Twenty-four years dreaming it. Thirteen years building it. Now finally scaling into the version of Pearl your vision has earned — at the same moment She & HER is launching.
A 90-day partnership where I take the heaviest things off your plate — and we earn the front-row seat to figure out, together, what kind of actual partners we want to be on the other side of it.
Julie — you've been writing toward this version of Pearl since you were sixteen. Twenty-four years working bars, doing promotions, learning every corner of this business so you could build the room your sister deserved when she walked into the Bonham Exchange and saw herself for the first time. Then thirteen years of Pearl on Washington Ave — the closed-down room you resurrected in 2013, the HRC and Showtime preservation grant, the Lesbian Bar Project documentary, the 2023 insurance fight you turned into a national conversation. None of this is new for you. You're not moving into anything. You're finally scaling into the version of Pearl your vision has earned.
At the exact same moment, I'm launching She & HER — the only sapphic community app built by and for women who love women. Both moments need each other. Yours needs a brand, a press apparatus, and an operator who can take the things off your plate that have been bleeding your time. Mine needs IRL roots in Houston, a public co-brand with the only lesbian bar in the city I'm from, and a flagship moment to launch the app.
Here's how I'd do it: 90 days, scoped tight, priced to fit the budget you actually have right now (not what fractional-COO scope normally charges). You sign me up for the work that's most painful for you — scouting, socials, the website, the move announcement, the press, the launch party. I deliver on that while sitting next to you for three months. By day 90, I'll know your business and you'll know mine well enough that we can sit down and design what becoming actual partners looks like — with data and chemistry behind us, not guesses. That's the real prize for both of us.
Everything else in this proposal is the how.
Before any strategy or press or launch party — these are the things that move from your desk to mine inside the first two weeks.
My network — Bliss Sundays, Yoli, Papiana, KWN, the rest — pitched, negotiated, brought in. And the technology tools (CRM, partner pipeline, content calendar) to set up and scale yours, so the relationships you've spent thirteen years building actually get used. You stop chasing.
Day 1 — flyer system, posting cadence, brand consistency. You stop having to think about what to post.
Pearl Bar Houston rebuild, Side Piece linked, separate weddings site — all with calendars, all live inside month one.
Your #1 fear — people not knowing you've moved — becomes the first campaign I run, full-court press across IG, email, press release.
Designer (already on my payroll, ~3-hour turnaround). Social media intern (hired and onboarded by me). Photographer / videographer for events. You don't source them.
One template, one set of rules — every promoter who walks in your door follows them. Food at every event, alcohol policies, media releases, brand consistency. Protects you legally and makes Pearl the most professional partner room in Houston.
Three phases, designed to build momentum from quiet pre-launch into the loudest moment of Pride into a clean evaluation at day 90.
Three tiers. Pick the one that fits your appetite this month. We can move between tiers as scope shifts. Tap through.
The first major event in your new venue. A production-grade She & HER launch with you and Pearl at the center of the announcement. The press hook three different publications can run with.
Download required to enter. Real-time application approval team in the room. The launch is the test market.
Every tab in She & HER gets a physical booth, a representative, and a monitor. The app comes to life in the room.
Houston Chronicle, OutSmart, Fox 26, ABC, autostraddle, Houston Press. The Chronicle feature publishes that week.
What I want, after these 90 days, isn't to be your operator-on-retainer. It's for us to actually be partners. Pearl and She & HER, formally tied. Building one brand thing together. The shape — we figure out at day 90, with real data and real chemistry behind us. The intent, we're naming today.
A spectrum, from lighter to deeper. Pearl stays 100% yours in every version. We pick the depth at Day 90 — with real data and real chemistry behind us, not now.
A formal Pearl × She & HER public co-brand. Shared press, shared marketing rights, profit-share on co-branded events. No deeper paperwork. Renewable, with a clean exit either way. Captures the cultural moment without any structural entanglement.
Add the formal anchors. Pearl named as the IRL home of She & HER. She & HER named as the digital partner of Pearl. A formal advisory seat for you at She & HER that recognizes the thirteen years of operating wisdom you've built — with the depth and shape we figure out together at Day 90, when we have real data and real chemistry behind us.
Build a third thing. Pearl × She & HER as its own entity — separate from both businesses, co-owned, for the work that's bigger than either of us alone. Pearl stays 100% yours. She & HER stays 100% mine. The joint thing is the proof of what we can build together.
My recommendation is Tier 2. If Tier 1 is what fits the budget honestly, we start there and step up at month 2 if it's working.
What week in June lines up with venue readiness? I want to lock this in week 1 so press can be pitched against a real date.
"Pearl × She & HER" everywhere — or do you want a different formulation? My instinct: that for the partnership name, "Pearl Bar Houston, in partnership with She & HER" for press.
Which contacts (Annise Parker, Jasmine Crockett, Sam, the Astros family) do you want me actively engaging vs. staying out of?
At Tier 1 or 2, who pre-approves the designer + intern spend each month — you, or me with a monthly cap?
Helps me design month 1–2 to that target. Heads through the door, repeat visitors, press hits, Pride night revenue — what's the number that makes you say let's keep going?
Thirty minutes, at the new space, ideally — so we can lock the launch party date while standing in the room it'll happen in. A lot of the texture is easier to walk through live than to write.
If the vibe and the structure work, we lock Tier 2 + a May 1 start date and I'm in the seat by next Monday.