S4 Ep09: Let’s Talk About Branding as an Agency Founder with Kaitlyn Barclay
Today I'm really excited because I'm so happy to have finally had this conversation with Kaitlyn Barclay.
Kaitlyn Barclay is the CEO and co-founder of Scout Lab, which is an agency that helps startups with their branding, communications, and marketing. The focus of her work is on founders in addition to being one herself.
Kaitlyn and Scout Lab especially work with founders who have a mission behind their work, whether it's planetary health or actual health. She works with and advises founders who stand out in their fields. Many of whom are women, people of color, and part of the LGBT+ community.
So today, Kaitlyn and I are going to discuss the development of her personal brand, which really started with developing her reputation in the market by doing the work and absorbing as much as she could from other startup founders. She talks about what influenced her to become an entrepreneur and how storytelling is such a large part of building a brand.
And finally, we're going to hear from her about how she put together her personal brand, how that is influenced by being a co-founder and the things that she personally struggled with.
Tune in as we talk about:
[00:00] Welcome Kaitlyn Barclay!
[03:37] Where did your career start, and how did it get to that point?
[07:09] Why did Kaitlyn decide to work with other companies first, rather than starting her own company? And how did that help you later?
[10:41] How did Kaitlyn's reputation get her into FitMob?
[13:21] Why is it that Kaitlyn decided to focus on building brands for startups? What is the focus of Scout Lab?
[15:50] How did Kaitlyn's personal brand change when she made the shift from consultant to agency founder?
[19:05] How does a two-founder brand work when it comes to those personal brands and how do those personal brands serve the agency?
[23:03] How does Kaitlyn help founders tell their stories?
[25:59] How does Kaitlyn help founders find the balance between professional and personal stories while highlighting their differences?
[28:22] Does a founder's personal brand help them build trust for investors and partners?
[31:00] What do you personally as Kaitlyn struggle with or have you struggled with the most in the past when it comes to your own personal brand?
[34:06] How to connect with Kaitlyn Barclay
Contact Kaitlyn Barclay:
Website: Scout Labs
Email: Kaitlyn@scoutlab.com
-
Hello, welcome to Let's Talk About Brand. I am your host, Christine Gritmon and I am coming at you every single week on Let's Talk About Brand, talking to different guest experts every single week about different elements of branding, especially personal branding. If you're listening to us on your podcast player of choice, please do hit subscribe and leave a review if you like it. If you're joining us for the video podcast on YouTube, same deal. Subscribe. Let us know what you think in the comments. And of course, you can find me anywhere on social media as Christine Gritmon.
So today I'm really excited because I've actually had to reschedule this one a bunch of times.
I'm so happy we've finally had this conversation. Kaitlyn Barclay. Kaitlyn Barclay is the CEO and co-founder of Scout Lab, which is an agency that helps startups with their branding, their communications, their marketing, all that jazz. So she works with a ton of founders in addition to being one herself. But as you'll hear today, Kaitlyn also came up through the startup world.
Kaitlyn and Scout Lab especially work with founders that have some sort of mission behind their work, whether it's planetary health or actual health health. She also works with and advises lots of founders who are women, who are people of color, who are parts of the LGBT plus community. She really helps founders get out there, get their great work and big ideas out there and also get themselves and their stories out there too.
So today, Kaitlyn and I are going to discuss her journey which as you'll hear, really started with just doing the work, absorbing as much as she could, developing that reputation. before she started worrying about her brand. And then we're also going to hear from her a lot about what goes into that brand and that personal brand, especially for founders the position that a founder's personal brand takes in a startup.
And finally, we're going to hear from her a bit about how she put together her own personal brand and the things that she personally struggled with, which may be things that you need to hear about as well.
Christine Gritmon: so this founder right here is certainly interested to get into today's discussion about branding for founders. So without any further ado, Kaitlyn Barclay, come on down!
Kaitlyn Barclay: It's so nice to be here. Thanks for having me, Christine.
