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Rewriting the Playbook: The Fusion of PR and Venture Capital with the Founder & CEO of Spool
96 Plays1 year ago
Update: I recently launched my newsletter, The Sheconomist, and would love for you to subscribe: sheconomist.com - I share so many tools and resources that help young, high-achieving women with radical money and career self-advocacy.
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Join us for an insightful conversation with Catherine Merritt, Founder & CEO of Spool Marketing and Spool Ventures. Catherine's distinguished career in PR and marketing saw her collaborating with influential brands like Mike's Hard Lemonade and White Claw. However, her true impact lies in her audacious move to address the shortcomings of the traditional agency model. In 2018, she founded Spool Marketing and Communications, an award-winning agency that thrives on partnership and innovation, consistently delivering extraordinary results while pushing the boundaries of convention.
Spool was named the fastest-growing agency globally by PRovoke Media in 2021. In August 2022, Spool was listed as the 940 overall fastest-growing private company in the country, positioning it within the top 20% of the overall Inc. 5000 list
Catherine is known for her unyielding commitment to empowering underrepresented communities and reshaping the workforce into a more inclusive space. With the launch of Spool Ventures, an investment arm, and Spindle, a marketing services provider for startups led by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ founders, Catherine's work challenges biases and actively fosters diversity and innovation in the venture capital landscape. Her encounters with venture capitalists who questioned her potential only fueled her determination to rectify the imbalances in the venture capital space.
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Transcript
Keeping Women in the Workforce
00:00:00
Speaker
One of the things that I've been the most committed about in my career is really thinking through, especially as a woman, as a mother, how to keep more women in the workforce, how to keep mothers in the workforce, how to reimagine a workforce in which that is the case, in which there is more and better representation.
00:00:21
Speaker
I'm Tamina and I'm extending a heartfelt invitation to you as we join forces in reclaiming economic power for women in a world that is often structured against us. We'll dive into the minds of accomplished female leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to equip you with the confidence and knowledge to build wealth for yourself and other women. So buckle up, get ready to learn and be inspired to take action.
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone.
Spool Marketing & Ventures
00:00:50
Speaker
Today, I have a guest that I've been wanting to talk to one on one for almost an entire year at this point. So I'm so excited that we finally had the opportunity to get together virtually. I'm talking about the one and only Catherine Merritt.
00:01:07
Speaker
Katherine is a passionate entrepreneur, inspirational leader, and industry visionary. She aspires to elevate those around her and applies her expertise and business acumen to drive cause-related social imp. A Chicago PR veteran, Katherine spent much of her career at top marketing and creative agencies, working with major food and CPG brands, including Mike's Hard Lemonade and White Claw, for example.
00:01:33
Speaker
As an executive, she realized that the old agency model was broken. So in 2018, she launched Spool Marketing and Communications, touting a new way to work with clients and deliver better results through the spirit of partnership and innovation.
00:01:49
Speaker
Catherine also saw the opportunity for Spool to serve in greater capacities than a traditional agency by not only working within PR and marketing, but also creative and innovation as well. Spool creates both smart solutions for its clients, complex business problems, and also solutions for future entrepreneurs, always performing at the highest standard.
00:02:09
Speaker
And this is where it gets juicy. In 2022, Spool announced its visionary new investment arm, Spool Ventures, as well as Spindle, which offers marketing services to startups with female BIPOC and LGBTQ plus founders.
00:02:27
Speaker
And I am so excited to learn more about all of that today. Welcome, Catherine. It's so great to have you. Thank you. It's so wonderful to be here. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. Amazing. Well, let's dive in. We have so much to talk about today. But before we dive into the specific questions around your work,
00:02:48
Speaker
I always like to start out with the same question for all of my guests and I switch it up each season. And as you know, at this point, Catherine, this is all about helping women build wealth for themselves and other women as well. Because I always like to say that a wealthy woman can walk out of almost every room she feels uncomfortable in and create opportunities for other women along the way. And that's simply because financial independence equates freedom at the end of the day. That's what it's all about.
