Out of Office: RuNT Recap

Another RuNT Austin has come and gone, but this time, we had wine! Our amazing sponsors this event included Infinite Monkey Theorem wine, Via313 pizza, and Brew & Brew, the greatest host in town. Sipping on beverages and snacking on pizza allowed for the perfect setting to learn about the side hustle and how to master it.

Our speakers for the event were Sam Sholkoff, UX Designer and co-founder of the XUP app, Candice Digby, co-founder of Austin Design Week, and Katie Johnson, freelancer and creator of The Monster Project.

Sam Sholkoff

Sam has been a Senior Visual and User Experience designer at IBM for the last four years. Outside of IBM, you can find him working on his startup, the XUP app, which helps bring the dating game offline and into the real world. One of the biggest takeaways from Sam’s presentation was learning how to set boundaries with your 9-5. At what point is it okay to turn off Slack and not answer another email? How do you balance your work day and your passion? According to Sam, don’t be a dog.

Candice Digby

Candice is the Partnerships and Event Manager for Vapor IO here in Austin. When Candice helped start Austin Design Week, she was recognizing a hole in the market. There was a true opportunity for Austin’s strong creative community to come together and be recognized. Austin Design Week is a non-profit organization to unify Austin’s design communities and elevate design in the greater community with everyday stakeholders. Candice helped to curate programming and execute logistics for the initial years, and has grown the event to almost 2,000 unique attendees, 100+ programs, 3 new event formats and 100+ volunteers (and pssst we’re excited to be sponsoring it! November 4-8).

Katie Johnson

Katie wrapped up the night by plastering smiles across the sold out event. Katie is a professional hand letterer and artist, and has created one of the raddest side hustles in the game: The Monster Project. The Monster Project is a group of talented artists who turn elementary students monster drawings to life. These artists all share a common goal: to help children recognize the power of their own imaginations and to encourage them to pursue their creative potential.

Between a dating app, a city-wide creative event, and a modern day Monster’s Inc., we had a stellar group of creatives that hustle in their 9-5 and still find time to keep their creative juices flowing.

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