Christine Gritmon: Thank you so much for being on, and can I just say also thank you so much for your patience. We have had to reschedule this thing so many times, mostly because of me and my crazy transatlantic move.
Kaitlyn Barclay: I love that. Congratulations again. That's huge.
Christine Gritmon: Thank you, and thanks for taking good care of New York for me in my absence.
All right, so Kaitlyn, let's dive right in. I would love to hear your story. Not just what you're doing now, but how you got there and how you have built your personal brand to get to the point you are now where, You're an agency founder, you work with a whole bunch of other people to get their brand and marketing and messaging straight.
You're an advisor for female entrepreneurs. You do all of this stuff. So clearly the Kaitlyn brand is a strong one. Can you take us through the history of how you built your brand along the way as you were developing each of these steps of your career? Not, no pressure. That's a big one.
[00:03:37] Where did your career start, and how did it get to that point?
Christine Gritmon: I can chunk it down if you'd like. Let's go from the start, actually. Let's go to the start of kind of the building of the Kaitlyn brand, because it's very different from where you are now. When did you first start feeling that, okay, this has got to be on my own steam now? Where did your career start, and how did it get to that point?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Yeah, I think it, it starts much farther back than when I entered the professional world. My mom was an entrepreneur. She actually, when she divorced my dad when I was five she'd previously been in finance and when she had me and my sister was a stay at home mom and. So when they got divorced, she really had to figure out what she wanted to do next.
And what she ended up doing was taking up interior design consultancy. So she started just, designing for her friends. She said I'm passionate about this, I'm good at it, and it's driving me forward. And so she built this consultancy that grew into a really reputable interior design firm in my small town I grew up in, outside of Portland, Oregon. And she had one employee and I watched her navigate, client issues. And I knew what an invoice was at an early age. And I just watched this woman really come into her own as a small business owner. And I think that gave me the the reference point of which I molded my entrepreneurialism or the path that I wanted to take, I think. Really early on, I knew that I was interested in running my own business because I saw my mom do it. And when I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to go immediately into tech. So, I'd like done some internships in Silicon Valley worked at a number of different startups before I even graduated.
And yeah. I moved to Silicon Valley quickly after that, and I think I got some really informative experiences working in tech, you know, working at startups that failed. I was on the founding team of a company that was able to grow and get acquired by ClassPass in 2015. I led, database marketing and customer acquisition at Levi Strauss and the e-commerce team, which was like a startup within a billion dollar organization.
So I had all of these cool opportunities very early on in my career where I was building. And so by the time I was entering my thirties, I was ready to start something again. And that's really where I met Willow, my co-founder and we started Scout Lab.
Christine Gritmon: I love that. So I want to back up a little bit. First of all, as a mother, it definitely makes me feel good to hear that you saw your mother do it, and it made you want to do it, too, instead of saying, My God. And she clearly was in an industry where she was the product, it sounds like. You know, her skills, a service based company.
So that's very good to know. But also, it's interesting that you worked for all these startups because, as you said, you were always eager to start your own business, but I'm sure that working for those startups got your feet wet and helped you build your skills. I'd love to hear a bit about why you started via that path instead of just trying to start your own thing from the get go.
And also The unique differences between working for a startup where you're there with the founder usually Versus working for a large corporation like Levi Strauss. So first, let's dive into the first part, which is Deciding to work for startups and in other big companies rather than doing your own thing right out of the gate.
[00:07:09] Why did Kaitlyn decide to work with other companies first, rather than starting her own company? And how did that help you later?
Christine Gritmon: How did that decision come to be and how did that help you later?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Yeah, I, I was at a dinner last night where one of my friends sitting next to me, it was like 19 years old when he like started a very successful startup. So like it is, age can be just a number. I will say, generally speaking, experience is really important and learning from people who've done it has been incredibly informative to my career.
