Transition Stories: Angela Co
I sometimes feel like I am the only person who didn’t get into birding during the pandemic lockdown. But, it turns out, there were plenty of people who were into birding before the pandemic too, and one of them—Angela Co—was smart enough to create a whole company out of it: Bird Collective. Read on to hear more about her fascinating transition from architect/professor to co-founder of an awesome apparel and accessories company!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity by the wonderful Samantha Cooper.
SAM:
You started Bird Collective—which designs apparel and accessories for birders and nature lovers—in 2019, after years of architecture-related jobs. Tell me about your journey to that transition to Bird Collective.
ANGELA:
I have to say, I never sought a transition. I love architecture. It has been my entire professional life. And I had an amazing job, which I really loved. So, a transition wasn’t in mind for me. I think what really happened was, I got into birding in 2016. It [was] like, one day I was a regular person and then the next day I was scanning all the trees and bushes, looking for birds everywhere and birding, quite simply, changed my life.
It’s that passion for birds and birding that led me to becoming a really active participant in the birding community in Brooklyn. That [community] connected me with my business partner Tina, whom I met through birding. So, the journey is really that I found this hobby that, in a way, became almost like an intensive second education for myself. You know, I’ve studied the city for 20 years—the architecture, the urbanism, I’ve taught it. But birding really helped me experience the city in a new way.
I love to make things so I started making these embroidered bird patches in 2016 or 2017. I actually made a company to sell them, called Prospect Patches in 2018. And my friend Tina loved them [and] kept promoting them. She asked if she could do my Instagram, which I didn’t even really have at the time. She asked if she could post photos and help advertise. I was selling them online but I was really not making any money. Marketing is not my forte. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I just loved making these patches.
Tina did that [marketing] for about a year and then she was like, “You know what? I love your patches. I’m a graphic designer in fashion. Let’s make a business together. It’ll be patches, t-shirts, accessories all related to birds.” And, I said “Yes.” So, we did it. We launched Bird Collective at the very end of 2019. [At the time], I had a full-time job and Tina had just been laid off but then she got a job right after we launched. And it just took off.
The transition had to happen because Bird Collective started to get so big.
SAM:
That’s amazing. And what fortuitous timing, 2019 and then 2020 with COVID and everybody and their sister going outside to go birding, right?
ANGELA:
It was wild! We launched it right before the pandemic and you’re exactly right. Everyone was cooped up indoors and wanted to get outside. We live in such a dense urban environment. Everyone was in the parks and birding exploded. And when people weren’t out birding, they were at home, on their computer, shopping online.
We’re for anyone who loves birds whether you’re a bird nerd or just bird-curious or like nature. We really like to work with nonprofits and tell stories and be scientifically accurate when it comes to the representation of birds, even in a stylized and doodle-y way, at times.
When I thought of birders, birding seemed to be a much older hobby. People were older. People tended to be white. Maybe more affluent. And I really think that birding became very popular in the pandemic as many people of all different ages sought a connection with nature.
SAM:
It feels like there’s a lot of chains of serendipity in what you’re describing. You met Tina through birding. She happened to be a graphic designer in fashion. You did this right before the pandemic started. A lot of things aligned for this to all be able to happen.
ANGELA:
It’s so true. I feel so lucky. I never ever thought I would not be teaching architecture, doing architecture, in the architectural field. I loved my job. It was hard to leave my job and the field. But it was very serendipitous and I think that’s also one of the most magical things about it. I never thought that in my 40s, I would find this whole other career. But, it’s so much more than a career. It’s a community. It’s a passion. And that, also, facilitated a transition for me.
SAM:
You were working this full-time job. You no longer work in that full-time job. What was that decision point to just fully go into this?
ANGELA:
I think there are a few parts to that. I think the simplest and most straightforward answer was that it became untenable for me to run an academic program in the city, teach the majority of the curriculum, and do an entirely other job on the side. I was working all the time and that was really hard. It was during the pandemic.
Probably, the more meaningful answer is that I recognized I had been wanting to explore new ways of living for a while. I know that I really have a desire to explore new forms of freedom. What would I do if everything I did was my choice? That’s a totally luxurious way of thinking but I thought about it a lot. What would I do if I had more flexibility?
This is something that I think is significant also, my husband and I both have a real desire to explore other ways of living by exploring other countries, living in other countries, learning other languages, seeing the way people live in different places.