00:03:14
Speaker
creating freedom for yourself or your loved ones and also hopefully an opportunity to pay it forward to future generations,
Responsibility and Privilege
00:03:21
Speaker
right? Catherine, what does women supporting women mean to you and how does that show up in your life? I would say this is something that I am the product of a woman. My mother was just a wonderful, incredible force of nature. She
00:03:37
Speaker
unfortunately passed away in 2020. But the role modeling that she set for me and my two sisters was to use your privilege to lift others who are without. And as women, as leaders, as executives, how to pay that forward, how to pay forward the things that were hard that we've endured throughout our
00:03:59
Speaker
career and center or lives and how to reimagine and harness that so that it's a little bit easier and better for others. And so one of the things that I've been the most committed about in my career is really thinking through, especially as a woman, as a mother,
00:04:14
Speaker
how to keep more women in the workforce, how to keep mothers in the workforce, how to reimagine a workforce in which that is the case in which there is more and better representation from all sorts of diverse backgrounds and otherwise, and how to make sure that we're not harboring the mistreatments that we experienced, but we're really kind of breaking those down and making sure that we're creating a pathway for better for everyone else.
00:04:42
Speaker
So very well put, I think what you said initially about being inspired by family members. I've had a lot of guests come on the show talking about how they've been really inspired and empowered by their sisters and their mothers. In my case, it was also.
00:04:59
Speaker
my grandmother who was the breadwinner in our family and my late grandpa was actually the one who stayed behind so i think it's always wonderful when you have these. Strong female role models in your life that kind of show you hate there is a reason why we're fighting so hard and that is because we want.
00:05:17
Speaker
lives to be easier for the next generations of women. It's wonderful. And then what you also said about having a high level of awareness around your own privilege and how you extend your own privilege to others. While you were talking, like an image very vividly came back to mind, which was from a protest, I believe it was in DC, close to the White House during the pandemic surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement, where
00:05:47
Speaker
this photographer captured this shot of a white woman jumping over a fence and running in front of a black man. Security police were approaching. Being very well aware of her privilege in that moment obviously was incredibly brave, but knowing like, hey, black men's life could potentially be on the line. They're probably not going to shoot a white woman, right? And so
00:06:13
Speaker
I think it's so important for privileged folks to take a step back and really reflect, okay, what is the privilege that I have and how can I leverage my privilege in order to help members of underserved communities, especially in the United States. I mean, this has just been.
00:06:28
Speaker
You know, a topic for many, many, many years now. Thank you for sharing. We just heard it in the intro,
Challenges in Venture Capital
00:06:35
Speaker
Catherine. You are a PR and marketing veteran. And while obviously both take still up a good chunk of your professional life, especially as an agency owner, in recent years, you've been getting more and more involved with the world of venture capital, which is super exciting. So.
00:06:50
Speaker
Just curious to learn how that happened. Was there a specific moment or a person you met that got you super excited about becoming an investor? It actually goes back to teen. At that point, I had my second son, I've got two boys, Teddy and Archie. When I had my youngest guy, I came up with all of these ideas and innovations. One was to have this insert into purses, turn them into diaper bags because I like nice purses and I really hated
00:07:20
Speaker
crappy diaper bags that were out there, the baby's iruss or wherever. And so it was sort of my first awakening that in my experience, motherhood was very ripe with all of these ideas and these innovations. And from that idea, I did not get the diaper bag insert sort of off the ground. But what I did launch was a company called Mumsey, which was a crowdfunding platform intended to help moms specifically with resources, access to capital community.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's a crowdfunding platform for moms to help them bring their ideas forward. And I maintain it. It's a really good idea. It was meant to address the inherent hurdles that mothers face with regards to time, access to capital, resources that are all preventatives in getting their ideas off the ground.
00:08:08
Speaker
When I got mumsy pretty far along from a completion standpoint, Boots yet while working full-time raising two kids with my husband, I was met with a lot of resistance when I met with investors. And I live in Chicago and there is a pretty vibrant venture capital scene and population here. And I did not meet with a single female investor. And every time I met with a male venture capitalist, it was met with, oh, you should go talk to my wife about that.
