 Hi everyone. Welcome to the newest Avery workshop on brand management. My name is Leslie Quo. I'm the Associate Director of Development and Alumni Relations at GSAP. Really happy for you guys to join us today as we hear from three alum from different programs and in different industries who are leading their own ventures outside of the GSAP disciplines. And we have Chelsea Kim, the head of brand management for the working assembly. I'm going to pass it on to her now and she's going to introduce herself and her company before opening up the panel. Great. Thank you Leslie. Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. My name is Chelsea Kim. I'm head of brand management at the working assembly. The working assembly is a branding and design studio based in New York. So as Leslie mentioned, we have a really, really amazing and unique group of individuals here tonight. It's a solid combination from like design to wine to interior. So, you know, we'll really dig into kind of what brand management is and how these entrepreneurs have really like managed their brands, built their brands through the lens of cultural stewardship. And, you know, I'll start by saying that I have been in brand management my entire career, but I think it's a very different side of brand management. I think there are, you know, many, you know, I would say that there are probably two sides of brand management. One and what we call agency side where like a studio or a big advertising agency or whatever it is will work directly with clients much, you know, I would probably work with Amy or Sozi on a day to day basis and really working directly with like clients or founders, entrepreneurs to to help build their brands from the strategy. So developing a mission purpose values and like really the foundational work of what the brand stands for and what the brand narrative is. And then developing brand identity so that goes from logos to color palettes to actually developing designing the website or a campaign or what the social channels might look like so I touch almost I think every facet. And yeah, it's my job really is guiding and shepherding entrepreneurs and founders in this kind of journey to help bring their visions to life. So that's a little bit about me. And I would love to start by having our entrepreneurs here with us tonight to do a little bit of an intro of themselves and the ventures that they have built and then we can kind of dive into into some questions. Alright, we've got, we're just gonna move slides. Alright, first up, Rajiv. Hi, thank you so much for having me. If there's one thing I love its attention. And that's what I draw, literally and figuratively. So, the way my journey began was, I was working as an architect, and I was just really getting sick of drawing kitchens for rich people. I was like, why am I spending most of my day doing this like I'm not making the world a better place. And this was also in 2016 post Trump's election. And there are just a lot of dialogue happening about, you know, making the world a better place in the state of the world at that time. So, I had the stereotypical way of being forced into doing my own thing, I got fired. And it was the push that I needed to, you know, go out there on my own and try to make something of my own. So I decided to become a children's book author. And that was the first brand of little icon. So if you go to the next slide. If you see my work here, it started out with a children's book and then I realized, I don't know anything about children. So I started just drawing stuff to kind of express my feelings in that tumultuous year. And the first image I did was a statue of Liberty wearing the head job, and it connected with a lot of people, and I saw the power of an illustration. It doesn't take much time and dialogue can begin there. So my work became political and activism focus. And then I, when I went to the GSAP incubator. I completely, I rebranded again, it became an activism platform. And now at this point it's my artist moniker. So I designed under my own name but I still just have like the Instagram handle little icon. So for the next slide, my, my work, it's not just limited to digital illustration. It can also be translated to the building scale so I'll never forget my architectural roots. I've had some projects throughout New York City, a big banner in Omaha, Nebraska, a flag at Rockefeller Center. And I have another very big and exciting project coming up and not telling anyone because I love surprises. With that, I kind of gained a knack of drawing attention to the issues that surround us and especially last year, my friend of mine asked me to do some icons of BIPOC people in history, and we want to focus on the lesser known people. And so we, we drew, I drew a bunch of them and we just had this collection of people and we're like well what should we call them. And then we're brainstorming names and we came up with historic icons or story cons to go to the next slide. And a light bulb like went off and we're like, we should do this like we should bring attention to the stories that have been whitewashed from our textbooks. So she is a neuroscientist and focuses on like education and child development. I am a designer who believes that kids are worthy of good design. A lot of stuff for kids out there is pretty meh. So we kind of put our forces together and came up with these puzzles for kids to see representation for us to see ourselves and feel empowered and educated about these stories that haven't been told to us and that we can learn a lot from. So the first two stories we're telling are the Stonewall uprising and the 504 sit-in, which is an architect we should all know about because that led to the ADA Act, which we deal with every single day. So the fact that I am 36 year old man and did not know the history behind these things and how it affects me today, I think is a disservice and we're trying to improve the world by putting these stories out there. Awesome. Thank you so much. And we'll also have Amy introduce herself. Hi everyone. My name is Amy. I graduated in 2006 with a master's in architecture and also worked for about 10 years practicing as an architect and made my way into a complete career pivot went back to school to study wine business and through our family business. So now I'm the director of finance and design, which is sort of how I entered the wine world when we started designing our a new winery and a branded wine project. And it's called Nine Sons. If you can advance the slide please, Chelsea. So Nine Sons is a family owned and operated winery that's in the northern part of the Napa Valley in California and we're a really small team. It's myself, my brother and sister in law and our winemaker. And we are celebrating our 10th anniversary this year. Next slide please. So this is a photo in the bottom right of our vineyard. And it's also some illustrations of a well known myth that represents our last name Chang, which in Chinese characters represents an archer. So there's a legend that goes that there were 10 sunbirds that took turns rising and setting in the sky each day, but one day they rose altogether and their combined heat scorched the land and destroyed crops. So the archer was called to shoot down nine sunbirds and left, you know that sort of left the one sun in the sky today that restored balance to the earth. So that's sort of our brand story. Okay, next slide please. Here's some examples of our packaging, which was designed entirely in house. And we make just a few wines, a Sauvignon Blanc, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a red wine