How to Go From Corporate to CEO

Dana Hork: Thank you so much for having me, Catherine. I'm so happy to be here. Kathryn Finney: I'm so excited to talk to you because one of the things as entrepreneurs, we often focus a lot on storytelling and that's very, very important. And it's an important process as you grow as an entrepreneur, but we don't focus on the beginning sometimes. And so how did you get started into marketing? Like what was little Dana's dream? Dana Hork: Well, the question makes me smile because I still don't think I know what I want to be when I grow up. Actually, my best friend from high school sent me a clipping from our high school newspaper that featured where the students... Kathryn Finney: Hmm Dana Hork: who were graduating with honors or from the National Honor Society where they were going for college and what they were studying. And she just sent it to me recently and I went back to look at it. And I remember looking and you know, this one was going to this university to study medicine and this one, you know, wanted to be a writer. And all I could say at the time, because I didn't know what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do was that I wanted to help people and work with people. And so my, my little bio said to go to the University of Pennsylvania to work with people. Because I couldn't get any more specific than building connections, working with others and making a difference. And I still feel that way. think at every turn of my career, I've taken stock of what have I learned? What are my advantages? What does the world need? And how can I deploy that into something now, which might be different than the thing I did before and might be different than the thing I'll do next. Kathryn Finney: You Kathryn Finney: Why didn't you do that? Do you have a systematic approach to taking stock? Is there a diagram that you use? Is there a method that you use to do that? Dana Hork: I've seen various methods over the years and I have friends who have spreadsheets that they circulate around to do your annual goal planning and you know, there's journaling. For me, I think I've just been built as a reflective person. And so I'm constantly both in the work that I'm doing, but stepping out and evaluating outside of it, the work I've been doing and taking stock. So I think it's finding micro moments in each and every day, thinking about it, know, Sunday night before the week kicks off, you know, to every year, you know, whether it's new year's resolutions or something else, just sort of taking stock of, you know, what are the big things that I want to. accomplished this year. I will say one thing that has helped me is to stop trying to do everything. Someone had once given me the advice that you can't do more than three things well at any given time. I certainly am doing a lot more than three things, but I really try to focus each day, each week, each month on what are the big things that I need to move to make an impact against my goals. Kathryn Finney: And so it's really taking the pause, right? It doesn't have to be spreadsheets and notebooks. Because I think sometimes, yeah. But I think, know, as entrepreneurs and just as human beings, sometimes we overcomplicate things, right? Where it could, is just maybe even just taking a breath. You know, it sounds really simple, but just pausing. And that seems like something that you've really incorporated into your Dana Hork: For me, it does. do. Dana Hork: Yes, guilty. Kathryn Finney: sort of daily practice, a little pause. doesn't have to be scheduled on your calendar that you're to pause at 10, 15. But yeah. Dana Hork: Absolutely. And I think another tool that's been very helpful for me is the language of this is just not a priority for me right now. I think a lot of times we look at the list and we chastise ourselves for saying, I only got to this many things. right, you know, here's all the things that are, you know, sitting there waiting on deck to get, challenged to get tackled. And the language of it's just not a priority for me right now gives. me the permission to say, it's okay, I'll get to it. I don't need to have everything on the list and then beat myself up when I don't get to it. So that's been another really practical, helpful tool that I've used to help me reshuffle my priorities and focus on what matters. Kathryn Finney: So how do you determine what matters? Dana Hork: Well, it starts with your goals and what impact you want to have. So I'm a very structured person. So when I do do goal setting, I think about it in terms of the different buckets of my life. And I actually have a friend, Christina Wallace, who's a professor at Harvard Business School, who wrote a book called The Portfolio Life, which talks about some of these portfolio pieces. so for me, there's work, there's family, there's myself, which by the way, was not listed. on the list for a many number of years. And within that, there's my health and wellbeing, there's the house and the logistics and the ops. And I really bucket out all those areas and that helps give me clarity within each of them to say which of these areas are important and given that I have to tackle all of them in some respect, what are the most impactful things within each of them? Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Kathryn Finney: Do you have, like, you list them? Because I know Christina has like a spreadsheet. That's pretty, yeah, pretty impressive. We'll be linking to that spreadsheet for other people, because I know she's made it public. It's a pretty impressive way to organize your goals. And I think writing things down and organizing like that does help with accountability and making sure that you kind of continue on this path. Dana Hork: Yes, that was the spreadsheet I was thinking of before. Dana Hork: Yes. Kathryn Finney: going, taking a little bit of a step back, you were on the founding team of a startup, a large startup, jet.com. And, you know, what was it like there in the beginning as a team member? Like, and also even taking a further step back, why join a startup as the founding team? Cause that's like the hardest point in which to join a startup. Dana Hork: Yeah, so I was there early. There were founders there before. think my actual employee number was 68. remember asking them. Right? We should expand the definition. Yes, I was there pre-launch for sure. I went to business school and at our business school graduation, Kathryn Finney: That's definitely a founding team of a large startup. That is the founding. Yeah. Dana Hork: Sheryl Sandberg gave the keynote speech and one of the anecdotes that she had used in the talk was if you're offered a seat on the rocket ship, don't ask what seat, just take it. And I was coming off of an interesting period in my life. I graduated from business school. had done some entrepreneurial ventures. I'd had my first child and I didn't know what I wanted to do next, but I started to just be open to the universe and having conversations. And someone I had met through my past entrepreneurial ventures said to me, know someone building something in e-commerce. Are you interested in e-commerce? And I just said, yes, yes, I am interested in e-commerce. And that led to a meeting with Mark Laurie. I went out to Montclair, New Jersey. I met with Mark. I met with some of the early team members and they offered me a seat on the rocket ship. And I immediately said yes. And it was one of- the great good fortunes of my career, not only because the mission of Jet was deeply resonant with me, but the people that were there were incredible. It's one of the strongest alumni networks that I'm a part of. Everybody there had real drive, real ambition, real entrepreneurial energy. And I think one of the best things that Jet did was hire exceptionally Mark actually has a framework for this called Spotak. and I think he's actually added an E on the end of it, over time as well, but it was the hiring criteria that we used to bring people on. and it stands for smart, passionate, optimistic, tenacious, adaptable and kind. And I think over time, the E was empathetic. So we did that in spades at jet. And even as the business scaled, when you hired people that met those criteria, then they started building out their teams and look for folks with, with, with those traits as well. was a really stellar group of people. And I'm very grateful for that experience. Kathryn Finney: some really interesting lessons that have come over your sort of time at jet. One, the importance as a leader, as a head of a company, kind of setting the tone, like setting the core values is something I talk about a lot in the book, Build a Damn Thing, of you setting what your personal core values are as a CEO, but then also, what is it that your company stands for? What is the values of your company? And then hiring and bringing on people who also agree to that as well. Dana Hork: 100%. And a thing Jet did really well, there were actually values from the very earliest days, trust, transparency, and fairness. And everybody knew them and they ran through the company and it was very ever present in the culture in those early days. Kathryn Finney: Hmm. Kathryn Finney: think it's hard when you're starting and you need people, sometimes when you're starting a company, you need people to really hire against those values, especially I think when, and of course things have changed because of AI, but there was a time where you really needed engineering talent. And it was really hard to get engineering talent. And so people kind of didn't necessarily hire against their core values because they really needed this talent. And so to be able to hold that line is really super important and it helps to scale a business. There's a reason that JET scaled to $3.3 billion exit. Not only because it was providing a service that obviously was needed, but also because of these sort of values. How did you as an early employee incorporate those into your work, those values? Dana Hork: Well, I think a learning that I had and a worldview that I developed during that time is that most people think of core values as internal ingredients, but where they come to, or Where it