Jessica Flor Angel on Affordability, Risk, and the Art of Compromise

Details

• Interviewee: Jessica Flor Angel
• Role: Founder
• Community: Feÿtopia

Summary

In this follow-up conversation, Jess covers affordability and wealth diversity, noting that the dorm at €1,000 per month is deliberately set at the French minimum wage so motivated people can always find a way in. On minimum infrastructure, she argues two common spaces and one kitchen are the real seeds of community. On risk, she describes her tolerance as tied to her support network: she can take risk because she trusts she will be supported if she fails. Her compromise methodology emerges clearly: thousands of small pragmatic compromises have shaped Feytopia, but fun is the one non-negotiable. The OG Tolkien layer is governed through friendship and WhatsApp, not formal process. On conflict, she attributes the community's health to never being proud, forgiving easily, and prioritizing emotional resolution above administrative tasks. She names three strengths (optimizing boring time for maximum fun; genuine diversity across a wide range; the beauty of the place) and three things to improve (more common space in winter; a cross-community exchange of open questions; clearer articulation so the crypto-tech reputation stops being the external narrative).

Key quotes

Anyone motivated who has a bit of creativity has found a way to stay here.

Two common spaces, one kitchen. If I had to design from scratch.

Without risk, there is no product.

Anger is helplessness.

We don’t compromise on fun.

I’m never proud. I don’t understand people who can’t apologise.

When people say we’re a crypto-tech place, I just want to throw myself out the window.

Everybody loses the totality of their money. Community is a well that doesn’t have an end.

Transcript

Sharon: I'm generally feeling, thank you for the invitation, thank you for coming. I'd love to collaborate more. And you're here, and you imagine all the people, the people who have no money and don't have a job. They say, I don't have any job, I don't have any money, but I can work in the kitchen now. I can help. And then there are people who, money is not an issue for them at all. And they're all here right now. So the judgements that can come from looking at this beautiful place, it's not really what's happening. Anyone motivated, who has a bit of creativity, has found a way to stay here.

Jess: It's not perfect, you know. But it's always important that the dorm is very cheap. You can come for 1,000 euros included, to stay in the dorm. That's minimum wage in France. Or you can come and work. So there are always two options. Obviously there are always more affordable places. But at some point things don't come for free. I think, the infrastructure is heavy.

There is a world in which I'd love to try a project like this one in a place that costs less money. I think that would be really interesting to do. Does it have to be a château? It's quite fun, it's in the centre, it's quite grandiose, but I think there are tons of versions that could happen in a place that takes less maintenance.

The other thing that can happen in places like this that couldn't otherwise is you can have quite surprising diversity here. Because maybe the wealthy wouldn't come if the place was not a château. We talked last time about the cosmopolitan world and rural territories. The château has that. It's beautiful, and it creates a space where you can get people from a lot of different places and actually create a creativity collision that would be hard to do in other places.

Sharon: If you think about the minimal infrastructure that needs to exist for a project like this to flourish.

Jess: The kitchen. If I was to design from scratch, I think two common spaces, one kitchen. And then depending on the climate, people could stay in tents, people could live in vans. But that really changes potentially the crowd you're getting.

If you were to start in the desert, it would be different. But I always thought that if I really put my mind to it, and I lived in a building in Paris or a tower in New York, maybe I could be good enough that I would create a community within the neighbourhood. So I think it's also the art of creating community, which is, organise the first meeting, buy the drinks for everyone, create a WhatsApp group. We've done a lot with the simple skills of community building.

Sharon: What about the legal stuff?

Jess: There are tons of legal models that people use. I think it's often finding the legal model that fits more the project, the intention, and the resources you have.

Sharon: But you have 40 people here. People can get hurt. How do you make sure that the project and the person living there are protected?

Jess: Well, that's the risk. You're always responsible. Without risk, there is no product. But not everybody is suited to that level of risk. I think I can handle it.

I think you take risk when you're not scared of failing. These days, I'm not too scared of failing, because I know that each time I fail, I learn so much, and each time I fail, I get support. So I have that trust. Because I have that trust, I'm able to take some risk.

Sharon: What compromises are necessary between Château de Fey as an institute and Feytopia as this community experiment?

