Apollo Workspace: There’s a Better Way to Work

Austin Tunnell

The office space is horrible. There's no character. How are you supposed to do your best work out of that? Really, we're talking about a professional workspace for small teams and entrepreneurs. Being in a community of other small business owners, I think is super powerful. If you come to Apollo and you don't make more money than covering your rent, essentially, then we failed.

Austin Tunnell

Welcome to the Building Culture podcast, where we explore holistic solutions to crafting a more beautiful, resilient, and thriving world for people. I'm your host, Austin Tennell. I'm also the founder of Building Culture, a boutique, vertically integrated real estate development company focused on walkable infill projects, beautiful design, and high quality craftsmanship. If you like this podcast, I invite you to subscribe and wherever you're listening, leave a five-star review. It really helps us out. Enjoy the show. Today I've got a very, very special guest, dear to my heart, Sarah Tanel. Glad to be here in our living room. And maybe I should have had you on the podcast first to interview you rather than you interview me, but that's what we're doing. It'll work. Today we're talking about Apollo Workspace and our concept for our professional workspace at our project Townsend in downtown Edmond. And we really want to get into some of the details of what we are doing it and why we are doing it and the inspiration behind it and talk about why it's going to be some of the best office space in the state of Oklahoma. really how increasingly building culture wants to get more into operations and vertically integrate more so that we can really control like the end user experience and create something really special. that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. I was just thinking while you're speaking that the name building culture has really become more more fitting since you've started it over the past decade, that it's not just promoting the culture of building, but you're actually also really enhancing culture and building culture that way. And I think that's the part that I'm really excited about. Well, I'm excited about all of it, but the part where I feel like I can really play a role with you. so excited about that element and really seeing Apollo come to life. yeah. And a lot of people don't know that building culture and us getting married basically happened about the same time. Maybe you could tell just before we jump into some of the other stuff like your side of the story of building culture and kind of how all this has come to be. OK.

Austin Tunnell

We did not plan this ahead of time. I'm happy to. Well, he was the first person I met at the airport when we were heading to the Peace Corps in Uganda. So he was coming from Texas and I was coming from Pennsylvania. It took about a year, but we started dating and then fast forward and we got married when we finished our service after two years. But that kind of left us in a tight spot of where we were going to live. So the next thing I know Austin was asking me what I thought of the middle of Oklahoma to settle down. But that's where he was going to learn the art of structural masonry. So it's really been a whirlwind of living in walkable neighborhoods that I just never been exposed to before meeting Austin and And just all sorts of adventures and learning that I really care about bringing people together through community events and marketing and just things I never knew I wanted to explore, but getting to do it hand in hand with Austin has been just incredible. was quite the catch at the time, coming back from the Peace Corps with absolutely no money, no actual plan. And we had a five week engagement, which I was, that was the biggest fight of our lives, of our relationship, I think, because once we kind of decided, I was like, let's go get married like right now. And you're like, we are having a wedding. that was, it takes a few days to get a wedding dress to fit. We did have a five week engagement and a great wedding though. It was pretty cool. We had a food truck and it was, it was really fun. got 60 something people to show up in five weeks. Yeah. All right. Well, you want to jump into. Yeah, so I will take it from here. Happy to have you on the show, Austin. You've been building homes with building culture for years now. You've done structural masonry, custom homes, but now you're moving into an office space. yeah, what made you decide to build in a workspace and where did the idea for Apollo come from?

Austin Tunnell

You know, it's not something when we started down the path of Townsend, we were planning on doing some kind of like workspace and office space. wanted to do some really cool commercial, but as we were talking to people, we were thinking about maybe we white box it and then we just let businesses come in and finish out. But with the kind of level of detail that we do with our buildings and just the, the, the tight urbanism and stuff that we're, we're doing in the courtyards, it was just really hard to figure out how are we actually going to do this and are we going to get the result that we want? Then we started talking to some coworking operators, you know, maybe they could run it and, ultimately realizing no one's going to implement our vision. And, not only is no one going to implement our vision. I've became pretty convicted that like our vision for this space was the best idea for the space, not only for the community, for downtown Edmond, but also for the business and for our investors. And. realizing, you know, your experience with events and programming. And I've been running a business for nine years now, running, running a coworking space. And it really w it's not co-working. It's, it's, it's coworking adjacent because that means many things to different people. Really we're talking about a professional workspace for small teams and, and solo entrepreneurs. So, really focusing on CPAs, wealth managers, architects, interior designers. lawyers, realtors, people that need a space that they don't really have a good space. And the inspiration in terms of how we thought about it is really starting from the user experience of what is it like to work here? What do we want it to be? And that's been important to me because as a small business owner, I've, I've been by myself, I've had a business partner, I've had a small team, like all three of these things. And I've never had an office space that felt like it was for me. And so really it's kind of me and Matt, who's also, you know, we're co-designing this together. Matt's my partner and licensed architect. We're designing just what kind of office space would we want to office out of literally currently, but also at different stages in our lives and kind of putting ourselves in the, the seat of, well, if we were a lawyer, you know, what do you need for that? So this office space is not for everyone.