matters is how you express those values to the outside world. And it's not just expressed internally within your culture, right? How you, your hiring practice, your employee programs, like that's a piece of it, but it also comes to life in how you engage with your other stakeholders, your consumers, your partners, governments that you might be working with and where companies get in trouble is where their internal values. are articulated as one thing and let's give everyone the benefit that even internally within the company, that's the way they operate, which may not always be the case, but let's assume that's true. But then they operate in addition, in a different fashion to the outside world. That's where stakeholders, you know, throw up the red flag and say, something seems inconsistent. I don't trust this company. It's a really big indicator of trust. And actually something that we've done at my agency beers with friends is based on that experience at jet and many of the other brands that I've worked with, we've codified a framework called brand in a can, which, which starts with defining those internal ingredients that are true about your company and your brand. And think about it like a beer can. So what are the ingredients? Then there's. the outside of it, the identity, right? How do you appear to the outside world? And that's both the assets that you put out into the world, but also the actions that you take. And then lastly, if you'd have assets and you have actions that ladder up to those internal values, the impression or what does it taste like is something that's intentional in what you were hoping to leave. And so when we work with brands that want to define their quote unquote brand, Dana Hork: We start with those internal ingredients, but we also work backwards from the impression you want to leave. And if you know who you are on the inside and you know what you hope people say about you when you're not in the room, filling in the middle part of all the stuff you can do, the things you can say, the actions you can take becomes a lot easier. Kathryn Finney: It's so very true. And I think another thing, just knowing more about your journey that I think is very interesting is entrepreneurs often think that they have to create the idea, start it, the CEO, do everything themselves, right? And don't really see that you can also join something else. You can also join a rocket ship, right? Dana Hork: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: And especially when the rocket ship is offering equity. So you are an owner of the company in many ways, maybe not, you know, the CEO and things like that. For a lot of folks who are transitioning into entrepreneurship, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be the person to come up with the idea, the CEO. You can also join something else as an early employee where you will be very entrepreneurial. And the risk is still there. And so, yeah. Dana Hork: Yeah, absolutely. Kathryn Finney: And so you go from this big exit, which is great and amazing and fun. Did you take time off afterwards or did you jump immediately into something else? Dana Hork: Well, so after Jet was acquired, let me say it differently. So Jet was acquired by Walmart. So we then became part of Walmart and Many of us ended up being asked to go over and apply our superpowers to help the Walmart business. And I was fortunate enough to have been given that opportunity by my boss, who had also moved over to work on the Walmart business. And they asked me to lead social media for Walmart. So I went straight into that experience. had a team in Bentonville and in Hoboken, some folks that were there, many of whom I, I hired and. I look back on that time as very entrepreneurial, even though I was working inside the Fortune One, my superpower in that moment was bringing entrepreneurial energy to social media and thinking differently about what we had been doing, what we could be doing, who were the people that we needed to get us there, what types of Kathryn Finney: What time was this? What year was this? Dana Hork: 2017 to 2019. Kathryn Finney: The reason why I asked that is because I think a lot of, because time moves faster now, people don't understand what was happening in 2017. It was a big deal for Walmart to be in social media at that point. So it was not an easy task for you to do. It was relatively new thing. I remember, because used to do a lot of work with Walmart when I had my company, The Budget Fashionista, that Walmart.com was in California and Walmart, store was in Bentonville and they did not talk to each other. So like the online part was completely separate from what we now know as this, know, store. And so I can imagine you coming in, I have this like vision of 2016, 2017 Dana coming in and trying to. Dana Hork: Yep. Kathryn Finney: combine them both and saying, you know, people don't separate, you know, online from offline. And I can imagine the work you had to do convince this major company of this newfangled thing called social media. Dana Hork: so appreciate that you brought this perspective