00:08:37
Speaker
I was thinking, are you kidding me? There's like a trillion dollar market, you know, the market opportunity. I'm telling you why this makes sense. I've worked and I worked on Chef Boyardee and I've worked on all these companies. I know this consumer. I'm living this consumer. There is massive, massive profitability opportunity. And yet.
00:08:53
Speaker
these venture capitalists could not get beyond their own unintended bias. And so, needless to say, that startup didn't take off. I'm so working. That wasn't my golden parachute, my big massive exit. It planted a seed, though.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I always joke that it was sort of the MBA that I never knew that I was going to go back for. And I'll just be totally transparent than I am an English major. I went to a liberal arts college, wish I had taken one business course, but alas, I did not yet. I can recite Irish literature and poetry at the top of my head.
00:09:25
Speaker
So I guess I got that going for me. Anyway, what that whole experience really kind of planted within me was the recognition that I went through a process and then all around me and seeing these other startup founders, these other guys having no problem raising investment. And I'm just like, what the hell? This feels like there's something pretty
00:09:45
Speaker
problematic. And I am a curious person. I am somebody who likes to kind of unravel things. My company and agency is called School because I love the idea of having yarn wrapped around something that you can kind of take in and build things with. But I also like the idea of kind of the unraveling, right? It's when you have that yarn on the sweater and you kind of pull it and kind of comes undone, but you get to see something else that kind of comes from that process.
00:10:09
Speaker
us too. All of which to say is I started to really lean into and read and understand that there is just a massive discrepancy within the venture capital space. For example, investors don't ask female founders the same questions as men. That's a massive problem. So they're not looking at it through a lens of equity or through a lens of why that matters or why an idea might be valid, even if it doesn't resonate for them. I came to realize that
00:10:33
Speaker
that my experience in trying to raise investment was not dissimilar from other women's female founders' experiences that only 2% of capital from RBC goes to female-founded companies. In the same token, only 3.2% goes to Black or Latinx-founded companies funded by Black and Latinx folks. Realizing how imbalanced it is and then
00:10:56
Speaker
On the other side of that, I go back to my experience of I didn't meet with a single woman. I didn't see any kind of representation when I was meeting with these investors. And that's also because there's a real lacking of that. Of all DC partners, less than 5% are women.
00:11:12
Speaker
You know, again, I'm an English major who recites Willie Butler Gates and James Joyce. I didn't know what the hell I was doing kind of fighting my way in, but what I did know is that it is inequitable. And it's also creating a deficit. I mean, the amount of money I think in the U.S. is missing out on four and a half trillion dollars in the annual GDP by not investing efficiently in women. And so we can slice it and dice in a million different ways. But at the end of the day, it's broken and
00:11:41
Speaker
I'm somebody who wants to kind of take things and run and change things. And so my intention and my hope was to learn more about this, to be able to build an opportunity that I could make investment and to bring more people with me. Because I think unless we have representation from an investor standpoint,
00:12:01
Speaker
we will not see a shift in that 2% or that 3.2% of capital that's being deployed to female and underrepresented founders. And when you look at the impact that ZSC companies have on our economy, on the GDP, on massive levels, it is massive. In Q1, almost 30% of job growth came from companies that are within the ZSC backed range. So this carries and ripples so far and so wide, let alone from an innovation standpoint.
00:12:29
Speaker
let alone from getting a more diverse set of ideas out there into the world. So for me, the higher purpose was the driver. I am tired from doing so many things all the time. But for me, it feels like there is such a bigger opportunity and a bigger purpose to see a bigger change. And that is what keeps me going in this. And it truly is less about the wealth standpoint. We invested
00:12:56
Speaker
So at Spool Ventures, we invested into four different funds. We're not raising, but we're investing as a limited partner entity. I share that with my people. So Spool has 24 employees right now, and everyone at Spool is an owner in the agency and has equity in the venture arm. So this is really for me
00:13:16
Speaker
less about sort of the immediate direct financial impact it has on me and how to have an agency full of investors were a predominantly female run and populated company. So to me, it feels very empowering to know that I have empowered every employee at school, the majority of which were women to put on that investor mindset.
