Student + Co-Owner = Girl Boss

Blaine Williamson is the Director of Placemaking at Motley Studios, a student at Elon and our girl boss goals. Blaine explains Motley as a place where, “we desire to help communities use their various kinds and parts to create a place they’re proud of.”

Blaine is a senior in college and it is hard to believe she is already making such an impact on surrounding areas of Elon, all while starting a company before she graduates from Elon this May.

Motley began in August of 2018 and was created to help build communities like Gibsonville, Hillsborough, Belmont and Marion.

“We partner with towns, cities and communities to make places more equitable, enjoyable and engaging,” Williamson said.

So how does Blaine balance social life, schoolwork and co-owning a business (something we all wish we were skilled at)?

Well, Williamson shares that, “being a college student and owning a business has been incredibly difficult and rewarding. I often feel like there are simply not enough hours in a day for me to live my life at Elon while also living my life as a business owner, but I love everything about it.”

It must be nice to not have to apply for jobs post-grad!

Williamson had the opportunity to work with the City of Graham doing similar development work for the past few years. This inspired Blaine, and the rest of her team, to start Motley because, “we came to realize how much places affect us as humans.”

To be exact, the team even asked themselves, “why not do what we love and produce better economic outcomes for more people in more places.” Talk about community building at its best!

Motley is a community/economic development and place based marketing firm. Motley works as capacity builder and a gap filler, normally for smaller more rural towns. Motley gets do to a lot of fun activities working with smaller towns for example Motley plans city-wide events, facilitated public art initiative, designs citywide brands and logos, run town-specific social media accounts and assist in community-informed business recruitment to vacant buildings.

Williamson has built lasting relationships in only four short years as an Elon student and most recently co-founding Motley. “My favorite thing about starting Motley has been all of the incredible people and resources I have been introduced too,” Williamson said.

This area of North Carolina offers so many creative and intelligent people and, “I never would have met them had I not started the business,” Williamson shares.

While starting a business comes with a lot of excitement it also has its many learning curves and challenges. Williamson said she had to learn tons of new things early on like, taxes, business law, LLC formation, finances and accounting, and all of the other little pieces that go into owning a business aside from operations.

“I definitely feel like a more well-rounded, better version of myself because of Motley,” Williamson said.

Blaine, thanks for inspiring all of us to be go-getters, dream-chasers and our girl boss goals. To check out all the work that Blaine and Motley are doing visit their socials at @motely.studio on instagram and Motley NC on facebook. Also on their website, https://motleync.com.