to the conversation because you are a hundred percent spot on the dot com business was running separately from the stores business. And then there was Jett and Hoboken, which was sort of a third leg to the stool. And I had responsibility for a channel. So a channel that drives the brand, but is neither of store nor of digital, right? It has responsibility for the brand, which sits above sales channels. And so you're a hundred percent right. My number one job was one selling in the importance of social to begin with, why it mattered for the brand and how we wanted to be at the tip of the spear of building the brand through this channel. And it was great if people wanted to go do rebrands and build decks and define who we are and our tone of voice and all that. But meanwhile, Kathryn Finney: Hmm. Dana Hork: We put on a show every day on social media. You got to put something up. And in the meantime, we got to go and we got to reflect the brand positively. So my job was to one, sell the importance of social and its role in brand building. Number two, get buy-in on the playbook that we wanted to follow so that we got out of. the mindset of every post needed to get approved and everything needed to have a committee. But if you actually get buy-in on the strategy and what you're trying to do and the brick in the wall you're trying to place for the brand, all the micro decisions can get made by a nimble team. And then when things need to escalate, they can escalate and you can bring people around the table. So that was another big piece of it. And third, know, There was a lot of work that we did to make sure we were even talking about the right thing. So as you can imagine, there's someone over here in the stores, team saying, you know, feature this, this item that we're selling in store. And then you've got someone over here on.com with a different priority. And a lot of what we had to put in place was, process and understanding to actually plug into the rest of the organization so that we could, we could play some air traffic control, make sure we were talking about organizational priorities. and, and, and, and, and. be a helpful partner to the rest of the organization, not a barrier and not a wild west. Kathryn Finney: So what is the role of social media? And I know that's a big question, but as someone who's been there from the very beginning, what is the role of social media or how should, I'll ask it a little bit of a different way so it's not so big. How should an entrepreneur think about social media in the context of their brand and their company? Dana Hork: Absolutely. social media is a channel that can do a lot of different jobs. And so the number one thing you need to do, much like your own career, where you're figuring out what does the world need and what are my superpowers, the best way to approach social is to say, what is my business need? What does my company need? What are the superpowers of social as a platform? And where do those two things come together? Social can be very effective for know, advertising and reaching large audiences at scale. It can also be very effective for building micro hyper niche communities and engaging, with your consumers or prospective consumers one-on-one. can be great for connecting with your employee base, showcasing stories of your employees who are doing well. So it, it, is a place that has advantages. and disadvantages and the best way to use it is to take stock of what all those are, take stock of what your business needs right now and mash them together in a way that creates value. Kathryn Finney: What role can AI play in helping develop this? You talk about strategy and building strategy. And I think that's something that, you sometimes when you're building a company, you're in the middle of just building, and you just gotta get shit done, right? And so you don't, you gotta do, you know, set up gusto, you gotta do these different things. You just don't have time to pause and think about strategy. And so, How could tools like AI and things like that help in developing the overall strategy for your brand? Dana Hork: Yeah. I mean, I think I'll create a binary example out of it that is certainly not holistic in all of the things that can do, but you you can't do everything and AI can't do everything. And so to pick just a binary example, you know, there are, are businesses and entrepreneurs that in this stage of AI's development might use it for, you know, operations and efficiency. Right. So. taking your ideas, the big thinking and writing it more effectively than you do. Helping move your data around more effectively than you can, know, copying and pasting from spreadsheet to spreadsheet, right? So there's operational benefits, which can free you up to do the big thinking. And then there are people that are trying to flip it, which is I'm here to go operate the business. I don't have time for strategy. Let me try to tap AI for that. I've found success in the first example, less so in the second. You know, I'm in a creative space. Kathryn Finney: Mm-hmm. Dana Hork: We specialize in five day ideation sprints for brands, so they can tap into creative brains. We play with AI, we use it, but we have not yet found the promise of it in a way that replaces humans with experience who've lived this, who've built countless brands over the years. And so it's an accelerant, but it's not a replacement. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, yeah, it's an aid. It's a tool. Dana Hork: Yeah. You know, we're not sitting here saying like, do you use Microsoft Word? And like, how does that help you? Like, it's a tool. It's an accelerant. Like, no one's saying, you didn't handwrite that memo. Shame on you. Like, I think it's another accelerant. It's another tool in the toolkit. My only recommendation to folks is I know as an entrepreneur, Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Dana Hork: It's easy to pressure yourself to feel like you have to be the expert in everything, but reminding yourself you can be 50 % expert and 50 % student and put AI in the student bucket and play around with it and figure out what works for you and, try stuff. You know, this is an AI specific, but I, when I started my business, I, I created this, I used a CRM. I'm on my fourth CRM system. I love to, I love to, you know, we, we talked to a lot of companies, we meet a lot of prospects and you just. won't know until you start using stuff. got to build the damn thing and use the damn thing. Kathryn Finney: Exactly. And it's interesting because it goes back to what we were talking about earlier about prioritizing and focusing on what's really important. And that AI can help you have more space to focus on exactly that, what's really important and taking the things that are not important away and kind of dealing with that. Do you need to copy edit your email yourself? If you have a. AI tool that can quickly copy edit your email. So you write it because obviously you're the one who knows the content that needs to be in there. But do you have to do the editing of it? Probably not. That's probably not unless you're an editor and you're great. Like it's probably not the best use of your time. Dana Hork: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's both and right. So maybe a tool like Grammarly is great for making sure you have your Oxford commas and you know, you, whether you're using dashes and if you missed a word and like that's super helpful. But sometimes I do find that even tools like Grammarly, they, take out the, they take out the weight from what you're trying to say or the sharpness of it or the tension of it. Kathryn Finney: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: Mmm, yeah. Dana Hork: So they might, it might water something down and you're like, no, I meant to say this in this particular way, not to be grammatically correct. And so it comes down again to your goals. So I think it's, you know, if I'm ever using AI to write something, it's sort of like a sandwich. I always take the first pass myself. If I put it in AI, see what comes out, you know, and then I got to go back like the last piece of bread and, and, and look at it again. so it's, it's, it's both and. Kathryn Finney: One of the things we've talked about a lot this season is about unplanned pivots. And may that be because of a change in job. You were fired, laid off, what have you. A lot of people are experiencing that. I mean, in my case, it was being burnt out. And so being forced from a health perspective to take this unplanned pivot that I didn't expect to have to take. And so as someone who has pivoted, particularly from a corporate environment into entrepreneurship. What are some of the things that you've learned during that transition? Dana Hork: think for me, I've always been entrepreneurial my whole life. And I've applied it in different ways and in different contexts, whether it was starting a newsletter in high school or starting a charity in college or starting beers with friends. started apparel, but like I I've been entrepreneurial my whole life. And so the twists and turns don't bother me that way. They don't seem like a pivot. They just seem like a step forward. And I still apply the same entrepreneurial energy to whatever it is I'm doing. Whether it's I was a class parent one year for my daughter and, and, you know, applied entrepreneurial energy to say, you know what, I'm going to clear the formatting on these emails, make it one format size so that it's not a hodgepodge. Kathryn Finney: God bless you. Hmm. Dana Hork: And somehow got the reputation of like, you're the class parent. That's really great at marketing. I'm like, no, I just applied a little, little energy and wonder what I could do to make this better to even the smallest things like sending emails to 20, you know, to 20 students. Parents. So, I just, I I'm hardwired to find white spaces and dream up ways to fill them. And so. I've never looked at anything as a pivot. It's always just been the next white space that I want to fill. Kathryn Finney: Hmm growth. Yeah Dana Hork: Absolutely growth progress. And actually I, I haven't been able to find it again, but I had a friend