00:13:38
Speaker
I love all of that and I could literally sit here and listen to you talk about this for hours. And I had a little bit of a deja vu as you were speaking because it kind of like brought me back to last summer for all the folks out there, the listeners. Catherine hosted a fabulous virtual event titled Investing in BCs for Non-BCs.
00:14:00
Speaker
I don't even remember how I came across this event. It just like popped up on my phone at some point. I was like, oh, this is exactly the kind of stuff I'm interested in. Let me sign up. And I still very vividly remembered that day because I was sitting at a tiny little coffee shop only at like three or four tables.
00:14:16
Speaker
in Queens in New York City where I'm based with my best friend and dialed into the meeting, did not really know what to expect whatsoever, but then you totally just delivered and I could tell how passionate you are about creating more equity within the VC space and you completely brought up that memory again as you were speaking. I just love how deeply convicted you are in this because to your point, women founders or women with ideas, women who are trying to raise capital,
00:14:46
Speaker
they're being treated differently. I remember watching a TED talk a couple of months ago that was given by a professor who had done a study on the differences. Male and female founders are being questioned by VCs, including female VCs, by the way, which obviously are not too many out there to begin with, at least not on the decision making level. But it's so interesting because what she found was that
00:15:12
Speaker
When founders do their pitches and VCs then usually have like follow-up question, like trying to learn more. And the vast majority of the questions that were posed to male founders were always framed in a very futuristic, profit-driven, success-driven way versus the questions that were posed to female founders were all focused or framed in a more negative, protective, risk aversion
00:15:39
Speaker
level way. And obviously when you spend so much time defending your idea and defending the reasoning behind why you need capital in the first place, you don't have that much time or energy to sell VCs on your big dreams and your ideas and the potential. So I found that was really interesting. And then something else that you were mentioning is we're really, we're just touching the
00:16:03
Speaker
surface of what's possible in terms of innovation you're mentioning, we're missing out on $4.5 of annual GDP by not effectively investing in female and diverse founders. That is absolutely crazy and it prevents our society from having access to products and ideas that could really benefit society as a whole and create a
00:16:28
Speaker
positive, sustainable, and really meaningful change in our societies. Well, if I can just build on that for a second, because yes, there is massive inequity. There's massive gender, racial, socioeconomic, cultural, religious inequity of who receives the access to this.
00:16:45
Speaker
So it is what is right from a purpose and an impact standpoint. But also, we know that female investors are twice as likely as men to invest in a company with at least one female or woman founder. And those companies typically hire two and a half times as many women. So we know that the ripple effect of investing in these underrepresented founders is massive. We also know that female founders out their male counterpart peers by 63%.
00:17:14
Speaker
So to me, it is also just maddening because not only are people is the system built on not doing what's right from an impact standpoint, but it is massively inefficient from profitability and a gross and a success rate standpoint. And we know that VC is risky. That is why in any given fund, you are hoping that, you know, there's one that there's two, it's a very small percentage of companies that are going to go on to return and deliver that return on investment.
00:17:42
Speaker
So to me, it also just seems wildly irresponsible in addition to being ethically wrong to not invest in underrepresented founders. Very, very, very good point. To take a step back, Catherine, most of our audience members are
00:17:57
Speaker
women in their mid-20s to early 30s. And they're kind of new to the world of VC and angel investing for the most part. So I'm trying to take them on this journey with me as I recently made my very first angel investment this past January, and I'm trying in the years and decades to come. But what they all have in common, they're very excited to just learn.
00:18:19
Speaker
And you were mentioning earlier that you are investing in private companies as a limited partner, and you're investing in foreign VC funds, correct? In foreign funds, exactly. So would you mind explaining to our audience members, again, many of whom are beginners, what it means to be an LP limited partner in a fund?