Austin Tunnell

It's not, actually really focusing on a niche, but I think for that niche, it's incredible. And there's absolutely nothing else like it. Awesome. think speaking of niche, you named the workspace Apollo. That's very distinct and seems like a deliberate choice. What does that name mean to you? You know, we, did engage marketers for like helping with some of the brand and logo of Apollo, but just like with building culture, we are, and I personally am heavily involved in the branding. writing the copy. What is it? I've never been able to engage a marketer just be like, Hey, we're doing this thing and get something back that works. because it's my vision or our vision as a team. And so we, and we might not be able to design the logo per se. so Apollo was a name that I think I actually came up with and, and talked with Matt, talked with you about it. And well, you know, we're, building cool stuff and there is kind of this like, ancient feel to some of the stuff we're doing. And I don't mean we're trying to make it look ancient, but just rooted in history. Maybe that's better. It's not really ancient, like rooted with a real sense of like culture and heritage. And, and I think I'm, highly inspired by the Greeks and the Romans and what they were able to build. And even the Renaissance and the Renaissance was really a rediscovery of lost knowledge from the Greeks. And so Apollo, was a Greek God that the Romans actually kept the same name, unlike, you know, Zeus who went to Jupiter. and Apollo is the God of light and light kind of representing, you know, a brightness and clarity. And you can see that physically, physically, like literally and figuratively in the design of Apollo, we have a window in every single office. There is not any office that doesn't have a window. The social spaces. And I say social because it's also outdoor space just to to break out to work, to take a break, to work outside. We have lots of outdoor spaces. It's very like outdoor focused. Once again, in sunlight, in light. And then he was also the God of like poetry and music and knowledge and prophecy. And so there's this poetry side where it's like highly creative and inspired and artistic, but then this real sense of like knowledge where it wasn't just kind of pie in the sky. Like it's also connected to reality. so like,

Austin Tunnell

this sense of like discovering knowledge and then even the prophecy thing I think more of in terms of like innovation. And so we want Apollo, yes, we want it to be an incredible place to work where you like literally love showing up every day because it feels great. And by the way, the Greeks believe that your environment shaped, you know, the quality of your work. And we believe that too, just like it shapes the quality of your life. Why would it not? Well, a thought that was coming up for me was reminding me of a tagline that you often throw around with Apollo that it's workspaced humanized. So like, what does that mean to you? But maybe a better question of like, what is workspace not humanized? you know, office space is some of the worst, most inhuman space that like we've built. And there's a lot of stuff we built that's terrible in the U S over the past 100 years, but office space is horrible. Like You, you go into these, maybe you work in downtown and it's these giant buildings and just rows of fluorescent lights and everything is kind of like there's carpet and beige and there's just no, there's no warmth. There's, there's no, there's no character. Like how are you supposed to do your best work out of that? Then there's like, especially in Oklahoma and Texas, where I'm from the suburban office park, like an office part, maybe with kind of bigger buildings clustered and. You know, you just drive up and it's ugly and you get in, it's ugly. And then you walk out, maybe you're going to lunch and you got to drive to the nearest Chili's and there's really no sense of connectedness, no sense of community, no sense of being part of a place, even not just your own office, but being part of a larger whole. And then there's even, you know, in, Oklahoma, kind of the one and two story office parks versus these little like buildings that look kind of like houses in a sea of parking and let, yeah, you can get pretty cheap space, but Maybe some people need that much space. so maybe Apollo might not be for those people, but a lot of people I know are one to four person businesses. You don't need 3000 square foot building. You want a beautiful space. And by the way, the other thing that's hard about being a small business is you have to wear all the hats. You might be in building.

