GAIL CAYETANO, 28, and STEPHANIE HANSEN, 26, co-founders, Starfish Creative Events, Marina del Rey
Business: Event planning Employees: Four part-timers; 10 independent contractors who work on a project basis
Financials: $400,000 in 2009; very profitable
Gail Cayetano and Stephanie Hansen specialize in throwing parties for geeks. Take the one they organized last year as part of an event for the popular fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering.
Cayetano’s and Hansens’ event planning company, Starfish Creative Events, was hired by Magic’s publisher to organize a themed event at a gaming convention in Seattle. What the two came up with was a gamer’s dream: Fans took part in a scavenger hunt and followed a trail to a tricked-out nightclub where more puzzles – with invisible ink, code words and an eight-foot sculpture of a rock formation featured in the game – awaited them. Revelers stood in sections of the club that were decorated to correspond with different types of cards from the game and were invited to give feedback on a new deck.
Both Cayetano and Hansen come from event backgrounds – Hansen got her start at Hollywood agency Events in Motion, while Cayetano worked in-house for videogame companies Activision Blizzard Inc. and Konami Digital Entertainment Inc. – and knew each other from their college days at Boston University. The two formed Marina del Rey company Starfish in 2005 along with another BU alum, graphic designer Stacy Leventhal, as a way to do their own projects. Wanting to “get out there and develop a brand,” they quit their day jobs and incorporated in 2008, but without Leventhal. As Starfish, they were able to work Cayetano’s connections with videogame companies that were looking for younger perspective on their marketing strategies.
Cayetano makes initial contact with clients and handles the marketing of the firm, while Hansen is responsible for day-to-day operations and leads brainstorming sessions to figure out how an event might fit with a client’s marketing strategy.
Together they’ve set up videogame testing areas at summer tour stops for rock band Linkin’ Park. They’ve even taken videogames to bars for sampling.
“We do have a specialty in the gaming world,” Hansen said.
They’ve discovered their youth isn’t really an obstacle.
“When Gail and I first started we were very insecure about our age, and it was almost something that we didn’t want to publicize. It took us a while to realize that that didn’t have to be a negative.”
Cayetano knew from the start that she wanted to run her own show. She just had to learn how.
“It took time to research what it took to start a business,” she said. “I knew I was good at the event marketing side of things but there are so many other things that go into business – financials, operating procedures – it took time to find that out. I realized I could do this.”
The rewards are greater.
“It’s different dedicating so many hours a day working when you’re working for somebody else,” Cayetano said. “You don’t feel that justification for working so much.”
But the risks are greater, too.
“I guess the uncertainty is a little scary,” she said. “Sometimes you’ll have great periods where you’re constantly bringing in jobs and there’s all this money rolling in, but sometimes not.”
