Eileen Tjan and Alex Trajkovski are both native Michiganders who have bounced around other major cities across the U.S. including New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. But the pair’s passion lay back in Detroit.
"I had to constantly defend Detroit to everyone," Trajkovski says. "I didn't really want to be in New York and was really proud to be from Detroit. And I realized most people don't know anything about Detroit."
"Our roots are in the Midwest and Michigan," Tjan says. "A lot of our friends were moving back to Detroit and doing some cool work. We wanted to be part of it."
So they are launching their own publication focused on life in the Motor City.
Grand Circus Magazine will be a glossy magazine that focuses on the lifestyle of artists, young people, and creatives in Detroit. The four-person team behind it will work on featuring everything from fashion editorials to city guides.
"It's going to be a pretty deep dive into the cultural significance of Detroit right now," Tjan says.
Operating out of Palmer Park, the partners plan to print the first edition of Grand Circus early this spring. First, however, they will launch a crowdfunding campaign to help fund startup costs. The team paid many of those costs out of pocket and hope the crowdfunding campaign will raise enough to reimburse them.
"That will go toward the cost of printing and other upfront costs," Trajkovski says.
Source: Eileen Tjan and Alex Trajkovski, co-founders of Grand Circus Magazine
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.