Baylor Arts & Sciences magazine: Alumni entrepreneur Austin Mann

It’s no secret that the Baylor University College of Arts & Sciences has a diverse student body. With 25 academic departments represented –– spread across the sciences, humanities and social sciences –– its graduates go on to excel in a wide careers.

It’s also no secret that an impressive number of Arts & Sciences alumni are choosing to start their own businesses after graduation, sometimes in fields quite different than those they studied in school. To get an idea of just how varied these business ventures can be, we talked to nine A&S entrepreneurs to learn about how they used the skills they learned at Baylor to achieve success in the marketplace.

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Austin Mann (BA ’08)
WELD

Austin Mann

There has almost never been a time when Austin Mann hasn’t run at least one of his own businesses. His entrepreneurial bent dates back to the seventh grade, when he started a lawn mowing business to help him buy his first iMac computer.

Mann already had lots of experience building interactive websites when he followed an older sister to Baylor from Wichita, Kan. He first majored in a business program that promised to take his web design skills to the next level.

“But I wasn’t really interested in school then, to be quite honest,” Mann said. “I was already working on a couple of creative ventures, doing interactive web design for clients, and I wasn’t putting the work into my academics that I could have.”

In his sophomore year, Mann became interested in photography and quickly realized it was not only a possible career, but also something he could use to share the beauty he saw in Creation with others.

“I was really passionate about photography ––it became my form of worship,” he said.

Mann switched his major to film and digital media, and an extended trip he took during his final semester proved to be life-changing.

“I went to nine countries in 60 days, working to tell stories as a photographer for an orphanage that served a number of countries,” Mann said. “That was what I wanted to do –– work in different parts of the world to capture stories of what God is doing through his people, stories that would connect Western audiences to needs overseas.”

After graduating from Baylor, Mann traveled almost nonstop across the globe, taking photos and helping client organizations to better tell their stories. After five years on the road, Mann decided to settle down in Dallas, where in 2012 he unveiled his next business –– WELD.

WELD started a 10,000-square-foot building in the Dallas design district. It’s a space where freelancers and small creative teams gain access to office amenities and benefit from interaction with other creative persons.

“WELD is like a coffee shop on steroids for creative people,” Mann said. “I see my role as providing a platform for our community to do great work they believe in.”

For a flat monthly fee, WELD members get access to office and studio space, meeting and screening rooms, office machines and Internet access. Private office space is available for a larger fee.

“All our amenities exist to bring people together so they can collaborate, and the amount of interaction that happens here is mind-boggling,” Mann said. “We’ve seen a lot of amazing impact on people’s lives through this work.”

The success of WELD in Dallas led Mann to open a second version in Nashville in 2015, bringing fellow Baylor Arts & Sciences alumnus Jordan Bellamy onto the team. WELD’s community is nearing 200 members as both locations continue to grow.

Mann has also joined forces with Baylor alumnus Nathan Watkins in his latest entrepreneurial venture as they transform 40-foot metal shipping containers into prefabricated custom work spaces that can be moved almost anywhere.

“It’s kind of risky, because we haven’t ever seen offices quite like this before,” Mann said. “But we think these shipping containers can be the best workspaces on the planet, so we had to do it.”

–Randy Fiedler

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This article originally appeared in the Spring 2016 issue of Baylor Arts & Sciences magazine.

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