Is it possible to build a profitable expertise business that is 100% values-aligned and mission driven?

Lucy Flores—who has built a design studio dedicated to co-creating a more just, joyful and sustainable U.S. food system—says yes, with the results to prove it:

Why she niched her business into food equity right from the beginning—and how it played out.

How she thinks about and builds alliances, coalitions and partnerships (hint: she doesn’t have competitors).

Her approach—as an introvert—to investing in relationships and meeting new people in her field.

Why niching alone wasn’t enough—and what changed when she started marketing regularly.

Adopting a mindset of cautious optimism and deciding when it’s “safe to fail”.

LINKS

Lucy Flores Website | LinkedIn

Rochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram

BIO

Lucy is the founder of Studio Magic Hour, a collaborative design studio working to advance equity in the food system, and a former Equitable Design Fellow at Hopelab.

She's partnered with organizations including the California Academy of Sciences, the Fair Food Network, Hopelab, The Nature Conservancy, Plant Futures, Share Our Strength, and the Southern Poverty Law Center to lead design and design research projects, facilitate workshops, and coach in-house design and innovation teams.

Previously, she helped launch FoodCorps, a national nonprofit dedicated to cultivating joy, health, and justice for kids through nutritious food, in partnership with schools and community. She is a member of the Design Justice Network, the Democracy & Belonging Forum at the Othering and Belonging Institute, Equity Army, and AIGA.

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TRANSCRIPT

00:00 - 00:25

Lucy Flores: Being open to learning, right? Lessons learned is a part of what we do. And I think if you go in with this perfectionist mindset, expecting that it either needs to work out or it was a total miss, like that's certainly not gonna serve the folks you're working with and it's not gonna serve you either. And having the mindset which is, yeah, certain things might not work out, but there's opportunity here to learn from that and move forward. That mindset can help overcome the hump of fear and then give you something to work with once you actually

00:25 - 00:31

Lucy Flores: try out that thing. [♪ music playing,

00:31 - 01:14

Rochelle Moulton: fades out. Hello, hello. Welcome to the Soloist Life podcast where we're all about turning your expertise into wealth and impact. I'm Rochelle Moulton and today I'm here with Lucy Flores, who's the founder of Studio Magic Hour, a collaborative design studio working to advance equity in the food system and a former equitable design fellow at Hope Lab. She's partnered with organizations including the California Academy of Sciences, the Fair Food Network, Hope Lab, the Nature Conservancy, Plant Futures, Share Our Strength, and the Southern Poverty Law Center to lead design and design research projects, facilitate workshops, and coach in-house

01:14 - 01:40

Rochelle Moulton: design and innovation teams. Previously, she helped launch FoodCorps, a national nonprofit dedicated to cultivating joy, health, and justice for kids through nutritious food in partnership with schools and community. She's a member of the Design Justice Network, the Democracy and Belonging Forum at the Othering and Belonging Institute, Equity Army, and AIGA. Lucy, welcome.

01:41 - 01:44

Lucy Flores: Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here today.

01:45 - 02:17

Rochelle Moulton: Well, I'm excited to talk to you, and I just loved reading off all of these affiliations and associations that you have. So before we get too deep, I do want to read 2 things from your LinkedIn profile, because I think it will help our listeners understand a bit more about the food system and your mission in particular. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, so first, I love this so much. People often say our food system is broken. In reality, it's working exactly as it was designed, benefiting some while failing to meet the needs of many more. The

02:17 - 02:55

Rochelle Moulton: good news, we can design a different future. And then second, I'm an equitable design strategist dedicated to helping designers and innovation leaders co-create a more just, joyful, and sustainable U.S. Food system. And I so appreciate that the word joy is part of your worldview. I mean, along with just and sustainable, these are all really important planks, I guess, of your system. So tell us a little bit more about, you know, how you've invested in your mission and values and how you see them dovetailing with your business.

02:56 - 03:29

Lucy Flores: For me, values aligned work is just something that I've always wanted to do and felt like I needed to do. You know, back when I was in school, studying and in college, I felt very drawn to social justice oriented work. And at the time was sort of feeling around in the ways in which I wanted to advance that work in some way, figuring out what are my interests and where are my passions and where do my skills lie, and all of those things. And ultimately for me, it comes down to doing work that I feel is

03:29 - 04:01

Lucy Flores: values aligned. So in this case, it's helping to advance equity in the food system and then doing it in a way that is values aligned. So it's not just the end goal, it's also the how, right? And I think for me, if that's not happening, it just feels out of sync with who I am and the way I want to be in the world. And so part of it's about the practice, right? It's how am I designing? How am I collaborating with others? How am I investing in the partnerships relationally and in a way that's very

