Happy Birthday to Niche Consulting LLC

A year ago today I started my own sustainable design consulting company, Niche Consulting LLC. So my baby company is one year old today! Happy Birthday, Niche!

For Niche, like for most start-up companies – and most human babies for that matter – the first year was full of experimentation and growth. Through Niche this year I taught workshops, met with clients for design and lifestyle consultations, sketched up tiny house designs, participated in conferences and working groups, and supported other sustainable development companies. I worked with dozens of great individuals and a handful of wonderful companies, including Intrinsic Ventures, Portland Alternative Dwellings, Caravan – The Tiny House Hotel, and Yestermorrow Design-Build School.

As I've embarked on Lina's Next Adventure, I've learned a great deal through trial-and-error as well as from the advice and support of friends, family, colleagues, and a few perfect strangers, too. Sometimes it’s felt like I could barely hold my head up and sometimes it’s felt like I was crawling, but now that I’ve got my feet underneath me, Niche and I are eager to toddle out and explore what this second year of life is all about. (Hopefully, it won’t be the terrible twos!)

Of course, I’ve also been overwhelmed by the support from my friends and family. Special thanks go to Sandy Hall, Amy Gammill, Rose Jones, Kathy MacMaster, and Pat Hovis for being my cheer squad! It’s also been great to be starting up my company while several friends and two of my sisters start companies of their own.

These friends and family members of mine also welcomed new businesses into the world this year:

• My sister Sarah created Farthest North Films so that she can pursue her love of documenting life in Alaska. (Her company is so new the website hasn't been built out yet - stay tuned!)
• My sister Katie created Bring Baby Fitness so she (and her infant son Caleb) can help other new parents take good care of themselves and their little ones. (Her company is so new the website hasn't been built out yet - stay tuned!)
• My friends Derin and Andra Williams have created Shelter Wise LLC to build tiny houses and do energy efficiency work.
• My friends Deb Delman and Kol Peterson created Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel.
• My friends Jeremy Beasley and Kelly Nardo are creating a film about tiny living called Small is Beautiful.
• My friend Karin Parramore co-founded Good Life Medicine Center (and its development overlapped with construction of her tiny house on wheels, Serenity! Two new babies for Karin this year! She deserves a medal – and a break!)
• My friend Lindsey Thompson started up Thompson Family Acupuncture Clinic and began blogging at Stick Out Your Tongue.
• My friend Lisa Curtis has developed Kuli Kuli Bars which you can now request that your local Whole Foods carry.

Meanwhile, I continue to be inspired by the friends who have blazed the entrepreneurial path before me and created sustainability-focused companies of their own:

• Brittany Yunker rents out her sweet Bayside Bungalow as a tiny vacation rental.
• Tammy Strobel teaches e-courses on simple living, writing, and photography (I've just registered for her latest one A Simple Year and I'm so excited to get started!)
• Dee Williams and Joan Grimm provide inspiration, education, and information for people creating tiny houses through Portland Alternative Dwellings
• Matt Eppelsheimer does web development through is company Rocket Lift Incorporated
• Corey McKrill builds websites through Jupiterwise Design
• Curt Bowen supports sustainable farming practices in Guatamala through Semilla Nueva
• Emily Dietsman and Andy Asmus grow amazing food, flowers, and community through Welcome Table Farm
• Apologies to anyone I left off the list! Remind me and I'll add you!

It’s been an honor to work alongside these impressive folks as we create companies that strive to do well by doing good. Here’s to supporting small businesses with big hearts this year!

Lina's Next Adventure

This post from last summer was lingering in draft mode. Now that Niche is having it's first birthday, I realized I'd better get it posted! -Lina

This summer I've been going through a Transition Time as I wrapped up my Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, my Urban Design Certificate, my work with Intrinsic Ventures in the Ford District. On top of all that, I moved from my Home, Sweet Yurt into my Home, Sweet Pea. And then I immediately spent a couple weeks catching up with my long-lost family.

So as the dust settles, I'd like to introduce you to Niche Consulting LLC and tell you about my next adventures. In January I created Niche, my own sustainable design consulting company, so that I could do design and lifestyle consulting with people interested in creating their own small homes and so that I could work on sustainable development projects. You can read Lina's Next Adventure, the letter I wrote to the folks in the Ford Building for more about that.

