Too Creative to Stay Trapped
Lidija Newman didn’t grow up thinking she’d be an entrepreneur. But she knew early on that she never wanted to be trapped.
She was raised in Serbia during wartime. Her dad was an engineer, but like so many others, had to improvise to survive. He traveled across borders, imported goods, and figured out how to provide for the family when nothing was stable. “That was my first view of entrepreneurship,” Lidija says. “Sometimes you don’t choose it—you just have to figure things out.”
That mindset stayed with her. Even as she built a career in fashion, moved to London, then LA, and worked for some of the biggest names in the industry, there was always a restlessness beneath the surface. She tried full-time jobs. She gave corporate life a real shot. But it never fit.
“I tried going back into 9-to-5 so many times,” she says. “But every time I felt trapped. I couldn’t express my creativity. I couldn’t live on my terms.”
It wasn’t just the work itself. It was the hours, the rigidity, the way life seemed to disappear into commutes and desk lunches. In London, people ate silently at their desks. In LA, she’d drive an hour and a half each way to a job that left her creatively starved. “I remember thinking—why am I spending all this time working for someone else? Why am I putting in all these hours to build someone else’s dream?”
So she started building her own.
Lidija’s first attempt was a fashion brand in London focused on Scandinavian style. She was 24. It didn’t work out—but it taught her a lot. From there, she worked for a celebrity designer in Hollywood. Then launched a retreat business with a co-founder. That one didn’t work either.
“We had completely different mindsets,” she says. “We were both working other jobs to support the business, but I was fully in—and she wasn’t. It created tension. We ended up going our separate ways.”
It was a hard but valuable lesson: find the right partner, or don’t partner at all.
Today, she’s doing things differently. She runs Good Theory, a brand and strategy studio she co-founded with her husband. They started it when he got laid off—and she was pregnant. “That was the moment we decided—we’re going to build something together,” she says. “All those years of trying different things, all the mistakes—I’m finally applying everything I’ve learned.”
At first, Good Theory focused on social media. The demand was high, and they grew fast. Too fast. “We took on too many clients too quickly,” Lidija says. Worse, the work was too reactive. Clients wanted total control over every post. The work was draining—and it didn’t reflect what she or her husband did best.
So they pivoted. They leaned into brand strategy, web design, and modernization—especially for acquired businesses or older service companies that had never invested in their visual identity. “Some of them didn’t even have logos. Or their websites hadn’t changed in 15 years,” she says.
They helped them modernize not just how they looked—but how they operated. With AI. With process changes. With strategy.
They also grew the business by showing up—literally. Lidija runs Female Leaders of Austin, a growing local group that’s become a powerful channel for business development. Her husband has a community of his own. Together, they’re building something deeper than a portfolio.
“So much of our business now comes from real connections,” she says. “People we meet through events, through community, through relationships.”
The line between work and life is blurry. They work from home. Their kid’s daycare is close. And even when they go on vacation, business comes up. But Lidija doesn’t mind.
“We love what we do,” she says. “So it doesn’t feel heavy. It just feels like our life.”
It’s taken years of trying, failing, and adjusting to get here. But now that she’s built the right foundation—with the right partner—she’s exactly where she wants to be.
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