Doormat’s Post

I don't know everything about marketing, but I do know that you can't build your brand overnight. It's a journey of consistent effort and strategic decisions. Our recent initiatives, from refining our style guide to launching a redesigned website, are steps in that journey. While fancy videos and websites are awesome, for me, the real work is done asking the hard questions. It's about ensuring everyone in the business lives and breathes the same values, vision, and purpose. Because ultimately, a strong brand isn't just about the external image—it's about the foundation it's built upon and the unity of everyone within the organisation.

Creating a business from scratch is one of the biggest challenges and most rewarding experiences of my professional life. Here I share a little about my journey so far.

What was going to happen if the Avengers couldn’t race through time and retrieve the Infinity Stones and reverse Thanos’ snap? The tension this question brought to the audience led End Game to gross nearly $2.8B worldwide. What’s the point? While focusing on the preferred future, we also want to remind our audience of what is at stake. If they choose not to take action to overcome their problems what will inevitably happen? We want our websites to be focused on their success and preferred future, but a dash of salty stakes will make the cake taste sweeter. Help your audience know you are fully engaged in their story by clearing painting a picture of the negative stakes. This will help them know you are locked in to helping them avoid this failure so they can reach their preferred future. For the good of your work…

10 years ago today, Brickies Club transformed from a dream into a business. What started as a simple weekly LEGO club for like-minded children to explore their imagination and creativity, quickly gained momentum. Brickies has been my purpose and passion ever since. At the start, I felt the idea behind Brickies was too meaningful to ignore. I left a corporate career behind and threw myself into bringing Brickies to life. Armed with just a small loan, boundless enthusiasm, and a belief in the power of creativity. There was no big budget, no investors, just a drive to create something special. The early feedback fuelled me, giving me the courage to quit my job and see how far I could take this idea. Of course, there were hard lessons and missteps along the way. Building Brickies has been a journey of learning, resilience, and creativity, teaching me invaluable lessons about leadership, adaptability, and community. As Brickies grew, the idea of success sometimes became clouded by the focus on what we hadn’t achieved, rather than celebrating all that we had. Especially in recent years, I’ve come to realise that success isn’t just measured in milestones, it’s in the smiles and connections we create. Looking back over these 10 years, I feel blessed to have built something that brings people joy. Every day, I see the power of LEGO to transcend generations, immerse people in play, and create moments of connection. Brickies has always been about more than bricks: it’s about connecting us to creativity, to each other, and to moments of joy away from our daily stresses. I’ve seen this magic unfold daily, and I’m grateful beyond words. Today, as I look back, I’m incredibly thankful to everyone who has been part of this journey. Whether you attended a workshop, trusted us with your child’s birthday party, or simply supported Brickies along the way. Here’s to a decade of creativity, and to whatever the future holds.

"A Lesson from a Missed Opportunity"✨️ My Journey as a Beginner Designer. I want to share a story that took place during my early days as a designer. As a beginner, I was full of excitement and eager to work on new projects, and one day, I was approached by a potential client. It felt like a dream come true—a chance to prove myself and make my mark in the design world. 🌟 However, life had other plans for me. As a student balancing studies and passion, I was also preparing for an important exam. The project timeline coincided with my exam dates, and despite my best efforts to manage both, I realized I couldn't give my 100% to either. 😔 It was a tough decision, but I had to be honest with the client and myself. I explained the situation, and unfortunately, I lost that potential project. At that moment, it felt like a setback—a lost opportunity that could have been a big step forward in my career. 💔 But instead of letting it discourage me, I chose to see it as a valuable lesson. I focused on my exams, finished strong, and then returned with a renewed determination to improve my skills and better manage my time. This experience taught me the importance of setting priorities, communicating transparently, and not being too hard on myself when things don’t go as planned. 🌱 As I look back now, I realize that every setback is an opportunity to grow. Sometimes, the timing isn’t right, and that’s okay. What truly matters is how we rise after we stumble. 💪 To all the budding designers and professionals out there—don’t be afraid of mistakes or lost opportunities. Learn from them, grow through them, and trust the process. The right opportunities will always find their way to you when you’re ready! ✨ Thank you for being part of my journey and for your endless support! 🙏

What is family to you? This week, I learned a valuable lesson from Starrlites Creative Agency that I'll carry with me for a long time: the power of family in the workplace. In an industry where burnout and competition can be rampant, Starrlites showed me that success is sweeter when achieved together. They taught me that building brands isn't just about profit margins and marketing strategies, but about the people behind them. You can’t market what you don’t have; it comes from within. By treating each other like family, we create a safe space for creativity, vulnerability, and growth. We learn to support each other's strengths and weaknesses, and to celebrate each other's wins as our own. I'm reminded that the most impactful brands are built on the foundation of teamwork, empathy, and trust. So, let's prioritize building each other up, rather than tearing each other down. To my Starrlites family, thank you for showing me that work can truly feel like home. And to my network, let's strive to create workplaces that feel like a warm embrace, rather than a cold competition.

