← Universe Citywhy this exists

A blank university,
where life is the teacher

PHOTO OF ME
fills this frame
MY FAMILY
fills this frame
BLANK UNIVERSITY
the 2018 podcast cover
THE WORK SO FAR
fills this frame
BRITTNAY FOLKESFOUNDER · DENVER

I'm Brittnay. I started Universe City in 2018 and I'm still its first client.

My mom died in 2016. She left behind four of us. My older sister, me at twenty, my little sister at sixteen, and my baby brother at eleven. She was the center of our world and the strongest pillar in our house and in our family.

She taught me so much about how to live. And still, at thirty, there are days I feel lost, confused, disorganized, and tired.

That is what made me build this. Not the grief. The realization that so many of us lean on one person to help us manage whole areas of our lives, and I had one of the best. I think constantly about the kids, the young adults, and the grown adults who never got that at all.

Universe City is my attempt at that pillar. It will never replace the angel my mother was, and it is not trying to.

It is built deliberately without emotion. Not because this is emotionless work, but because that is not what it is designed for.

Therapy is great for that. Case management is great for rock bottom. This is meant to be somewhere in between.

The name came from the podcast I started it as. Not a university that hands you a curriculum. A blank one, where the teacher is whatever your life is putting in front of you.

The work is civic. The goal is for it to be taught in schools. It is my why, and it is the reason behind everything else I make.

2018Universe City starts as a podcast. I design the first logo myself, then pay an artist to redraw it.
2015–20Multifamily interior design. I see the money that goes into building housing and cannot work out why living in it keeps getting more expensive.
2021Denver. Community development corporations, and work built for the Denver Housing Authority.
2022–25Community management, nonprofit work with homeless youth, community radio, hospitality school. Offered a job as an employment case worker and turned it down over pay. Took something from every one of them and kept refining the twelve missions.
Jan 2026A life does not fit into twelve neat drawers. A month spent working out the other compartments. They become the four principles.
NowRunning all forty-eight missions on my own life first, in public, with the numbers published as I go.
48Missions I run first
12%Of every dollar to the trust
begin

Begin with an accurate picture of your life

Everyone starts with Personal Assessment, Mission 01: Time. About ten minutes, free, and nothing is saved until you decide to keep it.

What you leave with

A schedule built from a real day, the number of hours you actually control, and the record kept for you if you want it.