needs to be. Beth Elliott (44:30) Yeah. Natasha Knight (44:36) change means use a different term because it really is a partnership in housing. Especially for the model that we're considering because I've it wasn't just about the housing. It's like how do you then help these folks if you have like a community of say mobile homes, you can provide people with jobs in terms of maintaining the property. You can provide transportation for people to get to work and get to child care like it's a whole thing. It's not just Beth Elliott (45:04) Yeah, the ecosystem. Natasha Knight (45:05) yeah, yeah, because people need those things. Beth Elliott (45:07) That would be a really cool thing to write. How do you create that community that by doing this thing here, we are going to give you access to these things and help you build your life back up. Natasha Knight (45:23) Yeah, especially in this area where you can have something on your record from 10, 15 years ago and still have trouble getting good housing, stable housing. So if we're able to do that and help people, ⁓ like you said, get back on their feet and just respect them as humans and as people who need some place. nice and safe to live then that would be that's like that's that's our big bucket list thing so Beth Elliott (46:03) That would be a really cool, now that we've gotten here, this would be something that's really cool to continue to untangle. Because the thing that's going to be really fun is that trick of we're not doing this to you, figuring out what the benefits are for those folks who are in that system, that they'd be like, wait, you're saying that if I rent from you, you're going to provide me these benefits? And one of the benefits is like my Natasha Knight (46:06) you ⁓ Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (46:32) home coach or whatever you want to call it, right? And one of it is maybe you do get into transportation partners and maybe you do get into healthcare, child care partners. How do you wrap those folks in your community with a safe blanket, right? Once you have the hierarchy of needs, those basic needs met, there's a lot of things that come off of the mental load and allow you to rise up. Natasha Knight (46:47) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (46:59) and how you're showing up in the community. Man, that would be so powerful, Natasha. Natasha Knight (47:04) Yeah, it's our dream. That type of thing is the it's more than proper. Like I said, it's more than property management. It's it's all those things because similar to like quitting smoking, you can't ask someone to quit smoking when they are stressed about like, how are you going to pay for rent? This is not going to be on the top of the priority list to quit smoking if they're concerned about job stability, housing stability, getting to work. Like it's not going to be a priority so people can't focus on it, especially when, like I said, they perceive it to be something that helps them to manage all those stressors. Beth Elliott (47:52) Yeah, for sure. I get it. We are just a minute over time and I want to be conscious of that. Is there anything else that you'd like to tell the audience before we log off today? Natasha Knight (48:04) I would just like to say I've enjoyed it. It was good to get all the things out of my head. ⁓ It sounds to me as jumbled as it looks on paper right now. I'm just kind of embracing that space and sort of wading through it all to figure out ⁓ what's next and why it's next. I think that's always the important thing is why am I doing something. I enjoyed this. Thank you so much, Beth. Beth Elliott (48:33) You're so welcome. And I think you're on the right path of figuring out like you have a clear passion of who it is that you want to help. Even if when you say it, sounds jumbled. You got very clear and know this is how I want to help my community. I tell people all of the no's are just as important as the yeses. No, I don't think I want to be in a corporate thing. No, I don't think I want to go beyond my community. Like you have a lot of great no's in your space. Natasha Knight (49:00) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (49:01) And then all of sudden you got super passionate about this thing of community. It's not just the spaces. Natasha Knight (49:06) Yeah. Beth Elliott (49:12) It is, want to help people who have been marginalized in my community to have a fair chance. And I want to do that in spaces that make them feel really, really great about themselves. Natasha Knight (49:24) Yep, absolutely, that's it. Beth Elliott (49:27) You have a really cool business framing up and I hope I get to be a part of it as you continue on this journey. Natasha Knight (49:35) We'll keep in touch for sure. I don't know how quickly things will move, but I am sure that we will keep in touch and I'll try to be on the lookout for ways to loop you and other cool folks in. Beth Elliott (49:51) Fantastic. Well, Natasha, thanks for your time today. Everybody listening, thanks for listening in on another session of Untangled and we'll see you next time.