Shift & Thrive: CEO Insights on Driving Change

S&T_Kat Wendelstadt
===

[00:00:00] In today's business world, change is the only constant, and mastering transformation is the ultimate key to success. Welcome to Shift and Thrive. I'm your host, Natalie Nathanson.

Each week we'll bring you conversations with CEOs who delve into how they successfully drove critical change in their organization. This show is sponsored by Magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consult. And the getting it done, power of a full service B2B marketing agency.

Natalie Nathanson: Welcome

to another special

edition episode on Shift and Thrive as part

of our Go-to-market spotlight

series. If you're a CEO, or business leader wondering how your Go-to-market strategy needs to evolve right now to meet the realities of today's market, this episode

is for you and

I am really excited to speak with today's guest.

She is a hands-on and strategic Go-to-market leader [00:01:00] with experience spanning global enterprises and fast scaling startups. She's a former Microsoft Go-to-market lead and a three time CMO who has helped scale startups from early stage to billion dollar valuations. She's worked with numerous venture backed firms, including leading through leading investors, including Founders Fund and OpenAI SAML Altman.

She is the CMO at Electric Twin Kat Wendell Stat. Welcome to the show.

Kat Wendelstadt: Thank you so much.

Really

excited to be here.

Natalie Nathanson: Thank

you. I am looking forward to

the conversation. And You

know, one of the areas that I've had numerous discussions with

entrepreneurs lately is around category

creation. And

how much harder it

can be when you're not just

competing in an existing

category but actually trying

to create or define one.

And I think especially right now with AI really starting to reshape

so many spaces, we're gonna be

seeing a lot more of this and, You know, different forms than what we've seen before. Uh, and I know this is an area

you have a lot of experience,

so would love to start us off if you can [00:02:00] walk us through a specific example where you helped take something that didn't really exist yet and turn it into

something that customers could actually.

kind of understand and,

and eventually buy into.

Kat Wendelstadt: Of course. Um, I love this topic,

so I'm super,

uh, super

passionate

about it. So a couple of years ago I was

Working for

a firm, um, called Flawless and Flawless, uh,

provides lip syncing

services to Hollywood. And essentially the idea is that they.

Um, have a

software that you can run any movie through, and

it will translate visually,

translate the entire film into any language without sort of, um, outer sync lips. And so it's

like, looks like,

You know, Tom

Cruise is speaking Japanese and, uh, that, um, was a completely new

category, essentially generative filmmaking and, um, dialogue

editing. And

so. What we,

um, what we did is we,

we had to define what the category

was,

You have

to be extremely clear

of how

you

name it.

And there's a framework, um, [00:03:00] from a, um, a

group called, uh, the category Pirates, coincidentally, and, and

it's essentially naming, framing,

and claiming.

So those

are the three steps. So you first have to name it, what is the name?

That you, um, can

get any sort of signal on

that people

are going to be searching for.

Sometimes there's nothing. Um, but sometimes you, You know,

from customer

conversations, uh,

from uh, um,

search data, you can already start like seeing emerging

patterns about how things are being described. So

you name that category,

we named

it.

Gen AI and film and, um, we, we saw

there was a very big opportunity for this category creation because CB Insights had done a very big market map.

And in

essentially that particular corner of

the market,

there wasn't very

much. So

we knew, okay, we don't have to go up against,

um, companies

like Runway. Um, Luma, uh, uh, [00:04:00] Hagen, were doing something slightly different. And so.

We started, um, seeding those words in

PR because that, You know, as you have AI search engines,

um, becoming more and more prevalent, they pick

up, um, um,

high

intent

words

and, and high authority words from press releases, et cetera.

And, and, And so we started. Going Sort of a PR, um, a PR first route so we

could get those

words out.

And the important

thing that we did, it was we always had them in conjunction with a company name. So it was Gen AI and Film and Flawless.

And so that then

over time, started showing up when you type in what's the

best,

uh, journey AI company in in film.

And then we

still had like. Subcategories,

uh, dialogue editing, for example,

being one we always made sure, um, apply those

principles. And if you now look for that in chapter BT or any,

any

search engine, the company will show up first. So

sort

of a pr um, a PR led [00:05:00] strategy. The other thing

that we, we, um, we did, um,

again, like

going after

sort

of high

authority, um.