And I would really recommend any young person interested in entrepreneurialism to Get a blueprint for it, like find mentors, find entrepreneurs that you respect and admire, like work for people doing it. If you're not ready to do it yourself, it's like a massive amount of risk. And I think without operational acumen or understanding of how to run a business, it.
It can also be a really inefficient process if you don't have experience. So the reason why, you know, in my early twenties I opted for startup experiences is because I think that's as close as you can get to founding a startup without founding it. And so my first boss was the head of marketing at Facebook and started this social commerce platform, Jonathan Ehrlich.
And he was just such an incredible mentor and champion for me very early on in my career and gave me like massive responsibility for a 22 year old that just, graduated from college, but I was able to learn a tremendous amount and drive a lot of impact for the organization. And, you know, when I then went to my next thing, like I was working alongside, an ex GP at Mayfield.
Which is these folks with storied careers, really being able to learn from them, juice all they know, and then apply my spin on how I want to show up as a leader. was great to experiment with in my 20s. And I certainly think, having been on the founding team when I was like 23, 24 was like a, an incredible opportunity.
And I think I knew that after. In my next my next foray, I wanted experience in bureaucracy and process because I knew that was a huge gap of mine, which is why I went from, the company FitMob, that was acquired by ClassPass. I went to Levi Strauss because I wanted to fill in that gap.
And I realized very quickly like, Understood the blueprint understood the way that process exists at this scale and then, moved to New York and was ready to start my own thing again. I can't understate how important mentorship is. I think early on in your career mentorship of more experienced people is crucial. I think as you go along in your career, peer-to-peer mentorship becomes more important. And so that was really informative and instrumentive to, where I am today and certainly how I've been able to mold myself, given the feedback of the people around me, which has really been, amazing.
Christine Gritmon: I love that I would love to hear a little bit more about how you came to be part of Fitmob. It sounds like that was your first hands on entrepreneurial experience. So I'd love to hear how that came to be. And also, did you have to leverage your personal brand in a different way as someone who was really part of that founding team versus when you were just working for startups?
Or was it, the same, this was just another opportunity that it helps open for you? What part did your personal brand play in entrepreneurship in that first venture FitMob? And we'll get to your current venture in a bit, because I'm sure it's a slightly different situation.
[00:10:41] How did Kaitlyn's reputation get her into FitMob?
Kaitlyn Barclay: So I think what many people call personal branding now is also what you would call reputation. And I think many people want a personal brand, but I think far fewer than those who know how important reputation is writ large. Your reputation is how someone refers you to like a job or invites you to a dinner party because they heard through the grapevine that you're a great person.
And so I got the opportunity to go to Fitmob because of the previous mentor I had my boss at Copious which was like a marketplace in the social commerce industry referred me in and was like, Hey this person has been instrumental to the growth of this marketplace fitmob was a multi sided marketplace.
And so when I met with the CEO who had this idea, but it wasn't really, it was still being whiteboarded. We like picked up the marker together and really made something special as an initial. kind of thesis and we're able to build that together. So that's how I got referred in. But I will say like reputation is just so incredibly important.
And I think people want a personal brand and they think about that as like the externalization of self. Am I on podcasts or like large speaking opportunities? Am I like writing and being published? But I think that's just like a multiple of reputation and everyone should, not everyone perhaps needs a personal brand, but everyone needs to think very critically and seriously about their reputation. And so I think that early on, like I was just building reputation and it wasn't until later on when I started my own thing. And certainly that was like a part of FitMob, but then expanded much more when I started Scout Lab or personal brand.
Was a little bit more important because I needed people to find me just not through my network, but through other like public domains. And so there's like nuance there, but yeah, early on, I was really fixated on building things and being known for my work ethic and my impact at startups. And I think, throughout the course of my early career, that was how I got exposure to these incredible opportunities because I was just known as this doer.
If you have Whatever budget, whatever resource constraints, whatever insane OKRs, I'll just get it done. And I think that's the type of builder you need at early-stage startups.