on Instagram who posted, you know, one of these memes that was a picture of a tree and it had, you know, a tall trunk. had big leaves and it had deep roots and the caption on it was to the effect of there's many ways to grow. it stuck with me. was one of those. actual thumb stopping pieces of content because I think a lot of us are hardwired to grow in one way, like up, right? Up in your career or forward, but there's so many more ways to go. And back to your question about pauses or pivots, you know, I took some time between my time at wonder and when I launched beers with friends and I grew in so many ways that I didn't know I could grow in or that I wanted to grow in. I became a better parent. I became Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Dana Hork: better at taking care of myself and my health. I bought a label maker and made my house much more organized. A type A person with a label maker is very dangerous. But I grew in all that. I deepened my relationships. I prioritized friendships and relationships and I grew for the first time in a noticeable way, you know, deeper and broader. Kathryn Finney: I know. Dana Hork: and, and it was a real gift. And I think asking yourself, you know, in what ways do I want to grow? it comes back to your, your question about goal setting. That's really at the heart of it. And in this year, it's not, you don't have to say in what ways do I want to achieve it's really in what ways do I want to grow? Do I want to grow my business? Do I want to grow my relationships? Do I want to grow, you know, the, my house being less messy, whatever, whatever it is. Yes, of course. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, which is always one of my goals. Dana Hork: I came up with something called the mudroom messiness index and every Friday I can, it's highly correlated to how the week was. And I look and it, know, how many pairs of shoes and if, know, the baseball bat is still sitting in there. So, but there's lots of ways to grow and you know, only you can answer which ones are meaningful to you. And then how you spend your time is really in service of, of, of, of where you want to. Kathryn Finney: I love that. Kathryn Finney: And so as people are either transitioning into entrepreneurship or are kind of expanding their own businesses, they're currently in entrepreneurship and expanding it, like what are some tips that you've learned from building Beer with Friends? And also I want to know like, where did the name come from Beer with Friends? Dana Hork: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you want to re-say it, but it's actually beers with Brian, so it's plural. Yeah. Kathryn Finney: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. So tell us about beers with friends and and more about how you got to the name and what are some lessons that you've learned? Dana Hork: Yeah. So beers with friends came exactly in the way that we, let me start that again. So naming a creative agency is one of the hardest things to do other than buying jeans and swimsuit shopping because, because naming anything is hard. It needs to reflect those internal ingredients that we talked about. it needs to be available. Kathryn Finney: Why? Dana Hork: You know, in the market, someone else can't be using it. And in the case of a creative agency, your pure set is also filled with very creative people who are really good at naming things. And so, you know, everything we thought of, it's like, you know, someone's doing a thing like that, or we've seen this thing. So to find a white space, you know, it truly is the value prop of an agency. And then your first point of bringing that to life is figuring out what you're going to name it. and so. My co-founder, James and I, we had worked together before. We were agency client partners when I was at Walmart running social media and he was at, publicists. And, know, we talked about all the ways of working and things that worked well for us, things that didn't, why the agency client dynamic, you know, is, can be broken. And, you know, I think after going through a whole list of name and spreadsheets and all the things, it might've been me. I don't, I don't remember, but. You know, one of us said, you know, why can't this just be as fun and collaborative and constructive as having beers with friends? Like, how do we just bring great people together? Jam out on a problem, like help each other out. No ego, like getting cocktail napkins. Everyone's contributing something like that's the ethos of what we want to build. How do we find a name that feels like hashing out a problem over beers with friends? And then beers with friends, it's sort of interesting. And so, so it really came from. You know, the, experience that replicated the vibes we wanted to create and the value we wanted to create, which is those aha moments that come when people get together, gather on a table, hash it out and come up with something better than anybody would have come up with on their own. yeah, and it's, it's become a very helpful lens through which we talk about the business. So we