Every business I've ever built had a different name, a different mission, a different community it served. But when I finally stopped and looked at the full picture — really looked — I realized every single one was telling the same story.
They were all answers to the same question: Who is supporting the person trying to build something?
Not the corporation. Not the institution. The individual. The dreamer with a vision and no roadmap. The creative who has the talent but not the infrastructure. The entrepreneur who is doing it — really doing it — but doing it entirely alone.
That person kept showing up in my work. And eventually, I understood that I was supposed to show up for them.
Building Things That Filled a Gap
I didn't set out to become someone who builds ecosystems. I set out to solve the problem I could see right in front of me — and then the next one, and the next one after that. Looking back now, the throughline is obvious. At the time, it just felt like following what mattered.
Where it started
Elzemeyer Talent Agency
I started my first company at 25. The talent agency was built to support actors and models — to coach them, develop them, and help them grow into bigger opportunities. It was career development at its most personal. I learned early that talent alone is never enough. People need structure, strategy, and someone in their corner who believes in the vision before anyone else does.
Expanding the platform
Memphis Fashion Week
I founded Memphis Fashion Week to give local models real experience and emerging designers a real stage. There was so much talent in that city — designers who were extraordinary but invisible outside their immediate circle. The event wasn't just a runway show. It was a platform built to say: you belong here, and people should know your name.
Going deeper
Memphis Emerging Designer Project
Fashion week showed me the bigger gap: designers needed more than a moment in the spotlight. They needed business literacy. The Emerging Designer Project was built to give local designers the education and business acumen to actually grow — to understand that being a great designer and running a sustainable business are two very different skill sets, and both are learnable.
Building community
Memphis Fashion Design Network
From there came the need for connection — a permanent place where designers could work, meet clients, and build a body of work over time. Community isn't just about being in the same room. It's about having a home base. A place where you're known, where collaboration is built in, and where the next opportunity is always one conversation away.
The big build
Arrow Creative
Arrow Creative was the culmination of everything I'd learned. What started as a concept grew into a nonprofit operating on a $700K+ annual budget — a full creative hub that helped creative entrepreneurs finally see themselves as business owners. For six years, that work was my whole world. And it was there, in the day-to-day of supporting builders and makers and founders, that the pattern I'd been living became impossible to ignore.
Every organization I built was a different answer to the same question: who is in the corner of the person trying to build something?
— Abby PhillipsThe Pattern I Couldn't Ignore
At some point, you have to pay attention to what keeps showing up in your own story.
In two of the previous posts in this series, I talked about the power of the brainstorm session and the value of keeping an inspiration journal — of noticing what you keep coming back to when you give yourself space to pay attention. I didn't just write those posts because they sounded like good advice. I wrote them because they describe exactly how I got here.
Because when I finally looked back at fifteen-plus years of work, I saw it clearly: I had been building support structures for solopreneurs, small business owners, creatives, and nonprofits over and over again. Not because I planned to. Because that's where I kept being drawn. That is the work that lit me up. That is the gap I could never walk past without wanting to fill it.
The notes in my own journal kept pointing to the same thing: the people who are building something meaningful — often alone, often without adequate support — are the ones who need a thought partner most. And having one can be the difference between burning out and breaking through.
Why Out of the SILO
When you start something new — a business, a nonprofit, a creative project, a new chapter — there is a particular kind of loneliness that comes with it. You're deep in the work. You're making decisions at a pace that doesn't allow for second-guessing. And you're often doing it in a silo: head down, door closed, trying to figure it out on your own because you don't know who else to turn to.
I've been that person. I've watched that person — in every organization I built, in every community I served. And I know what changes when they're no longer alone in it.
Out of the SILO exists because the silo is real, and it costs people more than they realize. It costs them momentum. It costs them clarity. Sometimes it costs them the whole thing — the business they almost built, the idea they almost pursued, the version of their work that could have been extraordinary if someone had just helped them see it.
I built this because I kept coming back to it. Because every chapter of my career was pointing toward it. And because now, having lived it from every angle — as a founder, an operator, a director, a coach, a community builder — I am finally in a position to offer what I always wished more people had access to.
Not a program. Not a formula. A real thought partner. Someone who has been in the work, who understands what it takes to build something from nothing, and who can sit across from you — wherever you are in the process — and help you figure out the next right move.
If this resonates
This is built for you.
If you're building something and you're doing it alone — if you're in the silo and you know it — I'd love to be in your corner. Let's start with one conversation.
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