Christine Gritmon: Absolutely. So just doing the work, building that reputation before you worry about brand which can be more external facing. Now, brand is something that you actually currently, and also in the past, help other people with. So after going to Levi Strauss for a little bit. You, or actually during overlapping with that time I know that you were brand and growth consultant before founding your agency focusing on helping startups.
[00:13:21] Why is it that Kaitlyn decided to focus on building brands for startups? What is the focus of Scout Lab?
Christine Gritmon: Now you've done a bunch of things with startups. What made you focus in on that brand consulting element? What lit you up about it? And what did you learn maybe working on the other side of it helping other startups to do it.
Kaitlyn Barclay: Yeah, it's such a good question. And I think that, whether we're talking about brand building with respect to an organization or brand building with respect to a person or an executive, you're thinking about similar pillars, let's say. And so in 2016, a few things were happening. One, I had just moved to New York and met my co founder.
And we were both really lit up about the same things. It was just after the 2016 election where I think a lot of marketers were really galvanized to use their superpowers for good. And we saw like reputation at scale, take a turn for the worst. And I think some really like violent storytelling that we weren't proud to see propagate at the scale it was. And so when we, when Willow and I, my co founder got together we said one, like storytelling is so important, right? Even just even money capitalizes the stories we hear and ingest in our culture. So how might we be able to be a part of uplifting stories that we're really proud of?
And that means the stories of executives that are really like walking the walk. And so that was really the blueprint for Scout Lab because brand also is this very ephemeral thing. Everyone wants one, but no one knows what it is. And my co founder and I having, having built several brands at that point in our career, she was early on at Airbnb. I just went through the. Rebrand for Levi Strauss launched their women's line. So we had like very differing scales of which we've reinvented brand. We said we want to do this, but for organizations that are really trying to create access where it hasn't historically existed, like tap into communities at the margin that have been ignored by industry.
That is really important. Like healthcare, like FinTech, like planetary health. And that was really the blueprint of which we started Scout Lab, making very digestible deliverables associated with brand building and delivering it for high growth startups and the executives that work for them.
Christine Gritmon: Now, how did you shift your personal brand, if at all, between being a consultant and being an agency founder? Because a lot of the function you're performing might be similar, maybe not. But I imagine when you made the decision to say, you know what, I'm no longer a consultant.
[00:15:50] How did Kaitlyn's personal brand change when she made the shift from consultant to agency founder?
Christine Gritmon: We are founding an agency. That's a shift there. So I'd love to hear a bit behind that shift when you decided to change the way you're doing business and also how you changed the way you present yourself and your personal brand as a consultant versus as an agency founder.
Kaitlyn Barclay: Totally. It's a really good question. I think, I was 27 when I started Scout Lab and up until then, I really didn't think of my pitch or like my personal brand. I just really considered, am I doing cool work that is impactful and driving value for the organization that I was, consulting for or working for and that was it.
And I think that's really important. Folks earlier on in their career should really just be thinking about am I doing cool shit? And is it driving impact, intended impact? And so when I started Scout Lab, I was again, 27. So I was finally able to curate a story around my impact, like what I had done, right?
I started and sold a company. I had consulted for some really cool organizations. I had worked in Silicon Valley. Like I had fundraised. I had done all of these things that I could speak to in service of my reputation. I had people that could vouch for me. And so when I started Scout Lab, it was really like, again, codifying our differentiated point of view, developing this agile methodology connected to brand building.
So It spoke directly to the venture-backed founder that we were trying to sell to. And it took off really quickly. And I think from there, I started to refine the pitch of ScoutLab, started to refine the pitch of myself. There was a lot of storytelling and trying to figure out how to pull my narrative through. I think every person has peaks in their career that they can speak to moments of glory that can allude to or provide examples of what they're capable of. And so putting that story together, starting from, when I entered Silicon Valley fundraising. Going through a startup cycle that wasn't successful, going through an exit, like going through leading a small team in a billion dollar organization, I was able to tell the story of my my impact, which cascaded into my personal brand.