didn't, we don't ever use these words ourselves, but the number one thing we started hearing from people was, wow, your agency is so refreshing. Kathryn Finney: Interesting. Dana Hork: And wow, that ties together beverage. know, we're marketing our agency through the lens of a beverage brand and you know, beverage tropes and all of that. And we've, sell beer runs, which are our five day sprints. have four packs of beer runs, six packs of beer runs. We talk about creativity on tap. we've borrowed a lot of that, but then to have the payoff calm when people meet with us and they're like, gosh, this is so refreshing. Like refreshing is very much a word that is in line with, with everything we've built. And so we, we really feel like it's exactly. Kathryn Finney: Yeah. It's used to describe beverages, right? Like a refreshing beverage. Dana Hork: Yes. So it all just fits together. And we've built the brand through our own assets and actions as we've gone. And it keeps getting better and better. Kathryn Finney: What's the difference between how you approach marketing in a startup world versus a corporate world? Dana Hork: So at the root of... So marketing is often defined differently at different organizations or the role that it plays or the brick in the wall that it places is narrower or broader in different businesses. So I just want to put that out there. Sometimes marketing means purely customer acquisition. Sometimes it means acquisition and retention. Sometimes marketing also has ownership of creative. Sometimes it has... Sometimes it has consumer insights, sometimes it doesn't. So there's some nuance and variance in the role that marketing is playing within each organization that I just want to acknowledge as a starting point. In terms of the role of marketing at different size and skills businesses, I think it simply comes down to the job to be done at... the earliest stages versus the latest stages. So if you're at an early stage startup, your job is not to find a million people to like you. Your job is to find your first hundred customers that love you and being ruthless and relentless and doing unscalable things and having one-on-one conversations with consumers and, you know, offering products that you don't sell yet and seeing if someone buys it, like all the scrappy entrepreneurial things to find that resonance. Kathryn Finney: Mm. Kathryn Finney: You Dana Hork: with those first 100 customers is often the job at the earliest stages. At the largest companies at the latest stages, they're there because they found well more than 100 people to love what they're doing. And it's about expanding from there. So how do we open up new markets? How do we open up new consumer groups? How do we expand our product line? So it's building on your success, but opening the aperture. And it's much more about scale. So how do we do things in repeatable, scalable ways? So that's the spectrum that I see. Kathryn Finney: And it's interesting because when you talk, I realize that there's another question that often comes up. And that is the difference between marketing and PR. What is the difference between those two? Because I think most of us who aren't practitioners in this space kind of conflate them as one in the same. And I know sometimes they can be, but oftentimes they're not. Dana Hork: Even what is PR could be its own topic of an episode in and of itself, in addition to what is marketing. I've seen memes on Instagram that try to articulate the different dimensions. This is marketing, this is communications, this is public relations with creative ways in. Public relations. Kathryn Finney: Yeah, yeah. Dana Hork: Generally speaking has meant media relations at the core. So connecting a business with the media to get press coverage. but even PR has a much broader set of services, and, and value that it can provide. So it's now includes things like thought leadership, and helping your executives or your team members, you know, establish thought leadership in the market. can include events. and event planning conferences, panels speaking. So it's, it's, it's also not one thing, but I would say, PR just like social is a tool. It's a channel and it can be used for lots of different things. marketing, would say generally has the role of. Acquiring, maintaining and upselling consumers, building brand experiences that resonate, defining your consumer. and, and PR is often around communications, but I'm sure I'm getting this wrong and maybe people will chime in and help me give a more succinct answer. Kathryn Finney: No, I think that's really helpful as you know, entrepreneurs again, everything is so collapsed. So we don't know the difference between the two, right? Like, traditionally, it has been press, right? Getting you press. now Dana Hork: Yeah, traditionally has been press and for early stage companies, you might not even have the luxury of having all of these things, right? In my mind, as I'm answering your question, I'm thinking about Walmart and an entire press organization. And I'm thinking about an entire marketing organization, which were two