Also, over time, my attitude toward work has changed. As a child of immigrants, I’ve always thought work was so important. It was hard to disentangle my work with my identity and with my value. I think that that’s actually a very American value system that I had internalized. With more life experience, I started craving and desiring things in my life that I hadn’t been able to explore because I was working so much. Even doing work that I really loved.
So, in the pandemic, I was working these two jobs and it was a challenging environment for everybody. I think everyone was really taking stock of value systems and how they spend their time, and even their relationship with work and what work is. My husband Ryan and I decided that we really wanted to make a commitment to live overseas and start studying another language. So, it was probably a year and a half into Bird Collective and Bird Collective was doing better than I could have ever imagined. I said, “You know, I’m going to see if I can have some flexibility in my academic schedule so that we can at least live abroad for like six months, maybe a year.”
That was really hard because I directed a program. It’s in New York. I was the only standing faculty, full-time, for this program. It was really hard to replace me temporarily. So, I took a leap and said, “It’s time. It’s the time in my life where this is really important to us [my partner and I]. And now is the time to do it.” So, I gave a year notice and said, “I’ll transition the program. Then I’m gonna just take this giant leap and start working for myself.”
SAM:
Were there any other feelings wrapped up in that that showed you that you should be making that leap?
ANGELA:
I had a lot of mixed feelings. It’s something that I really wanted but I was very afraid of. I had a great job, a lot of security, excellent benefits. I worked with amazing people. I loved teaching. I had a lot of flexibility in my schedule. So, I think it was very hard for me to feel like I was leaving something so wonderful. But I felt very excited about it.
I do think that year of transition after I gave notice, was also a year of transition for myself to get my head around what it meant to me to be making this change. It took a lot of emotional work. A lot of examination. And then, when it finally happened, I was finally at the point where it was just very exciting and amazing and I was ready to do it then. I gave myself a lot of time.
SAM:
It sounds like you gave yourself a lot of grace in the decision and the transition.
ANGELA:
I’m not good at giving myself grace but, maybe that’s one of the best things about it.
SAM:
Since it was exciting in the end, I’d love to pivot to the positives. What was the most surprisingly positive thing about making this transition, landing in Bird Collective?
ANGELA:
There are so many things. I think having something that’s really yours and knowing every aspect of it…and I say that it’s really not mine. It’s me and Tina’s. And that’s one of the best things about it for me, working with an amazing partner. Getting to share every creative decision and business decision. Learning so much and learning with somebody, makes it so much easier. That’s been wonderful.
I think having more time. And having the flexibility to work from wherever I want to work. I’ve spent a month in Spain and time in LA. And, I’m going to be spending more time probably abroad very soon. That’s been amazing.
Having spontaneity in my life where I can go out birding pretty much whenever I want. Or go out and do whatever, and then find the time in my schedule to work.
And also, I’ll say working less. I really enjoy making the decision to work less. I can work less because I’m my own boss. I’m accountable to Tina, but I think it’s a lot harder for me to work less when I have a boss who’s always asking me to do more.
I think having more time to actually live my life. You know, all these things that I never had time for, which I would think of as “chores,” I see now, as the stuff of life. Cooking, enjoying meals with friends and family. Going for walks. I got really into powerlifting, I’ve gotten to explore so many things that I haven’t really been able to explore when I was so focused on my professional work.
SAM:
What about the negatives? What have been the most surprising difficulties of the transition?
ANGELA:
Well, in the beginning, I took a giant salary cut. That seemed like it might be a negative. But since Tina and I have both been able to work full-time on Bird Collective, we’ve grown the company so much more that I think we both feel financially much happier and secure. But that was a little scary in the beginning.
I think the negatives are really more internal. It’s more like questions of “Who am I?” The transition of even talking about Bird Collective with my friends who are architects and have been my professional colleagues for so long, was actually kind of challenging for me. It’s something that seems so different, on the face of it, from architecture which takes itself very seriously. It’s a serious profession. It requires a ton of work to become a licensed architect. It was very hard to feel like I was walking away from something that I had really spent my entire adult life building.
I say that those are some of the negatives, but I actually don’t think that they’re true negatives. I think that they’ve actually just enabled me to grow as a person. And even the way I think about, like “what am I?” or “what do I do?”. A lot of friends ask, “What are you working on?” And, I’m like stumped because I’m working on Bird Collective but I think they mean is what am I working on creatively in my serious architectural practice. And I am working on things. You know, I’m working on a renovation.
