Through SAGE, Kacie found something equally important: a program willing to invest in possibility.
Photography Courtesy of SCAD
Entrepreneurship was never part of Kacie’s plan.
Before 2020, her world was live theater. She designed sound for productions across Atlanta while also working in arts administration and data analytics. At one point, she was balancing sound design for four different shows alongside a full-time job.
Then the pandemic shut it all down.
“I had to quickly pivot,” Kacie recalls. “Entrepreneurship was not a thing I ever thought I would be doing.”
But she already had the beginnings of something new.
In 2019, Kacie had participated in Spotify’s SoundUp Podcasting Accelerator, a program created to help women of color enter an industry where they were significantly underrepresented. When theaters closed the following year, the skills and relationships she developed through that expe
rience suddenly became much more important.
She launched Could Be Pretty Cool, a podcast production company that began working with major platforms and mission-driven organizations. What started as a pivot grew into a business producing podcasts, supporting creators and exploring new ways to understand the value of digital storytelling.
But growing a creative company comes with a particular challenge: creative entrepreneurs do not always fit neatly into the support opportunities designed for either artists or traditional businesses.
That is what caught Kacie’s attention when she came across HDDC’s SAGE program.
“I specifically was drawn to it because it said creative entrepreneurship,” she says.
That phrase was big for Kacie.
Many programs, she explains, are designed for startups and technology companies or for artists and creatives. SAGE recognized that a business could be both.
“It was like, wait a second, that is what I do.”
Through SAGE, Kacie joined a small cohort of entrepreneurs for workshops on topics including marketing and alternative funding. The conversations reflected challenges that creative business owners regularly face, including how to finance companies that may not fit traditional venture capital or small-business lending models.
There was something validating about the experience.
“It felt just like, ‘Oh, y’all are taking us seriously,’” she says. “I really appreciated that the nuance of creator and entrepreneur is a thing that they have realized is worthy of an investment.”
And that investment produced something tangible.
Could Be Pretty Cool had been developing a digital tool designed to help podcasters understand their impact beyond traditional measures such as downloads and streams. Instead, the tool analyzes the ideas, themes and perspectives emerging from their content—helping creators better understand the story their work is telling.
Like many small creative businesses, however, Kacie’s company did not have a dedicated research and development budget. New ideas moved forward when the business could piece together enough resources to take the next step.
The SAGE microloan helped change that.
The funding allowed the company to close the gap needed to complete a prototype of the tool, currently called Pretty Cool Data Story, and move it into pilot testing.
“That is a thing that is alive now that may not have been at this point,” Kacie says.
Having a working product also opened another door. Could Be Pretty Cool became a finalist in the Technology Association of Georgia’s pitch competition, giving a company rooted in creative production an opportunity to enter spaces traditionally associated with technology startups.
That crossover is part of what makes the SAGE experience significant. The program helped her business operate in both worlds—not by abandoning its creative roots, but by recognizing those roots as a source of innovation.
Her connection to the neighborhood runs deeper than the program. Kacie previously lived in the Old Fourth Ward, her family remains there, and Could Be Pretty Cool operates from space within another recording studio in the neighborhood. It is a part of Atlanta she still considers important to her personal and professional life.
Now she is thinking about what comes next: growing her team, expanding the technology, producing research and creating more resources for other creators trying to build sustainable businesses.
It comes back to something she learned through her own unexpected path into entrepreneurship. People with good ideas do not always need someone to hand them a roadmap. Sometimes they need access to information, a community willing to help and enough resources to try the next thing.
SAGE provided all three.
And that investment is helping a creative entrepreneur build something that, just a few years ago, she never imagined she would be building at all.