And then from there I was able to externalize like what I thought from that foundation of credibility. So began publishing work on my point of view on emerging technology or social issues. And I think that exercise as a writer again, collating my experience and applying it to relevant topics was really when like this idea of.
Reputational personal brand or the externalization of self took off for me.
Christine Gritmon: Now you have a co-founder with you at Scout Lab. You are not the sole entrepreneur behind this venture, not the sole agency owner. How would you Perhaps, I know this is a tricky one, but how would you perhaps describe how your personal brand and her personal brand differ or are the same or work together to inspire confidence?
[00:19:05] How does a two-founder brand work when it comes to those personal brands and how do those personal brands serve the agency?
Christine Gritmon: how does a two founder brand work when it comes to those personal brands and how do those personal brands serve the agency?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Oh, that's such a good question. So Willow my co founder is incredible. the co founder relationship is such an interesting one and the most valuable relationship you will have as a business owner when it works. And and it often doesn't work right. It requires a lot of self-awareness and like high self-monitoring and a commitment to growth.
And through that growth with Willow, we were very committed to one, what we were building, but two being better people, leaders and people in service of taking care of our co-founder relationship. It's like any other relationship. If you don't grow together, you grow apart. And a part of that exercise was championing each other to tell their own personal narrative.
So being vulnerable, I've shared a lot of first-person narrative that is highly vulnerable. for me, but was like great for externalizing what I care about, what I value. And that was always championed by my co founder. She always encouraged me to be like myself squared. And I think I did the same for her back.
And it's funny because I think even that relationship dynamic that we have as co founders. We then externalize to our clients. So a lot of what we talk about with personal branding with the executives we work with is it authentic? Is it honest? And is it relevant? And if all of those things remain to be true, like it should give you a green light that perhaps that is something that is, worthwhile sharing with the world.
And I, and certainly that exercise we started. Willow and myself with each other, and now is something that we do for, these amazing entrepreneurs that we work with that are trying to, be be impactful with certainly what they're building, but oftentimes these are female founders, BIPOC founders that are radical and just existing in these spaces that have historically been deeply homogenous and so sharing their stories is a pretty radical act and a very important one.
Because like I said with my mom, like I had this really unique experience of seeing a female entrepreneur growing up, which not a lot of my friends did. And that I think limits your scope of what you think is possible. And so with The founders that we work with and they're building their personal brand.
It's are you telling someone perhaps like a smaller version of yourself that it's okay to exist as a powerful founder and certainly, is it also signaling to the space that you're in, that you're here and you have opinions like all of that, I think. is a part of building your personal brand and making your mark on the world that I think, can be very profound if you want it to be.
Christine Gritmon: Founders telling their stories with their work is just so huge and such a great way to make sure the impact goes beyond just their clients and really enters their whole industry as a whole. To that end, you do a lot of mentorship and giving back. I see that you're involved with a lot of organizations as, a mentor, as an advisor, as an investor, all of that.
I would love to hear more about that because that's certainly part of your story. Part of your personal brand is someone who does want to elevate all these voices of a variety of founders. What sort of things do you help them out with? And what do you see in these, in some of these founders who maybe aren't they're not straight white men, let's be frank.
what additional hurdles do you see them having to cermount? And what do you help them out with personally as well?
[00:23:03] How does Kaitlyn help founders tell their stories?
Kaitlyn Barclay: We always start with, and it really depends on the experience of the founder, but we always start with the professional stories. So what are you pitching? Cause I often, It needs to be like, the shared lexicon that we build, much more decorative storytelling on top of and that can be challenging, even for the most seasoned orators.
Like, how do you talk about yourself, which can be such a clarifying and helpful and existential exercise? So once we do that, then it, Then we start to talk about what do you want to exist for? Like, why is the work you're doing important? Who do you want to unlock a door for? Who would you like to close a door on?