Austin Tunnell

But you also have to know insurance and taxes and finances and marketing and HR and all these other things that you really can't be an expert in. And I know that when I'm looking to learn something, the best way to learn, yes, there's chat GBT now, which is very helpful. And, know, Google searches or books, but the best possible thing you can do is call up another small business owner, you know, who maybe has done something, maybe you're hiring your first assistant and you're like, well, how do I actually manage an assistant? What do I do? What does that look? I know I probably need one. And to call someone up that's kind of been in your shoes before and say like, what was it like when you hired your first assistant? And they'll probably say like, well, I did my first assistant and it was terrible because I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know how to like give them things, but here's the things that I've learned and here's what I'm doing now. And so when I was hiring assistant, I had a guy kind of send me his entire workflow of what he did and what he learned. And that's really amazing. But it's hard to know who those small businesses are and have that kind of built-in networking community. And I've been a part of that with a local kind of like entrepreneurship group that met, you know, monthly. And I'm kind of going, you know, this is really valuable. And I actually think it would be more valuable if it was less formal and, just as in we're getting together once a month with a group of 12 people. And then you're also kind of limited to who's in the group versus just working around another 30 or 40 small business owners and that kind of one to four business size range. And boy, that's a. built-in network. So not just for referrals, for finding clients, but for camaraderie even, because as you know, I mean, you've run a few businesses. It's just really, really, really hard to run a small business. And most people don't appreciate that because they can't. And so just being in a community of other small business owners, I think is super powerful. I just imagine like the small touches through the day too of just like passing to get coffee and you know, just sharing what you're experiencing right now might even put like it on your radar of something to do as a small business owner that you hadn't even considered. So it just seems like so much potential, especially in the age of like AI, you know, where there's so much rapid change and there is an incredible, I think we're both saying just the incredible value of AI and what it can do beyond just, you know, chat with it, which don't get me wrong. That's really helpful in research, but even

Austin Tunnell

getting into Claude and doing, you know, vibe coding and the things you learn and things are changing so fast. And to be able to learn like what other people are doing as a small business can just be incredibly hopeful and really boost your business. So I like to say like, if you come to Apollo and you don't make more money than covering your rent, essentially then we failed because not only are we trying to like provide a great space that clients love to come to, that you love to come to, that you do your best work, you can walk out by the way, the other thing you asked about in human workspace is if you're in a big office park, you literally have to get there by car and lead by car. Yes, Apollo, most people are going to be coming by car. and we've got street parking, all kinds of parking around, but guess what? There are 35 plus restaurants, coffee shops, breweries on top of an organic grocery store, a three acre park within a 10 minute walk of where we are. So it's like, once you come to Apollo, you don't need to leave the rest of the day by car. Like it's by foot. You can go have client meetings. And of course we've got conference spaces and outdoor space and an amazing place to host clients, clients, you know, within Apollo, but you're literally part of a district, a walkable district downtown to Edmond, which we're increasingly excited about is just becoming a really cool district. I love taking walking meetings. When I'm on the phone, I'll go walk outside up and down sidewalks. You don't want to do that in an office parking. can't do it if you're in like a giant office building. So to be able to just walk outside your office in Paula, maybe you're taking a phone call in the courtyard and maybe you go walk around Stevenson park, you know, and take a phone call or a walking meeting with someone else. I've actually started liking doing Steve jobs. Used to do that all the time. You do walking meetings and I thought that was strange. And then I actually tried it. It was like, this is really nice. I really liked this and it can make like awkward conversations less awkward because you don't have to like stare at someone the whole time. You're like walking and you can look over. So. It's just a very dynamic place. I like that. Something I don't want to pass by is just the actual building of Apollo is going to be structural masonry, kind of the building culture expertise. And maybe for people who haven't heard you explain this before, like, why does that matter for an office building? Like, what about the way you're building it plays into Apollo?