Um, proof of of, uh, um, what we were doing is, is submitting for awards. So part of our, um, strategy was submitting for fast company awards time best inventions. Um, And so we ended up winning a lot of industry awards. Um, as well as, as,

sort of venture backed, You know, um,

fast company and, and

those

types of

awards that again,

started describing us in those particular terms.

And, and what happens over time, if you do that correctly, the incumbent of a

category, they

end up, um, taking about 75% of the entire value of that category. And it makes sense because if

you think about it,

when

you

think electric vehicles. What's the first brand you think of? You think of Tesla, right? You don't think of,

um, I dunno, de you or, or, or something else.

And, [00:06:00] and, and when you think about, um, I dunno, take away coffee. You think about Starbucks. And so, and then you start.

So that's the first thing. You, you

start, uh, um, basically owning, owning the category. The other thing that you want to

do is create an,

um, your own language. So

Starbucks

again, they, they did this, um, they seeded venti.

and uh,

grande,

Um, their own particular, um,

their own particular language. And so that is also something that, that we did, um, with for example, like describing dialogue

editing and,

and, and those, uh, those types of things. So, so over the course of

a year

through pr,

um, led

essentially PR led initiatives and then going through, going further down, uh, um, in terms

of.

Um, reach

in terms of events, et cetera. We

started emerging,

um,

as

the kind of foremost and and

highest quality

[00:07:00] player. We then were

able to add the relevant case studies with

customers like Netflix

and Amazon Prime, et cetera, who started using our product. And then by that point and then becomes a sort of, uh, machine that starts running on its own.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, it sounds like you really worked through a lot of those core areas

that are like critical in

the early

stages of a category

creation. I think.

From the experience that I've seen, You know, oftentimes, uh, executives will underestimate kind of the cost and

kind of patience and

everything that it takes for category creation.

And I know, um, from research I've done previously can be

anywhere from like two times to five times plus more

capital and time intensive, uh, to work through that.

Um,

because you really are

creating conditions for creating demand, not just generating demand.

So I'm curious to hear

from you.

Like, what are you seeing as those common, uh, kind of missteps or

misunderstanding around category creation that are important for kind of founders to be thinking about?[00:08:00]

Kat Wendelstadt: I think it's important

to have

a framework that you use, um, that is

Kind of really single minded about you. You have to

kind of

pick a language

and, and stick with it

for a

while and, and see, and see what happens. Because if you constantly start changing.

people

won't know, um,

uh, how

you describe yourself

and what you

stand for, that goes as much for your, um, positioning and messaging.

So you have

to be pretty single-minded

about what it is that

you're building

and how you are describing it to other

people. And, and really you

have

to tell

people about. The future. That's why

category creation is so important. It's

like you have to distance

yourself

from that. What is, you have to take people with you on a journey of what is going to be.

That is essentially the job of a, a category creator. And then you have to create

the

language around that. And you have to stick with it because, like you say, category creation is, is not instant. It's a continuous effort. It's from the research that I've done takes at [00:09:00] least 18 months.

Um.

But oftentimes, um, much, much longer.

But you can see positive signals. So for example, at Electric Twin, um,

we're going through this

process and the category that we have picked in the name is Synthetic Audiences. Now, how do we know that we're on the right track is because we can start

seeing.

the market playing those, um, that language back to us.

So now when you

look for synthetic

audiences. Quite a lot of stuff starts showing up.

Um, and not only

from our own blog content, but from the Times, from the Guardian, from um, other media where we have been

featured. And the more

that happens, the more, um, um, you get into the psyche essentially of, of your prospects.

But it's, it's all

about language, basically.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Well, I'm glad

you talked about kinda how do you,

what are those signals to know that you're

on the

right track? Because I was going to ask that. Uh, but the other [00:10:00] area is, um, kind of finding

early and first customers. Can you talk

a little bit about

what that's looked like, uh, for you either currently or, uh, in the prior example?

Kat Wendelstadt: I I'll talk about

how, how it's looking currently. So obviously that's the, um, that's a really, really,

hard

thing when you are

building a company and when you're building something

new that hasn't existed before, where you, where you're unsure of, of who's going to be exactly your ICP and, and

we have

a product that applies to.

It's an enterprise product. We

build synthetic audiences that

can be used by, um, uh, anything from government

to, uh,

um, B2C companies to even

company

internal where, where they large companies can build synthetic audience of, of their employees. It can be

any vertical.