And from there, we create a list of topics, themes, issues, that we then can weave into the story of the professional journey, right? If that is the skeleton, then we start to put color on top of it. And I think that's where it gets really interesting where, I work with debut venture fund manager and she has an incredible career.
But she also, she also has some things to say outside of venture or intersectionally to the venture community that I think are really compelling. So like, how can she be. Radical for existing in a space that is very male dominant very white as a woman of color. And how can we, have her tell stories that can advance rather the venture community that can advance the field of finance.
And I think that's that's really interesting. So I think first it's really understanding the story, like your professional pitch and then weaving in personal anecdotes or thematic concepts that you can speak to that make that professional journey even more rich.
Christine Gritmon: And this brings us back to something you said pretty early on, which was about, it's about the reputation first, it's about the work first and doing the work and figuring out what kind of worker you are and developing that reputation for it. And then I love what you just said about adding in the color and that personal pull that really makes a difference and helps it stand out.
So how do you find that balance is one of the questions that I'm sure a lot of people have because people think of personal branding sometimes as, the sort of surface level thing when, of course, if it's done properly, it is more than that. And especially as someone who, as you pointed out, is doing this bold thing by even, putting their stamp on this space, , which is not where someone who looks like them typically is.
How do you strike that right balance? Because I'm sure there are some people who are a little afraid to lean on the identity element of it because they want to make sure that they're taken seriously as themselves and not as a token. But at the same time, you gotta shout out and own and, recognize the strength of your difference.
So how do you recommend figuring out that balance as it were?
[00:25:59] How does Kaitlyn help founders find the balance between professional and personal stories while highlighting their differences?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Yeah. I really believe it's up to the individual to know what intuitively feels right or important. I think. There are many different ways to build personal brand. You can build from your professional perspective. So not weaving in your identity at all. You can lean into your personal anecdotes, perhaps being different in your space.
I think the most compelling storytelling is when there's as extreme narrative friction as possible. So that tends to be like how a person is different in the world that they're surrounded by or what unique experience makes what they've gone through different than what other people have gone through.
I would never recommend an executive like go, tell a first person narrative if they just want to build credibility in the space of artificial intelligence. So they're like, I just want to be great at cybersecurity. I'm like, fantastic. There's a path for you there. So I think it's really up to you to figure out where and how do you want to be known? What is important for you as an individual and a person existing in a professional environment to build your point of focus or like what you, what your reputation is about. Then from there you can, create content buckets for you to, produce interesting pieces, whether it's like short form or long form or podcasts or whatever it might be. So I think it's really up to the individual to know their comfort level. And then from there, like developing what they, they want to externalize into the world.
Christine Gritmon: Now, when it comes to founders and personal brands I, of course, I'm highly biased because I'm a personal branding person. So I would imagine that the personal brand plays a large role in founders being able to get the trust of the investors that they need of other partnerships that they need. I could be wrong.
That might not be as huge a part of it, but I'd love to hear from you, someone who's been in that space so much on multiple sides of it how the personal brand can be leveraged, should be leveraged all of that. As a founder specifically, what can it do for you? Yeah. And what if someone is someone who would love to just hide behind the work. Maybe that works in some spaces. I'd just like to hear from you your picture of the personal brand in the founder space in terms of people looking to gain that trust from investors and others.
[00:28:22] Does a founder’s personal brand help them build trust for investors and partners?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Totally. Yeah. The founder story to company connection cannot be understated. I think it's always more provocative when the founder has experienced the problem that they're trying to fix. And then from that point, being very vocal about how they intend to fix the problem, their perspective on what that problem or solution looks like in the future, as a communications specialist, like I love.
Usually people want to listen to humans versus brands. So when we talk about like launching a company, I am looking to the founder to be that human representative that can create the story, the emotional appeal to an audience that hasn't heard about this organization yet as the Trojan horse to what the company is doing.
People like people, they don't like to be sold by brands. And so I often find and encourage that founders be open and frank about what they're trying to build and why. Now that can be again, like a whole host of strategies forward, right? We work with founders who have deeply emotional and vulnerable stories and share them very openly.
