Flying Solo
Stories & Interviews
by Katie Kangas
Market Smart, Fly Higher, Design Your Practice to Soar
Flying Solo is an architecture business podcast hosted by architect Katie Kangas, featuring real stories and conversations with entrepreneur architects in solo and small firms. You’ll hear how small-firm architects use architecture marketing, practice management, and smart business structures to serve clients better—told through playful “birds of practice” comparisons that spotlight niche positioning, client experience, and firm operations. If you’re searching how to start an architecture firm, marketing for architects, how solo architects get clients, or small architecture firm systems, this show delivers practical inspiration to start or refine your professional practice, win better projects, and build the freedom of flying solo.
What is Flying Solo Podcast?
Flying Solo Podcast is an architecture podcast hosted by Katie Kangas that spotlights entrepreneur architects in small and solo practices, exploring their marketing choices and business setups through playful bird analogies to encourage new and aspiring practitioners.
Inspiring stories and proven playbooks to help your practice fly solo with confidence.
About the Podcast
Architect Katie Kangas shares stories and conversations with entrepreneur architects who utilize unique marketing strategies and business structures in their solo and small firms. Katie compares these practitioners to different birds to celebrate the diverse ways architects serve their clients. Listen along for inspiration to start or refine your own professional practice. Her hope is to encourage aspiring entrepreneurs and architects to soar to new heights & embrace the freedom of flying solo.
Many Gābl Media episodes are AIA-approved for LU|Elective and LU|HSW credit. Check out the full course catalogue to see how you can earn credit as you listen.
Why You’ll Love This Podcast
You’ll love Flying Solo Podcast if you’re a solo or small-firm architect who wants real-world marketing ideas and business structure insight without the fluff. Host and architect Katie Kangas sits down with entrepreneur architects who’ve actually built lean studios, won clients, and served them well—and they explain what worked, what didn’t, and why. It’s grounded, candid, and immediately applicable to your practice.
Each conversation focuses on practical levers you can pull: positioning your services, refining your intake process, pricing with confidence, improving proposals, and using content and referrals to get steady, right-fit work. You’ll hear how peers design simple systems—client onboarding, project workflows, and light-touch ops—that save hours and reduce headaches, so you can spend more time on design and less on chaos.
The playful “birds of practice” lens keeps it memorable. By comparing different architects to different birds, Katie highlights how many valid ways there are to run a studio—nimble, specialized, collaborative, or fiercely independent—and how to choose the flight path that matches your strengths. You walk away with permission to build your practice your way, not the way the big firms do it.
Most importantly, the show is optimistic without being naive. It treats marketing as a craft, business as part of design, and freedom as a design decision. If you’re searching for marketing for architects, how to start or refine a small architecture firm, or how solo architects get clients, you’ll find clear steps, candid stories, and the kind of encouragement that helps you take off—and keep climbing.
Meet the Host
Katie Kangas
Architecture | Interior Design | Graphic Design | Project Management | Illustration
Katie Kangas, AIA, is a Minnesota-based sole-practitioner architect focused on adaptive reuse and the stewardship of existing and historic buildings for communities, churches, and non-profits. After earning her M.Arch and licensure, she founded her own firm in 2020 and now leads projects that align design excellence with mission, budget, and long-term value. Katie is the creator of the Flying Solo movement and host of the Flying Solo Podcast, where she interviews entrepreneur-architects and explores diverse practice models through a memorable “birds of practice” lens. A former Young Architects regional representative, she is known for clear, practical guidance on marketing, operations, and professional culture for small firms. Katie lives in Ham Lake, Minnesota, with her husband and three daughters and maintains an active ceramics studio alongside her practice.
🔍 FAQ
Q: What makes Flying Solo different from other architecture podcasts?
Flying Solo centers the business and marketing realities of solo and small-firm practice. Host and architect Katie Kangas spotlights how real entrepreneur-architects structure their firms, win work, and serve clients—using a memorable “birds of practice” lens that celebrates different, legitimate ways to run a studio.
Q: Who is this podcast for?
Solo architects, small-firm owners, and architect-founders who wear the business hat. It’s also useful for students and emerging professionals exploring independent practice or wanting a clearer view of how firms actually operate.
Q: What topics does the show cover?
Positioning and marketing for architects, client acquisition, proposals and pricing, simple systems and operations, niche strategy, project delivery habits, and the culture/mindset shifts that make small practices sustainable.
Q: Why the “birds of practice” theme?
It’s a quick, visual way to compare practice models. Different birds = different strengths. You hear how architects with distinct styles—nimble, specialized, collaborative, or fiercely independent—build firms that fit their instincts and clients.
Q: Can I benefit if I don’t own a firm yet?
Yes. You’ll learn how solo and small-firm practitioners think about strategy, clients, and structure—so when you launch (or step into leadership), you avoid common mistakes and move faster.
Q: What will I take away from each episode?
One or two actionable ideas you can apply immediately—an outreach tactic, a proposal tweak, a system to save time, or a mindset reframe that keeps your pipeline and projects healthier.
Q: What kinds of guests are featured?
Entrepreneur architects from solo and small firms who share candid stories about marketing, business structure, and serving their communities—plus occasional voices from adjacent AEC specialties when it helps clarify the business side of practice.
Q: How does Flying Solo support the profession?
By giving small practices concrete tools to market well and operate sanely, it elevates client service, strengthens local communities, and expands the range of viable practice models across architecture.
Related AIA-Approved Courses
About Our Podcasts
Gābl Media hosts a growing network of podcasts built for architects, engineers, and construction professionals. Each show dives deep into practice management, design impact, firm leadership, technology, public interest design, and more. Whether you’re earning AIA CEUs or listening to inspiring career stories, our content is curated to move the built environment forward.
Discover all of our shows: Unstruct, Context & Clarity, EntreArchitect, Build Smart, Tangible Remnants, Spaces, She Builds, Hidden In Plain Site, Design Vault, Detailed, Build Your Brand, Emerging, Inside NCARB by the Numbers, and Gābl Media Continuing Education Podcast.