Kelli Cook, Jordyn Watson, August 17th, 2022
Title
Kelli Cook, Jordyn Watson, August 17th, 2022
Description
In this interview, Kelli and Jordyn talk about their backgrounds and the mother-daughter business they started in 2021.
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Kelli Cook and Jordyn Watson
Brief Biography
Kelli Cook and Jordyn Watson are a mother-daughter duo running their business, The Selfie Museum.
Interviewer's Name
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo
Interview Place
Detroit, MI
Date
8/17/2022
Interview Length
29:24
Transcriptionist
Taylor Claybrook
Transcription
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:00] And we're just going to start off with some basic questions for our records. Yeah. All right. So this is for the Detroit Hustle Project. I'm Doris Lanzkron Tamrazo. It's Aug 17, 2022, and we're in Detroit, Michigan. I'm sitting here with what are your names?
Kelli Cook [00:00:19] Kelli Cook, Jordan Watson.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:21] And could you spell those please?
Kelli Cook [00:00:23] Kelli Cook.
Jordyn Watson [00:00:26] Jordyn Watson.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:29] And what year were you born?
Jordyn Watson [00:00:32] 2006.
Kelli Cook [00:00:34] In 1983.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:35] And in Detroit?
Kelli Cook [00:00:37] No. I was born in Detroit. She was born in Royal Oak. Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:41] And what neighborhood? In Detroit?
Kelli Cook [00:00:46] Well, you did…
Kelli Cook [00:00:52] Oh. Okay. So you want to know where I was… actually where I was? Yeah. Okay. So I grew up, not too far from Redford high school. And I think the area is like Brightmoor is not a great area right now, but when I grew up it was a very nice area. And when I was about eight and a half, we moved to Southfield and I spent the duration there until I went to college.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:23] All right. And what about you?
Jordyn Watson [00:01:26] I mostly grew up in Romulus.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:30] And what is the name of your business?
Kelli Cook [00:01:32] Selfie Museum of Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:35] And. Where is it located?
Kelli Cook [00:01:39] Downtown. It's inside of the Chrysler House, on the corner of Fort and Griswold.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:45] And since when have you been in business?
Kelli Cook [00:01:48] We actually opened our doors in October of 2021. We've been in business now since. March, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, March 2021 was probably like I first establish, if I'm not mistaken, like for like… with the state of Michigan.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:02:06] And how would you describe your business?
Kelli Cook [00:02:11] It's a selfie museum, I would say it's a collection of interactive art installations. That's pretty much like how we describe it, where you're able to take pictures with different things and very Instagrammable, Tik Toker approved is what we call a but it’s basically where you can create social media content and you can just bring yourself everything else is already there.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:02:34] And what kind of interactives do you have? Just different backgrounds or different objects?
Jordyn Watson [00:02:40] We have both of those. We have like 20 plus scenes. You go around, take pictures of each one. Like for summer scenes, we have like a jail scene and it's like a jail bed the jail cell.. no a jail toilet. And then, like, we have, like, ball pits. We have two of those actually now. And it's just just for fun. I don't know. We have like so many different types.
Kelli Cook [00:03:06] So there's several different ones that you can actually interact with. We wanted to make it like that, so you weren’t just like standing there and taking a picture. Yeah. So we have two different types of…three different types of swing, ice cream sandwich swing. We have like a regular swing that's more like a floral design. And then we have a swing that is far more like gymnastics use, but we utilize it for like perfect pictures just to get like a photo opportunity. And then the ball pits are always a hit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:03:37] And do you like includes? Do you have cameras there for people to use or people do they mostly use their own devices?
Kelli Cook [00:03:45] They use their own devices unless they bring a photographer. But we do have ring lights and then we also have like the remote. So they're able to utilize the ring lights if they want to have like their own experience without the help of someone else. And then we do have what's called a selfie assistant, so where you can pay and will take a lot of pictures for you.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:04:06] And since when have you been interested in running a business?
Kelli Cook [00:04:11] I've always been interested in running a business. I've had businesses in the past where I had a clothing line before that did very well, and then I've had other businesses in the past that I did not see all the way through, but great ideas. And it wasn't until Jordyn brought up to me a selfie museum at the time that was out of state. We didn't have one here that she wanted to visit. And she can kind of tell you a little bit more about how that started.
Jordyn Watson [00:04:37] Yes. So it was like around my birthday and it was deep in COVID. So I was like, oh, we can't go right now. So then she just like came to me one day I was like, we just our way. And we just basically, like, pulled out a notebook and started writing ideas out.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:04:53] And how were you inspired by what you saw at other selfie museums?
Kelli Cook [00:04:59] So we'd say, look, we try to make sure, like myself in museums that were like starting to open here, that we didn't get inspirations from like our neighbors because obviously we have to keep everything unique. We have looked at other selfies museums out of the country. We had to do a lot of research prior to opening up to see like what kind of thing people like and what pictures would post the most and things like that. So we did get inspired from something museums that weren't in Michigan, but then from there we kind of put our own spin on it to say like, what would you like to see? Especially like with Jordyn. Like most of all, the scenes are approved by her because she's in a social media world more than I am. So she has to approve them to make sure that even if it's something that we've seen before, she'll say no. Like, That's nice. So we try to just challenge each other. To be like creative is the best part.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:05:52] And how do you think your current business has been affected by anything you've learned from previous businesses?