We also founders that just have like professional expertise in a subject matter and that is what enabled them to start their organization, which is also a version of personal brand that is totally appropriate. It really just depends on what you're doing and your level of comfort externalizing who you are. I always encourage founders to share their story, to share their point of view, to be differentiated in market as their communications partner.
It makes my job. a lot easier. And as a person existing in the world that is looking for the doers and the change makers and the people trying to fix some of the hardest problems on planet earth, I want those voices and stories to be heard. So yeah, I think it's ideal to have a founder startup or like founder journey connection to whatever solution you're solving for.
And best practice is generally when, the founder is like open about sharing that and I find that's certainly supports fundraising that supports partnerships that supports earned media, kind of everything,
Christine Gritmon: I love what you said about the personal brand sort of being the Trojan horse. It gets you in the door and then you can present what you're selling ultimately when it comes down to it. All right. So Kaitlyn, final question. And this one's a, again, a bit of a more personal one, but what you've been in this personal branding game for a while, you have built your own over time.
[00:31:00] What do you personally as Kaitlyn struggle with or have you struggled with the most in the past when it has come to your own personal brand?
Christine Gritmon: You've helped others build theirs. What do you personally as Kaitlyn struggle with or have you struggled with the most in the past when it has come to your own personal brand.
Kaitlyn Barclay: This is such a good question. I just gave a talk on like personal storytelling using my own and it is being ready to tell some of the stories that you have in your life. And I am very much an open book. I think some of the most, profound moments of my life. Are the struggle are the hard moments that have a lot of shame around them.
I think if anyone looks at the valleys in their life, there is some sort of shame around them. The shame of failure, the shame of loss, the shame of violence or abuse or oppression. And. I hope to exist as someone who shines a light and remove shame on those valleys, because usually shame is reserved for those that are victimized or being oppressed.
And so when I think about my own story and telling my own story I think it's really important to be. It has been really important for me to exercise vulnerability as much as possible. I've talked about my own sexual abuse. I've talked very openly, the process of building organizations that have and have not worked.
I've talked about being a lesbian. I've talked about being a woman in technology, like these things that make me different and these things that make me, I think, brilliant and more vibrant in the world. Have historically made me stand out for better or for worse. And so when I think about externalizing my story, I think about needing to have gone through the story myself, complete the narrative for me so that I can share in a grounded way in a thoughtful way.
And with insights at the end the story itself so that it says instructive and informative of removing stigma or being representative or removing shame as humanly possible, because that's what I think storytelling is the most profound. That's when it's the most important and that's when it's the best received when it doesn't feel like you're still traumatized by what's happened to you, whether that's, a professional endeavor or a personal explosion that led to some sort of silver lining, you need to have gone through the full story yourself and know what you learned, come out the hero and then tell the story.
I think that's, from my own journey, that's been my philosophy and I would encourage others to do the same.
Christine Gritmon: Wise words to end on. Thank you so much, Kaitlyn, for being so open with your thoughts on all of this, your experiences. I'm sure this is It's going to help a lot of people, especially founders, as they pull their personal brands together. So let's tell the good folks at home, Kaitlyn, where can they find you?
Why should they find you? And what will they find there?
Kaitlyn Barclay: Yeah, you can always find me at scoutlab.com. Kaitlyn@scoutlab.com is my email. I would say if you're, someone looking to do something big, if you are someone who's doing something big, always open to have a conversation and see if I can support you in any way, shape or form. It's like my passion, my driving force.
And yeah, that's, I exist to, to support radical founders doing cool stuff.
Christine Gritmon: Thank you so much for being on today, Kaitlyn.
And thank you for being here listening to Let's Talk About Brand. Whether you are joining us on the podcast or if you're watching the video podcast over on YouTube, either way, please do subscribe, leave a comment if you liked it, and don't forget to join us next week when I'll be back with another smart guest expert talking about another element of branding.
Bye bye.
