Of a Kind

The Insider: Lindsey Green

LG at her favorite NYC sports bar, Flight 151.

Lindsey Green, Of a Kind’s director of communications, has been with us since before we even launched. Yah, that’s some serious commitment. She’s just as hardcore about her other T.I. 14th clients—20x200, Nestio, SRSLY, and Little Borrowed Dress—as she is about her extra-curricular interests: the Detroit Pistons, gymnastics, and the Olympics. When it comes to Team USA fandom, she is the 1%. —jiayi

Q: How did you get into the startup world?
A: I came from the fashion space. I worked at Jill Stuart for three years as her director of communications, and before that, I worked at a startup. I was also blogging way back in the day, so I had this built-in connection with people in the startup community. A lot of my friends had started companies then, and it was really fun and exciting to watch their companies grow. I ended up leaving the fashion world and went back to working with startups because I missed it.

Q: What made you go into PR?
A: It was the only job at the time, and so I thought, “I’ll do that! That sounds fun!” I just sort of fell into it. I did a lot of things before that. I worked in film briefly, and I was a concierge at a hotel—I was all over the place. PR is my first career. I like it.

Q: You started working with Of a Kind four months before launch. Do you think PR is key at that point?
A: It really depends on the company. I think in the fashion space, yes. With Of a Kind, we needed to have a really strong entrance. No one was doing what we were doing at that time, so that story needed to be told well. With other startups, I don’t recommend it at the beginning—you need to be able to see where your audience is coming from. You have to be able to tweak things and change things. Launch means a lot of different things for different people.

Q: What are some of the up-and-coming companies you’re watching now?
A: I’m very intrigued by this startup called Brewster—it launched just this month and was started by Steve Greenwood, who’s a friend and just a startup genius. Basically, the app takes all of the people from your social-media networks and makes a virtual address book. It tells you who you’re losing touch with, who you haven’t talked to in a while, and who you’re really connected to right now. Instead of having different contact lists, this keeps you on top of everybody in one place. I love finding apps that really solve a problem and that I’ll use all the time.

Q: What else are you hot on?
A: I’m really excited about the Olympics. I moonlight as a sports writer and have a little sports blog called The Rings. I’m also doing a little gymnastics coverage for New York Magazine and will be writing about weird Olympic sports for Deadspin this summer. I used to be a gymnast, so I’m crazy, crazy, crazy for the Olympics. I’ve had a countdown on my Twitter for about a year.

Q: So tomorrow night, where are you gonna be?
A: At home, watching the opening ceremony. I’ve had to email clients saying, “Hey guys, I love you all, hugs, hugs, hugs, but I’m just not going to be around for about two weeks. I will respond to you, but it’ll be slower than usual. I’ll be in front of the TV.”

Q: When did you do gymnastics?
A: I did it from when I was seven until fifteen. I did it because my sister was doing it. She went on to karate a couple of months later, but I stayed in gymnastics. I was really serious about it. I won an AAU National Championship in my age group division and two state championships—I did some winning in my day. I still do it once a week now. Just for fun. I could never figure out how the normal gym worked, so I was just like, “Screw it. I’m gonna do gymnastics.”