From Unpaid Intern to The Adventure Agency Founder
Meet Professional Advisory Board Member, Megan Gopp
By: Heidi Vanderbeek
In July 2012, Megan Gopp was a recent Michigan State University advertising creative graduate, with a concentration in design, who had sent her resume to roughly 150 advertising agencies in Chicago. In efforts to break into the industry, she told companies that she would work for free. She said that the Windy City is where she knew she wanted to be, whether the agencies were hiring or not. That same month, she got an offer to be an unpaid graphic design intern at an ad agency in Chicago on Michigan Avenue.
“I slept on a couch for three months and didn’t get paid for three months,” Gopp said. “Finally, at the end of the summer, I got asked to be part of their team and I was there for seven years of my career.”
When Gopp had realized she had reached the ceiling with Trungale, Egan + Associates, she launched her own business, called The Adventure Agency, as the founder and creative director.
“I didn’t think I could have my own business for so long and then, after a while, it was the thing that made the most sense,” Gopp said.
Gopp started The Adventure Agency as a side business to her normal nine-to-five job in December 2019 after attending a conference in Chicago called “Create and Cultivate.” She said that at the conference she became inspired after hearing stories from other female founders and executives who had been in the same position as she was: yearning for more.
“Hearing from people at the conference say they had been helping someone else accomplish their dream, but were wanting to accomplish their own dream, it clicked for me,” Gopp said. “That’s where the original seed for The Adventure Agency started.”
As The Adventure Agency has officially made it through 2020 and its first full year, Gopp said that it’s been rewarding to say that she has a business that has been so successful during a challenging time.
“The growth that I have seen has been probably the most rewarding and challenging thing at the same time,” Gopp said. “Being able to choose my own hours and work for myself has been a privilege and is probably what has made The Adventure Agency successful.”
Gopp is currently a member of MSU’s AD+PR Professional Advisory Board and stresses the importance for current students to participate in networking and mentorship during their college years.
“Something that I wish I would have realized sooner was how important networking and finding a mentor are,” Gopp said. “Listen and absorb everything that someone who is on the path that you want to take is saying. They’ve been in your shoes.”