Kelli Cook [00:05:59] I would say... Well, one thing I would say, just because I've had businesses in the past and I didn't execute all the way through, that literally was the genetic make up of why I pushed forward forward and what's that resilient like with this business. I want especially because Jordyn was a part of it. And obviously, like with my daughter being involved, I didn't want to make. I wanted to make sure that we execute it thoroughly so that we could get everything done. So if anything at all, it was like the push that it gave me to make sure that like, no matter what obstacle we thought all the way through.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:06:33] And what are the initial steps of starting this business look like for you?
Kelli Cook [00:06:39] Well, the first thing is you have to find a location like that was important to us. We didn't want to just put it anywhere. We searched. We went in several different areas before we found ourselves in downtown Detroit. There were several people that didn't even understand at the time what we were trying to do. So to try to get a building and they didn't even understand the concept of our business was very, very tough. And we drove one day like downtown Detroit. We used to drive all the time, all the time to come downtown just to get out the house because you couldn't go anywhere. And downtown always felt good. So I will always take the kids out of the house and we would just cruise. So when we started to look for a business, we initially started in Royal Oak and it just didn't make sense. And then when we drove downtown, we started seeing buildings and we kind of look each other. It was like, this is it like we have to figure out how to get downtown because the energy felt so good. And so I think that's easy to find out, like where you want to locate your business and then from there, making sure that you have the proper financing for your business, making sure that if you're going to self-finance your business, that you've created a budget and that you understand what could happen if obstacles occur. Because obviously, like you said, we started out with one budget and we were self-financing. And then things changed so much because it became a huge construction project that I had no idea, like what I was getting myself into. You know, here we are just coming up with creative things, not understanding. That is what we were doing downtown Detroit and 4600 square feet was so big. And I don't think that we quite understood that at first. And even getting a building, it started out with all windows. We have to create walls in order to have things. We had carpet. We had to pull up 4600
square feet of carpet and then had this thick of it, probably inches of adhesive that was stuck on the floor. And it took weeks. So that pushed our project back just to get that up. So I think that is important to understand that there's obstacles that will come and you have to have a budget for those obstacles. You know, when you go into a business, there needs to be an emergency fund for things like that.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:08:50] And you said that's when you were searching for building. People didn't really understand what you were trying to do. What was kind of the reaction of the community once you had already gone to the building and were starting up?
Kelli Cook [00:09:04] It was amazing. Like, it was absolutely amazing. Like the energy that we got, the feedback that we received, the amount of traffic that showed up for us, the press that came out for us with no PR, you know, just with the backup of Bedrock, it was absolutely amazing. I could not change that. I don't think it could have been any better than what we had for like our grand opening and the responses and the support that we had.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:09:33] And what impact do you think you've had on the community since opening?
Kelli Cook [00:09:39] I definitely think that we've been able to, like, show other children that you can do it. Like especially because Jordyn, when we started, she was 14 years old. So she can speak to that like we've had several field trips and…
Jordyn Watson [00:09:54] The Detroit ice skaters came and they literally loved us. And I just feel like... I don't know.
Kelli Cook [00:10:05] Well talk about like what you were able to share with them, like when you got up and what that looks like for little girls that are your age.
Jordyn Watson [00:10:12] Well, I definitely think it opened up a spot for like mothers and daughters, especially because I don't… I just feel like some are like not as close and some are like really close and there's some want to do stuff with their parents. But I don't know. I think I probably was the push too for this business. So.
Kelli Cook [00:10:32] Yeah. And I think she did a great job at talking so like shows for her age to say like if you have a business like is possible is not something that you have to wait for, you know. And so you get to become an adult to start a business. That is something that you can do now. And then also, she has other aspirations, so she's been able to talk about that like, yes, she is a business owner as a child, but she wants to be a doctor, you know, so like she was able to talk about that too. And just like it's important to maintain your grades and what that looks like for us, you know, starting a business and staying on top of everything.
Jordyn Watson [00:11:06] So this wasn’t my first business. I actually owned a baking business with my God sister also. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:11:14] And what were some things you learned from running about baking business?
Jordyn Watson [00:11:18] Definitely how to talk to people in depth. It definitely brought me into the social media world with marketing and just like pricing wise, like even for this business,
like the Selfie Museum, it was hard. Like we didn't know what was going to be our price for tickets for an hour or for 30 minutes, or if we just wanted to do one ticket like period. So I feel like that helped too to know like what someone's regular budget and what they will pay and what. Like we would pay going to one.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:11:51] And what have been some of your favorite moments of running this business since it started?
Jordyn Watson [00:11:56] I think my favorite moment was probably either the grand opening or like being able to greet people when they come in and like just saying that like me, my mom on this like day, they whole world just light of like, oh, my gosh, congratulations. So it definitely, like, just makes me feel good again.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:12:14] You've already touched on this quite a bit so far. But do you feel that, you know, being a mom and daughter team, like, how has that really affected the way you've run your business? In a way, it might be different from running it individually.
Kelli Cook [00:12:31] I think we do a great job as far as making sure that we can have the separation between like being a mom and daughter and then also running the business. So we try not to let it carry over into our relationship. However, I think that it's been a lot of lessons that I've been able to teach her that I wouldn't have been able to have we not had this experience. So she's been able to learn so much as far as business. She's been able to see a side of me. I've always been a manager, like our leader, like in every role that I play. But now she can see it firsthand and understand like why I make decisions that I make. And, you know, even so much as I had to explain to her that it's important while she's at work, that her the employees, although they may be her peers, that she still has to be have her owner hat on at all times. Because if someone comes in and she's on her phone, then her employees will be on their phone also because they’re going to mirror what you're doing. So I'm like, you know, these are things that I'm able to teach her that she'll have for the rest of her life. So I think that that helps a lot. And we're very close. I, we were close before this happened, but it just brought us closer because we do so much more together and that we collaborate so much more like as far as like ideas and content and even as far as like just teaching, teaching her things that she's able to take stuff off of my plate. For instance, like with payroll, I was like, Listen.
