For many creatives, building a career often means wearing multiple hats. Few, however, have successfully transformed those diverse skills into a business that not only serves clients but also strengthens an entire creative ecosystem. Kacie Luaders has done exactly that.
As the founder of Could Be Pretty Cool, Georgia’s only B Corp-certified media and research company, Luaders is redefining what it means to support creatives through a unique combination of media production, audience research, and creative strategy. Rather than treating these disciplines as separate industries, she has built a company where they naturally intersect, helping creators and organizations better understand both storytelling and the economics behind it.
“I was already doing all three, just getting paid for them separately,” Luaders says. “Putting them under one roof was less a business decision than an accurate description of what I was already doing.”
That practical mindset has become the foundation of her company’s mission.
Luaders’ career spans music recording technology, theatrical sound design, audience research, and podcast production. Each role offered a different perspective on how creative work is funded and valued.
Recording studios and theater productions taught her the true cost of producing quality work. Audience research revealed how organizations make investment decisions. Freelance podcast production gave her firsthand experience negotiating rates and sustaining a business from project to project.
Together, those experiences shaped an entrepreneur who understands creativity from both the artistic and financial sides. Rather than relying on optimism, Luaders has built Could Be Pretty Cool around realistic business models that acknowledge the true value of creative labor.
One of the company’s most ambitious initiatives is the Pretty Cool Creator Collective, a three-month accelerator designed to take creators from an idea to a fully launch-ready podcast.
Luaders believes the biggest obstacle for many creators isn’t talent or even audience.
“The interesting part isn’t what creators are missing,” she explains. “They usually show up with the story, the expertise, and an audience that already trusts them.”
The real challenge is access.
Professional production resources, industry relationships, and mentorship remain difficult to obtain, particularly for independent creators. Having experienced those barriers herself after becoming a Spotify Sound Up finalist in 2019, Luaders understands how transformative the right opportunities can be.
The accelerator helps close that gap by providing creators with the infrastructure many never have access to on their own.
The program also incorporates trained college interns into live client productions, creating an educational experience that benefits everyone involved.
Instead of simulated classroom assignments, students gain real-world production credits while learning how projects move from initial pitches to final delivery. At the same time, creators receive additional production support from emerging professionals eager to sharpen their skills.
Luaders sees the relationship as mutually beneficial rather than charitable.
“Both groups are early in the same pipeline,” she says. “They’re simply at different points.”
It’s an approach that invests simultaneously in today’s creators and tomorrow’s creative workforce.
Perhaps one of Luaders’ most impactful initiatives is Creative Pulse, an original research project examining Atlanta’s independent creative economy.
The survey grew from work completed during her Truist Foundation Fellowship, where researchers sought to better understand the needs of independent creatives.
While funding predictably emerged as the industry’s biggest challenge, Luaders says the most meaningful discovery wasn’t the lack of financial resources. It was the willingness of creators to finally have public conversations about money.
For an industry where discussions about rates, contracts, and cash flow often happen behind closed doors, Creative Pulse created space for honest dialogue backed by credible data.
Those conversations have expanded beyond survey responses into public forums and media discussions, helping normalize financial transparency within the creative community.
When asked what advice she would give creatives hoping to build profitable businesses, Luaders keeps it refreshingly practical.
She encourages entrepreneurs to calculate pricing based on actual labor and operating costs instead of guessing what clients are willing to pay.
Equally important is maintaining a dependable revenue stream that allows creatives to pursue more ambitious projects without compromising financial stability. For Luaders, research is funded through production contracts, creating a balance between consistent income and mission-driven work.
It’s a model that demonstrates sustainability isn’t about sacrificing creativity. It’s about creating financial systems that protect it.
While many founders define success through growth metrics alone, Luaders measures impact differently.
For Could Be Pretty Cool, success means producing research that influences decisions beyond the creative industry while continuing to choose meaningful production partnerships.
For Atlanta’s broader creative ecosystem, however, the metric is retention.
The city has no shortage of talented artists, producers, and entrepreneurs. The greater challenge is ensuring they can build long, sustainable careers without feeling forced to relocate.
“When creators stay long enough to start hiring other creators,” Luaders says, “that’s the goal.”
It’s a vision centered on multiplying opportunity instead of competing for it.
As Could Be Pretty Cool continues to evolve, Luaders envisions the company becoming a leading authority on understanding creative work as an economic engine.
That future includes continuing audio production for mission-driven organizations while expanding original research and authoring a book exploring how arts institutions and independent creators operate within the same marketplace despite often being studied separately.
Ultimately, Luaders hopes the company’s work will influence everything from grant funding decisions to contract negotiations.
If research can help a funder rethink how resources are distributed or empower a creator to negotiate more confidently, she believes meaningful change has already begun.
Kacie Luaders is proving that supporting artists requires more than inspiration. It requires research, access, education, and a commitment to building systems that allow creativity to thrive for years to come.
Images Courtesy of Kacie Luaders
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