Profiles of Innovation

Marsha Milam makes the Texas music business sing

When your Dad's a wildcatter in Texas, your path can be set for you quite early in life.

"My father was in the oil business, so I was brought up by a person who was self-employed. I never wanted to work for anybody, I knew that," says Marsha Milam.

But what Milam also knew that the oil business was not for her. But music? Well, that got her heart racing.

"The music business is a business, and that’s the thing I stress because there’s so many young people saying 'Oh, I want to be in the music business.' I tell them it is a business, it’s not all fun. But I always wanted to be in the music business. I just did."

And she is. Marsha created Marsha Milam Music and produces some of the most successful and critically-acclaimed music series in Texas. It all started here in Austin back in 1994 when she and Barbara Morgan began the Austin Film Festival.

"I started KGSR’s Unplugged at the Grove that year, and I started the festival that year — so ’94 was a big creative year for me. [Unplugged at the Grove] was such a critically-acclaimed and fun and respected series that I did with KGSR, and that helped," Milam explains. "People realized the quality and the commitment to making a good production, so that helped me build that reputation with the bands and the agents and the managers."

Her reputation is sterling. Milam is trusted by musicians, agents and venues. It's not easy to have that triumvirate of Texas music all working with you, but Milam's record of successful projects allowed her to expand the Unplugged model.

"I took the KGSR Unplugged at the Grove model and I did that in Fort Worth, Belton, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso. So we have series going on in five different markets that run April through September."

Milam may be the envy of many living and working in Austin — more specifically, those living for music. But she is quick to remind them that getting to where she is today took guts and confidence — and it was more than scary.

"To start your own business you have to have a vision of what you want it to be. You have to have determination, you have to be relentless. You have to be fearless and sometimes it’s terrifying, and you have to be able to find in that terror the energy to get you over the hump."

Success in music takes a particular kind of energy; Milam suggests young entrepreneurs might have to work for free in order to build a trusted reputation.

"Find your favorite band and go up to them and say, 'Hey, I love you. I want to be a publicist. Can I do your PR? Can I do it for you for free?' Put a plan together."

"An entrepreneur is crazy," she laughs, "and I tell people to do it, just do it!"

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Starting from bed rest

Kendra Scott goes to Houston: "Like Build-A-Bear for grown women"

Following a flagship store on Austin's South Congress, and addresses in BeverlyHills and Dallas' West Village, a Kendra Scott boutique has cropped up this weekin Rice Village.
Photo by Whitney Radley
Kendra Scott, the woman behind the eponymous jewelry line, grew up in Houstonbefore moving to Austin at 19.
Photo by Whitney Radley

Kendra Scott's success story is one for the books: Pregnant and confined to bed rest, with a recently-unemployed husband and a meager bank balance, she began creating custom jewelry.

Once she was allowed back on her feet, Scott would walk around to Austin stores taking sales orders and then sell her samples to the very last shop on her route so that she'd have the funds to purchase supplies to fill them.

Eleven years later, Scott opened her fourth eponymous boutique (and the largest yet) in Houston's Rice Village this week, with others slated for CityCentre and Scottsdale, Ariz. — and she's revolutionizing the way that women shop for jewelry.

But the best part is, each wearer has the ability to tailor pieces to her personal tastes or a particular outfit at the Color Bar.

"I found that what was missing out there was colorful, beautiful jewelry using natural gemstones, at a price that I could afford," Scott says.

She and her design team lean on antique jewels and contemporary trends for inspiration to create pieces that are in vogue, on-brand and timeless — something that, Scott hopes, a granddaughter will pull out of a jewelry box decades hence.

But the best part is, each wearer has the ability to tailor pieces to her personal tastes or a particular outfit at the Color Bar. The Rice Village boutique is equipped with two 55-inch touch screens, a half-dozen iPads and even "bar menus" with images of products and options.

This makes each customer a part of the design process. They select the style, the stones and the metal, and then watch while a store clerk — all of whom are trained stone-setters — makes the design a reality.

"It's like Build-A-Bear for grown women," laughs Scott, who got the idea early on when her workers would customize the colors of their own jewelry pieces for a night out on the town.

She took that concept on the road for a trunk show at Henri Bendel in New York that was supposed to last just three days. It ended up attracting lines out the door for three months, and the Color Bar became a staple.

But the shopping isn't the only thing that is experiential: Kendra Scott boutiques are event driven, with the Color Bar available for booking for bridal brunches or girlfriend get-togethers, and a Girls Night Out each Wednesday that draws fashionable crowds for cupcakes, champagne and select jewelry deals.

Kendra Gives Back parties offer opportunities for an organization to benefit from 20 percent of proceeds. Attendees, meanwhile, can gild themselves and feel guilt-free about the indulgence.

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The new Kendra Scott boutique is in Rice Village at 2411 Times Boulevard, Suite 120. The store is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m.

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