Jordyn Watson [00:13:58] Making the schedule.
Kelli Cook [00:13:59] Everything. So I had to start teaching her how to do payroll. So now she cuts the checks. I had to start teaching her how to create the schedule and what it looks like, and that's always put my friends together all the time and to shake up the schedule a little bit. And what's important in making sure that people get enough hours. So all of these things are experiences that I would have never been able to teach her had we not started a business together.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:14:25] And before starting the business, what were some of the particular goals you had in mind for it? What did you want to accomplish with it? What did you want the business to look like?
Kelli Cook [00:14:37] I think it looks like exactly what we want. Yeah, I think we have the creative freedom to be able to do what we wanted and we made sure of it, like we executed it very, very strict even with my contract as far as like what I would like to see and what we would like to see and making sure it's executed and I don't bend. So it looks
like exactly what we would like it to look like. I think that everybody has this dream that you're going to make $1,000,000, you know, like your first business or very fast. And so I think that is something that was different because we had to learn that you have to reinvest in your business. So although, yes, the business is doing well, it's important to put money back into your business because this is one business you have to continue to reinvent. You know, you are as good as your last, best thing or, you know, like that new scene. So after a while people want to see more. And so that takes more money to reinvest. And then something else, let me think that maybe we thought it would be how… I don’t know everything else. I feel like it is executing. It's just a matter of, um. I think that we want to. I think do more in that community. I think that's something that like now that that our next focus is we have things that we're working on now that we can't share by just doing more with the community and the youth. I think that we couldn't really see how to impact. But now we know like how much we can impact his senior, like with the field trips and things like that. So now we want to kind of execute on that and do more.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:16:16] And what does like your local area of downtown Detroit look like, and how do you think that affects how your museum operates, being in that particular area?
Jordyn Watson [00:16:27] We're right by campus martius, but we're not like in campus martius. So it's kind of like a little walk. And I will say it probably does affect us a little bit because we're like the street that we lay on is not like directly where everyone is like going to, but people like parked there. So it's like a win win. So like the…
Kelli Cook [00:16:50] I still feel it’s a vibe. I do. Like, I don't know, like just being in downtown Detroit and even being in the walking distance of campus martius and of, like, what word and, you know, like, just great. Your I feel like it's a vibe. Like, every time I pull up, it just feels that way. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:17:09] And now that you're kind of up and running, what do you feel really distinguishes yourself, the museum from the others that you research?
Kelli Cook [00:17:19] Content. I think that we do a great job at being creative and we sometimes question or we sometimes question ourselves as far as like what? As far as what scenes to create. And then we had to learn to stop, question ourselves and just do it because we know like was hard and we do a very good job at we went viral before for like some other ventures that we all share.
Kelli Cook [00:17:50] We kind of know that like we do have a gift in that area and we've seen already where people have been inspired out of state, where we see our things pop up and you know, most people would be upset about it, but we don't get upset because it's just a reminder, like we have a selfie museum in New York that duplicated one of our scenes. And for me, I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, they recognized, you know, us here in Detroit. And it was just like another reminder that we're doing stuff great.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:18:24] And what does the research project process look like for coming up with new scenes? Do you spend time like on particular social media sites? Do you kind of just come up with what you want to see in particular or just check out what's currently popular?
Kelli Cook [00:18:40] Now we try not to get content or ideas from other museums, but we will see something hot just anywhere like anything can inspire us. Like I may be in here
and we might show tomorrow, like my contract. You're like, Oh my gosh. You know, like, I really like this setup that they had, and I think it would be really dope in a scene. So now I just try to make sure that the content doesn't come from other museums, but we can be inspired from like every single thing. Everything is connected.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:19:12] And you have, like, a side hustle besides the selfie museum.
Kelli Cook [00:19:17] I have a main hustle. So in real life, I'm actually a vice president at a financial institution. So a lot of people don't know that. So I do have you know, I've been there for 16 years. I do have like an actual career. So but the creative side has always been there. So yeah, I was just able to have that as an outlet at the selfie museum. So not a side hustle.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:19:44] And was there anything else you wanted to say about your business that you haven't had the chance to yet?
Jordyn Watson [00:19:50] Um, for every every person that's either close to my age or, like, 18 to graduate, do not give up. I mean…I hit the table. Do not give up and do what makes you happy.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:20:09] And what does the word hustle mean to both of you?
Kelli Cook [00:20:14] I think it means go get it, like, if you have aspirations, you know, it's one thing to manifest, it's another thing to execute. So it just means to let go after your dreams. Don't give up. Don't take no's. You know, we heard a lot of nos before we got to. Yes, I had a lot of buildings that fell through before we got this one. And, you know, and grind, grind, grind, grind, that's all I can say is just keep going. And even when it's tough, you know, persevere and remind yourself why you got in the first place and keep going.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:20:51] And what about the word hustler?