But I think some of these things that feel really hard to navigate actually just reveal something about myself and our society. It’s easy to always compare myself to others. It’s hard to say, “Well, what do I do? Ah, it’s such a long answer.” But I do a lot of things and actually many things about birding and Bird Collective overlap with architecture, urbanism, and why I love those fields.
SAM:
And it sounds like you didn’t fully have to walk away from architecture to do this work. You’re still able to do a renovation project, for example. It’s just your identity and time has largely shifted.
ANGELA:
Yeah, I think that’s true. I think that I could do a whole lot more architecture stuff if I wanted. Part of this experiment was what would I do, if I could choose everything that I did? And now that I see what I’m choosing, it’s very interesting because it’s not really what I expected. Or, at least, it’s not what the forward-leaning, fast-walking, professional Angie would have thought she would be doing if I had a lot of time.
SAM:
I think that’s all really thoughtful because the stressors can become positives, right? There’s just learnings within those, not necessarily bad things. And you just have to let the experiment take its course and trust yourself. But that’s hard. It’s a leap, as you put it before.
Besides yourself, who has been the most impactful and supportive in this transition?
ANGELA:
I have to say Ryan, my husband, has been so supportive. He actually planted the seed for me to go off on my own much much sooner than I was ever ready to even hear it. He has been a freelancer for pretty much his entire professional life. So, he sees it from a totally different side.
I feel very lucky that I’ve got to see what it means to be a freelancer and work for yourself for years before I even tried to imagine it for myself. I could really see that. And I think, aside from him being so supportive in my journey, over time our relationship has grown in a way where I think we really have the same values and we want the same things. I think it’s the partnership that I’m in with him. That’s really supported me.
SAM:
How has Tina played into all of this? Because it sounds like she was pivotal.
ANGELA:
Tina’s amazing. Tina is the big dreamer. I never would have ever thought any of this was possible. And I also wouldn’t have known what the heck to do. I just had no ability on my own to think through the kind of business side of things. My partner Tina is just the most amazing person and partner. [She] is so brilliant. Can teach herself anything. I feel very lucky to have a friendship and a partnership with Tina. I could not do it without Tina, a hundred percent.
SAM:
That’s great. It’s so amazing when you find a life partner and/or a business partner because they have some overlaps and requirements in terms of the value alignment.
ANGELA:
Absolutely. I think that’s true.
SAM:
What advice do you have for other people who are considering career transitions?
ANGELA:
Well, my biggest piece of advice is—because this worked for me—working with a partner.
Having someone that you can talk to about every decision, small or big, gives you a lot of stability. It’s supportive and it’s a reality check. I can get so in my head and it’s wonderful to know I can totally rely on somebody to give their honest input. It’s been wonderful to learn with her. That’s probably my biggest piece of advice, to work with somebody you trust and can be honest with and know that you’ll grow with.
SAM:
I work with people who are transitioning from one full-time job to another type of full-time job. Or sometimes, they’re having this, what I would call “come to Jesus” moment with their own career and how they don’t want be working for someone else anymore. Do you have anything that’s specific to that experience of [going from] full-time to working for yourself?
ANGELA:
I would say, I find it very hard for me to motivate to do things that I really don’t want to do. I can talk myself into doing anything that sounds good,seems like a good opportunity or seems like the responsible thing to do. But then I actually see that something I just can’t really motivate to do because I really don’t want to do them. So, I would say, to follow that intuition and to trust that it won’t be that hard to motivate to do the things that you really want to do. I mean in terms of advice, that feels more about self-introspection and self-trust.
In a practical sense, the financial aspect is challenging. I was not ready to leave my full-time position until I had a pretty concrete sense that I could support myself with Bird Collective, even though it was going to be a much more modest kind of lifestyle. I knew that I could do it.
My friend, who’s an incredible business person, who’s advised ever since he’s learned about Bird Collective, did tell me that he decided to go off on his own when he knew he could make $40,000 or $45,000 or something like that with his company and made the leap. I had a number too so, it made it easier.
SAM:
You created that security that logistically meant that you could make that transition.
ANGELA:
A part of me just wants to be like, “Do it. Just do it.” You know? “Just make the jump, you deserve it. You shouldn’t be in a situation where you’re really unhappy in your work.” But I wasn’t able to until I knew I had at least something.