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So an LP is essentially an investor in a VC fund. And as startups are looking to raise investment for their own companies, funds are also made and the wealth and the capital that they have to deploy and to invest comes from other outside investors. And so there could be LPs that are coming in at
00:19:01
Speaker
massive seven figures amounts down to much lower amounts. Traditionally, funds will have a pretty high barrier and entry point. So typically it's about $2,000. It's the minimum amount to invest in an LP. We did not invest in kind of $50,000. We're a little small potato, but.
00:19:19
Speaker
There are other ways. That is a big barrier, of course. That is in addition to when we think about why there is not representation and why there's not more diversity from an investor's standpoint, it's also constructed. It is very cost prohibitive. It's very exclusive. People have discretionary wealth and that is sort of usually what they are using when they are making those investments.
00:19:41
Speaker
There are other vehicles and opportunities for people to get involved. And so what I would say to your listeners is to learn, to ask questions, to not feel intimidated. I have gotten to a point where in my life, I'm 42 years old. I will be the first one to ask the dumbest question in the room or the most basic question, but if I don't know, I just
Educating Women in VC
00:20:01
Speaker
want to know. And I'm not going to withhold that. And I think that is sort of how I was able to chip away and to kind of earn my way into the VC world very much is like a non-traditional VC sort of, you know,
00:20:11
Speaker
participant and to learn, listen to podcasts like yours. There's so many great resources and articles, but there's also opportunities. There's a fund called Portfolio and we are an investor in Portfolio. And I'm just going to talk a little bit about it because it's really powerful what they're doing and why I was so excited to be an investor in two of their funds.
00:20:33
Speaker
So their venture capital entity and the way that they are able to invest in companies are through smaller amounts, but with more people. So basically, they operate special project vehicles, SPVs, which are an opportunity where somebody can invest as part of a pool.
00:20:54
Speaker
portfolio is investing in a company or in a startup as sort of a united entity that's made up of a lot of other kind of investors and smaller investors. So they make it possible so that somebody can invest for I think as little as maybe $15,000. You'd have to double check and go onto their website. I know that for a fact.
00:21:16
Speaker
So that's significant. If you think about $250,000 as a traditional entrance for our limited partner versus being able to invest in a sort of collective such as Portfolio. And what's so special about Portfolio is they're really focused on getting women into the VC space by way of providing access opportunity.
00:21:36
Speaker
The more that women know and the more empowered and confident that women are, the more active and the more vocal they're able to be within the VC space. And then that is my hope that then by being more involved, more vocal, they're able to then have that place at the table when it comes down to deciding who is going to receive investment and who is not.
00:21:55
Speaker
And so Portfolio does an incredible job where every month they invite their investors and they have specific funds. So we're an investor in the Food and AgriTech Fund, as well as the Green and Sustainability Fund. And so each month, and this is for everyone that works at Spool, my marketing agency can sit in, can listen to the pitches from startups that are looking for investment, be active listeners, and to share questions and comments.
00:22:20
Speaker
to provide the fund managers who are running to show they're the ones that are going to be initiating the conversation. But they really make it a learning opportunity for people to have access to having a front row seat to what that whole process looks like. That's powerful. And so at Spool, we work with a lot of high growth companies. And I guarantee you that our clients love working with us because unlike just a traditional PR marketing agency,
00:22:45
Speaker
We have an entire team full of people that have this entrepreneurial and this investor mindset who understand what are clients, what are high-growth clients are going through, what the challenges that they're facing if clients are looking to raise investment. They also can think about questions, what does this client grade need when they're meeting with different investors? It also really has shifted the way that we think and do our work from a marketing standpoint, in addition to putting out that investor hat.
00:23:15
Speaker
Thank you so much for explaining all of that. I was going to ask you about special purpose vehicles. So you already answered the next question for me, which is fantastic. And just to reiterate these SPVs or entities like portfolio, they're really significantly lowering the barrier to entry for a lot of people out there. You mentioned for portfolio, the minimum investment is 15 grand, which to our audience that there is still like a lot of money on paper, right? But I wanted to.