Kelli Cook [00:20:55] That's the person, you know, that I think that that is within you. I think that some people have it and some people don't. And I feel like when is within you? No one can take that from you. You may have down, you know, moments where things are not giving you the outcome that you want, but one is within you. You'll get up and be ten times stronger and keep going.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:21:21] All right. And that's all the questions I have for you. I can check out the follow up questions. All right. So since a lot of businesses closed during the pandemic, like, what's it like to kind of be part of downtown as it recovers from the pandemic?
Kelli Cook [00:21:46] It's great. I think that it still has its ups and downs. We saw a lot within the pandemic when we were it was scary. You know, here I am over here we are opening up a business and we don't even know if we can open our doors, you know? So we had to take a lot of precautions. We still right now, after every session, we still close 30 minutes to sanitize. Still to this day, we're still very, very cautious. We, you know, had to be very careful. We had to consider whether or not we would even let other parties in or maybe we would just have just the guests in for that time period and then clean and then let another set of guests in. So it was a lot of troubleshooting to make sure that everyone was safe, and that was extremely important. There are times where even if there was, if I saw a baby, we have phones, and if I saw a baby that was getting ready to pick up the phone, we would go and sanitize that phone even during open session. Like there were so
many things that we had to consider during the pandemic. We saw a lot of ups and downs. Right after we opened downtown. Like most of the employees went home again and it was Ghost Town. And we had to be reminded that this is a time period is not forever and that we just had to kind of we did parties like private parties and events during that time period. So once they opened back up, it was just it was. It felt fresh again. It kept feeling like like reinventing all over again. And it just kept feeling like we had another chance to do something good for the community and make people feel good. And that was like our main reason why we opened. Like when we all it, I feel like even like with Jordyn's age group, an experience like high school a different way and everything a different way. People needed a reason to feel good and smile. And so, like, our museum is just that, like when people come in, we haven't had one person that has been unhappy. We haven't had one person have left without smiling or signing our wall or, you know, telling us how much fun they've had. We have all our organic reviews. We've never asked anybody to give us a review and we're at five stars. So I think that it's been a great experience to see like how people do everyone's outside, you know, like it felt good to see that people were outside. You know, we were a part of it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:24:06] And do you do any private events outside of the ones you did during the pandemic?
Kelli Cook [00:24:11] Yes, we do private events all the time. We have teambuilding events. We just had a meeting like someone held their actual employee meeting there for like 6 hours. And that was that was fun for them. We do private parties. We've had a wedding that was probably one of my favorite events because the museum was transformed and it felt like a wedding. But yeah, we do tons of private events.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:24:39] And how do those kind of private events feel different from having it publicly? How does it change how you have the museum at that point?
Kelli Cook [00:24:49] It's a lot of preparation, and I never knew that we would be like an event planning, but like it's full out, even planning, you know, like as far as tables and chairs and linen. Yes.
Jordyn Watson [00:24:59] And decorations. Balloons. Like all of the food and…
Kelli Cook [00:25:04] Yes. And so just learning that process and how to price, where that like it's been times we're very particular about the museum. So when you have a large event is expected that some things will be damaged. It’s time where me and Jordyn have spent pretty much like all night of….
Jordyn Watson [00:25:18] Five in the morning.
Kelli Cook [00:25:19] Into the next day getting the museum back up and running for the next group of people to come in. So it's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into creating an event. But we just love when people are able to experience the museum and they chose us, you know, at the end of the day. And that's what we always tell people like, thank you for choosing us. We don't take that lightly.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:25:44] And do you have any plans for physical expansion of the museum?
Kelli Cook [00:25:50] We have other ideas. I think that we're not quite sure if we will like open another museum. We do have another great idea that we think that would be really
hot. We're not sure, like if we should do it here or if we should do it in another state. But as far as in Detroit, we have tons of ideas that are just not in Detroit yet that we that are coming beginning to surface to where we may have opportunities to do some other things that will be interactive, that will be like really, really great for the city, for the community, for tourism and for local. So I think that our creativity definitely will continue to expand in Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:26:34] And what lessons will you bring forward from this museum into other museum projects?
Kelli Cook [00:26:41] Create a budget.
Jordyn Watson [00:26:43] Sticking to the words.
Kelli Cook [00:26:47] Stick to the budget for sure. And. Stick to the budget for sure. Be very. Be creative in your own. I think be inspired by your own creativity. I think that's what sets you apart. Getting nondisclosures in the beginning so that your ideas aren't shared while you're building.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:27:35] Was getting non-disclosure is a problem?
Kelli Cook [00:27:39] I don't want to answer that, but we have them now and we have an attorney. So, you know, we definitely make sure to recover.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:28:03] And are locals or tourists your primary audience?
Kelli Cook [00:28:08] We have both. We have we're always surprised at how many tourists we have, though, I will say, because we do have a popular brunch spot that's directly across from us that has helped a lot because a lot of people do frequent that location as far as tourists that come in town. So a lot of times we do get that traffic and they may not have even known we were here, but we've had several guests that have. That's always like the greatest surprise when they came here for us.
Jordyn Watson [00:28:38] Yes.
Kelli Cook [00:28:39] Like, oh, my gosh. We have people from so many different areas that came in town just to go to the Selfie Museum of Detroit. And. It doesn't feel like it does. I'm surprised every single time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:28:56] Is there any particular difference that you've noticed between the two groups, locals and tourists, and how they interact with your museum?
Jordyn Watson [00:29:03] No.