It's the applications are, are huge, so where do you start?

And so, um,

we started with

a hypothesis. So we said, okay, we believe. [00:11:00] That, um, this product is going to be successful in, um,

You know, in in

media and entertainment. We then went and did, um, scrapes the internet

and started trying to find relevant sort of threads of, in,

um, of.

Um,

pain.

We did

some pain based research

using, um,

complexity and, and Claude and they, they basically went into and, uh, the tools basically went into, um, started pulling out Reddit threads so we could start seeing that, um, in relevant,

uh, um, subgroups like, uh,

market research, et cetera.

Questions were being asked that we could answer to. We then layered on top of that and say, okay, well that's

nice, wanting to sell to,

to media. But, but

we also

had another, um, it's not only where necessarily the pain is, but

also where, where did we have the

fastest opportunity? And so we happen to have a preexisting network

in,

in media where we

could get

quick [00:12:00] validation and basically speak to prospects because, um, you wanna get feedback as quickly as possible whether you are hitting the right, um.

Pain points with your solution.

And so, so once

we had the sort of initial hypothesis, we thought, okay, where's the quickest, um, feedback loop?

And

then we, and then we went,

uh, uh,

um, down that way. There's certain tools you can use. Uh, there's a tool called, uh, my Telescope, and it's pretty good at the beginning when you have literally.

No information. You can, you can sort of, um, type in particular search

words and, and, uh,

um, what people are

thinking about in, um, You know, uh, um, in terms of, You know, I, I market research. You can try and understand what the pains are

by using, uh, tools like

that, Reddit. Um, as I, um, as I mentioned, um, you can

build your, You know, you can

build a sort of, um.

a decent,

um,

[00:13:00] audience in, um,

You know.

Um, excuse

me. In, in chapter Bt you can sort of go like, imagine you are A, X, Y, and Z. You know,

who, who

might be sort

of interesting

prospects. That's another way to kind of validate from, um, when you have no other, um, no other data. So, so this way you start

sort of honing

in and then you can run certain experiments.

You can run a sort of full, full store test, um, put up a landing page, uh, put up a landing page by industry, start doing ads, um, that speak to specific, um, customers in. You know, media and entertainment or

in transport or in, uh,

whatever it may be with the

types of messaging. And

then you can see what has a better success rate, uh, in terms of click through,

et cetera,

and, and go that way.

But essentially what

I'm trying to say is you

can sort of, you

start with a

pain, but you can sort of reverse engineer your way back. And then once you start

getting more data,

we now have a

full.

Funnel, I

can see who, what job titles on LinkedIn respond. Uh, have the highest link,

uh, have [00:14:00] the highest

kind of engagement.

I can see the form fills on my webpage, uh, my landing page. Um, what kind of job titles are? Um.

And, and industries are

mo most interesting to, to prospect where the clusters are. And then I can look at HubSpot data

and can see, um, what job

titles and, and clusters end up closing fastest. And that way you kind of start spinning the wheel faster and faster every time.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Well, I love that you've

got into

some of the specifics there because I think the, the concept and the framework for how to go about it hasn't

changed, but to the, the point

of all the different ways that you're talking about, there's so many more tools and techniques. To use out there that are more accessible.

So you

can really like, cast a wide net as far as

all those different ways to

kind of look at the audiences, test

the audiences,

uh, and then have more confidence, uh, going, going in that direction. Uh, and I wanna dive a little bit deeper into, um, kinda some of the shifts happening in Go-to-market right now.

[00:15:00] Uh, and ask you, what would you say is

a, a commonly held belief

in Go-to-market that, uh, you feel is, uh, that you disagree with?

Kat Wendelstadt: I think, uh,

AI can't do everything.

I

see my whole LinkedIn is, is full of, Ooh. I now have 57 agents and

they run my entire function. It just

cannot be true. I, I

so firmly, uh,

do not believe that this is possible, especially,

um.

When you, when you go into enterprise, at the end of the day, people still buy from people.

And if they are getting, um, You know, a whole raft of unpersonalized or

even personalized, but just lazy messages throughout a process, um, something a, I think with a sort of fully end-to-end

agent process is

still bound to break.

And

number two is there was a lot

of noise in the media about

some of these AI SDR

companies.

And just [00:16:00] how

bad they were.