separate business units in an early stage startup. Like you're doing all the things, right? And so you're out there connecting with consumers. You're out there trying to Kathryn Finney: Yeah. Dana Hork: you know, understand what they love about your product to make it better. You're out there trying to get some press headlines for credibility. You're out there trying to, you know, post on LinkedIn and, and, and build audience that way. So, you know, the difference in the early stages, it's, you're probably doing all the things. Kathryn Finney: you're listening at the beginning. That's primarily what you're doing is listening, which I know can be a challenge when you're an entrepreneur, you have this great idea that you are so in love with. I call it the ugly baby, which is, know, everyone thinks their baby is beautiful and all let me just say all human children are like beautiful. But, you know, everyone thinks their kid is the greatest. Dana Hork: Yeah, well, absolutely. Dana Hork: Mm-hmm. Kathryn Finney: person ever as a mom. Like you cannot, my kid is like, yes, he's like the best. But there might be some truth that there that you need to know about this baby. And sometimes we get so protective of the baby that we don't take the opportunity to listen and particularly from customers who are really important. I mean, you cannot have a business if people are not buying or using your product or service. It's a hobby. If you don't have customers, it's a hobby. And so to hear and to listen to feedback, which may not be what you exactly want to hear, but I think that's an important part of your brand strategy. It has to be. And if marketing. So as we close, what are some tips do you have for folks who are thinking about going into entrepreneurship? They are coming from corporate America. And they're thinking about kind of entering into this entrepreneurial life. Dana Hork: Yes, I'll say three things. The first to build on the last conversation we were having, fall in love with the problem and not the solution. If you're passionate about solving the problem, which is deeply connected to who you're solving the problem for, then you will avoid... Kathryn Finney: Hmm. Dana Hork: you know, falling in love with the solution to start, or maybe you think of it as a hypothesis, because if you're out there day in and day out saying, how can I make this better for my consumer? You'll be much more open-minded to say, wow, the thing I thought would be the way to solve it isn't the way, but let's iterate it here. And now let's go back. If you fell in love with the solution and you end up trying to find consumers who want it, you're in a, you're in a different place. and so I would advise fall in love with the problem, fall in love with consumer and be open-minded about the the different solutions that could come to pass. The second piece of advice is always start where you are. I think a lot of us are wired to think we need more to get started. We need more money. We need more information. We need more traction. We need more time. We need it to be bigger, better, stronger, faster, et cetera. just start the learnings that you will get by just starting exactly where you are with the tools that you have in your toolkit is exactly the place that you need to be. If you're starting something that isn't in your wheelhouse, you might want to ask yourself, it something I'm going to be successful at? so take stock of your advantages. It could be anything. It could be experience you have, insights you have, your basement that's not being used right now. You're, you know, a software tool that you have free access to, like take stock of everything that's available to you and just start with what you have. Don't worry about making it perfect. and then the third piece of advice is you've already said it. mean, just build the damn thing. you know, don't wait, go for it. You know, there's, there's no one better to do it than you. and now, now is the time sees the day. Kathryn Finney: I love that. And so I'm going to pause a little bit to give them some break and then I'm going to do the outro. Dana Hork: Okay. Kathryn Finney: Dana, thank you so much for joining us and showing us what's possible when you lead with creativity and curiosity. If today's episode inspired you to think bigger, move faster, or just believe a little bit harder in your wildest ideas, make sure you hit that subscribe button. And if you loved what you heard, leave us a review. It helps build, oh shoot, I am just messing up today. Kathryn Finney: Dana, thank you for showing us what's possible when you lead with creativity and curiosity. If today's episode inspired you to think bigger, move faster, or just believe a little bit harder in your world's ideas, make sure you hit that subscribe button. And if you loved what you heard, leave us a review. It helps more builders like yourself find, build a damn thing, and join our growing community of entrepreneurs who are daring to do things differently. Until next time. Keep building the damn thing. Kathryn Finney: Thank you, Dana, so much. Let me just stop it.