Kelli Cook [00:29:03] No. They all become big kids. You know, sometimes we have to push people a little bit to get into the office and they thank us every single time. No, we don't see a difference. They all come, you know, to have a good time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:29:19] All right. I think that's all the questions I have for you. Thank you very much for coming here today.
Jordyn Watson [00:29:22] Thank you for having us.
Kelli Cook [00:00:19] Kelli Cook, Jordan Watson.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:21] And could you spell those please?
Kelli Cook [00:00:23] Kelli Cook.
Jordyn Watson [00:00:26] Jordyn Watson.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:29] And what year were you born?
Jordyn Watson [00:00:32] 2006.
Kelli Cook [00:00:34] In 1983.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:35] And in Detroit?
Kelli Cook [00:00:37] No. I was born in Detroit. She was born in Royal Oak. Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:00:41] And what neighborhood? In Detroit?
Kelli Cook [00:00:46] Well, you did…
Kelli Cook [00:00:52] Oh. Okay. So you want to know where I was… actually where I was? Yeah. Okay. So I grew up, not too far from Redford high school. And I think the area is like Brightmoor is not a great area right now, but when I grew up it was a very nice area. And when I was about eight and a half, we moved to Southfield and I spent the duration there until I went to college.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:23] All right. And what about you?
Jordyn Watson [00:01:26] I mostly grew up in Romulus.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:30] And what is the name of your business?
Kelli Cook [00:01:32] Selfie Museum of Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:35] And. Where is it located?
Kelli Cook [00:01:39] Downtown. It's inside of the Chrysler House, on the corner of Fort and Griswold.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:01:45] And since when have you been in business?
Kelli Cook [00:01:48] We actually opened our doors in October of 2021. We've been in business now since. March, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, March 2021 was probably like I first establish, if I'm not mistaken, like for like… with the state of Michigan.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:02:06] And how would you describe your business?
Kelli Cook [00:02:11] It's a selfie museum, I would say it's a collection of interactive art installations. That's pretty much like how we describe it, where you're able to take pictures with different things and very Instagrammable, Tik Toker approved is what we call a but it’s basically where you can create social media content and you can just bring yourself everything else is already there.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:02:34] And what kind of interactives do you have? Just different backgrounds or different objects?
Jordyn Watson [00:02:40] We have both of those. We have like 20 plus scenes. You go around, take pictures of each one. Like for summer scenes, we have like a jail scene and it's like a jail bed the jail cell.. no a jail toilet. And then, like, we have, like, ball pits. We have two of those actually now. And it's just just for fun. I don't know. We have like so many different types.
Kelli Cook [00:03:06] So there's several different ones that you can actually interact with. We wanted to make it like that, so you weren’t just like standing there and taking a picture. Yeah. So we have two different types of…three different types of swing, ice cream sandwich swing. We have like a regular swing that's more like a floral design. And then we have a swing that is far more like gymnastics use, but we utilize it for like perfect pictures just to get like a photo opportunity. And then the ball pits are always a hit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:03:37] And do you like includes? Do you have cameras there for people to use or people do they mostly use their own devices?
Kelli Cook [00:03:45] They use their own devices unless they bring a photographer. But we do have ring lights and then we also have like the remote. So they're able to utilize the ring lights if they want to have like their own experience without the help of someone else. And then we do have what's called a selfie assistant, so where you can pay and will take a lot of pictures for you.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:04:06] And since when have you been interested in running a business?
Kelli Cook [00:04:11] I've always been interested in running a business. I've had businesses in the past where I had a clothing line before that did very well, and then I've had other businesses in the past that I did not see all the way through, but great ideas. And it wasn't until Jordyn brought up to me a selfie museum at the time that was out of state. We didn't have one here that she wanted to visit. And she can kind of tell you a little bit more about how that started.
Jordyn Watson [00:04:37] Yes. So it was like around my birthday and it was deep in COVID. So I was like, oh, we can't go right now. So then she just like came to me one day I was like, we just our way. And we just basically, like, pulled out a notebook and started writing ideas out.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:04:53] And how were you inspired by what you saw at other selfie museums?
Kelli Cook [00:04:59] So we'd say, look, we try to make sure, like myself in museums that were like starting to open here, that we didn't get inspirations from like our neighbors because obviously we have to keep everything unique. We have looked at other selfies museums out of the country. We had to do a lot of research prior to opening up to see like what kind of thing people like and what pictures would post the most and things like that. So we did get inspired from something museums that weren't in Michigan, but then from there we kind of put our own spin on it to say like, what would you like to see? Especially like with Jordyn. Like most of all, the scenes are approved by her because she's in a social media world more than I am. So she has to approve them to make sure that even if it's something that we've seen before, she'll say no. Like, That's nice. So we try to just challenge each other. To be like creative is the best part.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:05:52] And how do you think your current business has been affected by anything you've learned from previous businesses?
Kelli Cook [00:05:59] I would say... Well, one thing I would say, just because I've had businesses in the past and I didn't execute all the way through, that literally was the genetic make up of why I pushed forward forward and what's that resilient like with this business. I want especially because Jordyn was a part of it. And obviously, like with my daughter being involved, I didn't want to make. I wanted to make sure that we execute it thoroughly so that we could get everything done. So if anything at all, it was like the push that it gave me to make sure that like, no matter what obstacle we thought all the way through.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:06:33] And what are the initial steps of starting this business look like for you?