You know, at the end

of the day, I think you have a much, much higher chance of converting a

high

value client if you manage to get somebody on the phone. And if you

managed

to have that human interaction, I think

AI can definitely help you

get faster, help you get smarter, help you, You know, crunch huge amount of data, but it's not

going to replace

the human, um,

yet.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah, I

think there's, um, You know, a little bit of like the emperor has no clothes and there's so much value to be getting from AI

and, and,

marketing and sales and lots

of different

disciplines.

but there's so much discourse

happening online about all the great things it can do, um, that everyone's afraid to say, well, this

didn't work as well for me.

Right? Like, people are wondering is the problem me versus the, the technology. Um, and I see that a lot happening with, uh, like, can you have a marketing team of one?

And, You know, my, my gut is

maybe someday, uh, and You know, one with a little asterisk next to where you still need, uh, experts. But I think there's still

so [00:17:00] much,

Uh, value in the different areas of expertise coming together, even though that kind of one generalist can do, uh, more

than they could

have before. So I'm wondering like how you look at that.

Kat Wendelstadt: Yeah, I, I, I

completely agree with you. There was a, um, a thread that went viral, um, the other day about Claude running marketing with one person. And the thing that made me laugh about it is like. That's super easy because Claude has the most insane PR machinery.

Like if I have a product that sells itself with an, with an, uh, amazing PR

machinery, I don't need to do much

else. Like LinkedIn is full

of, um, people professing, uh, uh, and, and sharing every, every day about the, the, the wanders of Claude. Um, and they just have a, um, a fantastic PR

behind it. And, and

that essentially is the one thing that generated so much of this hype of the product that sells itself.

So, You know, I think all these things have to

be taken [00:18:00] with

a, um, with a pinch

of salt.

I think a, a

team of one, um,

You know, dozens, uh. Cannot do

the job, especially not from, You know, raising awareness to content production, content editing, uh, um, there's just, even if, if I automated

my entire job, there's

so much brain space, you, you still need to have the space to think.

Um, the nuance

is

not there yet in terms of, You know, I did a, made a Hagen avatar the other day. It

just wasn't that

good, You know? And so, And so I think

I'm

probably doing the job of three people, but You know, um, And so I'm much more efficient, but I'm not doing the job of 10 or 15

people.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. And I'm curious, how are you thinking differently about n nurturing or growing or building out your marketing department now compared to, let's say. When you were CMO like five plus years ago.

Kat Wendelstadt: Yeah, that's, um, I, I, I love [00:19:00] that question. So, five years ago I worked for a company and, um, and I had 35 people under me across sales and marketing. Now that probably would be, um, at the same stage, probably would be about 10. So it's reduced by about a third. The way I like to, um, build it out is, is I like to get freelancers in first.

Um, and then when they kind of hit the limit. Then kind of either get them, um, to convert them into a permanent employee or hire for that role permanently. The advantage of when you're starting building from scratch is a freelancer needs much less handholding. There's another emotion is involved if there's, if it doesn't work out, you can both part ways without, uh, any drama.

And they are subject matter experts at what they do. So they just come in and essentially solve the problem that you hire them for, and you can get them in really quickly. There's no, You know, massive time lag. I'm hiring somebody at the moment [00:20:00] and they have an eight week, um, um, uh, what do you call it?

Like, uh, um, before they can start an eight week, um, I forgot the word, um, period

Natalie Nathanson: A non-compete.

Kat Wendelstadt: Yeah, kind of like a non-comp compute eight, that's eight weeks. And that's, You know, um, if I hired, You know, somebody as a, as a freelancer, they can start most of the time, You know, immediately. 'cause otherwise there wouldn't be, there wouldn't be market.

So, so that's how I like to scale. And when, when we hit the limit, um, of what is possible in terms of output and have built the system, then I think about adding the next person on.

Hey, this is Natalie, your Shift and Thrive host. After chatting with lots of CEOs, one thing is crystal clear. Leveling up your company means having a killer Go-to-market strategy. That's what my crew at Magnitude Consulting does every day. If you're trying to step up your marketing game, whether it's strategizing, accelerating your pipeline, expanding into new markets, or getting into [00:21:00] AI and automation, let's talk.

No pitch, no pressure. Just good conversation. Visit shift and thrive podcast.com/natalie to schedule a time. Can't wait to connect.