Austin Tunnell

One of our values at building cultures is one is beauty, but another one is durability and building things that last. And we just live in a disposable building culture in the U S and not everything we build the structural masonry and we still focus on just high quality health, low maintenance and all that. But our structural masonry is kind of like our flagship that almost no one is doing. And this is what I had princess for 10 years ago. And we moved to the middle of nowhere Oklahoma to learn this from a master mason. who had studied oil painting and, and sculpting in college before he became a Mason because he really saw it as a, as really sculpting as a building material and all the oldest buildings in the world and most of the oldest cities that still exist today are built out of some kind of structural masonry. Meaning there's no wood in the walls. It is masonry. what brick buildings you see today are of veneer. You've got a wood, you know, backing in the veneer and brick is still a very quality siding, but When you do structural masonry, the walls become really thick because it's all masonry and they've to be thick enough to kind of be self-stabilizing and self-supporting. And so our walls at Apollo were 16 inches thick. And that might sound like a funny thing of like, why does that matter? People always wonder why do old buildings look better? Why do they look cooler? A lot of it is actually the depth and people like modern buildings feel very pasted on and very shallow just because of the way we build. And so when you get these deep inset windows and then also with the depth, can, we can extrude brick out. We can take it away and create all these incredible details that are otherwise possible. top of that, the interior is exposed bricks. So when you look at like the highest price point, you know, lofts or bars or coffee shops and your old downtowns, know, pre world war two buildings, they've probably got exposed masonry on the inside, meaning it's structural masonry. And so you get this texture inside. You get this very human material inside. like to say that brick is the size it is to fit the human hand. And, and you're seeing that kind of everywhere throughout the building and no, not all walls in your office are brick. That would actually be kind of intense. All the exterior walls, the envelope walls are mason. We've got these great stone sills and lentils. It's just like real materials. When people walk into our homes and our buildings, they, they might not know anything about architecture, but they immediately feel it. They, they kind of stop and they have this.

Austin Tunnell

They just look around kind of quietly and they're like, whoa. And they don't know what it is. It's not like, you know, I have to point out things and they're like, but they feel it. They sense it. And I really do believe the things that we build kind of have a design and the things we build can either be things that harmonize the environment around them, including people or disharmonize them. You know, I think the world and people, there's a lot more going going on than kind of just the material world that we can see and. taste, touch, hear, smell, and there's more going on. And when we really design thoughtfully, we design beautifully, we design with intention, with real materials, people feel it. Yeah. When I picture myself working in a structural masonry office space like Apollo, I immediately think it's going to give me, just by being in the space, an added layer of seriousness and like... I don't know, gravity that like a client walks in is just going to feel that and associate it with my business too. So that is cool to think about as well. Yeah. Your office space says something about you actually really fast. You know, it's the first thing people see if you're meeting them at the office. Just give me 30 seconds of your time. If you haven't already, please take a moment to leave a five star review on Apple, Spotify or wherever you're listening. I also invite you to like, subscribe, and share an episode with a friend. We are not doing this for money. We're doing it because we think this conversation matters and this small gesture genuinely helps us grow the audience and get the word out. Thanks for being a part of it. You've also included in the office space, a sauna and a cold plunge in an office. For all the Andrew Huberman lovers out there. For anyone who knows Andrew Huberman, very popular podcast. Well, saunas and cold plunges have become very popular and I've realized it's not just a fad. mean, saunas go back of they're ancient. know, the Romans had Roman baths and things. And then even cold plunges, people in cold climates have been doing this for thousands of years. And the health benefits, like the actual data around cold plunges and saunas is insane. Like I can't remember the statistics off the top of my head.

Austin Tunnell

But like, go look it up. It is absolutely incredible. But not only that, like that's kind of where I started with the health angle. Like, Hey, this is really cool. But a year and a half ago, and this is when we actually included it in, in Apollo, I went to a real estate event. So a professional real estate event in California, people coming in from all over, it wasn't just like California people. And during the event, um, 20 of us, like during a long break, 20 something of us went to like a local. sauna and cold plunge place. And the sauna was inside, it was like a 20 person sauna and then the outside was where some cold plunges were. And it made me, it was so much fun. I know this is weird, but it was just, it was so social. It was so fun. It kind of like breaks down some barriers, you know, like when you're just kind of like sweating next to each other and you're getting up and you get in the cold plunge and come back. But like people are laughing, you're having conversations, you, you know, you sit next to someone else and I realized, my gosh, this is a social experience too. And A lot of times in modern society, we use like alcohol to kind of loosen things up and break down the barriers, which I'm okay with that. And we're going to do that some at Apollo, but at the same time, we want to have like this balance. really believe in balance. So we'll have like healthy hours too. We'll have kombucha and sparkling water and saunas and cold plunges. And if that sounds terrible to you, you don't have to come. You know, that's the cool thing. We're not trying to force things on anyone. It's all just an invitation, kind of casually done, but also very intentional. and, and another element, not just the social aspect where maybe once a month or once a quarter, we do kind of a fun social thing like that. But even as like business partners or things like that, it's actually be the sub strange, go get in the song together after a day and debrief about the day. Talk about something. I've been doing a sauna with my brother-in-law and my business partner for, I don't know, two years for we've kind of haven't been able to do it for the past four months, but we would go over to his house. It has this four person barrel sauna. And we get in every Friday for 30 minutes, 25 minutes, and just debrief about the week talk. And we were always talking about like business and things we were learning. And it's just this unique experience. And so we're like, well, this is amazing. Why not introduce this into, into Apollo? And it's actually in an outdoor courtyard, which I think is also a very, it's just a completely different vibe than if you're like inside and like a cold punch sauna. so it can be social. It can be serious. It can be just to.

