In 2017, Northwest Arkansas was at an interesting inflection point. For years the region had been known primarily as a great place for families, and most of the local media and resources had been built around that identity. But the area was beginning to transform into something more. Young professionals were arriving in growing numbers, drawn by world-class outdoor offerings and career opportunities with Walmart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, and hundreds of supplier and support offices that had planted roots in the region.
What didn’t exist was a single platform to bring together all of the best ways to engage with the region and find the FUN including the best restaurants, new events, concerts, festivals, etc. We were in a constantly evolving loop of "I hate that I missed that thing, maybe next year," or "there is nothing to do around here". We needed a one-stop place that residents and visitors alike could find everything to eat, see, and do in the region, a place that included events, customizable views based upon your interests, blog posts digging in deeper, and venue lists that were not reliant on disparate social media accounts and websites that were updated infrequently. We needed a digital platform that would inspire people to engage and explore what Northwest Arkansas had to offer. Runway Group saw the gap in the market and recruited me to build exactly that. Leisurlist was the result and this is a brief synopsis of how I built it.
I'll never forget my first day at Runway Group. I had gone through orientation of the building, benefits, pay, etc. but that was it. I sat down at my desk and immediately went "now what"? My job description and title was vague at the time and I wrote most of it. My title was temporarily Northwest Arkansas Marketing Manager and I was tasked with one thing - build a digital platform that brought together fun things to do in the region and build an audience to follow it. I had the directive and that was about it. For lack of a better phrase, I had to build the plane while flying it.
There was no platform to walk into, no starting point. It was a blank page with a clear audience need, and a region ready for something new. The challenge was clear, building something from scratch with limited resources, no existing audience, and the need to earn credibility entirely on the merits of the work. There was no institutional name to lean on, no inherited readership, and no guarantee that it would work.
So I began the way that I always do when I take on any new marketing or communications project or job. Before I built anything, I went directly to the audience. I recruited 60 young professionals from across the region to participate in focus groups that I hosted. I fed them lunch, turned on the camera and asked them exactly what they wanted from a platform like this. We talked about how they were currently receiving information, if they want an app, website, social media, events. Did they want customization options? Did they want blog posts? I asked it all and then spent weeks pouring through the videos and notes to synthesize the findings. The platform was built on that feedback and that group served as our first testers, users, and advocates because they felt that they had ownership in the product. That audience-first approach wasn’t just a launch strategy, it was the foundation that leisurlist was built on from the beginning.
From day one, my role spanned brand, content strategy, platform development, audience growth, revenue, press relations, and operations. I built the editorial vision and voice from the ground up, defining everything from the leisurlist name and tagline to the brand colors, logo, and editorial calendar. That editorial discipline became the foundation for audience trust and everything that followed.
I built a budget, hired and managed agency partners responsible for brand identity and the design and development of the website and app. I provided strategic direction across UX/UI, product development, and everything in-between while keeping everything aligned with the editorial and business goals. We truly built this from the ground up and spent hours upon hours in sessions iterating on everything from the brand name to the shade of orange for the logo. It would not have been possible without my partners at Matchstick Studio and Firebend (then called Propak). I still work with Matchstick today, in fact the website where you are reading this blog post was built by them!
Once we had the brand established, I started building the audience entirely through owned channels, focusing on email and social rather than paid acquisition because I knew that the organic growth would last beyond just initial launch. As the platform moved toward launch, I hired dedicated support for social media and advertising sales, and their contributions were central to the audience and revenue growth we achieved. Our growth was driven by relevance, consistency, and a team that was genuinely invested in the community we were building for.
I worked alongside our sales person to develop and manage advertiser partnerships with local and regional brands, building a revenue model that balanced commercial sustainability with editorial integrity through clear separation and disclosure of paid content.
As we grew, we extended the platform beyond digital content by launching a podcast, a monthly event series for young professionals called leisurlist after 5 with the Rogers-Lowell and Bentonville Area Chambers of Commerce, and Bark Bash, a free annual indoor dog event launched in partnership with the Fayetteville Town Center. Across the events we drew hundreds of attendees and Bark Bash became the largest (and only) indoor dog event in Northwest Arkansas. All of these initiatives brought the brand into the real world in a way that digital content alone couldn’t and strengthened our relationships with local civic organizations such as the chambers, downtown organizations, and local businesses. These partnerships were essential to our growth and soon enough the leisurlist brand was everywhere, from the XNA airport baggage claim to billboards on the highway to the Walmart Careers website as a resource for new residents. I took advantage of every partnership opportunity that I could that made sense for our brand and it worked.
We also launched leisurlist college, a sub-brand built around a campus ambassador model at the University of Arkansas. It expanded our reach to a younger audience while protecting the integrity of the primary brand through its own positioning, editorial standards, and dedicated social channels.
Over four years, Leisurlist grew from a founder-led concept into a trusted regional platform with measurable impact across audience, revenue, and visibility.
PLATFORM & AUDIENCE GROWTH | |
Email subscribers | 4,400+ |
Social followers | 21,000+ |
Page views | 880,000+ |
REVENUE & OPERATIONS | |
Advertiser revenue growth | 3x over 3 years |
Funding raised | $2M |
Building leisurlist taught me what it actually takes to build something from nothing. There’s no playbook for it. You have to make decisions about brand, audience, revenue, and team all at once, often without the resources or certainty you would like, and you have to hold a clear vision through all of it.
What I am most proud of is that leisurlist earned its audience’s trust. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens through editorial discipline, consistency, and a genuine commitment to the community you’re serving. We never sacrificed credibility for a quick revenue win, and the audience knew it.
That experience shapes everything I do now. When I work with Blue Iris clients on brand, audience, and communications strategy, I’m drawing on what it actually felt like to build those things under pressure, with real stakes. That’s a different kind of knowledge than you get directly from experiencing it.