Natalie Nathanson: wanted to dive in maybe a bit. Onto the kind of pragmatic day-to-day use of ai. Where are

you seeing kinda the biggest, uh, the biggest

impacts,

the biggest benefits? And if you have any specific examples of

kind of a campaign or an initiative,

that'd be great.

Kat Wendelstadt: I mean, I, this is only three months ago. We needed to do, You know, get our data into shape and start, start doing this

sort of initial reporting.

So I had, I hired a, a consultant

to do, build out a

dashboard,

pulling in

different kind of data sources.

Um, four weeks

ago, perplexity computer came out, um, with connectors to

all the data sources that

I need. So the same dashboard actually better. Um. Has been built, um, or I built it,

um, in

about five [00:22:00] minutes, um, from, You know, just by

connecting an MCP

to HubSpot and uh, and to

Google Analytics

data.

Um, and

it's, and you can interrogate it. It is just

live and you can keep adding the months and different kinds of view to it,

views to it. That's been like one absolute game changer. Everybody's talking about. Clawed. Uh, and Claude is great, but it's terrible at visualization. Um, and, and sort of building, um, branded, uh, branded assets.

Um, it's very good at,

at memory. So complexity is my sort of new go-to in terms of dashboards and, and

debrief search. And then I use a mix of the different

claw

tools, either, um, projects or cowork or code depending on, um. On the task, but basically I build skills for the different repeatable things that I need, doing mostly on content.

Um, and then it just, uh, creates the output

for me. So one

example would be, um, let's say six months ago, I would've

[00:23:00] had to interview,

um, the CEOs of the company on a repeated basis, uh,

to create content

in their voice. Um, but. Uploaded so much content that I, You know,

that kind

of frequency's gone from once a month to probably once every three months to give me new input because the tool is just constantly learning.

Um, yeah, learning and, and I can say, make me turn LinkedIn posts in their voice and it's, it's quite remarkable just how good it's.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah. Yeah. I know when we

spoke previously, we talked a bit about

kind of

needing to

upskill kind of ourselves and shift how we're each working as, uh, kind of business leaders, marketing leaders, um, and that you've really put a concerted effort into that. Um, so

wanted to hear kinda what that process

has looked like for

you.

I imagine it's an ongoing process as it is, uh, for all of us. And

I think specifically knowing we have a lot of,

uh, CEOs and founders, uh, in the audience thinking about what kinds of, [00:24:00] uh, kind of expectations to be, to be kind of setting

with the team, thinking about

for their team as really all gonna Go-to-market leaders, uh, uh, and practitioners really need to be thinking through this.

So can you talk a little bit about your own journey with that?

Kat Wendelstadt: Sure. I, I

started leaning into ai,

uh,

quite

early on, I

would say

so. Um, uh, two years ago, pretty heavily and then, and then very heavily last year. And, and what I wanted to learn is just

how to get

more efficient at my, at

my job and start building

systems.

And so, um, there was

a

lot more noise I feel last year around the tools that are actually,

that might be

good. And so I

tried a whole lot of stuff.

I try. N eight n and m.com

and, uh, um, cursor and Sal and

like, You know, that

have slightly different use cases and applications and I,

you end up kind of going, okay, you

end up.

Getting a, a sense

of what

kind of works for [00:25:00] you and what is simple. Because some of these tools are NAN for example, as

an automation tool, I

found horribly

complicated a year

ago. Now

it's much

easier 'cause it's

sort of, they've added a copilot to

it, but you end up basically trying three and if

you kind

of can't get past the initial, um.

Uh, the initial

wall of trying, getting a decent output, then I just sort of left it by the wayside. So I ended up going with, um, with

a tool called Relay that

does the same,

the same

thing. They have pre-built templates And so you

can

see how different workflows, um, might work for you

just need to input

your data and it just runs it for you rather than having to stitch every single bit together, which is really time consuming.

Um, so I'm definitely doing less. Because I've sort of settled on what I need And so I kind of have a go-to for

content.

I have a go-to for um, um, which

is clawed. I have a go-to, um,

for,

um, making [00:26:00] assets, which is lovable.

I have a

go-to um, for, um,

automating,

which is

really I have, and then everything lives in Notion and is connected

of like one

database

and that database. Kind of runs a

lot of the sort of day-to-day sprints and

the way, You know, the operations

of the, of the team.

