What does it look like to build a business around the life you actually want to live?
In the first episode of our new Live Well series, we meet Mike and Venecia of Millard Bautista Designs in the Grey Highlands of Ontario. From their workshop in Duncan, they design and build bike stands and modular gear storage systems—but their story goes far beyond what they make.
For them, entrepreneurship wasn’t about scaling fast or working more. It was about creating the freedom to step outside when the waves are good, to leave early, and to build a rhythm where work fits into life—not the other way around.
Transcript
[Venecia] Being outdoors is super important to us.
[Mike] If there are waves on the lake, they’re good now. They’re not going to be there tomorrow. And you work weekends sometimes, but that’s the way we try and work all the time.
[Narrator] We’re on our way to meet Mike and Venecia of Millard Bautista designs. They make some really cool bike stands and gear storage systems, but this isn’t really about that. This is about the life they’ve chosen and built for themselves. Intentionally. Living well by design.
Just talk about the evolution of how we ended up here.
[Venecia] Okay, perfect. Yeah. Okay, so I’ll try and give you cues then. I’m very chatty, so it’s really easy.
[Mike] I’m the opposite.
[Venecia] It works. Okay, so let’s start over again.
[Mike] Growing up in Montana and like, lifestyle was pretty important. My boss had the six inch rule of snow: at six inches or more you didn’t have to come to work.
[Venecia] We wanted to be somewhere where we could go to work, and then go outside and play right after work, rather than have to wait for the weekend or days off. So that’s how we found Duncan, and we’ve never looked back.
[Narrator] Duncan, Ontario is in the Grey Highlands near Georgian Bay’s south shore. It’s where Mike and Venecia built their business around the way they want to live, not the other way around.
[Venecia] So in the space we make these bike stands, and we also make these trail grids and snow grids. The components are interchangeable. Like we have about 20 components for each of the grids. So from hooks to shelves to tire holders to just you name it.
[Mike] So what we’re going to do today we have two more orders of stands we need to make. So we’re going to go ahead and get the CNC running. Get some sheets off a rack and get going. In buying the CNC, that was always the intention to go ahead and have affordable products. I got a thrill out of being able to build something that was affordable that my friends could buy.
[Venecia] A lot of what we do is because we really enjoy it. I get to work with my best friend. I get to play with my best friend. The biggest thing is like, I have my skills. He has his skills where he excels and we just don’t seem to like, yeah, I find it works really well.
[Mike] The same. I mean, I feel the same way. Exactly the same.
[Venecia] To this day, there’s not a single day that I don’t walk up the driveway and go like, this is cool, I’m walking to work.
[Mike] I know the kind of lifestyle that I want, which is the work-life balance. It’s very important and I just want to enjoy it as I go, not work, and then enjoy it.
[Narrator] Some businesses start with a pitch deck and a business plan. Theirs are started with a question: What if work fit around life—not the other way around?