(Ep 33) FARRYNHEIGHT -> Building a brand and marketing SWAT team 🙋‍♀️

Farryn Weiner | Founder & CEO

Dec 01, 2020

Hey friends,

Back again with another edition of The Founder recap - this is Episode 33. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.

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And who am I?

I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.

Let’s get it.

This Week’s Episode (Ep 33) 🙋‍♀️

Guest -> Farryn Weiner, Founder and CEO of Farrynheight

Mission -> Farrynheight is a new age brand strategy and marketing agency built to support founders at 30,000 and 100 feet and launch/relaunch anything

Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website

Why listen -> You’re interested in branding building, marketing, finding yourself, supporting a powerful all-female team

In this episode we talk with Farryn about…

🔑 Becoming a better storyteller

💪 Tactical steps to enhance a brand strategy

😲 What companies get right/wrong when building their brand

🏆 How great brands stay great for decades

⚖️ How to balance ambition and happiness

Summary 🔍

What is Farrynheight and how did Farryn get started?

Farryn spent the last 15 years mastering her craft as a storyteller through a variety of creative fields.

After graduating from NYU film school, she spent time at different magazines and tech companies before ultimately landing at jetsetter.com and formally entering the world of marketing.

When she worked at Jetsetter, social media was emerging as a game-changing portal for two-way brand communication and she was fascinated by the power it gave brands to own their narrative and talk directly to their customers.

She then went on to work in marketing roles at Michael Kors and most recently, Sweetgreen, helping expand their footprint nationwide.

Along the way she had countless conversations with founders and VCs and understood a common deprioritization of marketing & branding in the early days of a start-up. She knew from her experience how critical it was to build this foundation and wanted to create a bad ass team of marketers who could fill that gap.

That’s how Farrynheight was born.

Today at Farrynheight, Farryn runs a brand strategy and marketing SWAT team. Their sweet spot is to work with early stage startups to help them launch or relaunch their brands.

The team is unique in that they are incredibly selective about the clients they work with, serving as an extension of the core team and completely replacing the marketing function in some cases.

Their mix of all-star women enables them to seamlessly zoom in and zoom out, helping founders understand the high-level strategy behind building a powerful brand as well as the tactical steps needed to execute on that brand vision day to day.

To date, they’ve worked with companies like Reformation, Bandier, Highline Wellness, Monument, Scent Bird and more.

For the record, Farrynheight is showing no signs of slowing down 💪

Here’s why I’m a fan and excited about the future for Farrynheight:

Farryn is zigging while the rest of the industry is zagging. She identified that the traditional marketing agency model doesn’t work well for early-stage companies. At the very beginning of a company’s life, most can barely tread water with the 2-4 full-time people they have on payroll. In almost every situation, unless one of the founders has a branding/marketing background, brand is something that is not prioritized while funding is scarce. Farryn realized that what founders need is a fractional CMO, with extra pairs of hands that know what they’re doing to help bolster the brand & marketing functions until the team is ready to hire full-time talent. For the founders currently in the Farrynheight family, Farryn and her team are a godsend
Farryn knows her stuff cold. I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who has had multiple senior level corporate marketing roles (Michael Kors, Sweetgreen) and has a significant pulse on the culture (after all, she is @jetsetfarryn). She’s a dual threat who can provide high-level strategy and on-the-ground tactics in the same conversation. Oh, and her favorite thing to do is hire, so she has a powerful team supporting her as well. If I’m in the early stages and think that brand/community is going to be a factor in my long-term strategy (which it should be), I’m begging her to bring me into the Farrynheight club.

Farryn’s Startup Manifesto 📜

What’s a Startup Manifesto?

At the end of every episode, I ask all of my founder guests the same question:

If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?

Here’s what Farryn had to say:

Failure is a gift – don’t miss an opportunity to fail.
Negative feedback is ammunition to become better, faster and stronger because without it you, won’t learn what’s critical for your development.
Understand the non-negotiables in your business and use them as guardrails in your decision making.
Have a radical dedication to your product and your values.
Never lose sight of the north star and why you’re there.

What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔

After reflecting on my conversation with Farryn, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:

The power of brand 👍🏽

Farryn lives and breathes brand. You can tell it from the first minute you start talking to her.

It was fascinating to hear stories from her time at Jetsetter, Michael Kors and Sweetgreen and how they influenced the core brand and marketing philosophies that Farrynheight was founded on.

Going into my conversation with her, I was already a massive proponent of brand and community. In my mind, building a cult brand that lives and breathes its authentic self is as good as gold.

Because customers can always tell the difference between an authentic brand and one that doesn’t live believe in its core values.

When you think about the iconic names that immediately pop into your head when you think “best in class brands” - Nike, Apple, Disney - they’re there for a reason. Those companies have spent decades infusing their core values into every aspect of their business. From their products and packaging to their customer service and cafeterias, everything plays a part in strengthening that brand.

And why does it really matter?

We see new market entrants all the time that throw up a flashy Shopify site with some slick branding and do fairly well for themselves in the early days. Many of these players pour money into paid acquisition and are able to buy customers and influence initially.

But do they have staying power? Will those brands be around for the next 50 years?

Farryn and I had an interesting discussion about this exact question.

While decades might not be the benchmark as many new-age companies look to be acquired in their first 8-10 years of business, most will admit that a core part of their growth strategy is to build a strong brand and community.

So how would they do it?

Farryn says there are a couple things that all great brands get right:

Clarity - on who they want to be
Focus on the customer - on who they want to serve
Conviction in their values - on what they stand for
Culture - on who they are and how they do it

And these things all boil down to one thing - the ability to be themselves.

Great brands know who they want to be and spend a disproportionate amount of time building a culture that enforces those values.

What does “being a powerful brand” mean to you?

Wrapping it Up 📕

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