Natalie Nathanson: I think one of the things that's been very interesting,

uh, for me, and You know, to some degree a lesson learned over the last few years is. Uh, was initially in kind of our organization kind of change management around kind of adopting. AI using it was, uh, You know, treating everyone the same, of let's kind of, we're all in this together, let's go through it.

Um, and one of the things we learned last year, uh, was everyone's

bringing something different

to the table and the way everyone's mind operates, uh, kind of yields

different,

uh,

different strengths and

skills for, for working with

these tools. Right. And I've noticed,

and have [00:27:00] now kind of built our,

our program

structure differently as a result versus the, those

that are,

Uh, really

strong in like the systems thinking,

the passion for new

tools, the champion of

kinda new features in our existing

Tool set,

uh, workflow efficiencies of kind of day-to-day like operational work. Um, so it's been very interesting to, to pay attention to

those kinds

of like

archetypes,

uh, so to speak.

And, uh, build the program so it's playing to everyone's strengths and not kind of everyone trying to gain all the same skills in all the same places.

Kat Wendelstadt: I think that's a really good point because, um, everyone is kind of different. And I think if you are, um, depending on the organization size, there's a, there's

a certain way of doing things, right? Like if you're a hundred people, 200, 500, uh, or,

or a bigger organization, there's certain workflows and there's certain ways of doing things and processes changing

that is.

really complicated and bringing AI into that is really complicated.

The beautiful advantage [00:28:00] that I have had is,

Is I typically

focus on

building from zero, so I can just go AI first. And so I always try and do, do it as manually as possible to then kind of figure out how to not

do it

manually anymore. Um, but I can completely appreciate in a, You know, when you have different archetypes who have different priorities, it's, it's probably very difficult

to get

to common denominator of,

of how

to adopt AI and, and, and how it's going to work.

Natalie Nathanson: Right. Well, and to some degree,

I think in the past, uh, I never really thought about, You know, how we each

work individually. You didn't have to shine the spotlight on it

that we're all

seeing now, right? You hire someone with a certain skillset, they produce the outcome, but how they think about creating

that and what is their planning process and,

You know, all of that.

Um, it was kind of under the, under the hood, so to speak, and I think now

that's the part

that's kind of coming to the forefront, uh, and kind of drive some of these big differences.

Kat Wendelstadt: Yeah. Yeah.

Natalie Nathanson: So Kat, I'd love to hear a [00:29:00] little

bit more about you and your

background and, uh, I would love to hear, You know, how you got into, uh, how you got into marketing and, uh,

You know, earlier, uh, pre-care. Did you

expect that to be a field, the type of field you'd be in?

Kat Wendelstadt: Um, not at all. I got into by accident, so I studied history.

Um. And I thought I was going

to be

a historian.

Um, when I, when I

left, uh, when I left university and I was really quite, uh, it's very hard to kind of think when you something. So, um, non-specific, what do you actually do with it? And I, I

found it,

it was serendipity. I found a job ad and it said, do you like to work hard and play hard?

And I thought, that sounds like me. Um, and it was for a fantastic company, uh, called Dunhumby. They're um,

data science

company.

And I

ended up, um, working

for them in their early days. They

were a startup with maybe

50 people

There now

Probably 2000 people and a, and a sort of, um, several hundred million

dollars juggernaut. And, um, that was my en uh, entry into, [00:30:00] into the marketing world. I then ended up working for large corporates and, but then really realized that. I want to be building and part

of that sort of building

journey,

I don't wanna inherit

something that's already been done by somebody else.

And so

I, um, joined an entrepreneurship program, um, sponsored by Google

in, in Silicon

Valley.

Where I ended up, um,

building, founding a, a, um, a company

finding my co-founders and, and, and starting, um, a business. And that

business, um, is a

biotech firm, and

that is the company that, um,

has, um, as you mentioned at the beginning in the intro,

um, it's

been invested in by. Um, SAML Altman Founders Fund. Um, And so it's, um, yeah, it's a company that turned into a very successful, uh, startup and that really kind of start was the start of my startup journey.

And ever since then, um, sort of

mid-career, I,

um, pivoted completely away from the corporate life.

And

I now

only work with

[00:31:00] startups typically in the sort of one to, um,

either zero to one or in the one to 5

million.

It's

Kind of a RR uh,

um, fight.

