M-Lifestyle founder Peter Olatuyi (Photo by Jay Paul)
The Henrico County-based digital publication M-Lifestyle seeks to highlight the challenges overcome by millennials, or, as founder Peter Olatuyi refers to them, Renaissance youth.
Olatuyi, a Nigerian immigrant and insurance field support specialist, founded the publication in 2014, after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth University with a finance degree — a milestone that was delayed a full semester after his leg was crushed in a car accident. The support of peers and faculty members during his recovery was a key motivator in Olatuyi’s desire to provide a platform that would offer success stories of his generation as experienced and told by millennials.
“If you notice, we tell a lot of stories of young people of color,” he says. “We are changing from the usual mainstream narrative of negative image.”
Olatuyi’s site features both regular and guest writers, and receives some sponsorship support. It bears some resemblance to other audience-driven sites, such as Thought Catalog, covering subject matter from arts and culture to business. Recent posts include “Five Facts About the LGBT of Color You Didn’t Know,” profiles of young entrepreneurs from around the country and commentary on the blockbuster comedy-horror film “Get Out.”
In 2016, M-Lifestyle held its first Emerging Entrepreneur Summit, a Richmond-based conference focused on using technology “to bridge the cultural and trans-Atlantic gap among millennials,” Olatuyi says.
M-Lifestyle recently launched a bimonthly podcast, and Olatuyi plans to develop a mobile app in the near future. Eventually, he aspires to produce a quarterly print publication that includes the most inspiring stories from the website, mlifestyle.org.