blend, Bordeaux blend, and a Grenache. Next slide please. And here are some of the photos of our newly designed and built winery production facility and tasting room and kind of, you know, maybe gives you some idea of how the brand identity sort of became manifest in the physical experience of the place. So we spent over one year designing just our brand name and identity in collaboration with Landor Associates in a format very similar to how Chelsea described how she works with with with clients. So literally just working on values. Coming up with this sort of a narrative and then working on the logo that was it one year. We had two intentions in mind when we started working with Landor. One was to craft a narrative experience that went from the vineyard to the bottle that really centered the experience of the consumer. Instead of something which is more common in the wine industry which is to focus on a celebrity wine maker, or a 100 point score from a very famous critic, or the actual faces and personalities of the ownership. So there's a lot of family wine businesses. And second, we really wanted to honor our ancestral heritage without naming our brand, you know, Ching family vineyards, another really common sort of approach in the wine industry. So we really view nine sons the brand as bigger than any one person involved in this project. We didn't hear you there you are. Thank you, Amy. And then we have Miss Ozy. Yes, hi, thank you everybody. I'm the so we could combo graduate of urban planning 2008 and my focus during my studies was international planning. I'm the founder and creative director of XN studio which is a multi disciplinary design studio that worked with artisans throughout Africa on home accents and different crafts. Next slide please. So, some of what I just told you is stated here I found in my, my friends when I was living in Brooklyn, New York, and that wasn't in 2011 so a few years after I completed my studies at Columbia at the time I was working full time in the development and human right social justice fields for the open society foundations. So I really got to experience from that side of things kind of the way that money can move around the world and I was also simultaneously interested in figuring out a way to incorporate the arts and obviously some of what I learned in graduate school into something kind of independent that I wanted to do for myself so I established the brand as a hobby in 2011 and then in decided to try it out full time so I left the open society foundations and hit the ground running with just kind of a nebulous idea in the back of my mind of creating a brand that had beautiful things but also was inspired by and centered around my own philanthropic mission, albeit not one backed by a multi billionaire as I was working for at the open society foundations but in that time I got to really understand and appreciate that there were other ways that smaller amounts of money and intention and strategy could make a big difference. So that's what I set out to do with my brand. Next slide please. So in terms of our brand values which I'm sure we'll circle back to a little bit deeper toward the toward the end or toward the Q&A, but our five points are ethical diverse, eco friendly small business and authentic and that in part really back to my heritage my both Ugandan and American heritage as well even touching into some parts of Europe my family spent a lot of time in Germany so the home that I grew up in was very kind of northern European minimalist African East African and these were always you know kind of decor and items and principles that I grew up around in the bottom left hand corner you can see a picture of my mother and I and her bag her purse that is actually a purse that is made in Uganda and it's very common in East Africa and I sell very similar purses today so these are really just you know these are pieces today that have told my my entire life story on the far right hand side you can see one of the artists that I work with her name is Agnes and she's originally from Rwanda and emigrated to Uganda around the time of the Civil War in the in the early 90s early to mid 90s in here she's actually dying the the the raffia grass that is used to produce the baskets that you see here there's one behind me that way and then also on the screen here so that's how the process really begins and then in the middle beneath the basket I'm working on a boutique collection in Ghana. So that you know really getting my hands on on the work to understand the work gain an appreciation for it and then work with artisans who are actually the experts because I have the vision and they they help to execute division. Next slide please. And one of the most exciting parts that really pulls the brand together is is my logo. There have been several iterations the logo like so much more of my, my company and the branding and the strategy actually evolved very organically over the years. And there was at some point a friend who pointed out to me that the logo resembled these topics that are in my home in Uganda and my grandfather built this home in the 1940s. And so I found that very special that somehow like subconsciously that that motif from the soffits which let the air go, you know flow from the outside to the inside of the home of our home in Uganda and the hills has found its way into my company logo and really stands for again something much bigger than you know just me and the items but what the entire mission is behind the company and the brand. And furthermore you got into the very mountainous and hilly country on the far right hand side. And my son on a trip there probably six or seven years ago and we went hiking and we're up in the mountains at the city way falls. And just outside of no corner not too far from where where this home is where home is there so the mountains are also reflected in the logo, my name not so we need the mountain peak. So it's really a visual that's meant to envelop all of those things. So thank you. Amazing. Thank you all so much. I am what I'm going to do is actually before I move on I'm just going to stop sharing screen, because I think that's it. You know, I was just thinking about how you all kind of started from this one discipline, and obviously all alums of GSAP but have ended up in like completely different places and so I would love to know just what was the most challenging aspects of of building your brands and how in getting to where you are are today. We can start with Amy. I was thinking about this a lot just being middle aged myself. I think that any journey professional journey is sort of a parallel to your personal journey, which you know it's like you go through puberty, you go through your early career. Right now I'm sort of like mid career but I've also experienced a pivot right so do you consider that a start over or is it just a continuation or a thread that starts leaving together, you know, multiple different experiences in your life and I do feel the older thread, you know those different threads start to actually come together. And I think that, you know, when it comes to branding. It was very difficult to start out 10 years ago. You know we had a hard time talking about our brand. I think we intuitively and because it was a family business, you know we all knew each other very well, like over our lifetimes. So we had an intuitive sense about where we wanted the brand to go. And again it wasn't about creating an aesthetic, or sort of so defined in terms of the mission of the company and I think that evolves over time. And if I look about if I look back you know over