SAM:
You mentioned that marketing isn’t your forte. It’s something that I hear frequently from people. And I feel that way too. Did that feel like a barrier to this kind of idea for you?
ANGELA:
Absolutely. My career in architecture was primarily as a teacher. Don’t get me wrong, universities are businesses. They may be non-profit businesses but they are businesses. But, I do think the kind of work I do is mostly in ideas, in learning, in teaching.
And, I think going into something that’s really fashion and product, and really a commercial enterprise, it took me time to get used to. It was very unfamiliar for me. And I do think that marketing is a weak point of mine. I do think, thankfully, marketing is an incredible strength of Tina’s. Tina and I have complementary strengths. Probably everyone’s heard that you should really look for complementary strengths in a partner. Because if you only have like strengths, you might butt heads because you both have big, strong ideas about those things.
SAM:
Are you still wary of marketing? Was it as scary as you imagined it would be?
ANGELA:
To be honest, yeah, I find advertising can be insidious. But, in the end, we sell shirts and accessories that are fun. They’re high quality. We try to make them as eco-friendly and environmentally friendly as possible.
A main mission of our company is to raise awareness about native birds, which are around us all the time. It doesn’t matter if you live in a really dense urban environment like New York, there’s wildness here. Tina and I feel very strongly about sharing the stories of bird conservation. So, while there’s a commercial aspect of the business and an advertising aspect that I think is harder for me to feel comfortable with, quite honestly, I think that there’s a lot of impact that we have. And I think that we are able to raise a lot of awareness. It’s a much larger and wider audience than I would have ever expected. I have to say it’s really amazing to see people in the wild wearing Bird Collective. Wearing something that my company creates and people really want and love.
So, I think the whole aspect of marketing, once you learn a little bit about it, it can be fun and enjoyable. And I think that it has certainly become more fun and enjoyable for me. And I do know a lot more about running a business which I just didn’t know before. I understand much more concretely what goes into it and marketing is a huge part of it.
SAM:
How did you get into crafting and doing your embroidery in the first place? How long have you been doing that?
ANGELA:
Well, I never made the embroideries myself. I would design it and then I worked with a manufacturer to produce them. But I have been crafting my whole life. I love making all kinds of things. Big and small. I think that’s partly the appeal of architecture.
SAM:
I think that’s a really interesting distinction. My sense is that, especially for something like clothing design or physical things that you sell, people think that they also need to be able to hand-make the thing the first time, you know? But there are manufacturers for small-scale printing or production.
ANGELA:
Absolutely. Especially now with so many print-on-demand, fabricate-on-demand, knit-on-demand prototypers. There are many avenues for people to try out a product with a pretty low investment.
And I’ll say, Bird Collective, we never took out a loan. We put in an initial small investment. But that really helped overcome the barrier to starting a company. We could do it on the side. And then, when it started to take off, we could implement those aspects of the business that made sense like working directly with a screen printer. Working directly with a manufacturer. Finding a third-party logistics warehouse to do the fulfillment. We didn’t figure that all out at the beginning. We did it step-by-step.
SAM:
That’s great. So, it’s doable.
ANGELA:
Yeah. It is doable. I mean, if it would have taken a big initial investment, I don’t know that we would have been able to do it.
SAM:
My last question is, what’s your favorite bird?
ANGELA:
Oh gosh, that’s so hard. I never have an answer for that.
SAM:
I’m sure you get asked that all the time.
ANGELA:
I do. But you know what? I really think it depends on the season. Because birds are coming and going at all different times of year. And that really cues a birder into the seasons. So, my favorite bird is probably the bird that I am really hoping to see soon.
SAM:
What is that right now?
ANGELA:
Pine warbler.
SAM:
What’s so special about the pine warbler?
[interviewers note: Bird Collective just launched a whole Warbler Collection if you are also a Warbler fan!]
ANGELA:
The pine warbler is a tiny migratory songbird. Beautiful bird. The warbler family of birds are very beloved. They’re very brightly colored. They eat insects. They’re hopping everywhere during spring migration. We’re about to start spring migration. Spring is almost here. And, the pine warbler is usually the first warbler that we find in New York that has not over-wintered. It’s the first migrant that arrives. And, it’s the time of year where I’m like, “I just can’t wait to see that pine warbler.”