Austin Tunnell

to relax and there's all the health benefits. So I think there's just a lot of cool stuff to having that. And it's going to be beautiful. It's going to be beautiful. And this whole building, all of it is in downtown Edmond. Like what made you choose that location? What are you excited about for downtown Edmond? We are really focused to building culture on building. Now that we're moving more into development, we're not trying to do massive, you know, hundred acre greenfield as a new construction neighborhoods, rebuild the whole neighborhood. We might do that at some point, but where my heart is, and I think we're the team at building cultures heart is, is doing infill where there's art. And so when we're doing info, we're trying to look for existing places where there's already some kind of some stuff happening, you know, like there's some restaurants popping up. There's some hipsters moving in, you know, there's not just hipsters, but you know, people that want to live there. People are going there. There might be events. And so when I just look in the Oklahoma city Metro. Downtown Edmund and Wheeler District in my mind are like the two top places that over the next 10 years, I think are going to be the most walkable places in the Oklahoma City Metro and it's not going to be close. And Edmund historically, you know, five years ago they nicknamed it the downtown deadment because there was nothing going on. was like four restaurants, you know, that had been there for a while. It's a man teach shops. Well now in 2026, there's like I said, 35 plus restaurants and coffee shops, a bruise. That's in addition to the other kind of day-to-day services, need banks, gyms, grocery store, all of that. And, and so we want to kind of like compound on the area and really be part of placemaking. So rather than go say we're going to go placemake with a hundred acres, we're saying we're going to take, we're going to keep reinvesting in the same place. so Townsend is not the only project we're doing in downtown Edmond. We're already working on another one and half, 1.1 acre project with some rental townhomes nearby with some partners. So. I don't want to build everywhere indiscriminately. want to build, you know, in the place and really contribute to those communities and be part of those communities. And I think Edmond is just such a cool place. And I meant to say like, historically, the people that lived in Edmond would have to come down to Oklahoma City, you know, for work or for things. And now that's shifting. It's like, hey, let's make downtown Edmond really cool. And let's make some Oklahoma City people come up to Edmond for a really cool downtown area. And when I say downtown, you know, it's more, it's Main Street, you know, it's not like high rises.

Austin Tunnell

One, two, three, four story buildings. rewind just a little bit, you mentioned Townsend. So Apollo is just a piece of Townsend, which is a larger project. Like how did those pieces all fit together? I'm glad you brought that up. Townsend is the entire project where we have 18 for sale townhomes, two live work units for sale, and then our Apollo workspace. So it's really Apollo at Townsend. Because Apollo, we've realized it wasn't our intent when we started. It was, we're going to do a space and, it'll just be a space at Townsend. And then we ended up like, well, this is really cool. And we ended up branding it. And then we're already thinking about where we could do it next, where we could bring it to the Oklahoma city Metro. So, so Townsend is kind of the entire project. And we're also doing it in phases. So our commercial is the phase one, cause it stands on its own. You know, it'll be complete when we're done with Apollo and the live work units. part of Apollo. All most of this is small offices that are even 60 square feet to 350 square feet. And we've got storefronts. have multiple street front storefronts for different types of clients. If, if having a client being able to walk directly into your building with a blade sign or something like that is important to you. We've got offices for that, which is super cool. And so it's very dynamic where you can have, maybe you want one of those spaces where you want to put seven desks in it. That's fine. Or maybe you want to have just like a single desk for you and then some open desk area or a conference room. But we also have. four different meeting rooms on top of all the outdoor areas, on top of just being part of downtown Edmond. So it's very flexible space. And you've mentioned like the kind of people that you're imagining there, like CPAs, wealth managers, lawyers. Like what do you picture the type of person you picture walking through into Apollo every day? Like what is the person that works there look like? You know, I think it's someone that is really serious about their work because we're not just trying to build a cool place just to build a cool place. We're like just a social hangout. Like we, a building culture, we really have fun, but we work really hard because we believe in what we're doing. And I really think people don't appreciate how much small business shapes your community and the city. Like in a lot of ways, your

