By Avery Wood
From a big, comfortable orange couch in the home that they share, Alexandra Miklosova and Seth Cash make their MyCityEveryday webcast about events across the valley on Facebook Live. Though the couple does not host every episode, they are the ones in charge of the business and culling content for each day’s broadcast. They do all of it together, much of it from their home, and the business is growing consistently.
Before they got together about a year and a half ago, both Alexandra and Seth had businesses of their own that they were working on. Alexandra began her career working in real estate eight years ago, though she took a break to work in the hospitality industry during the recession. While working at the Ritz Carlton, Alexandra had a health scare that made her reevaluate what she was doing with her time. “I had some health scare that I was going through and then I left my job and I said ‘I’m just going to start my own business and see where that takes me…Marketing was always something that I really wanted to do,” she says. So Alexandra started a business doing social media for local companies and businesses.
Seth was working in marketing and promotion too, as well as running MyCityEveryday as a magazine, saying “It used to be there for all of the concierges to take and then they could tell people… cool things that go on in the area.” As for how he came up with the idea for the magazine and entered the industry, like Alexandra, he just jumped in. “I just started it, I said I wanted to do it. I didn’t really know too much about publishing, but I figured ‘how hard could it be?’ and just started,” he says. He got into social media marketing as that became a recurring request from his existing clients at MyCityEveryday.
Alexandra and Seth met at one of BB Ingle’s Halloween parties, for which both of them were working on marketing and promotion. They first became a couple, and very shortly began helping each other with work since they were working in the same industry; Seth began using his graphic design skills to help Alexandra’s business and she gave advice for MyCityEveryday. “I think for me, when you’re dating somebody, you’re trying to help the other one out,” Alexandra says. “We started to work without even knowing that we are actually working together.” The transition felt natural to them and within six months, they were officially merging their businesses. “When we got together, we started getting more and more clients together… and we had this idea that maybe MyCityEveryday should be more of an online source to tell people what the hottest experiences and events are,” Alex explains.
Now, they’re working together on quite a few ventures and events. In addition to MyCityEveryday, they own a creative marketing business called Butterfly Effect, where they “build huge concepts and strategies for people distinguishing themselves from other brands” according to Alexandra, and Alexandra continues to do real estate. They also put on events around the valley. Alexandra and Seth were the ones in charge of the LiveWell Festival earlier this year, which had over 3500 attendees. They attribute this success to their social media marketing, including featuring a different vendor or artist who would be appearing at the event on MyCityEveryday each day. They look forward to putting the event on next year and possibly expanding it. “I am hoping that next year, we will receive a proclamation… from the city of Palm Desert to have it as a LiveWell Festival weekend and maybe making it a two day event,” Alexandra says.
They also put on an event once a month called the Desert Social Media Exchange (DSME) for local entrepreneurs to come to and talk about social media. They give people tips on how to use social media for their businesses and connect “movers and shakers,” as Alexandra calls them. They display their creative marketing in the promotion of the event. “We make it fun, it’s photoshoots, it’s selfies… people want to put that on the social media,” Alexandra says.
With joint business ventures and schedules, many couples would feel their relationship strained, but their work seems to be what most connects Alexandra and Seth. “There is no nine to five and then… mentally check out… I can check out during the day… then I can be so scared at night… and be on that computer until 1:30 a.m. to try and get something done,” Alexandra says “when you talk business in bed… it’s affecting you.” They both tend to look on the bright side of working together though, with Seth saying, “The beautiful part of working with somebody on a day to day basis is that you get to see all of them… the best parts, the worst parts, and you get to grow together.” Alexandra agrees, saying, “Because we are pushed so much and so hard… you get to see each other in situations so quickly. Within a year you’ll know.” She even believes it’s a “time-saver” since a relationship with the added stress of a joint business can only succeed with the right person.