the past 10 years that evolution has been really important to, you know, changing with economic times, you know, the COVID situation. All sorts of things so you know I think it's it's a process and it's a maturity that happens naturally just as it does in our own self identity. Thank you. Nissozi do you want to answer that as well. Yeah. For me, it's really been a very organic journey because when I started the company. It was really just looking for a creative outlet. I ended up in a very kind of technical field that didn't relate exactly to urban planning but even within urban planning once I got into the into the curriculum and the discourse I realized it was such a rich field it was so and it is so multi dimensional so the the original challenge was just to decide what I wanted to focus on in school. And then afterwards, you know, the world was just it was so open and the opportunities were really endless so for me, because I have so many interests, and this really the brands. I've been able to kind of cultivate a focus that touches on those various interests of mine because you wouldn't think that urban planning and and textile design necessarily had anything to do with each other but for me, they're just two sides of the same coin of a multi dimensional coin that has more than two sides, because there is that social impact and women's economic empowerment and you know all of those pieces that do play into the mechanisms that shape our world. And the textiles and the crafts are the conduit for that and they're also the channel for conversations that you know that can take place amongst and between different cultures to really understand ways in which we're similar and that we can really help each other and be one community so the pieces seem disparate but for me they they are very similar it's just a matter of figuring out how to articulate that over time. And the brand and the business has helped me with that personally that personal journey as a me has also touched on. Yeah, and I receive I feel like you you touched on that to a little bit. I'm just kind of like transforming from like where you started as as a, like kind of children's book to becoming an illustrator and creating this like activism platform. And so like, you know, those values that misozy is also drawing on I feel like kind of apply to apply to you and your journey as well. Yeah, definitely. You know, when I started little icon. The question that I wasn't able to answer for like two years is what's the purpose of little icon. And, and I remember the driving thing behind it was like, I'm going to make money like selling books and, you know, doing this. Well, the book was a flop. But, but my, but the fact that it was being driven by like I'm going to make money doing this. I was not answering the question at all, like was the purpose. And with the story cons, money has never been part of the answer of why we're doing this. It's always been mission driven. And it took me a couple years to get to that point for law icon is I want to create dialogue and doing that through visuals. With the story cons is we want to educate and empower children based on their identity. So being able to answer that simple question and always making your decisions, go back to that main answer is what keeps your brand authentic and authenticity is something you cannot fake. And, you know, your customers can see that with little icon in the beginning, I was so hung up on Instagram followers, and it took me a long time to realize that's not a way to gauge success. The best way to gauge success is through, I think the responses from people to see, like when someone says hey this drawing really connected with me because I, in one particular instance, I, I drew a woman who's a survivor of sexual assault. This, like, you know, I haven't been able to talk about my experience with sexual assault, but for some reason this drawing, you know, give me a little courage to do that. And having that responsibility is something that like money cannot satisfy. So, you know, knowing that you're putting something out there in the world that someone else can use. That's, I think, a meaningful response to making a brand successful. Thank you. That's my thing. You know, you kind of touched on mission driven brands and I want to dig into that a little bit too because I do think that there, you know, there is a trend of purpose driven brands mission driven brands. That doesn't really mean because I think the, the meaning of mission driven or purpose driven hasn't stretched a little bit, particularly with like legacy brands, you know, that may not have a mission or let's like diversity or heritage, you know, at their, at the core of their DNA. And so I want to just dig into your thoughts on 10 brands do this authentically if it's not a part of their DNA, the way that it is for your brands. I can, I'll start with this one. So with the store cons, we actually just went over this because we are a for profit company. We believe you can do a lot of good and make a profit off of it. But we also realized that, you know, many of the stories that we're going to tell are not our own history. So, you know, while like the stone wall uprising the 504 to see 504 sit in, you know, we have like personal connections to them. We have a personal connection to like black history. So, we realize that we cannot be profiting off of this and we need to, you know, bring in someone else who, who can tell that story and profit from it, or, and also have a give back component. And I think that's also become a real mop like a model of millennial run companies nowadays. Right. I think like, there is definitely an aspect of bringing someone on if you, if you certainly don't have like the expertise in that field. This is the I saw you kind of like, I mean, yes. So I'll, I'll just jump in quickly and talk a little bit about my experience from the kind of wholesale or retail side the supply side so I work with a lot of of the big stores and the big names and part of my business, part of my business operations is wholesale I have a website and I also supply to brick and mortar the dependent shops, you call other e-commerce shops, etc. And it has been really interesting over the past year in particular, starting from last summer's racial uprising with the, you know, George Floyd killing, etc. There was a deluge of attention that black businesses including myself and the businesses of other black owned small businesses, small businesses that are owned by my friends the like volume of attention that we got out of seemingly out of nowhere. And many of the brands that I can say approached me were brands that I had been approaching and knocking on the doors up for close this is now my 10 year my 10th year in business also like Amy, my 10 year anniversary is actually this month. I had been knocking on the doors for the better part of a decade. And there was no real interest there but then all of a sudden when black businesses are, you know, and black lives are thrust into the spotlight in the country and around the world. Then they, you know, now want to have, you know, black businesses on their shelves. That obviously didn't feel genuine. And so, I think maybe five or so years ago if that had been the scenario and I was in an earlier place in, you know, in my business journey. Perhaps I would have felt more compelled or obligated to participate in those quote unquote opportunities. You know, really I'm also realizing that collectively a lot of small businesses owned by black business owners are, you know, we're saying no, because or we're setting terms going into into