Austin Tunnell

your city and your community are a reflection of the small businesses. And yes, big business is important too. And I support, like I want big businesses to come to Oklahoma city, but they're not necessarily what bring like real culture and identity. And, we would not be looking for someone that's like, ah, I just want to kind of like be in a cool space and hang out per se, you know, which can often be associated with like coworking or something. And that's why we're not calling it coworking. It's a professional workspace, executive suites, whatever you want to call it. it's for like serious people that want to like do their best work that want to improve, that want to have fun at work, that want to live, be in a beautiful space, but want to grow their business and whether that's grow their business in terms of revenue or just like grow their business in terms of building the business that they want, even if it's limiting their hours and it could be making less money, but running a more efficient business, whatever it is, self-improvement, this idea of just like always getting better. And that's what's so fun about being self-employed. Frankly, it's like, the ultimate creative experience. Like it is the ultimate creative experience. There's never, you're never done. You can always do more. And I find that really fun and invigorating and especially to be around other people that are motivated and inspired. You know, I joke because I left accounting because I hated it. Yet it's not because accounting is not a highly creative field. Like there's this caricature of accountants. Well, Our main CPA, because I don't know how to do taxes, like you would not want me doing your taxes. He's super creative and he's super fun to be around, you know, and he's got a larger office, but like he wouldn't necessarily be a fit. But like, so I'm like, yeah, like you can be a professional and be in something that might sound boring, like insurance or accounting. But I think the best people in their field are super creative people. And I just also think of the people working from home offices, which is so necessary. we do it, but also just how, how difficult it can be when really like a pile of laundry and kids toys are, are staring on the other side of the room. Just having like a beautiful place where productivity is just more natural, would think. Right. And, I can see people that don't have a home office that want to do this. They're moving from another office, but also people with a home office moving here. And it doesn't mean you never have to work from home. Like I do have a home office and I like to.

Austin Tunnell

When I'm, you know, kind of sleeping well and being disciplined, I like to get up at like 5 a.m. and just come downstairs, you know, not dressed, not having taken a shower yet and kind of get like two or three hours of really focused work in. And I would probably still do that if I was off seeing out of Apollo, you know, and then have both, you know, it's not like you have to have one or the other. And that's what's nice is they're flexible leases. They're one year leases. And so you can. test it out and you can grow. And another thing I wanted to bring up about why it's valuable for small businesses and the flexibility part of people moving from home offices. I've learned that I mentioned that we have 60 square foot offices. That seems really small. Say you're a two person business, you've got a partner or it's you and some kind of administrative assistant. You don't want to be in the same room together, which is what a lot of coworking space to kind of force. You can get like open desk or like a bigger room. Well, then you're on the phone together and it's so irritating or maybe you need to have private calls. So we've set this up where we have, you might. have a 60 square foot office, that's enough for your desk and your bookshelf and stuff like that with a window still right outside. You got a kitchenette. You, your business partner could be next door in another 60 square foot office. You still have access to the conference rooms and all the amenities. Maybe you hired administrative assistant or, or something like that. And you could put them at an open desk downstairs where they're nearby and you're working together, but you're like literally not in the same room. And so it's a place for people to kind of grow as well. And also there's offices that are the, the. 150 to 350 square foot offices, those could be like suites as well, where say you're a lawyer and you host clients a lot and it's great to have conference rooms, you could do a deposition, but also maybe you want to host them in your office. You can have a real office suite and maybe still have an assistant in there or whatever it is. So really just highly flexible space. And I think along those lines, you've mentioned the idea of not networking when you're in the office, but