Kelli Cook [00:06:39] Well, the first thing is you have to find a location like that was important to us. We didn't want to just put it anywhere. We searched. We went in several different areas before we found ourselves in downtown Detroit. There were several people that didn't even understand at the time what we were trying to do. So to try to get a building and they didn't even understand the concept of our business was very, very tough. And we drove one day like downtown Detroit. We used to drive all the time, all the time to come downtown just to get out the house because you couldn't go anywhere. And downtown always felt good. So I will always take the kids out of the house and we would just cruise. So when we started to look for a business, we initially started in Royal Oak and it just didn't make sense. And then when we drove downtown, we started seeing buildings and we kind of look each other. It was like, this is it like we have to figure out how to get downtown because the energy felt so good. And so I think that's easy to find out, like where you want to locate your business and then from there, making sure that you have the proper financing for your business, making sure that if you're going to self-finance your business, that you've created a budget and that you understand what could happen if obstacles occur. Because obviously, like you said, we started out with one budget and we were self-financing. And then things changed so much because it became a huge construction project that I had no idea, like what I was getting myself into. You know, here we are just coming up with creative things, not understanding. That is what we were doing downtown Detroit and 4600 square feet was so big. And I don't think that we quite understood that at first. And even getting a building, it started out with all windows. We have to create walls in order to have things. We had carpet. We had to pull up 4600
square feet of carpet and then had this thick of it, probably inches of adhesive that was stuck on the floor. And it took weeks. So that pushed our project back just to get that up. So I think that is important to understand that there's obstacles that will come and you have to have a budget for those obstacles. You know, when you go into a business, there needs to be an emergency fund for things like that.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:08:50] And you said that's when you were searching for building. People didn't really understand what you were trying to do. What was kind of the reaction of the community once you had already gone to the building and were starting up?
Kelli Cook [00:09:04] It was amazing. Like, it was absolutely amazing. Like the energy that we got, the feedback that we received, the amount of traffic that showed up for us, the press that came out for us with no PR, you know, just with the backup of Bedrock, it was absolutely amazing. I could not change that. I don't think it could have been any better than what we had for like our grand opening and the responses and the support that we had.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:09:33] And what impact do you think you've had on the community since opening?
Kelli Cook [00:09:39] I definitely think that we've been able to, like, show other children that you can do it. Like especially because Jordyn, when we started, she was 14 years old. So she can speak to that like we've had several field trips and…
Jordyn Watson [00:09:54] The Detroit ice skaters came and they literally loved us. And I just feel like... I don't know.
Kelli Cook [00:10:05] Well talk about like what you were able to share with them, like when you got up and what that looks like for little girls that are your age.
Jordyn Watson [00:10:12] Well, I definitely think it opened up a spot for like mothers and daughters, especially because I don't… I just feel like some are like not as close and some are like really close and there's some want to do stuff with their parents. But I don't know. I think I probably was the push too for this business. So.
Kelli Cook [00:10:32] Yeah. And I think she did a great job at talking so like shows for her age to say like if you have a business like is possible is not something that you have to wait for, you know. And so you get to become an adult to start a business. That is something that you can do now. And then also, she has other aspirations, so she's been able to talk about that like, yes, she is a business owner as a child, but she wants to be a doctor, you know, so like she was able to talk about that too. And just like it's important to maintain your grades and what that looks like for us, you know, starting a business and staying on top of everything.
Jordyn Watson [00:11:06] So this wasn’t my first business. I actually owned a baking business with my God sister also. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:11:14] And what were some things you learned from running about baking business?
Jordyn Watson [00:11:18] Definitely how to talk to people in depth. It definitely brought me into the social media world with marketing and just like pricing wise, like even for this business,
like the Selfie Museum, it was hard. Like we didn't know what was going to be our price for tickets for an hour or for 30 minutes, or if we just wanted to do one ticket like period. So I feel like that helped too to know like what someone's regular budget and what they will pay and what. Like we would pay going to one.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:11:51] And what have been some of your favorite moments of running this business since it started?
Jordyn Watson [00:11:56] I think my favorite moment was probably either the grand opening or like being able to greet people when they come in and like just saying that like me, my mom on this like day, they whole world just light of like, oh, my gosh, congratulations. So it definitely, like, just makes me feel good again.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:12:14] You've already touched on this quite a bit so far. But do you feel that, you know, being a mom and daughter team, like, how has that really affected the way you've run your business? In a way, it might be different from running it individually.
Kelli Cook [00:12:31] I think we do a great job as far as making sure that we can have the separation between like being a mom and daughter and then also running the business. So we try not to let it carry over into our relationship. However, I think that it's been a lot of lessons that I've been able to teach her that I wouldn't have been able to have we not had this experience. So she's been able to learn so much as far as business. She's been able to see a side of me. I've always been a manager, like our leader, like in every role that I play. But now she can see it firsthand and understand like why I make decisions that I make. And, you know, even so much as I had to explain to her that it's important while she's at work, that her the employees, although they may be her peers, that she still has to be have her owner hat on at all times. Because if someone comes in and she's on her phone, then her employees will be on their phone also because they’re going to mirror what you're doing. So I'm like, you know, these are things that I'm able to teach her that she'll have for the rest of her life. So I think that that helps a lot. And we're very close. I, we were close before this happened, but it just brought us closer because we do so much more together and that we collaborate so much more like as far as like ideas and content and even as far as like just teaching, teaching her things that she's able to take stuff off of my plate. For instance, like with payroll, I was like, Listen.