00:23:44
Speaker
to point out that there's also other where the minimums are even lower. Like there's some out there where you can start with as little as $1,000. Then these days, there's also alternative investment platforms such as Republic, for example, where you can start out with $50. So technology, innovation, advocacy groups, they're really trying to
00:24:06
Speaker
shake up the industry to make the world of angel investing and venture capital a lot more accessible for underrepresented groups. And I think that is absolutely fantastic. And that's something, the reason why I invite people like yourselves and investor and entrepreneurs to this podcast is because I generally believe that if we get to advocate for themselves under nine to five job
00:24:31
Speaker
Negotiating your salary negotiating raises promotions and whatnot with the ultimate goal of being in a position where they can actually become angel investors or lps and funds much earlier in life so they can pay it forward earlier in life i don't have to wait until you know there may be in there like,
00:24:50
Speaker
50s or 60s, right? Creating awareness and providing educational resources in that context is so, so important. And you don't have to start out writing a 15 grand check. Like I said, start out with maybe 50, a hundred bucks, experiment a little bit, right? Especially when you're younger, you need to.
00:25:08
Speaker
be risk aware to a certain extent investing in an early stage company. It's a very high risk type of investment. And you should really look for diversifying your investments because the vast majority of companies will very likely fail. Right. So I think that's important too. I was just going to say that I think.
00:25:28
Speaker
If the mindset is especially early on that you're investing and you're looking to make a return on that investment from a financial standpoint, but you also view it as a learning opportunity. And so as you mentioned, some of these other platforms, what I would encourage your listeners to do is also make sure that they are providing
00:25:48
Speaker
resources, insights, maybe video recordings, things so that your listeners, if they're going to invest $50, $100, $1,000, but they are getting knowledge, they're building confidence, they're learning what kind of questions to ask. And I also just want to kind of clarify this because I think it's helpful and important to know that when we talk about angel investing, I've invested as an angel investor. I lead with my gut. No one will ever accuse me of being a perfectionist.
00:26:16
Speaker
And there is such a high risk. The reason that we have invested in venture capital funds is because there is such a tenacity from a due diligence standpoint. So even with the lens of impact and investing in underrepresented founders, they will go through extensive research, extensive due diligence. So if they meet with a thousand companies, they may only invest in a teen of them.
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm going to trust them to go through the funds that we've invested in. I know who they are. I spoke with them extensively. So I also feel confident that they are taking the right steps and precautions to be mindful, conservative, to make sure that our investment is that kind of squandered. When people
00:26:59
Speaker
do angel investing and people do it so successfully. Congratulations to you. That's amazing to have made that investment in January. I also think it's a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars into some of these other SPVs. Make sure that you're listening and that you're understanding what kind of questions investors are asking these startups that
00:27:18
Speaker
you are really using as a learning opportunity because if you can view it as that and not just solely from your 10x return or whatever it may be, then you haven't wasted your money. And then if you build that confidence, you build that understanding, you can then grow that and you can grow that in addition to your wealth by making future investments.
00:27:36
Speaker
martyr, asking really discerning questions, pushing and making sure that you have clarity. And it pushes the founders not to ask questions just to be kind of a bully to ask questions, but to make sure that these questions are really getting you as an investor in the information. But I think it's really important to have for a startup founder to have these questions come at them because they're focused on what they're focused on. And so it allows them to kind of pause and to make sure that they're considering all of these other considerations and layers too.
00:28:04
Speaker
Absolutely. By the way, none of this is actual financial advice. Yes, thank you. We're sharing is meant to be educational first and only for experiences in this space. Always do your own research and due diligence. That's important, but I still think it's also important to be able
00:28:25
Speaker
to be inspired by people like you, Catherine, because obviously you're a huge advocate for women and minorities in the space and there's so much we can learn from you. So thank you for being so insightful and just open with us today. Let's talk a little bit about spool ventures.
00:28:43
Speaker
because I did a little bit of research. I just realized that what you've done there is just so, so smart and unique in the agency world. I work with agencies in my day-to-day job and it sounds very different from the type of agency that you lead. Talked about the fact that we're missing out on up to 4.5 trillion of annual GDP by not effectively investing in women, right? So we know that investing in underrepresented and female founders in and of itself is already a great business case, right?