Jess: I don't know. It's a good question. Nothing comes to me as one compromise. Maybe it's just one thing I can think of, there's an interesting example about the climbing wall. There was someone here with an amazing climbing wall idea. But the problem was, we are in a heritage building, and I always thought, it's a crime to put a climbing wall in one of the beautiful 18th century barns. It's been like one of the really rare times where someone actually has an idea, is willing to put the money, is willing to put the time. And I'm kind of using my power. But it also makes me annoyed, because that's not the ideal solution. I think the ideal solution would be, okay, there's the château, and then there's another space that's a bit more funky where we can put the climbing wall.

But in general, there's tons of jurisprudence. There's no law. Everything gets adapted. So it's by going one step at a time. It has grown very organically with thousands of compromises.

And then, we don't compromise on fun.

Sharon: Who are the OGs? Mostly men now?

Jess: It's mostly men now. It's mostly me on the strategic level. We have a WhatsApp group with like ten Tolkiens and ten team members, and the chat is used on a daily basis. So communication flow is very much in the project.

Off-season, when it's more strategic decisions, there's minimal interaction, and also minimal planning. Like, I spend maybe an hour per week talking to Shelby, answering a bit of emails, putting up today the booking system. We have one big briefing with the château team on all the things they want. We do a lot of qualitative review from the team. What are the things you liked about this year? Didn't like? What was painful? And we implement. Same with all the Tolkiens.

Sharon: Do you have any big questions that keep you up about this space?

Jess: I think the big one is always about impact energy. What should I allocate my time to? Like the Pareto 80/20, where do I put 20% of my effort for 80% of the results, and how do I make sure I'm not putting 80% of the work for 20% of the result. These are often always the questions.

And then, there's always financial stress. The roof collapses, there are tons of risks that exist. Sometimes I'm like, what if this happens? But I try not to get overwhelmed by the challenges, and be like, okay, one step at a time.

Sharon: What are the three things that are really working well for you?

Jess: I think we're very good at the top. We're very good at optimising boring time to have maximum fun. We really do 20% of the work for 80% of the results. We're not perfectionists. But I think it's working to our advantage, because it makes us very resilient. We don't get tired of the project.

Second, I think we're good at bringing together pretty disparate people, despite the fact that they're all unique, or proud of their uniqueness. Because the project started with people from different worlds, I think it remained like that. It's been quite nice. Diversity is relative, right? Some people would say everybody's from the same world here. But within that world, I know projects that are way more same type of people.

Third, I think we do a good job at being, I do think it's a beautiful place. I don't think there are many community events happening in a place of this quality.

And then three things to improve.

I wish we had even more common space. There's too much density for where people can come in. So I think in the winter would be nice if we had more common spaces.

Second, the big questions that other places could answer for them. I think it would be very useful, in the ask-can-offer kind of thing. I would love to hear, because they might say something very different from me. And then for me that's interesting, because then I could say, oh, well, I can help them there, because that's very easy for us, and then realise they're struggling on something else.

The third one is, what would be your worst, like, what would be the thing that you would hate people to say? Because, for me, people say we're a crypto-tech place in the château, I just want to throw myself out the window. It's exactly what they say.

There is a sense that the world is divided into categories: the people who complain, and then the people who try to change things, and then those who do things differently. So I would love to have certain types of people more represented, but just not so. It's hard sometimes.

Sharon: I never fight to the end. I'm never proud. Tell me more about how you handle conflict.

Jess: I have two qualities. One, I don't give up. It's silly, but I show up every day, and sometimes it's harder, it's like an athlete. And the second, I'm never proud. I even don't understand the mechanism in people. Like, you're losing so much, it's never worth it. I never fight to the end.

It's so funny, some people have been mad at me. My friend was like, you know, I had a pretty crazy story with my right-hand woman, and a lot of people were like, it's a betrayal, you should be mad. They were almost mad at me for being too nice. But I can get angry for a maximum of a day or two. It's hard for me to just hold. My body doesn't want to hold that emotion, so it just evacuates it.

I have this true conviction, maybe, that people are always trying to do their best. If they did something, it's because they had to do it for their family, or they were in their world and it made sense. So it's like kind of holding different perspectives.

I think in general, anger is when there is helplessness. It's, like, you want things to change, you want things to be a certain way, but you don't have the tools or the ability to act upon things. I think my role is to make sure people have agency. Otherwise, what would you do? Always, can we put a collaborative mindset on the thing.