I remember declaring as a sophomore in college that I wanted to be a sustainability consultant someday, but I didn’t know quite what that meant. So I was researching the sort of companies for which I’d like to work. The trouble was that I was most intrigued by fringy sustainable housing ideas like natural building, cohousing communities, district sustainable energy use, and creating small homes by converting garages and basements. I couldn’t find a single company that seemed like it would allow me to pursue my passions.

But as I graduated, the parent of one of my dearest friends gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever received. Gayle told me:

“The jobs you’ll love best throughout your career probably don’t exist yet. So just be ready for them, when they’re ready for you.”

What better way to prepare myself for all the exciting projects to come than to create a company that will allow me the flexibility to pursue them?

I give credit to three people for convincing me I could – and should – start my own company. Matt Eppelsheimer of Rocket Life Incorporated taught me an incredible amount about start-ups. Joan Grimm helped me understand that creating my own single-member LLC would enable me to work with companies like Portland Alternative Dwellings more easily on a contract-basis. And Lizzy Caston, a fellow Portland State University Masters of Urban and Regional Planning alum, inspired me to strike out on my own by telling me about creating her own consulting company. I met with her for a cup of tea in early January and by the end of the week my company was registered!

Now that my graduate school degree is complete, I have the time to see what that means to be self-employed. I'm looking forward to site managing for Caravan - The Tiny House Hotel in September, co-instructing the Tiny House Design-Build course at Yestermorrow in September-October, team teaching Tiny House Basics Workshops with Dee Williams and Joan Grimm in November, and doing some capacity-building work with Portland Alternative Dwellings. Hopefully, I'll also have lots of opportunities to do consultations with individuals.

If you've who have been trying to find your niche and haven't yet, maybe it's time to make it! If you'd like to talk to me about small house designs or tiny lifestyle consultation, please contact me.

Hello, Ford District

A couple weeks ago I started a new job, as the Planning & Communications Coordinator for the Ford District, and I’m thoroughly loving it! I found out about the opportunity at the end of last term when Mike Tevis of Intrinsic Ventures sent an email over the urban planning listserv saying that he was offering a dream job to an ambitious planner. Intrigued, I contacted him and we chatted on the phone for a few minutes. He introduced himself as a property-owner with a vision to create a transit-oriented, mixed-use hub in central Southeast Portland through adaptive reuse and some ground-up residential. He was speaking my language.

When Tevis told me that the Ford Building is one of his, I was instantly excited. I’d been to Ford Food & Drink for team meetings for my Site Planning class and I love the vibe there. The Ford Building was built in 1914 as a factory for Model Ts, and the building today retains much of the gritty charm of an old factory, but it has been updated and modernized. It now houses 90 small businesses including artists, entrepreneurs, and independent professionals. (Everyone from messenger bag manufacturers and branding experts to hair stylists and artisan pickle makers!)

When Tevis and I first met, he told me he wants to do new construction to add housing to his properties, too. I told him about micro apartments and he was instantly on board. “Your generation is so smart!” he told me. “You have already figured out that it’s not about all the stuff but about having a cool place to call home and everything you need nearby.” I grinned. I love the synergy of a city. I know inner-city living isn’t for everyone, but I think a place like the Ford District will be home, sweet home to folks like me who want to live the Little Life in an urban environment.

I met with Mike Tevis the day he closed on his latest acquisition, The Dairy Building, and he invited me to walk through it. That sealed the deal for me. I could see in an instant that this building with its incredible exposed beams and natural light from a plethora of skylights would be phenomenal when Tevis is done with it. “I love old buildings,” he told me. “They’re better this way!” Some people would have had trouble seeing through the pigeon poop, but Tevis envisions the potential and I can see it, too.

At Friday at the Ford, I had the opportunity to meet some Ford Building tenants, including Nutcase, Old School Stationers, and Fat Pencil Studio. Several of my classmates joined in the fun, too. Thanks for coming out to mix and mingle, fellas! The Ford Building has an amazing community of talented folks and I can’t wait to meet all of them. Want to hear about the next Friday at the Ford and other Ford District happenings? Like Ford District on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

My work in the Ford District will be the perfect counterbalance to Partnering with Portland Alternative Dwellings for tiny house, ADU, and pocket neighborhood consulting. While the latter are great infill options for existing neighborhoods, the Ford District is an opportunity to create a more urban mixed-use area right next to the light rail, streetcar, and Clinton bicycle boulevard going over Portland’s new transit bridge. Our cities need both type of space-smart, resource-efficient housing, so I’m excited to help make both happen here in Portland.