00:29:12
Speaker
So you could have really stopped there and be like, okay, done. This is great. But you didn't, as you're mentioning earlier as well. Everyone who works for your agency also has a stake, right? They are card boners. So you are providing your own employees with the opportunity to earn equity in Spool Ventures investments, which is a fantastic investment in company loyalty to begin with and retention.
00:29:37
Speaker
But then what you also do is take it a step further you then facilitate those relationships between your marketing clients. Which are off times well known brands and the portfolio companies you're invested in to create those additional economic opportunities that will then likely make both.
00:29:54
Speaker
your agency clients and the founders who support happy and more successful, which then in return will have a positive return on your own investments and your employee stake. So that's just genius because you've come up with this very virtuous, like how did you come up with that? What does that look like day to day?
Integrating Investment and Marketing
00:30:13
Speaker
Do you have any like anecdotes that you can share?
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, having worked and launched numerous brands, and that comes when I worked in the big agency world. I was working for the fifth largest global PR agency, part of Publicis, and we just approached the work head on. I launched White Cloud when White Cloud launched in 2016 and brought that to market. At that point, there was no hard filter. We created that category. It sort of occurred to me that
00:30:40
Speaker
there's a lot of money being left on the table from an agency standpoint that agencies don't actually sort of have skin in the game. I mean, we're billing clients for a time and for expertise, but if a client brand like White Claw becomes wildly successful, gosh, I wish I had, you know, 0.008% of equity in that kind of a brand because, you know, that would have paid way more than all the hours that I was billing them.
00:31:05
Speaker
And so for me, it kind of goes back to that where I realized there is an opportunity. So before Spool that just launched, we had a couple of clients where we set up work with them where there was a payment structure where it was equity points and it was cash. And so we earned equity into some of our clients where through the services and through the time that we were working with them. As Spool was able to grow, we were in a position where we were able to make more capital investments.
00:31:33
Speaker
And you nailed it. I mean, essentially, it is that we are able to invest in these brands. They create tremendous access for existing clients. So I'll give you an example. There is a fund that we invested in called Silicon Road Ventures. They're based in Atlanta. They're very focused on the future of retail, on brand and consumer engagement in this new world of how we as consumers come into contact with brands, how we purchase products,
00:32:00
Speaker
how brands and retailers are able to engage in their customer base, et cetera. One of their portfolio companies is a company called Restock. And Restock is a really brilliant company that works with early stage CPG food brands to help them leverage marketing PR and tool insert campaigns, leverage those results, and to kind of turn them into very tangible collateral and materials for growth and distribution
00:32:29
Speaker
from a retail chain standpoint. So we invested in this fund, this fund invested in a company called WeStock. We have clients on the school agency side that are emerging brands that are looking for growth and distribution in stores. We have this unfettered access to connect our clients with startups like WeStock that are gonna help our clients grow and help WeStock grow. And it's an added value to our clients.
00:32:56
Speaker
clients. I'd say also, like I was saying earlier, it makes everyone at school think about things very differently. We work with companies and brands like NutriBullet, American Family Insurance, the American Dental Association, and a lot of smaller companies as well. But we're working with some very big companies and entities.
00:33:13
Speaker
But we still bring this really smart entrepreneurial mindset. So that means that the work that we deliver, the way that we understand our client's business is so different than how other traditional head-on PR marketing creative agencies work with their clients. So when somebody works
00:33:29
Speaker
with school, they know that they're not just going to get fun flashy ideas for the sake of fun flashy ideas, but we work to make sure that all of those ideas have tentacles and that really answer and deliver on business growth. We've been working a lot more with private equity, backed and owned companies because they need to see that hockey stick within three to four years, and it's a great fit. So all of this has really fueled
00:33:54
Speaker
how we work as an agency. And then, of course, the HSC fuels how we work as investors. There's a lot of slow charts. There's a lot of PowerPoints with some smart charts and a creative director, Colin, who's always like, Catherine, you're not as good at PowerPoints as you think you are. But when I was able to sort of position it and kind of lay it out for the team, everyone was just like, holy crap, because this doesn't exist. There aren't agencies that are doing this.