Jordyn Watson [00:13:58] Making the schedule.
Kelli Cook [00:13:59] Everything. So I had to start teaching her how to do payroll. So now she cuts the checks. I had to start teaching her how to create the schedule and what it looks like, and that's always put my friends together all the time and to shake up the schedule a little bit. And what's important in making sure that people get enough hours. So all of these things are experiences that I would have never been able to teach her had we not started a business together.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:14:25] And before starting the business, what were some of the particular goals you had in mind for it? What did you want to accomplish with it? What did you want the business to look like?
Kelli Cook [00:14:37] I think it looks like exactly what we want. Yeah, I think we have the creative freedom to be able to do what we wanted and we made sure of it, like we executed it very, very strict even with my contract as far as like what I would like to see and what we would like to see and making sure it's executed and I don't bend. So it looks
like exactly what we would like it to look like. I think that everybody has this dream that you're going to make $1,000,000, you know, like your first business or very fast. And so I think that is something that was different because we had to learn that you have to reinvest in your business. So although, yes, the business is doing well, it's important to put money back into your business because this is one business you have to continue to reinvent. You know, you are as good as your last, best thing or, you know, like that new scene. So after a while people want to see more. And so that takes more money to reinvest. And then something else, let me think that maybe we thought it would be how… I don’t know everything else. I feel like it is executing. It's just a matter of, um. I think that we want to. I think do more in that community. I think that's something that like now that that our next focus is we have things that we're working on now that we can't share by just doing more with the community and the youth. I think that we couldn't really see how to impact. But now we know like how much we can impact his senior, like with the field trips and things like that. So now we want to kind of execute on that and do more.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:16:16] And what does like your local area of downtown Detroit look like, and how do you think that affects how your museum operates, being in that particular area?
Jordyn Watson [00:16:27] We're right by campus martius, but we're not like in campus martius. So it's kind of like a little walk. And I will say it probably does affect us a little bit because we're like the street that we lay on is not like directly where everyone is like going to, but people like parked there. So it's like a win win. So like the…
Kelli Cook [00:16:50] I still feel it’s a vibe. I do. Like, I don't know, like just being in downtown Detroit and even being in the walking distance of campus martius and of, like, what word and, you know, like, just great. Your I feel like it's a vibe. Like, every time I pull up, it just feels that way. So.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:17:09] And now that you're kind of up and running, what do you feel really distinguishes yourself, the museum from the others that you research?
Kelli Cook [00:17:19] Content. I think that we do a great job at being creative and we sometimes question or we sometimes question ourselves as far as like what? As far as what scenes to create. And then we had to learn to stop, question ourselves and just do it because we know like was hard and we do a very good job at we went viral before for like some other ventures that we all share.
Kelli Cook [00:17:50] We kind of know that like we do have a gift in that area and we've seen already where people have been inspired out of state, where we see our things pop up and you know, most people would be upset about it, but we don't get upset because it's just a reminder, like we have a selfie museum in New York that duplicated one of our scenes. And for me, I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, they recognized, you know, us here in Detroit. And it was just like another reminder that we're doing stuff great.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:18:24] And what does the research project process look like for coming up with new scenes? Do you spend time like on particular social media sites? Do you kind of just come up with what you want to see in particular or just check out what's currently popular?
Kelli Cook [00:18:40] Now we try not to get content or ideas from other museums, but we will see something hot just anywhere like anything can inspire us. Like I may be in here
and we might show tomorrow, like my contract. You're like, Oh my gosh. You know, like, I really like this setup that they had, and I think it would be really dope in a scene. So now I just try to make sure that the content doesn't come from other museums, but we can be inspired from like every single thing. Everything is connected.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:19:12] And you have, like, a side hustle besides the selfie museum.
Kelli Cook [00:19:17] I have a main hustle. So in real life, I'm actually a vice president at a financial institution. So a lot of people don't know that. So I do have you know, I've been there for 16 years. I do have like an actual career. So but the creative side has always been there. So yeah, I was just able to have that as an outlet at the selfie museum. So not a side hustle.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:19:44] And was there anything else you wanted to say about your business that you haven't had the chance to yet?
Jordyn Watson [00:19:50] Um, for every every person that's either close to my age or, like, 18 to graduate, do not give up. I mean…I hit the table. Do not give up and do what makes you happy.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:20:09] And what does the word hustle mean to both of you?
Kelli Cook [00:20:14] I think it means go get it, like, if you have aspirations, you know, it's one thing to manifest, it's another thing to execute. So it just means to let go after your dreams. Don't give up. Don't take no's. You know, we heard a lot of nos before we got to. Yes, I had a lot of buildings that fell through before we got this one. And, you know, and grind, grind, grind, grind, that's all I can say is just keep going. And even when it's tough, you know, persevere and remind yourself why you got in the first place and keep going.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:20:51] And what about the word hustler?
Kelli Cook [00:20:55] That's the person, you know, that I think that that is within you. I think that some people have it and some people don't. And I feel like when is within you? No one can take that from you. You may have down, you know, moments where things are not giving you the outcome that you want, but one is within you. You'll get up and be ten times stronger and keep going.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:21:21] All right. And that's all the questions I have for you. I can check out the follow up questions. All right. So since a lot of businesses closed during the pandemic, like, what's it like to kind of be part of downtown as it recovers from the pandemic?
