AMSTERDAM — Filling needs and supporting others have been keys to success in both life and business for Deana Mancini.
“It's where I find value,” Mancini said. “It really gives me a sense of purpose being able to help and use my knowledge to guide others.”
Mancini and her husband, Christopher, have built their careers and skill sets in the years since meeting at SUNY Plattsburgh.
The couple worked and saved while still in college to buy their first house together in Amsterdam after graduation.
“Both of us have just been wired [that] from the moment we could work, we've worked,” Mancini said. “We’ve hustled and really worked our butts off to create what we have.”
The duplex they bought was their home and their first investment property. They fixed up the building while living in it, learning the ropes of home renovation.
“We've renovated pretty much every property that we've purchased, and for several properties we lived in it, renovated it and then moved on,” Mancini said.
The steady growth of their local investment portfolio eventually led to the creation of Mohawk Mills Real Estate Group and Mohawk Mills Construction. The couple also provide property management through an LLC.
Initially, Mancini was nervous to leave behind her weekly paycheck working in the corporate world, but the shift to business ownership was necessary to maintain a better work-life balance for their growing family and for herself.
“I was just not feeling satisfied,” Mancini said of former jobs. “I was never fully content, because it wasn't mine.”
As a licensed real estate broker, Mancini delights in ushering homebuyers through the process.
“Buying a house is by far the biggest purchase that most people will ever make in their life, and being able to support them in that process and put their mind at ease is huge,” she said.
Bringing properties back to life through renovations is similarly gratifying. Mancini also appreciates aiding the fight against blight when rejuvenating distressed buildings in Amsterdam.
“Seeing the outcome and people's dreams becoming a reality, quite literally, is where I take pride in what we do,” she said.
Still, Mancini sometimes has to put her personal feelings aside to make smart business decisions based on a potential return on investment or when taking on projects for clients.
“In this area where you have these houses that have all this character and detail to them, I sometimes watch people go through and strip them of that character and that makes me cringe,” Mancini said. “Because that's what makes it beautiful— all the original woodwork and the hardwood floors, and the detail and all of the intricacies of the architecture.”
Organization and the creation of systems to manage the investment portfolio and businesses has been vital. Seeing a demand for quality property management locally, Mancini said, they took on clients.
Describing those business opportunities as “accidental ventures,” Mancini said the chance availability of a commercial building at 2 Guy Park Ave. likewise led to the creation of Mohawk CoWorks.
She was looking for an office for her brokerage when the family moved to Burnt Hills roughly two years ago. At the same time, she needed a space to use for a promotional photo shoot with the city of Amsterdam, and booked a tour at the Guy Park Avenue building.
When the price of the building was reduced substantially, Mancini’s husband was convinced they should buy it. But it wasn’t clear how they would fill a two-story building spanning roughly 5,000 square feet.
Reaching out to the city’s Economic Development Department, Mancini said, revealed that officials coincidentally had a call scheduled to discuss the need for shared office space.
The Mancinis bought the building within about a month after doing some research and crunching the numbers. Following renovations, Mohawk CoWorks launched last year with shared coworking spaces and private offices. The brokerage has its own space in the building.
The fully furnished building offers flexible space for remote workers to conduct business outside their homes, or a professional setting for entrepreneurs without the burden of establishing and managing an office.
“The operational portion of things can often feel overwhelming for a lot of people,” Mancini said.
But Mohawk CoWorks is more than a place to work. It’s a communal setting in which small business owners can get started and grow in a supportive environment. Mancini said it’s basically an expansion of the advice— how to start and run a business— that the couple has provided to friends and clients over the years.
“It kind of was one of those things that we were doing already on a personal scale,” Mancini said. “What we've done is created an environment to help that sort of thing flourish, and tried to motivate more people to kind of chase after what they're doing and take the leap.”
While the private offices have been slow to fill, Mancini said a monthly networking group and special events showcasing local businesses have been a hit, drawing locals to visit the space.
The Breakfast Club networking group provides a forum for entrepreneurs to highlight their businesses before shifting to more focused discussions. The first session of the year dealt with goal setting and accountability for independent businesses.
“It's been awesome to watch the relationships develop amongst people, and how they've all kind of started working together and helping to promote each other's businesses,” Mancini said.
The space has created the support structure and resources for new business owners the Mancinis lacked when they were getting started.
“We had nobody to guide us. We had nobody there to help us,” Mancini said. “I've always liked the challenge of meeting people that don't think that they can do it and being like, 'You can. Let me show you how.' ”
Now, Mancini is taking on a new challenge after being tapped to become one of the rotating hosts on the American Dream Network, a regional lifestyle and real estate show. She will present six segments on local businesses and real estate over the course of the upcoming season.
Mancini has already filmed her first segment showcasing the city’s annual SoupFest in January. The piece spotlights Mohawk CoWorks and Lorenzo’s Southside.
“One of the things I thrive on and I feel that I enjoy is just connecting people and helping to celebrate people,” Mancini said. “Being able to put some of these small business owners on a platform was something I was pretty excited about.”
As for the future, Mancini said the family is in the process of building its own home in Burnt Hills, where they moved to have more space for their four children to roam.
Buying an existing house large enough to suit their needs and renovating it to match their tastes would have been cost-prohibitive. It’s an exciting new experience, but Mancini doesn’t expect new-home construction to become part of the family business.
“I never say never,” she added.
Although they no longer live in Amsterdam, Mancini and her husband still work in the city and remain committed to the community where they got their start and built their “village” of friends and colleagues.
“This is part of who we are. This is the town that we built ourselves in, and we grew up in our adult lives here in Amsterdam,” Mancini said. “I'm still here every day. … I'm still very actively invested in this community and its growth, and all that it becomes.”