04:01 - 04:25

Lucy Flores: care-based. And that all plays out in the work itself, but also in the business, right? So who I choose to partner with, the way in which I go about doing work, everything from who I've partnered with in the financial side of the business to collaborators I work with on design itself. So that's sort of like a Cliff's Notes version of it, but yeah, it's both the what we're doing in the work and also the how we're

04:25 - 04:39

Rochelle Moulton: doing it. Yeah, I like that because it would be easy to say, okay, I'm gonna do this design work and then I'm gonna make a bunch of money and then I'm going to plow it back to some of these organizations versus We are all in it together at every step along the way.

04:39 - 05:10

Lucy Flores: Yes, absolutely And it's something that you mentioned there I've been talking about with colleagues a lot recently which is that This is probably the case in any field and it's in design as well. And I think it's common among business owners and soloists, which is there can be this feeling of scarcity in our work, right? We can feel like there isn't enough work available, that there isn't sort of enough opportunity to go around, et cetera. And when I think you're doing values aligned work, it is easier to not see peers in the space as say competition,

05:10 - 05:39

Lucy Flores: but as partners looking to toward the same end goal. And when that happens, the relationships feel a little bit different. It feels like you're partnering with folks in the same field, again, working on the same trajectory towards the same goals. Anyway, just what you mentioned there reminded me of that. But it really feels like you're coming from a place of abundance when you are doing something together with others rather than your own thing in a shared space.

05:39 - 06:07

Rochelle Moulton: Well, you know, that just reminds me that came through in a comment that you made in the soloist women community and somebody was talking about, you know, the competition and how much do you share? And you said something along the lines of what you just said, which is, I look for opportunities to collaborate so that we can work towards this common goal. So I really admire how you've been able to put that through kind of every facet of your business because it's really part of you. It's your package. It's part of your genius.

06:08 - 06:39

Lucy Flores: Yeah, I appreciate that. I'll add. I will add. Not that I don't want to take credit for that, but I will also say that there are just so many, you know, I've worked in the food system for over a decade and in various parts of the food system, ranging from working in school food and school gardens and the agricultural connection to farm to school to the consumer side of the food system. In all areas of food, they're just really passionate, rad people who are excited about the work they're doing. Like genuinely, I've worked with folks who

06:39 - 07:01

Lucy Flores: range from soil scientists who just really want to talk to you about the work that they're doing and the impact that it's having and challenges that they're facing to, you know, folks who are working in, in food sales or distribution, who are really passionate about that work. And so it does help working in a space where people are excited to be there and excited to get to know others. And it's a supportive environment for that approach.

07:01 - 07:08

Rochelle Moulton: Yes, I hear you. So Lucy, 1 of the many reasons I wanted to have you on this show is that you started your business in

07:08 - 07:13

Lucy Flores: 2023, right? 2021. So a October around October.

07:13 - 07:38

Rochelle Moulton: Okay. I think it was probably we connected in 2023. Yes, that's right. It just felt like you just shot out of the gate from the very beginning. So how did you decide that you wanted to start your own business? I mean, because 1 could argue with all of these different collaborations that you could do equally good work from the inside. So how did you decide to start your business and then make it so mission driven?

07:38 - 08:11

Lucy Flores: Prior to launching the studio, I worked for a national nonprofit for over a decade. I was there a really long time. I was the first non-founding employee. So there were just a few of us in a very, very tiny budget. We started, and when I left, there were 70, 80, 90, some odd staff members and a $20 million budget. And we were working across the country. So I was there through a pretty significant period of growth, a lot of learning, a lot of learning. And I had an opportunity there to do work in-house, right? I was

08:11 - 08:43

Lucy Flores: on our innovation team and doing program design work, still collaborating both with folks in within the organization, as well as with folks at organizations around the country, like school districts and nonprofits and state agencies. So I did have that experience and love the organization. It's a really phenomenal organization called Food Corps. I always shout them out. They're doing really, really important work in food justice and food education and schools around the country. And I was also at a point where I really wanted to have more autonomy in making my own decisions. When you're part of a

08:43 - 09:12

Lucy Flores: big organization, especially a large nonprofit, there's a lot of discussion that goes into the decisions you make. There's a lot of influence that funders have, and it can sometimes be tricky to walk the talk, especially when it comes to equity work. And I had done a lot of learning and had some really phenomenal opportunities there. And I really wanted to be in a position where I could make some of those calls myself and not be swayed by other influencing factors and you know and if I made a mistake if I stepped in it like then I

