Karen Aucoin: Your Competitors Should Be Friends

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Karen Aucoin danced ballet in New York City and London, retired to Florida, started teaching ballroom, and rented a space in Largo to do it in. That space became Studio 131. Alongside it she runs JoBelle Bell, working on weddings and luxury events. Her explanation for the pivot is short: “I just realized I couldn’t work for anybody else.”

On Unscripted Small Business with host Zaneta Chuniq Inpower, she gave two answers that sit oddly together until you notice they are the same idea — one about endurance, one about generosity.

Most People Quit When It Is Hard

“Well, I would say that most people quit when it’s hard. And that’s why businesses fail. And I would say when you get to the point when you’re truly terrified — first off, breathe. It’s always gonna be okay. You started your business with nothing, more than likely. You’re still gonna be okay, whether it goes according to plan or not. Most of the time it does not.” — Karen Aucoin

It is a blunter causal claim than the usual small-business post-mortem. Not undercapitalisation, not market timing, not a bad idea — people stop. And the consolation she offers is not that it will work out, but that you will be fine either way, which is a materially different and more durable comfort.

“You started your business with nothing, more than likely” is the load-bearing sentence. The downside of failure is a return to a state you have already survived. Fear of the worst case is usually fear of something you have demonstrably already lived through.

All Your Competition Should Be Your Best Friends

Karen is candid that she started from the opposite position, and about why:

“When I first started doing this stuff, I was a little scared and thought that everyone was my competition, because I didn’t know what I was doing. So you’re like, I don’t want them to figure out that I’m figuring this out as I go.” — Karen Aucoin

That is a precise diagnosis of competitive secrecy in a new business. It is not strategy. It is fear of being found out. And it resolves on its own with competence:

“But as you get more experienced and you start really understanding and growing, you realize quite quickly that all of these people you network with, all of the people who are your competition, should be your best friends. They should all be in your corner. I constantly am collaborating with all the different people in the same business, in really similar businesses.” — Karen Aucoin

The commercial argument follows immediately, and it is not sentimental:

“And the more you can collaborate and network and market together, you can design bigger and better packages, and it all scales — it scales everybody up. So instead of you doing a really small job by yourself with your two people, you can do these massive, amazing events with huge budgets, things that you would only dream of.” — Karen Aucoin

In events, this is structural rather than philosophical. Capacity is the binding constraint. A three-person operation physically cannot deliver a large wedding alone, so the choice is not between competing and collaborating — it is between a small job and a share of a large one.

How A Competitor Becomes A Referral Source

Asked how venue owners and event planners should work with floral designers, Karen gave the mechanism plainly:

“It’s just getting out of your own way and realizing that you’re not the only venue, or you’re not the only person in your special field. Collaborating with like-minded individuals will help you grow, and staying top of mind for people is really important. Because say if my venue is not a good fit — well, I have 10 venues that I work with regularly that I will always recommend to these clients coming in. So it’s a way to constantly give each other business, pat each other on the back, and grow.” — Karen Aucoin

The unlock is the mismatched enquiry. Every service business turns people away — wrong date, wrong size, wrong budget, wrong style. Handled badly that is a dead end for everyone. Handled as Karen describes, it is inventory: a lead you cannot serve, handed to someone who can, who now owes you one.

“Staying top of mind” is the maintenance cost. Ten venues will only route work back to you if they remember you exist when the mismatched call comes in, which makes the relationship an ongoing obligation rather than a one-off introduction.

Running Two Businesses Without Splitting In Half

Studio 131 and JoBelle Bell share a physical space and a customer moment — the same wedding needs a venue and needs flowers — which is what makes two businesses tractable for one owner. It is vertical rather than diversified: the second business sells to the buyer the first business already has in the room.

Karen’s standard for who gets to be around that work is uncompromising: “you can’t settle for anybody on your team or in your circle that is not amazing. In fact, we need to do that in our personal lives, in our more intimate relationships, and our business relationships — all of them. Keep that circle so inspiring all the time, because that’s what helps you grow.”

Which closes the loop with the collaboration argument. A network of competitors only functions as an asset if the competitors are good. The generosity and the standard are the same policy.

The Persistence Nobody Puts On Instagram

The two halves of Karen’s advice are more connected than they look. “Most people quit when it’s hard” is about surviving the period before you know what you are doing. “All of your competition should be your best friends” is about what becomes available once you have — because the secrecy she describes is a symptom of that early phase, and it lifts when the competence arrives.

Her own path illustrates the timeline. Ballet in New York and London, retirement, ballroom teaching, a rented room in Largo, and eventually two businesses run out of it. None of that is a plan executed; it is a sequence of pivots survived.

Connect With Karen Aucoin

Karen runs JoBelle Bell and Studio 131 in Largo, Florida. Her full conversation is on Castos, and the written recap is here.

The adaptation theme continues in how one creative business chose to adapt rather than die.