these agreements and we're saying you know we want to see what your strategy is for including other black businesses beyond me so that I'm not the token and, you know, what does your upper management look like and we need to have a conversation about that because we're now in a position for the very first time in my lifetime if not at least my career journey that we actually have some leverage and it's a very new thing and I mean like I said I've been in this for 10 years and it's a very, very stark difference in terms of the volume of opportunities but then also the quality of the opportunities but just being able to have a little bit more bargaining power now has made a really huge difference in terms of having influence in, you know, at those tables where, for whatever reason, you know, the voices are not all around the table. I don't think there's really an excuse in larger companies where they're not to be representative voices all around but that's another story, another conversation but that's been my experience from the small business owner side and the retailer side. I mean, that's really, I think it's so important because I've also had very similar experiences like our design studio is owned by a Korean American woman. I don't know of very many other agencies, ad agencies, branding agencies that are female and minority owned and so, of course, there has been an influx of attention with like, okay, a lot of companies that have taken on these initiatives of, you know, having an agency that is, you know, minority owned or female lead or whatever that is and it's almost, there is a little bit of tension of like, you know, like you are excited about the opening of these opportunities and that aperture but in some way, like, there's a level of like, is this disingenuous and so I totally understand that I think that is, you know, a really important conversation. Amy, I know that like, you know, like you were, you had mentioned, you know, kind of doing things a little differently than some of the other wine makers and vineyards and not doing the like not using your last name, for instance, as you know, other wine makers do. And so, and also just, you know, you're the branding is so beautiful the packaging is so beautiful. And I see how your heritage kind of is is coming through and the branding and packaging does it come through kind of anywhere else and the experience or whatever, like, it may be. And I think it's really important to note that when we launched our brand 10 years ago the wine landscape was really different so in a decade has changed dramatically and that at that time. Mainland Chinese wine consumers were sort of saturated in the market and even purchasing chateaus and Bordeaux and the Western wine world really looked down negatively upon all of that. So, I think there was a lot on our plate in terms of our own cultural heritage. And, interestingly enough, wine specter spectator, which is one of like the most major periodicals in the wine business, first printed information about us incorrectly and said you know, it was the Chen family who you know were immigrants, or, you know, living in China. And so no one had contacted us and I think that gives you a bit of an idea of the context at that time. So we had to call them, you know, correct them and said no we're Asian American you know born in the United States, still live here. Our last name is Chang, you know, so I think, um, you're sort of looking at, and this is sort of dovetailing on to what Nesosian regime we're saying with legacy brands it's really tricky because, or the establishment in general the status quo let's say, because you know it was a system created inherently in with inequity right it's looking at a kind of specific consumer for example if you're going to get into like marketing techniques and the sort of academic piece of brand management. So do you sort of try to assimilate into that system, or do you just go off and do your own thing. And I think we recognize right away we were outsiders, sort of from our ethnic background. Certainly coming from outside of the industry, none of us had an education and inology or an agriculture. We didn't grow up and you know, the Napa Valley, we didn't come from a wine family. So I think from the outset we just knew that we were going to have to operate in what we felt was true to our values and our vision. And that meant we listened to a lot of sort of the rule book of how to launch a cult wine brand. And we took very little of that moving forward, you know, again, we spent years as the construction of our winery was occurring to sort of consider the launch of the brand and what it would mean. I think like our brand is actually quite Asian American. I don't, you know, I think that there were other brands that launched in Napa around the same time as us in around 2010 2012. And they, you know, like Yao Ming the basketball player had his had a really big wine launch and you can look at the, the visuals of that and it is very Chinese Chinese characters, a lot of the color red gold, those types of things so we consciously thought it was not to have sort of a Chinese or Asian look. I think that the brand appeals to anyone whether you have an Asian descent or not and I think that's, again, it wasn't as conscious I think in terms of it wasn't about aesthetic. It was really about a narrative and our personal experiences and our story and then how to translate that into the experience for the customer. And I think this is on the customer right. And I think that's allowed us to weather, you know, the Chinese consumers sort of falling off the market no longer interested in wine and the way they were. And, you know, the brand can evolve over time right it has it's independent of us. And I think that was something that probably is the most successful piece of our brand story. You and, you know, all of your other family members that were involved where you guys always just like aligned in and in the entire process with whether disagreements like was there ever a conversation where someone was like, we shouldn't lean into our heritage or we should like, so curious. It was, you know, about 10 people around a table. I'm sure our design team hated us because we none of us could agree. But you know I think out of that conflict arose, it was a creative process and I think that's something everyone here on this zoom today can really appreciate that's that's the journey piece that makes create something great it's it's a collaborative process with a lot of disagreement, and a lot of respect for each person's individual expertise. And I think that, you know, the design education is one in which we learn how to sort of research and and expand out and then take all of that information and turn it into something right and communicate something to other people. And I think that my having an architectural educational experience really helped bring bring that process forward. So, you know, I very much am grateful for that and, in fact, that the of the nine final logo designs presented by Landor, the one we ended on was the last choice at our first meeting, it was number nine, and we just went back and looked at it and like kept working on it and ended up with this and so it you know again it's it's a design project. I can I can relate to that. Just on the other side. Hey, maybe there's something that you weren't liking that first round that maybe like now we're gonna just we're just going to bring it back it was like left on the chopping block but maybe. You know, I, I was just thinking about. You had previously mentioned just like, I guess, if you had, how