00:34:17
Speaker
But it makes sense. And I think because of all the different experiences that I've had and because I've always viewed all of this as a learning opportunity, none of it has gone to waste. When I talk about that crowdfunding clap for months, that did not go anywhere. But I don't ever consider that a failure because if I had not gone through that, who knows? I wouldn't be here. I don't think I would be here. So I think harnessing and taking everything you learned and kind of using that to build and reimagine, that is where
00:34:44
Speaker
school exists. And that's where people just need to kind of open their eyes and just sort of release the limitations that are toward them. There always is a silver lining, isn't there? And oftentimes in that moment where you're forced to take a step back from that venture. But to your point, you were able to take away so much from it, especially your interest in the space and your drive. And then you were able to really connect the dots. And that's why you're here at the end of the day. And I generally believe that
00:35:14
Speaker
Life is just us collecting a gazillion different data points that compound over time. And the more of these data points we're able to collect, the more informed and educated decisions we can make about our present and future. And probably a couple of years ago, when you had that idea for Momsy, you wouldn't have been ready to launch Spindle and Spool just yet, right? But you really derived a lot of strength from
00:35:43
Speaker
the inspiration and motivation that you got out of that initial idea right after you'd given birth to your second son. So I think that's admirable and I love that you were able to frame it for yourself like that because it did pay off in the end. Catherine would love to ask you one final question because I also like to close with the same question for each of my guests.
00:36:05
Speaker
And I really want to end on a very high note here, although we've only had high notes throughout, but I digress. Katherine, what's a financial milestone you have achieved that you are most proud of? Let's see. I don't know if it's a milestone. What I have tried to really hold close at every step is that I get to realize and live a life that I, many years ago, aspired for.
00:36:35
Speaker
And that it's not just financial. I feel blessed. I get to have a family that I love. We live in a house that is warm, that has food, and we have neighbors that we love and we're in a community that we are so proud to be part of. So I think it's really never taking anything for granted and to know that the milestones and the success that I realized
00:36:56
Speaker
really only matter if I can really appreciate them. And I think that there are so many people who are just kind of more focused on what comes next and not really sort of taking stock in what you have. And so I would say to have all that I have and it has taken years and time and effort, but I love it. I'm so grateful for all of it. And I think that that to me, cumulatively is truly the greatest milestone and to be grounded in that gratitude and to know that it's
00:37:23
Speaker
also fleeting. And if we're all to go away, I would still be okay because there are also really important other things that fill me and fill my life. So probably not the most relevant or I don't know, I feel like kind of hokey, but really, I think that to me, you could just be grateful for what you have and stay hungry and focus on what you want. And then when you get to where you want to get to, celebrate it and see that and be proud of yourself.
00:37:48
Speaker
Absolutely. It's so easy to always focus on the next big thing, the next promotion, the next raise, like the next, I don't know, round of funding, right? The next startup exit, whatever it might be. But if you're too obsessed with the future all the time, it's a never ending treadmill. You know, you cannot win that game. None of us can, right?
00:38:08
Speaker
And so I think it's really important to share that lesson of like being present in a moment and taking a step back every now and then to your point, ground yourself and be introspective and reflect on the incredible life that you're so fortunate to be living. I think the pandemic actually helped a lot in that sense. It's one of the.
00:38:25
Speaker
very few positive side effects that i feel like people were able to take a step back and reflect on okay what is actually important in life what do i have and how can i spend my time and energy more in alignment with my values and the most important priorities in life so i think that's very valuable.
00:38:44
Speaker
Life lesson to share. So thank you so much for that hands. This was a wonderful conversation. Catherine could go on and on and on. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for all the amazing work that you do. Thank you for being an advocate for, for women in this space and really looking forward to being able to share your wisdom with, with our listeners.
00:39:04
Speaker
Thank you. It was so wonderful to be here. I really enjoyed speaking with you and thank you for the work that you're doing to inspire so many women to keep growing and doing important work. I appreciate it so much. Thank you.
00:39:19
Speaker
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00:39:43
Speaker
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