Today we’d like to introduce you to Paige Pope.
Paige, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always lived in both worlds, creative and business. I was running my own marketing agency and landing clients while I was still in college, because I’ve always been obsessed with building brands. But I think in numbers too. Early on I joined a finance startup when it was just a handful of people and helped grow it into a real company. That’s where I learned how a business actually runs, and how much the money behind it decides what you’re allowed to do. After that I started building things of my own. That’s just who I am: I see something that could exist and I want to make it real.
RAW Detroit started with Shawn back in 2016. He’d just moved to Detroit from the UK, and he was hosting free photo walks and creative events around the city, paying for all of it out of his own pocket so the community never had to. It was just him and whoever showed up with a camera. And the same thing kept coming up: the Detroit they were shooting looked nothing like the Detroit on the news. That gap became the whole point, and it still is.
I came on as co-owner in 2019. Shawn’s the creative force, but he’s just as sharp on the business side. He leads our creative direction and social media strategy, and he’s built relationships with some of the biggest brands out there. I run growth and strategy, handle the numbers, and create a lot of what we put out. We’re wired completely differently, and that’s exactly why it works. Neither of us could build this alone.
We’ve never taken outside money, and that’s on purpose. Today we reach tens of millions of people a month online, most of them right here in and around Detroit. Social is where it lives, we’re over 250,000 across all socials, and the website carries our deeper stories and city guides. We also make commercial video and photo for brands, with a crew of Detroit creatives.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not even a little. Honestly, if it had been smooth I’d be worried. We built RAW Detroit with zero outside funding, so it’s had to pay for itself from day one, and that was a choice. Coming from finance, I already knew what taking that money does: you hand over control of your own decisions. We’d rather grow slower and keep ours.
When you’re this small, you do all of it. One day I’m creating content, the next I’m in the books, the next I’m mapping out where we’re headed. There was no playbook for building a creative company like this in Detroit, so we wrote our own.
The real challenge now is that we’re running two businesses at once, client video and photo on one side, our own Detroit coverage on the other, and both want your best hours. The list never ends. But I’ve stopped seeing that as a problem. It’s the price of staying independent, and independence is the entire reason RAW Detroit is worth doing.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about RAW Detroit?
RAW Detroit is a creative company at its core, and everything runs through that. There are two sides to what we do. The bigger one is local media, and social is our engine. All in, we reach tens of millions of people a month. We’ve built a brand Detroiters actually recognize, covering the city’s news, food, events, businesses, and the people driving it forward. The site carries our longer stories and guides. The other side is commercial work: video, photo, and campaigns for brands, made with a crew of Detroit creatives.
What sets us apart is that we’re genuinely from here. RAW Detroit didn’t come out of a business plan, it came out of photo walks with the local creative community, and a lot of those same people still shoot with us. We don’t run recycled national content, and we don’t use Detroit as a backdrop. If we’re posting about a neighborhood or a new restaurant, someone on our team has actually stood there.
And we’re independent by choice. What I’m proudest of is that people here trust us to get the city right, and that took years to earn. So if you want to know what’s really happening in Detroit this weekend, we’re your follow. And if your brand needs work made by people who actually know and love this city, that’s the other half of what we do.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
People see RAW Detroit and assume I’m all creative. I love that side. I’ve been building brands since I was in college. But the part that actually keeps RAW Detroit alive is the business brain. I come from finance, and I’m a builder to my core. Leave me alone for five minutes and I’m already starting something new. Everyone thinks staying independent is about passion. It’s not. It’s about running the numbers well enough that you never have to sell out.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://rawdetroit.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rawdetroit/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RawDetroit/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rawdetroit
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rawdetroit