do you use your voice as like a platform platform for conversation like how do you, you've talked a little bit about the different mediums and what your illustration show up. And so I just like how do you start that conversation is it just about having or creating something that is provoking would love to know a little bit about your process and how you how you come to that final product and that illustration design. So a lot of my work is like reactionary to like a current event. So that's the beauty of illustration is like I can put out a drawing and like half an hour. Actually, my best drawings are my most my most well received drawings that take the least amount of time. And it really is because like you don't think you just put stuff out there and the simpler it is the easier it is for other people to digest and and relate to. So, you know, I beyond just putting like my own at work out there like Instagram or like on my website. I have started working with other groups. And, you know, the timeline might be a little bit longer than say like a day or two, but there's still like an overall issue that's happening. So for example, this project I'm doing right now in Chinatown is all about putting these like motivational messages out there, but using English Chinese characters and a pictogram to kind of bring together, you know, three different types of communities that read, you know, different things. So, especially this past year where there's been so much anti Asian sentiment. But I saw I saw a question about like my heritage being a part of it. And I've noticed that I'm not one of the artists who like only draws like Indian American issues. And it's kind of hard for me to kind of relate to like the stereotypical Indian American experience because I don't have a typical experience like I am a brown man from Council Bluffs, Iowa. I'm a black queer and has a Indian first dam in Hispanic last name like nothing makes sense. So, you know, like, it's hard for like my work just to be so focused on one thing. So the nice that so with little icon, it's this diversity of issues and topics that I do. It allows for variability in my work. And I think that's something that's important if you want to work in more than one type of field. So being able to work on things like creating stickers for people versus creating like a building mural, you know, it's a very, you have to be able to adapt to what the client or what your users how they want to portray your work. Yeah, totally. I think it's, it's always tricky. And I think that's probably like one of the most difficult part of your jobs is like how do you please a client. How do you also make sure like your point of view is coming through and like your voice and then how do you also like make sure that it's, you know, it's something that whatever whoever the consumers are whoever your audiences is something that they can relate to or at least understand. Well, so to add to that, you know, as architects, we all have this experience where we all have like pretty good taste, and then we have to deal with our client who usually doesn't. And, you know, you have to make concessions, you know, just to make them happy and move the project along. And, you know, what I for historic on what I envisioned at the very beginning is not what the product looks like at all. That's because I listened to our potential customers. And they gave us feedback that I didn't consider before. But in the end, I think it's actually a better product. You know, I'm not the one who's going to be benefiting it from it. I am but, you know, like little kids, I need to understand how little kid thinks so. I think even just talking about all the different, you know, voices that you're listening to and incorporating the so is the I you, I think deal with so many different aspects in your business like there's a wholesale part of your business you also offer interior design services would just love how you kind of juggle all of those different aspects of the business and maybe like what you enjoy the most. I think the interior design services that you're providing could, you can probably relate to Rajiv and in a lot of ways of like what do you give the client versus you know and like who like the voices that you're listening to. Right. So, yeah, that that has in a way been a been a challenge but also something that I'm coming to terms with and then I think that I think my audience and my clients are in full appreciation and awareness of is that my brand is unapologetically a reflection of my own taste. It's a reflection of my personal taste, and it's an extension of that it's an extension of my childhood home, my current home my apartment in Brooklyn my home in Uganda, the places I've traveled. And that comes through that comes through very clearly in, you know, the product descriptions on my e commerce website in, you know, the landing and kind of info page the about page on my interior design component my interior design area my Instagram is very personal in terms of the stories that you know that disappear in 24 hours. I try to keep the timeline like very on brand. But you know sometimes in the stories is where I share a lot of like you've gotten in history or what's happening in Africa what's happening in Brooklyn, what's happening in my house different projects that I'm working on which you've also. I spoke to earlier before we got on the on the call together but I think it goes back to the authenticity and like if you truly believe what you know believe in what you are doing and who you are what your brand is about, then others will believe it too. They'll buy into it. And so for me I just I have to remind myself that that's what makes my brand unique that is why people are coming to me if that is why they're buying my brand that is why they want, you know me to design their home because there's something different and unique that I'm doing that I can bring that somebody else that they can't get anywhere else. And so that's really the most unique thing about the brand is that it's a reflection of me and my very unique story there's nobody else with with my exact story or my exact journey so you know really the brand is a translation of that in the kind of home decor and interior form. There we go. I completely agree. I think, you know, even because I am on the agency side I think there's a lot a lot of times where I'm faced with, you know, client being pretty like didactic about what they want and how they want it to come to life and you know those conversations. I'm having like every day of, yeah, hey, like why did you why did you hire us why did you come to us if this if you know this is what you want but this is not really, you know, our voice or really like our values either so couldn't couldn't agree more. I also just wanted to touch a little bit I think we touched on this a little bit in the beginning just kind of like mission and mission driven purpose driven brands but you know there's also been this term of like, you know, being a disruptive brand right and being a challenger brand and I also think that in a lot of ways, the meaning of that of those words have been stretched a little bit too but I think in a good way in a more inclusive way I think it's it's also brought in a lot of, you know, like smaller businesses emerging brands and so I, I see you guys as as being disruptive in your own respective rights and so would love to hear a little bit about whether you consider yourself to be a disruptive brand or a challenger brand and you know kind of in the ways that you're you're doing that. Oops, Amy, love to hear from you. I mean I think