09:12 - 09:41

Lucy Flores: would be accountable but I just wanted that chance to do it. So that's really sort of the primary reason. And I wanted to be able to work on projects in other parts of the food system. I did a lot of work in institutional food and school food systems. And I'm just energized by food work in other areas of food. And so those are the primary reasons. I will add though that I've always been very entrepreneurial. So this never felt like a nervous situation for me. Like when I got out of college, I was really lucky to

09:41 - 10:06

Lucy Flores: get a job and it was not a great experience for me. I will not go into the details, but I was there barely 6 months. I was living in New York City and I thought, you know what, I'm going to just become a freelancer and I'll cobble together some things. I think I'm just innately very optimistic when it comes to work, maybe not with all things in my mind, But when it comes to work and I just have always felt like, oh, I'll figure it out. There's a way to make it happen. So even though this

10:06 - 10:16

Lucy Flores: is my first time launching a design studio, I had some experience in the past figuring out how to operate a business just slightly on a larger scale now.

10:16 - 10:25

Rochelle Moulton: Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, if it makes you feel any better, we all have a job like that. And it's usually like pretty early on and we're like, no, not gonna do that again.

10:25 - 10:27

Lucy Flores: Yeah, not working.

10:27 - 10:49

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah, I hear you. So let me just ask you the revenue question because I wanna talk more about what you've learned in running your business. How long did it take you to hit your first hundred thousand? Especially in a mission-driven business, I think our expectation is, oh yeah, we're not going to make a lot of money at this. It's a business, but we're not measuring profit. How long did it take?

10:49 - 11:15

Lucy Flores: I will give an answer and then I have a big asterisk next to it, which is I, it was in my first year. So, I was able to do it in my first year. The asterisk is that I was really well positioned going into it. There was a lot of luck and I had some privileges while I had been working in the food space for a decade, worked with a lot of organizations, had a really strong network going into the work, which I think made a huge difference for me, especially in such a niche. But The

11:15 - 11:45

Lucy Flores: other reason that I was really lucky is that I received a six-month fellowship in the first 2 months, essentially, that I had launched the studio. It's 1 of those fellowships that actually paid a living wage. Shout out to Hope Lab and also to every organization out there that's considering running fellowships, pay your people. It's really important. And there was an example of a place where I could, there was some stability in those first 6 months as I was getting things really off the ground. So I always want to add that there's some luck and privilege in

11:45 - 11:49

Lucy Flores: the mix when these things happen, but I was able to do it in my first year.

11:49 - 12:19

Rochelle Moulton: Well, there's always some luck and almost always some privilege in these things. And when we look backwards, we tend to forget that part. So I appreciate your calling it out. The other thing you said, I can't remember if You said the word in spite of or in addition to, but this niching idea, I feel like that's also a big part of your success because you didn't change fields when you left. You brought over relationships and you started with a very specific niche in mind. You knew who you were going to serve.

12:19 - 12:54

Lucy Flores: Yes, yes, that was always very clear from the very beginning because of interests. And there's some element of I'm picturing you can't see me right now. But I'm, you know, doing the tongue to the licking your finger to the wings thing here, like a gut feeling that I didn't have any hard evidence that there was going to be enough work. But I did hear from some people saying, like, oh, isn't that too niche? Isn't that too specific? How are you going to get enough work this way? And everybody eats, right? Ideally, everybody eats. And the system

12:54 - 13:12

Lucy Flores: is enormous. And there's so many opportunities to do this work and to partner on projects. So I just had a sense that it would be feasible, but I really needed to get out there and try. And I've certainly learned a lot along the way. Even the type of work that I do has shifted a little bit since I started, but it's been

13:12 - 13:44

Rochelle Moulton: a learning process. Well, and I just want to call this out for people listening who are deciding, you know, whether to niche, yes, and then how far to niche. And what's interesting about your experiment is it could have been too far. I mean, you didn't know when you started, but you make an educated guess because You know the field, you care about the field. It's intertwined with how you think of yourself, right? And your skills and talents. So, I mean, I just think that was a hugely impactful decision that you made early on. A lot of

13:44 - 13:48

Rochelle Moulton: people don't niche until year 2 or 3 or 5.

13:48 - 13:49

Lucy Flores: 0, interesting.

13:49 - 13:52

Rochelle Moulton: Yeah. Yeah, especially in the design space.

13:52 - 14:20

Lucy Flores: Mm-hmm, no, I can see that. I can see that. It's really helpful. I think it's, for me, it's something I feel passionate about. I do know people who have niched in an area just because it's kind of where they ended...