Austin Tunnell

problem solving and you've kind of already touched on this, but maybe you want to unpack it a little more of just like what that looks like in those office spaces. Yeah. think some of the networking will be built in just the way we've even designed the space because it's not just one big building. It's really three buildings. If you have the way of working, it's five buildings surrounding these courtyards and everyone entering Apollo actually has to enter through the same courtyard and then they go up their different stairs and kind of the main. So you're going to pass by people. have where the mailboxes are, the mail room is, you know, that's kind of a joint area. We have different kitchenettes and different buildings, but kind of a main kitchen. So there will be kind of just built in networking by passing people, which is really nice. And then we also want to regular events. And I don't mean over-programmed because I think sometimes people over-program is kind of stressful, you know? I would want it to be a place where an introvert could be very comfortable being there and don't feel like, my gosh, there's something going on all the time. And I'm actually fairly introverted. don't want to, I don't like going to events all the time. but we do want to host, know, and this will take some experimentation. I'm totally fine saying that is you. think something I've learned in business is you can't necessarily know going in exactly. You can have ideas, but be really ready to, to flex those ideas and to iterate into change and see what works and to get feedback. So as an example is maybe we have a once a month morning coffee. That's a pretty casual thing, you know, and it's not too much and it's not. Maybe there's like just a tad of programming to it. but it's just like coffee in the courtyard and maybe that only runs from spring through fall. And that's the other thing about the outdoor areas being social. They're just more dynamic. find them less awkward. find sometimes indoor social spaces can feel awkward and office spaces because there's something like too formal about it. I don't really know what it is. It's hard for me to, to articulate and specifically, but I really like the outdoor areas being like this. We can imagine like a once a month casual coffee. That could turn to something more serious. don't know, but I'm imagining like a morning coffee once a month where we maybe have kind of a theme or something like that. And it only runs for a certain period of time. And if you don't want to do it, you just go right up your stairs. Uh, and then, and then having a once a month or once a quarter evening session, what, and here's the value I really see. I'm constantly running into problems as a small business. And we've already talked about kind of crowdsourcing ideas. If once a month we hosted a.

Austin Tunnell

very intentional one, one and half hour at the end of the day, maybe on a Thursday or something. Event for problem solving where anyone can kind of sign up and get up and describe their problem in three minutes. And then there's people have three to five minutes to respond. You know, and there might be 20 people sitting there and that's a really fast way to communicate your problem to other people. And maybe that not everyone has a time to respond, but now they realize, Sarah doesn't know like She's trying to find a new, I don't know, marketing agency because what she's doing is not working, blah, blah, blah. And now 20 people you've told that problem to in a place that is kind of connected. so suddenly you're crowdsourcing problem solving, which is incredibly valuable. So I think about like high value things, not just having a speaker come in. And I do want to have some speakers come in. But like, I think those can get a little bit stale and bored. I want to be really practical, like there's some inspirational stuff of, let's, let's have a speaker come in and, and learn something interesting, but also like running a business is also very You're just constantly running into problems. How do you solve that problem? New problem. How do you solve that problem? The faster you can iterate and solve those problems, the better your business will do. And the better your life will become in terms of stress levels, time, money, all of those things. So that's one. then another idea we have, you know, in terms of the happy hour, social hour, or even healthy hour, maybe that's once a month or once a quarter. And then even maybe like a quarterly. goal setting one, where maybe you do that on a weekend where people, know, we, we, don't really run on EOS entrepreneurial operating system, but we take ideas from it. know businesses that do it just sitting together, like, I'm going to come up with quarterly goals can be hard to do. But if like there was an actual place to go, it's, Hey, on this Saturday, come and come with your business partner, come by yourself. If you don't have a business partner and you know, we're intentionally kind of setting these goals and there's a little bit of programming, but you have tons of time to yourself to work on these things. And maybe you.

Austin Tunnell

have some time to share these ideas. And so just it's a way to once can very intentionally grow and improve your business and have fun. We're exploring having a founders program or sorry, a founding member program of like the first people to be a part of Apollo kind of get a lasting impact. So old buildings often have these cornerstones in them. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, like you might see it down low, or maybe it's even a plaque somewhere. Because building used to be valued in a different way than it is now. And I think of that kind of the same way with Apollo. There's the building and then also kind of the software that overlays it, the programming, the people, what we're actually doing. And so for the founders program at minimum, I don't know what else we'll do, but we're still brainstorming that. But to literally put your name in stone, you know, as part of like Apollo founders and your name just kind of lives there. Because I think there's something special about that. It kind of the story about how it began and in 10 years, I don't know how many of the same people will be there, but that name will still be there as part of the founding members. I think that's pretty cool. We do that for our really close contractors and stuff too that have participated in building a building and even our investors were doing that, you know, putting showing the people that are involved with making a project successful and making it what it is. It's not, it's certainly not just me. It's my whole team and building culture, but then it's not just building culture that makes it successful. It's, it's all the people involved and there's hundreds of people involved. So I just think there's more story to it than what's often shown. And I think for your usual audience, hopefully they're just getting to, I don't know. get the feeling of what Apollo is going to be like. But if anyone's listening, that's actually that's in the area. And they're like intrigued by this and think it's incredible. Like what should they do for their next steps? Yeah. Well, one, you can actually drive by it you're in the area. It's between third and fourth street and littler right by Stevenson park, right behind the sprouts in downtown Edmond. But what we're doing now is we're signing up people with. LLW is in a refundable deposit.