Natalie Nathanson: I'm curious how being a founder yourself shifted your, your purview as kind of a marketer or CMO.

Kat Wendelstadt: I mean, it's, it's, um, there's a lot

of

the things that are

the same because basically my, You know, if you can't sell, you don't have a business. And, and that's what

marketing is about

and that's what being a founder is about. Because if you don't, if you can't sell, you can't hire people and you can't get an Investment obviously gave me a, um,

You know, you have a lot

more responsibility on your

shoulders and.

You know, you have to do everything from, You know,

incorporating to, um, You know, legal setup,

accounting, um, which

are elements that I enjoy less. I really like

the

marketing side. So, um, and, and sort of the, um, building out [00:32:00] that function.

Um, I think I'd probably be

a good

CEO once the company is sort of, um, established, but I

didn't enjoy the c eing from

zero to one. I must be honest.

Natalie Nathanson: Yeah,

lots, lots of,

uh, work needed in, in different areas that

are not necessarily anyone's, uh, forte.

but they need to be done and there's no one else to

do them. Those early

stages.

Uh, I'm curious, Kat, I always like to close the conversation on, on something a bit more personal and

curious, what's the best piece

of advice that you've been given that still shapes how you

operate?

Kat Wendelstadt: Um, I was

given a great piece

of advice

by, um, a former boss of mine and it's great because it's so simple.

So when I,

um,

um,

or the, or the piece of advice is,

um, figure out how

you can help people and. The, the reason why I thought it was very powerful,

I was off

to go to this entrepreneurship program and it, it was at nasa, so

all of the

people there had like incredible backgrounds, uh, PhDs [00:33:00] of, I mean, you name it.

And I was like,

why do they choose me? I've had

like full on imposter syndrome about why, You know, I had a right to be there. And he said, don't worry about it, just figure out how you can help them. And it was so powerful because everybody needs help. Nobody has all the answers. And if

you can find that angle.

You can be

incredibly, um, kind and valuable to, to a lot of people. So that's always what I've kind of stuck by throughout my career.

Natalie Nathanson: I love that. I love that. Well, it's, You

know, it feels good. It's genuine. You benefit from,

You know, the power of your network when you're looking for how to help people. And then going back to the marketing and sales side, when you're, when you have that as your, your primary

charter,

uh, it's

just the, the

right way to, uh, to, You know.

Move forward in, uh, in different Go-to-market roles. So I love that advice.

Kat Wendelstadt: At the

end of the day, you gotta help your customers, right? Help them move forward, help

them improve, help them solve a

problem. So it's kind of, yeah, it's

kind

of on a, from a team perspective and Dispersonal perspective, just a nice, [00:34:00] a

nice way to think about things.

Natalie Nathanson: Yes, yes. Wonderful, wonderful.

Well, thank you for sharing that,

And as we wrap up today's conversation, can you let our

listeners

know what's the best way to reach you?

Kat Wendelstadt: LinkedIn. So

just, uh, find my name, Kat

Vendel stat. Um, and I also have a website, but LinkedIn is probably the best way.

Natalie Nathanson: Wonderful. Well, thank you Kat. I really enjoyed this conversation and hearing, uh, your

perspectives on what it takes to, uh,

build a category, uh, from, from scratch,

uh, what your experience has been

working in AI and marketing. Um, and your perspective on, on staying relevant in, in these times. So, so many valuable takeaways for,

uh, any

CEO

thinking about how to evolve,

uh, their, their Go-to-market

and their, their team skillset right now.

Thank you.

Kat Wendelstadt: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Natalie Nathanson: Thank you. My pleasure.

And thank you too to everyone who's

listening. If today's conversation sparked something for you and

I'm sure that it did,

please pass

this along to another leader. We know

these are the kinds of [00:35:00] conversations

that help all of us scale smarter, build stronger, and create more resilient Go-to-market engines.

So

thanks

again, Kat,

and this

has been

another wonderful conversation on Shift

and Thrive. I'll see you all next time.

That's a wrap for this week's episode. For show notes and more visit Shift and thrive podcast.com. A special thank you to our sponsor, magnitude Consulting, bringing you the thinking power of a growth consultancy and the getting it done Power of a full service marketing agency to help B2B companies fuel their growth.

For more information on magnitude and to get your complimentary transformation readiness assessment, visit magnitude consulting.com/. Get ready. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next week.