Outlier Magazine
Some of you may remember that last February I talked about how Burke and I had joined our good friends Kelsey and Ever Gonzalez in creating an online entrepreneurial magazine called "Capital Network Magazine" (post found HERE). For 9 months we had a great experience reaching out to entrepreneurs to interview them about their successes and failures thereby to inspire other aspiring entrepreneurs. One thing we loved about working with Ever and Kelsey was their big plans for CNM. It wasn't just going to be a magazine. They wanted to have CNM be an umbrella company with offshoots into entrepreneur conference series and a shared working space called "The Hub" for entrepreneurs to collaborate together and rent office space until their fledgling companies were large enough to move into a building of their own.
In the spring, Ever recruited partners for a future conference series with a software company in St. George called Cobosoft and not long after they found a potential office space for The Hub. At the time we were still down in Mesquite working with Kokopelli and had recently had one of the strongest promptings of our marriage that we needed to move to Cedar City when Ever approached us and asked Burke how he would feel about quitting his job in Cedar and moving to St. George to manage The Hub while promoting and growing the CNM brand. We were pretty floored and did some considerable discussing, fasting and praying about the offer. Up until that point we had felt like we were gaining some valuable experience with CNM, but we weren't sure if we ready to take the plunge by quitting our job to focus on CNM fulltime. We were willing to discuss it more, but the initial Hub option fell through and gave us more time to consider where we stood on the project.
Not long after, Ever, Burke and Cobosoft decided the company needed a new brand before launching the conference series and hub. After a few meetings, they decided to call themselves "Outlier" (inspired by Malcom Gladwell's book) with umbrella companies such as "Outlier Magazine", "Outlier Labs" (instead of The Hub) and "Outlier Conference Series". Ever had the website redone and everything seemed to be falling into place for him and his vision. He talked with the St. George economic developers, the President at Dixie State University and found a woman in St. George who had a building and furniture all set up for a shared office space, but had not been able to execute her ideas quite like Ever had. In no time, the two of them had worked out an agreement and construction for the Outlier Labs was underway.
During this same time, Burke job interviewed with Western Ag Credit, was offered the job and moved our family from Mesquite to Cedar. His new bosses knew about our involvement with Outlier Magazine, but had been very clear that they didn't want our side venture to interfere with Burke's performance with Western Ag, again causing us to reassess where we stood. Meanwhile, from January until this point, I had been spending several hours a week reaching out to entrepreneurs, researching their companies, writing interviews and editing the finished products. However, for every 10 interviews that I sent out (taking a minimum of 1 to 2 hours to research and write each interview), there would be only 1 or 2 entrepreneurs who would send back the completed interview which made me feel like much of that time spent hard at work was wasted. Daphne was beginning to sleep less and less, I was trying to forge ahead with my Grandmother's history and feeling like I had to spend all of my free time on the magazine was beginning to be quite stressful for me.
We realized that we had a choice at this point. It was obvious that with Ever's passion and charisma, Outlier was bound to be a success. We were thrilled for him and knew that if we continued to try and contribute that it would definitely pay off in the future. However, we also realized that with all of the distractions in our life over the past few months, we had been doing very little to help move the project forward and constantly felt guilty that we weren't doing enough. It didn't seem fair for Ever to be busting his butt to see his dream become a reality while we were 45 minutes away in Cedar riding the wave of his hard work and success. However, I couldn't see how I could possibly put in the time I felt the company deserved while still being a good wife, mother, etc. I felt like I was doing both things halfway and that wasn't fair to anyone.
We finally called Ever in September and communicated our feelings about the company and our situation, ultimately saying that we couldn't commit to the project and needed to back out. I was so worried about how he would react, but after being friends with Ever and Kelsey for 4 years, I should have realized how he would respond. He was so incredibly gracious and kind, offering us every opportunity to be involved in the future if more time opened up for us, thanking us for the things we had done and telling us about his excitement for the projects he had in the works. There was zero bitterness and zero guilt. I was truly impressed by him that night and the class he demonstrated. We felt sad that we weren't in a position to continue alongside him and help shoulder the workload, but we also didn't want to become a burden rather than a help as the responsibility mounted. It's too bad we couldn't find a way to be involved still, because I don't have a single doubt that the Outlier movement is going to be a great success.
This may be one of those missed opportunities where we kick ourselves in the pants twenty years down the road, however, I know we made the best choice for our family at this stage in our lives. And in those 9 months, we learned several valuable life lessons in a low-cost manner, for which I am very grateful.
On November 1, we drove to St. George to celebrate with the Gonzalezes as they opened Outlier Labs in St. George. It looks so good in there and is a fantastic space with a atmosphere just tingling with possibilities. We felt so proud of our friends as we looked around at the big crowd and heard all the nice comments from the business community. It's pretty amazing to see someone's dream become a reality, especially in such a short amount of time. Way to go Gonzalezes!
If you are interested in the entrepreneurial world, I would definitely advice you to check out the magazine with their new series of podcasts and interviews over at
or "like" their Facebook page to follow their latest updates. Also, on January 24 the first Outlier Conference Series will be hosted at the Outlier Labs in St. George from 7:30 am to 3:00 pm. You can learn more about the series by going HERE.
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