Austin Tunnell

So I forget how many we have now, because we haven't really launched it yet. This has been very kind of under the radar. I think we've got eight or so of 30 offices leased up. And then think we have, how many open desks do we have? They're not open desks, dedicated desks. 18? Yes. Okay. So we have 18 dedicated desks that are, we're at least right now advertising for 5.25 a month. And then offices that range from, believe like 875 to 3,500 for like a street frontage one, you know, with your own front door and commercial. frontage. so right now the process, you can go to the website, apolloworkspace.com. You can email us being Sarah at hello at building culture.com. You can reach out on Instagram or something like that, but I'd say email is probably the best, best way and, and talk to us about what you want. We can send you the floor plan and you can go on the website and see the floor plan too about what kind of office, but I would, you know, I think we would really like to hear. What are you looking for? So we can guide you to kind of the best space. We're happy for you to just look at the space and make the decision on your own. And the reason we're doing non-refundable, I mean, refundable deposits now is we're still about a year from opening. We'll be opening spring 2027 is the goal. And so for the next, I don't know, probably six months, there'll be refundable deposits where you can lock in your space. We won't lease that to anyone else. You put your first month's rents down and if you need to back out, you can still back out with no risk. That sounds great. So last question, imagining it's a year from now and it's open and running kind of, you're walking through the courtyard on a say Thursday morning, like what do you hope to see and experience? I hope to see

Austin Tunnell

people flourishing in their work and, and, know, vibrant courtyards and people smiling and like having fun or working outside on their laptop, having breakout groups, having a good attendance at one of the, you know, business problem solving meetings. And for Apollo to really become a little bit of a cultural center in downtown Edmund. And we have some other ideas for like weekend events that are kind of separate from Apollo officially, but part of it where hosting musicians and actually doing some cool, some really unique events. You know, I just think we, we, don't really have that. Like one of the things that makes Silicon Valley so cool. People just think about it is, well, the tech companies are there. Well, why are the tech companies there? Because there is this incredible culture in Silicon Valley of continuous learning of sharing. There's constantly like events you can go to to, to learn about things and even like a multidisciplinary approach, which we're very about a building culture. It's like, we're in building an architecture and development, but there's a lot of things that play in to that. And the same, if you're in any industry. And so I think if you can broaden your perspective, you never know what that's going to lead to. So I really want it to be a highly creative place and in a highly productive place that that contributes to the downtown Edmond community and to Oklahoma at large. I also had the thought of just like a place that has beauty and not just in like potted plants and just the way the offices really look physically, but also just the beauty of like real work, people interacting. And yeah, it's still going to be really hard because just like everyday work. isn't like woohoo, so fun, but.

Austin Tunnell

but still beautiful in it and that it's like a place that you actually look forward to going. Like it's kind of unique to say like, Ooh, I can't wait to go to work. But I think that that's a real possibility with Apollo. I think Apollo will be the most beautiful place you visit during your week. You and it's like going to a really cool coffee shop or a really cool bar or something like, why can't we bring those elements? Like if you go to our website, buildingculture.com, scroll through our Instagram and look at some of our interiors and stuff. It's that level of finish. we are, we, is the full building culture experience we are designing. We have, Matt and I have debated, argued, refined this stuff for over two years. And, and so like everything has been thought about rigorously, you know, debated and, there's always a why. like, if someone says, why did you do this? We do this because. I want to always be able to say we do this because, and there's just not many spaces at all, let alone off the spaces with that level of soul in it. And I've learned that like that soul gets reflected that people, people feel that. Well, I really look forward to stepping into it soon. We'll actually get to see it coming out of the ground very soon, but thanks for coming on the show. Yeah. we'll in a few months, we're starting masonry very soon. By the time we publish this, maybe we'll have just started the actual vertical masonry. So hoping to host an event maybe in May or June or July, depending when the masonry is either largely up or up where you can kind of tour kind of just the brick building space. Cause it's so cool before like the wood framing comes in. Cause it feels like you're standing in ruins and we'll have some like brick laying stuff out and just be a fun event. So. Keep your ears out for that. be announcing on social media. right. All right. Bye, everyone. Bye. If you've been enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe and share with your friends. And if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please leave us a five star review. Thanks so much for listening and catch you on the next episode.