I've always been a little crazy

But never reckless.

Two of the biggest moments in my career started with a crash.

In 1997, I finally got someone to hire me at the local TV station.

I had been trying, relentlessly, for more than a year. In the two weeks between getting the offer for a cable-wrangling job and my first day, I fell off my mountain bike on a gnarly downhill and broke my collarbone.

I showed up on day one with an unset bone and my left arm in a sling.

Nothing was going to stop me.

In 2026, after a career across post-production as an artist, leader, and technologist, I finally decided to bet on myself and start this business. I had it all planned out. The day I left my job as a studio executive, I was ready to go.

Six days in, I fell off a bouldering wall on a gnarly overhang and wrecked my knee pretty severely: unattached ACL, partially torn MCL, severe bone bruising.

But I showed up again.

This time with a knee brace, crutches, a laptop, and a lot of ice packs.

Nothing was going to stop me.

I am the type of person who takes calculated risks.

Extreme sports are not about being reckless. They require planning, focus, training, patience, judgment, and the confidence to commit when the moment comes.

Business is not that different.

I study. I plan. I listen. I surround myself with people I admire deeply, especially people who know much more than I do. I trust the process, and I believe in what I am building.

Most importantly, I believe the community will show up with me.

-Katie

Community first. Infrastructure around it.

In 2014, I co-founded the Blue Collar Post Collective.

At a BCPC event in New York, 2015. With co-founder Janis Vogel.

Like now, I had a feeling that the industry had changed and a gap had opened up.

Young people were no longer reliably starting their careers inside the structure of a post house or studio. More often, they were starting alone: freelancing, piecing things together, trying to learn the job without the support system that used to come with it.

They needed a way to find other post professionals.

People to learn from. People to ask questions of. People who might open a door. People to become friends with.

That need was growing, and I had a strong sense of what could help. So I gathered a team, and together we built the community infrastructure around which a movement could form.

That community grew to more than 20,000 members globally.

The key then was putting the community first and bringing people together.

People are what make this industry.

Everything else follows.

Daily Special is being built with that same ethos: community first, with infrastructure that supports the needs of the people doing the work.

And I am starting in my own neighborhood, in North East Los Angeles.

The city estimates that thousands of post-production workers live in this part of Los Angeles. Daily Special is being built around a simple idea: professional infrastructure should exist where the community actually is.

That means facilities in the neighborhoods where creative people live, work, gather, and build trust.

It also means supporting the local ecosystem around us: cafés, independent theaters, neighborhood businesses, public spaces, and the places where creative life already happens.

Which brings me to the library.

This is what building a business looks like now

working from the Cypress Park public library

The heart of our neighborhoods is too often overlooked: our public libraries.

Over the past few weeks, I have been working a couple of days a week from local libraries. They are welcoming, accessible, friendly, and genuinely useful. I can sit down, focus, take notes, and keep building.

They have also clarified something for me.

Cafés are great for meetings, but too noisy for deep work. Libraries are fantastic for focus, but they are not quite the creative environment I miss from facilities and studios.

I miss being around other people who are making things.

I miss being able to work in a shared area, have a conversation with someone who understands the work, grab a coffee, then disappear back into a quiet room when I need to focus.

The library is not the opposite of Daily Special. It is part of the proof.

People need neighborhood-based places to go. Places that are accessible. Places that feel human. Places where work can happen without the friction of the old model.

Daily Special is being built for the layer beyond that: a professional home for creative work, with the community, infrastructure, rooms, workflows, and support this industry actually needs.

Because before Daily Special is a facility, it is a behavior.

People need places to go. Places to focus. Places to be around other people with shared context. Places where work can happen, conversations can happen, and community can start to form.

That is what this phase is about.

What you told me

In the last newsletter, I added a poll. Thank you to all of you who responded.

Here’s what the responses looked like:

I love that 11% of you chose bed-rotting.

But the bigger takeaway was clear: people are interested in more than a facility.

They are interested in connection, professional community, flexible workspace, and a better way to work around the realities of this industry now.

Daily Special will start in NELA, but it will grow to meet demand, wherever the members need it to be.

Also, the coffee and vibes have to be on point.

That is exactly what I am building toward.

Here’s what’s next

The goal is to open the first Daily Special facility in late 2027.

To get there, I am building and raising in stages.

Over the summer, I will be hosting community events: informal co-working sessions, small meetups, and conversations with the people this is being built for.

In fact, I've started hosting informal, ad hoc, drop-in co-working sessions at Cypress Park Public Library, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10am-12:30pm.

I will also open the first community participation round.

This first round is intentionally small. What matters is not the size of the round. What matters is that the first money in, other than my own, comes from the community this is being built for.

That shows the industry that the community will show up for this.

The next round will be for a small group of strategic partners.

This is not just about capital. It is about bringing in people who want to help shape the leadership of Daily Special, whether quietly behind the scenes, as advisors, or eventually at the board level.

These are people who will put real skin in the game, not only through funding, but through their time, expertise, relationships, and belief in the model.

That capital will go toward building the platform that connects the facility infrastructure to studio, cloud, and at-home storage and compute, while also managing memberships, scheduling, booking, access, and hiring.

Then, early next year, the plan is to raise toward the first facility and begin the path to opening.

Six months before launch, we will start opening the membership waitlist to the people who have joined the list, shown up, responded, and helped shape the model from the beginning.

Because that is the point.

This starts with the community.

Then we build the infrastructure around it.

If this resonates, the most useful thing you can do right now is share the sign-up link with one person who should know this is happening.

You are also welcome to join me at the library!
Email me back if you'd like me to send you a calendar invite to remind you.