Are you an Urban Connector 🏙️ or a Rural Hermit 🌳 ? As part of our CAPSLOCK research on how geography influences creativity, here I am with the first insight regarding how this happens differently depending on the environment we work and live in: Urban Connection VS Rural Hermitage. 🏙️ Urban Connection Advantages: • Collaboration • Network Output: • Rapid creative exchanges Urban spaces foster collaboration and networking, empowering rapid creative exchanges and making one's creative process more iterative and structured by other people's feedback. VS 🌳 Rural Hermitage Advantages: • Introspection • Reflection Output: • Thoughtful creative process On the other hand, rural settings allow for a more solitary, introspective, and reflective approach, permitting the cultivation of slower, more deliberate and thoughtful creative processes. What team are you on? More insights will follow.

Ridgeline's narrative driven Battlefield campaign will endure despite the closure, but Respawn's unannounced Star Wars FPS will never see the light of day. 🔴 Kaedim is the platform that transforms 3D asset creation. It’s a platform that creates 3D models from 2D images in minutes, with no 3D skills required. You can use any image, from illustrations to photographs, and get a 3D model that’s ready to use in your game. Kaedim is built for gaming, AR/VR, ecommerce, and 3D printing, and integrates with your team’s tools. 🟢 Get Started Today: Kaedim3d.com or Check out our Showcase: app.kaedim3d.com/showcase #gdc #gdc2024 #a16z #gamedev #GameIndustryUpdates #UnrealEngine #GameDevelopment #GameIndustry

🎉Happy Birthday, OKY! When we launched OKY, we didn't anticipate the rapid changes COVID would impose on the world. Today, 4 years later, our daily efforts have yielded tangible results, transforming a vision into a reality that positively impacts thousands of lives daily, granting access to their favorite brands. 🚀Key milestones to date: 📌 +1,000 brands connected across 15+ markets in Latin America and the United States. From family meals to fueling up, grocery shopping to pharmacy needs, OKY's marketplace expands daily, offering more trustworthy options. 📌 +6,000 stores in 500+ U.S. cities linked to OKY, enabling customers to benefit from the digital economy regardless of their purchasing preferences. 📌 New releases of our tech platform (APP and Web) enhance user experience. 📌 Close to 1M transactions, connecting about 300,000 beneficiaries in Latam with their relatives abroad. 📌 OKY Business: Our tech evolution extends beyond "cross-border", empowering companies of all sizes to execute incentive, loyalty and reward programs. 🙏 A sincere thank you to our team; your dedication is inspiring; to our commercial partners who have trusted in working with us; to our investors who have decisively supported this venture; to our customers who trust our service daily; and, most importantly, to our families who support us unconditionally, making unimaginable efforts so that we can make OKY's vision a reality. Here's to many more years of connecting people to enhance their daily lives! 👏👏 Victor Unda Estuardo Figueroa Santiago Rossi Alejandro Miron

Hey everyone, I'm really excited to share a big update! I have always known that I want to run my own business helping people solve problems but honestly I was never sure what. About six months ago, a lot of free time 'became available' and I was able to start figuring things out, so I want to say a huge thank you to some people who’ve changed everything for me over the last 6 months. In my career I’ve done lots of different things, which I guess can look a little messy from the outside but I have always been passionately interested in people and why we do things. And whatever I was doing, Coaching, Operations, Communications, Recruitment or Change Management, the core of the role was a new approach to soak up on how to measure value, how we form relationships with things and how to change behaviours and habits. So, I’m fizzing to share that I’m building a small Design & Strategy agency that will help brands matter more: - Designing brands that weave the individuality of their brave leaders through research-backed strategies to create unique and relevant identities that speak fluently with their communities. - Delivering experiences that lace high-performance tools with character instantly recognised for devoted focus on what really matters to their audience and sharing their decisive values. I’ve got tonnes to work out still but I’m loving the ride, and contrary to what people tell you about going solo… I’m (so far) actually sleeping better than ever. I’d really appreciate any insight and feedback on what I’m up to, so please comment or send me a message. A really big thank you to the following legends who’ve helped me to build the confidence to take my first few steps: You Are Uncommon for looking at an empty portfolio and still giving me an opportunity to work with your brand. motus VFX for the opportunity to do some work in a brand new space where there aren't many case studies of success. brytr both for giving me a shot despite the limited work to my name and the validation you offered that I don’t look like I’m making this up as I go along. Mota for seeing value in what I’ve learnt in my indirect experiences and believing that I’d be able to apply what I not-so-long ago was studying. Sergei Golubev for reaching out to me at the most perfect moment and puttng the first wind in my sails. And finally, to my personal mascot / stress PA - photographed - who’s meant more to me than ever over the past 6 months. Cheering me up when things have got really tough, keeping me grounded. She has been paid handsomely in Crunchy Peanut Butter. I’ll share some more as I get stuff finished up. Thanks for the love & support so far!