Kelli Cook [00:21:46] It's great. I think that it still has its ups and downs. We saw a lot within the pandemic when we were it was scary. You know, here I am over here we are opening up a business and we don't even know if we can open our doors, you know? So we had to take a lot of precautions. We still right now, after every session, we still close 30 minutes to sanitize. Still to this day, we're still very, very cautious. We, you know, had to be very careful. We had to consider whether or not we would even let other parties in or maybe we would just have just the guests in for that time period and then clean and then let another set of guests in. So it was a lot of troubleshooting to make sure that everyone was safe, and that was extremely important. There are times where even if there was, if I saw a baby, we have phones, and if I saw a baby that was getting ready to pick up the phone, we would go and sanitize that phone even during open session. Like there were so
many things that we had to consider during the pandemic. We saw a lot of ups and downs. Right after we opened downtown. Like most of the employees went home again and it was Ghost Town. And we had to be reminded that this is a time period is not forever and that we just had to kind of we did parties like private parties and events during that time period. So once they opened back up, it was just it was. It felt fresh again. It kept feeling like like reinventing all over again. And it just kept feeling like we had another chance to do something good for the community and make people feel good. And that was like our main reason why we opened. Like when we all it, I feel like even like with Jordyn's age group, an experience like high school a different way and everything a different way. People needed a reason to feel good and smile. And so, like, our museum is just that, like when people come in, we haven't had one person that has been unhappy. We haven't had one person have left without smiling or signing our wall or, you know, telling us how much fun they've had. We have all our organic reviews. We've never asked anybody to give us a review and we're at five stars. So I think that it's been a great experience to see like how people do everyone's outside, you know, like it felt good to see that people were outside. You know, we were a part of it.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:24:06] And do you do any private events outside of the ones you did during the pandemic?
Kelli Cook [00:24:11] Yes, we do private events all the time. We have teambuilding events. We just had a meeting like someone held their actual employee meeting there for like 6 hours. And that was that was fun for them. We do private parties. We've had a wedding that was probably one of my favorite events because the museum was transformed and it felt like a wedding. But yeah, we do tons of private events.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:24:39] And how do those kind of private events feel different from having it publicly? How does it change how you have the museum at that point?
Kelli Cook [00:24:49] It's a lot of preparation, and I never knew that we would be like an event planning, but like it's full out, even planning, you know, like as far as tables and chairs and linen. Yes.
Jordyn Watson [00:24:59] And decorations. Balloons. Like all of the food and…
Kelli Cook [00:25:04] Yes. And so just learning that process and how to price, where that like it's been times we're very particular about the museum. So when you have a large event is expected that some things will be damaged. It’s time where me and Jordyn have spent pretty much like all night of….
Jordyn Watson [00:25:18] Five in the morning.
Kelli Cook [00:25:19] Into the next day getting the museum back up and running for the next group of people to come in. So it's a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into creating an event. But we just love when people are able to experience the museum and they chose us, you know, at the end of the day. And that's what we always tell people like, thank you for choosing us. We don't take that lightly.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:25:44] And do you have any plans for physical expansion of the museum?
Kelli Cook [00:25:50] We have other ideas. I think that we're not quite sure if we will like open another museum. We do have another great idea that we think that would be really
hot. We're not sure, like if we should do it here or if we should do it in another state. But as far as in Detroit, we have tons of ideas that are just not in Detroit yet that we that are coming beginning to surface to where we may have opportunities to do some other things that will be interactive, that will be like really, really great for the city, for the community, for tourism and for local. So I think that our creativity definitely will continue to expand in Detroit.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:26:34] And what lessons will you bring forward from this museum into other museum projects?
Kelli Cook [00:26:41] Create a budget.
Jordyn Watson [00:26:43] Sticking to the words.
Kelli Cook [00:26:47] Stick to the budget for sure. And. Stick to the budget for sure. Be very. Be creative in your own. I think be inspired by your own creativity. I think that's what sets you apart. Getting nondisclosures in the beginning so that your ideas aren't shared while you're building.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:27:35] Was getting non-disclosure is a problem?
Kelli Cook [00:27:39] I don't want to answer that, but we have them now and we have an attorney. So, you know, we definitely make sure to recover.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:28:03] And are locals or tourists your primary audience?
Kelli Cook [00:28:08] We have both. We have we're always surprised at how many tourists we have, though, I will say, because we do have a popular brunch spot that's directly across from us that has helped a lot because a lot of people do frequent that location as far as tourists that come in town. So a lot of times we do get that traffic and they may not have even known we were here, but we've had several guests that have. That's always like the greatest surprise when they came here for us.
Jordyn Watson [00:28:38] Yes.
Kelli Cook [00:28:39] Like, oh, my gosh. We have people from so many different areas that came in town just to go to the Selfie Museum of Detroit. And. It doesn't feel like it does. I'm surprised every single time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:28:56] Is there any particular difference that you've noticed between the two groups, locals and tourists, and how they interact with your museum?
Jordyn Watson [00:29:03] No.
Kelli Cook [00:29:03] No. They all become big kids. You know, sometimes we have to push people a little bit to get into the office and they thank us every single time. No, we don't see a difference. They all come, you know, to have a good time.
Doris Lanzkron-Tamarazo [00:29:19] All right. I think that's all the questions I have for you. Thank you very much for coming here today.
Jordyn Watson [00:29:22] Thank you for having us.
Files
Collection
Citation
“Kelli Cook, Jordyn Watson, August 17th, 2022,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed October 5, 2024, https://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/items/show/811.