something really helpful that came out of last year's Black Lives Matter protests and just sort of all of the graphics that were created on social media. I'm, I really apologize I forget the woman's name, who sort of wrote about and then people were making graphics for sort of this idea that when it comes to dismantling systemic racism. There are many lanes, right and we sort of have to know what your skill set is, and you can be in your lane you don't have to be all of these different pieces. I think when we hear about brand design or people who start their own business it's sort of that larger than life entrepreneurial, you know, very engaging extroverted person. Well I mean I don't, I think there are a lot of other options and so I wouldn't ever think of our brand as sort of being overtly disruptive, but you know Chelsea your question got me thinking about what what does that mean for for our business and you don't sort of broadcast in a public way, how we're doing things differently and I think, you know one good example, and I'm definitely not going to claim that we can, you know, make progress solely on climate change for example. But you know we have we're a cult wine brand it's it's a very high price point, and what's typically done you know in terms of packaging is to ship three bottles of wine that's very thick heavy glass, you know with all sorts of materials extra materials in a box that's wrapped in a Styrofoam shipper and literally it's received by the consumer and you know all of that's discarded immediately. So we just decided well we're not going to do that. You know this is people spending up, you know, thousands of dollars on wine, and we said we're going to design cardboard and it should look good enough to remain in someone's collection, but also can be recycled. And so you know that's not something we sort of publicly broadcast but we just, we had a hunch about it we came out with a $250 bottle of wine, which was very high for a launch and but we put it in cardboard, and it was just different like the way we designed the inserts. So the way we, you know it came in it's sort of its own shipper. So again we cut down on waste no Styrofoam. You know the consumer loved it. So again I think there's ways to think, you know that is to me that's a disruption and we've talked about moving into 2022 that we're actually eliminating the box because it's still too much waste so we're going to go down to like a full shipper, because we feel that, which is, which literally can, you know, go in the tub and disintegrate. So you know we think feel strongly that after 10 years of building the brand and what we're about. You can change all of these what's perceived as luxury items that people are paying for people are paying for the experience, right, about how they feel connected to the brand. So, you know we're trying to do these types of things. Which is it is it's very much about environment that stuff happens in the vineyard stuff happens in our packaging. We try to reduce waste all the time but you know that's sort of behind the scenes. If a customer asked like how come it doesn't come in a wood box, we'll talk about it. So I think it's it's it's it that's our lane, so to speak. That's really interesting. I, you know, for a time where everyone wants to scream about, you know, all of the sustainability initiatives that they might be doing I really do love that approach of like kind of going the other way and not acknowledging at all but doing it, you know. So, do you do you have anything to add to that. I'll quickly add we know we're going to jump over to right even in the Q&A soon but I'm in term I'll focus this area, this question on my charitable work that I do with the orphanage school in Uganda. And because my businesses, it's for profit but it has the social impacts mission still at its core. One of the takeaways that I got in working at a multi million billion dollar philanthropy for many years is just that there's a lot of efficiency in efficiency in philanthropy and in giving and in charity. There's a lot of you know there's a lot of red tape and a lot of bureaucracy there are a lot of departments lots of papers, and I was in the president's office and grant and strategy review. So I got to see all of that and it was a very insightful and a really great learning experience for me because when I decided that I wanted to somehow incorporate giving into my very very small business. I knew that it really would be a different thing and be disruptive for me to establish direct relationships with the organizations and with the people that I wanted to be partnering with. So that's exactly what I did I found, I went around Kampala and spoke with different family members about organization there and ended up connecting with an orphanage school that's in my village in Uganda, just on the other side of the valley and like having a meeting with the executive director at his desk and he handed me a list of different priorities of projects that they wanted and needed to tackle on their campus and we went from there. And whenever I needed to kind of check in to see how the work and the progress is going. I can text message him on WhatsApp we were text messaging even the other day we've been partners since 2014. Or I can send a family member over there, you know it's a quick walk from my house so I can send anybody over there to check in on them, especially during COVID it's been, you know really essential to have that direct line of communication and then also a much more primary way of handling business that doesn't that does not fit into the American paradigm it's a very, you know much more traditional way of handling business because we know each other's families and they ask, you know how's your son doing how's your mom doing how's your dad doing and there's this whole piece that you don't so much experience on this side of the business but in Uganda we do things a little bit differently. It's disruptive in that sense but I just really strive to have a direct connection to, you know the quote unquote charity, which we also don't consider it charity and you've done in culture it's actually just what you do. It's what you do. So, in that sense, again, it's not something I set out to necessarily do or be called disruptive but I'm looking at it through the lens of you know how we kind of normally operate here, yes, I would say so. Yeah, I mean it's almost like it's just like part of your DNA and then like part of your brand DNA and in a lot of ways like, you know, like tangentially similar to like Amy and you know nine sons being like we're just going to do this and it's going to be part of our DNA and we're not going to scream about it. Very, like, very interesting. Um, Rajiv, did you have something to add as well. Yeah, um, as a, I wouldn't say like we're disrupting like the toys and games industry completely but I feel like we're adding, we're adding to it. We're bringing a perspective that hasn't been shown. There are stories that you don't see in kids products from the education side and design side, you know, you don't see like good design that often. So, you know, that's a challenge for me but also providing something that, you know, a kid would be interested in playing with and dealing with. You know, another goal of ours is to be the first toys and games company that is be core certified. So sustainability is a priority of ours and it's actually presenting a lot of challenges right now. I could easily make our magnetic puzzle in China, but that defeats the purpose of a sustainable source product. So, you know, it's forcing us to be really creative in hacking a product and putting something out there that, you know, we can prove over time is sustainable. And those are the type of things that we're trying to disrupt because I do a lot of Googling I source where all these other people like produce their work and it's all coming from China so I know exactly how big the carbon footprint is. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. I like, I'm so curious, do you, did you also have to do like separate research on just like children's toys and like how they are like, how easy or hard do you make it for, you know, certain ages and stuff it's it's like. Yeah, definitely. Well, right right now we're we're testing our product with our audience. And so we've gotten a ton of great feedback. You know, we're saying like the positive 30 piece puzzle right now. And you know, parents are saying well my older kid would like to do this but you know they need like a 200 piece puzzle so you know we wouldn't do a magnetic one for them we do a traditional jigsaw one so these are all things that we're learning but you know kind of like what Amy and the associate said like we have to start small and then we can add to you know our brand as time goes on. I think the worst thing to do is try to start with like the whole package at the beginning. People want to be, they want to feel like they're helping build the brand and, and you can't build it without their input. So, we have to meet my partner we've had all these different ideas and we've had to keep reeling ourselves back in and like focus on one thing and then over time we'll add something new to the to the overall package. Thank you. I agree wholeheartedly on focusing on on that one thing and then like kind of having to build on top of that I feel like I'm always having to remind my clients like hey let's focus on this one thing like we can't, we can't build out all of your sub logos until we have this logo for your master brand and so kind of similar same same but different. I know that we are almost out of time and we want to open up for for Q&A so I can just pass the mic back over to Leslie. I don't know if you've been getting any questions in the chat. Not yet but will we give people a chance to digest this conversation so far I just want to thank each of you this has been incredible for me to hear about your stories and the way that you approached your, your businesses and how personal it is it's I definitely got goosebumps sometimes and I am so envious of the way that you have each chosen to spend and invest your time and energy and so thank you so much for for sharing. I'm going to start with one question, give the panelists a little bit of a break and ask Chelsea one just from a macro level. As a brand management head of brand management at an agency, are you are you sort of having questions from your clients that are a little different now like in the past year are you seeing some more emphasis on certain priorities that weren't around maybe two years ago, and then other people if you're ready for a question just raise your hand turn on your mic or whatever you're comfortable with. Yeah, I think there's a few parts to that. I think when the pandemic hit, like big advertising agencies got hit really really hard. And there are a lot of layoffs and I think there was just kind of a reckoning within the advertising industry of like these big companies being really really bloated. And so lots, there were just lots of layoffs and of course like the first thing to get cut in any, you know, recession financial crisis any sort of pandemic is the marketing budget so a lot of big advertising marketing budgets were getting cut, you weren't able to go on productions and produce campaigns so those budgets were getting cut. But funny enough, I being in like the branding and design side of things now. There were a lot of startups that were forming during the pandemic as people were, you know, kind of being laid off or being furloughed people also that took it as an opportunity to kind of explore what, you know, another venture might be and so I kind of found that that was just like more of a trend that I found interesting and, you know, our agency was like we were bracing ourselves we're not, you know, not have been able to get any new business and then, and then it was quite the quite the opposite I think just in terms of what companies are are looking for what clients are looking for. I would say that a lot of companies are mandating a diverse team, having like the just in terms of like your age background ethnicity, like all of that is that that's actually become a request from clients and I find that I mean I think it's a good shift but I also thought it was a little. I thought it was interesting I to be honest with you like I don't know of very many agencies or studios that are able to fulfill on that, especially in my field, I think there is a, you know, like the agency that I'm at is probably one of the most diverse and we're only 2530 people, and I would say that like we are very, very diverse and it's also probably because it is, you know, minority owned and female lead. I wouldn't I can't say that for the previous agency that I was at so I found that to be an interesting request and then obviously just there's been a lot of health and wellness brands that have been emerging and coming. It's not my favorite to work on these days just because everyone seems to be diluting what health and wellness really means and everyone wants to just talk about wellness is like, it's a journey. You know, no matter what where you are we'll meet you on your journey and so it's just. It's, it's, I feel like it's getting a little played out and I don't know how how to spin it anymore. So, hope that answers your question. That that was that was great. Samina did you have a question or are you just. Did you have a question. I have another one. So, um, I know I just wanted to thank everybody I mean I this is really fascinating for me and I was Amy's classmate so it was nice to see her so high. And, you know, I guess for me, it's funny, my journey is very funny because I used to be started my career in 1999 as a computer and Java programmer and so it was at the beginning of all this. You know, I remember when my friend already married it was talking about mobile was the next big thing and here we are, you know, lots of people don't have computers anymore. I, as I have, you know, grown and I'm now, you know, an architect and I have left a very technical field, as well as façade consulting and I started my own firm a couple of years ago and it's been a long time for me to build to the point where I'm actually taking clients and doing trying to do my own projects. And at this point where I have to go into the social media realm, and I've just found myself like so resistant to making my person, my personal life, part of my brand. It seems so like necessary to show that authenticity all the time. And I really struggle with it because I just, I just feel very resistant to having to like, you know, be very loud about my authenticity. You know what I mean, it just, it just very much feels very disingenuous so I just like I struggle with it a lot. And at the point where like other people are going to be, you know, sharing pictures of me and I'm just like, Oh, God, okay. I don't know. I mean, it's there's, I feel like on the one hand there's nothing to hide and on the other hand it's just like I just want to solve problems and sort of be in the background and so be being sort of an introvert in that respect, the whole like necessity of in being a small business and having to make yourself part of your, the brand is, I find it extremely stressful. And maybe somebody could talk to that. I don't know, but maybe I can give a piece of advice that a good friend of mine who's also a GSAP grad gave me and she has a very successful company was, you know, things like social media. If you're not making money from that, don't invest your time like everything should be proportional. So like, if you're going to be like selling your services, and you're getting your clients through Instagram like primarily yeah then put a lot of time and effort into that. But if you're not like, don't worry about it like do do what works for you. And I think people will definitely like respond to that. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's interesting because I have a social. I mean I have an impact mission as well I've started to do a lot of accessibility work in my own town. My husband has MS and uses wheelchair and so I've lived this life since I was 23 years old, life of disability so last year was the 30th anniversary the ADA and you know, we're living around, you know, all these buildings that have no accessibility and it's nothing's changing and everything everybody thinks that things are grandfathered in. So I started this whole campaign in my like local area to raise awareness about what actually the laws are and what everybody is obligated about and I run, you know, camp, you know, I've run forums, but I find that because I'm not public enough on social media, you know, it's like, I feel like there's a need to be able to have a little bit more visibility in that it's funny because there's, you know, the whole disability visibility thing is a thing. And so I struggle with it because it's like, then that's now bringing not only myself as the designer that I am in the interest that I have, but also my family into it which is extremely stressful. You know, because every but all of us I think are extremely, maybe my 11 year old wants to be, you know, on Instagram but like certainly my husband and I have no interest. So, but we have reluctantly, you know, had stories written about us in the paper now twice. And so it's just, I find it a big struggle. It's a big struggle for me because it's my personality is just not that and I just wonder about that because it just seems like, especially in a visual field, like, you don't only have to make your work personal, I mean, you're not only have to put your work out there, but you have to put yourself out there as like the person behind it. Like there's all the glam shots of like the designer on the Instagram page. I don't even really want to put myself. My kitchen background to design that I did so. Anyway, thank you. I really appreciate this this has been a really interesting conversation. But when I chime in on that for a second because that's, I mean that's something that I continue to struggle with and I think, initially, even when I started the company and it was a longer version, there was another name it was origin style Nosey and it has since kind of been truncated down to XM Studio, which is an abbreviated version for by Nosey Studio, but at some point probably about five years ago I was like I don't want my personal identity to be, you know, related to this affiliated with this at all like I felt the pressure. And there was that was even before like influencing with, you know, such a thing. And my son used to be a lot more on my social media. But now he's 12 and he has stated very clearly like he doesn't want to be in my pictures. He was also part of my, my business journey and my business story because he was at my markets and events with me so somebody took a picture of me and my booth chances are he was right there next to me. So it's a kind of gray area but as time has kind of gone along I am honoring you know my feelings and my my comfort zone, and then also perceiving and taking note of how I react to what other brands and people are sharing on Instagram today. A woman who I've watched her journey from before even there was Instagram and she had a blog, etc. Now she's a mother of two twins and she's on holiday like with her entire family and she's like video taping and sharing every what feels like every minute of the holiday and I'm just like kind of cringing I'm looking because it's really beautiful but I'm also, I'm also cringing because I'm like well what's I mean it was like her child's first time, you know, going back to this particular place where her family comes from, and it just felt like such an intimate and sacred moment that I didn't want it to be shared with like her hundreds of thousands of followers. So I just know that that's something you know from myself that I'm not going to partake in so you know see how you feel as a as a consumer of social media and what you know what kind of your visceral reactions are two things that things that you see. That might help a little bit but it's still something ongoing, because we do have to be a little bit in the front of it. Thank you. Thank you Samina for bringing up that important aspect of how to manage your brand online. We have no minutes left but Amy perhaps you can touch upon a question from the chat about from from Ali Ahmed, who is planning to to launch a company. Are you needing a bottle design and asking about your process. And then I think that that's going to have to be the last question. That's okay you know I already reached out and so we can connect offline. It's great. So no problem. Great. Can I say one thing. I think Samina, how you just spoke about the work that you're doing and your family, and you know sort of your comfort level so eloquently and with such like honor to your own authentic brand. I mean you're doing it right now. So you don't need Instagram I think it's like literally just you, you are the face you just spoke, you know you gave us a complete picture of what you're doing what you're up to and the wonderful work you're doing and how it impacts different communities I think, you know, Instagram is its own social media is its own thing and you know you are you are you are an online branch. Thanks Amy, I appreciate that. Chelsea did you have any closing remarks or I mean, I mean, I think Amy you said it beautifully. Like, I don't I, you know, in terms of online presence I think there's so many different avenues you can go down and it doesn't have to be necessarily posting you know about your, your life, or, you know, doesn't have to be your face your family, it could come out just in like your tone or whatever you feel like your values your your person like whatever the personality that you want, like, you want to put out there that is your brand. I think there are many other ways to do that without having to share like personal personal aspects of of your life and it can be through like graphics through other imagery and so that's that would that would be my base. And I just wanted to say thank you to everyone. So so so appreciate your time I've I've really enjoyed learning about you and I hope that we can work together someday. I hope to visit your vineyard someday I hope to work with you Rajiv on on an illustration or, you know, when a client comes through like I like, you know, I'll think of you and the so Z. I'm definitely going to reach out to you for design services and yeah please don't judge my, my taste. But thank you all so much and of course Leslie thank you for for organizing and setting this up. All right, this was amazing thank you guys. Thank you all so much to have been able to bring you guys together for this. Thank you and I'll be in touch soon too. Thank you everyone. Bye.