Latest / Weirdly Effective: How Creative Businesses Build Experiences / Zuzu Turned a Painting Launch Into an Email Detective Story

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Zuzu Turned a Painting Launch Into an Email Detective Story · Weirdly Effective: How Creative Businesses Build Experiences

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: The best creative businesses don't just sell a thing, they build an experience around it to delight their audience.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: Think a kid that you can't wait to unbox, a Kickstarter that has you freaking out, or a loyalty club that actually gives you stuff you want.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: This is Weirdly Effective, the podcast where I sit down with the people who built those experiences and we dive right into it.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_02: How they came up with the idea, why it works, and most importantly, what their audience did next.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Megan, co-founder of Fat Cap, and this is a show all about weirdly effective strategies.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: Suzu, thank you for coming on today.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to chat with you about your wonderful world of cats.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to be here.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: For people who might not know you, do you mind introducing yourself?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: So my name is Zuzu, also known out in the world as Ellie Tria.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I am a visual artist and a YouTuber and a podcaster and a writer and about a hundred other things as well.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And all the work that I make is in service of the celebration of otherness, which basically just means that I'm a complete weirdo and I like to make other other weirdos feel like they found a safe space.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I run uh Zuszy's House of Cats, which is a sort of website experience, I suppose you could call it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yeah, I just the door's always open.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love to welcome people in.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: I met you through a networking group and I immediately went to your website, and you're right, it is an absolute experience.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's actually start there because I do think, like, for people, like it's their first taste of you, and it definitely has old world carnival vibes.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that it you built it in response to just like the instantification of social media over the last few years, and you just wanted this space that was yours.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it is a bold move to take for somebody because um, as somebody who when I do brand strategy, like we are always building these sites where it's like, what are people used to?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: What will they, what will convert them?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: How will they flow?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: You didn't toss it all out the window, but you definitely were like that, and how do I make it fun?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious how you describe it.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: Your it to me was almost like um a game of clue where you had like all the rooms laid out where people like so it wasn't like it wasn't like a page they go to, it was actually like a room.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's called the House of Cats, and it is structured like a house, um, wherein rooms are added, rooms get taken away.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of a magical Alice in Wonderland sort of place.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and each room corresponds to a particular area of uh of my practice.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, we have the laboratory, which is where I share inside my sketchbook and sort of like process stuff and what I'm working on and the sort of messy, in the middle of it making stuff.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: But then we have the atelier, which is where I showcase like my finished collections and talk about the stories behind the work and show the finished pieces and sort of my professional talks and exhibitions and that sort of thing.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have like the cabinet of curiosities, which is where I dump everything that sort of sparks my imagination and captures some kind of seed.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's more of a sort of digital garden.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what I like is for people to just land wherever.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: There is a floor plan, but I find people tend to get the most out of it when they find their own way through it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I really designed it on the principle of good friction.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So okay.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: What that means is that with everything that we have generally in the in the modern world, especially on the internet, everything, like you were just saying, is designed to be as frictionless as possible.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is, you don't even have to think about stuff.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're sort of through a process before you've even realized what's happened.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what that does to the human brain is the things that come easily to us are not the things that we value the most.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The things that we actually have to work a little bit for and put something of ourselves into are the things that we value most highly.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, with with the website, my goal was not to attract and convert as many people as possible.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: My goal was to find a very, very particular sort of person who would appreciate the experience that I had laid on for them.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what I found is that I'm not for everybody, which is exactly, you know, that's the place I was starting at.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that was going to be the case.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the people who come and find the house and give it a little bit of themselves and spend the time kind of wandering through the rooms and reading the posts and watching the videos, they are so in my world, they're sort of instantly super fans.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I sort of miss this whole sort of section of people, and I go straight from I have no idea who you are, to oh my God, I love everything you're doing.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Give me more, which is fantastic, which is exactly what I wanted.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, I love that because in my last business, I sold embroidery kits and yeah, I unintentionally created a fan-based business.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't realize how unusual it was until I closed it and then tried to help other people build them.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: And they didn't know why they wanted super fans.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, because they will they will support you in everything.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: They will show up.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we were talking about K-pop earlier.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why would you not want a stadium full of super fans?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that you, like you said, like so many people, like you get the first-time visitor, and then they're kind of like on your, let's say, like on your mailing list, and they'll open, but you know, it's as much as they open anything else, like any other ad, you know, from from a big box store.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then like it it takes a long time to convert somebody to that super fan.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot of touch points.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so I love that you built this not a barrier, but almost like, yeah, like a kind of like a fun house that they get to go through.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: And if you make it through and you don't like exit, yeah, you you've just already like set them up to be your super fan.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: That is so cool.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that was was that the aim when you built the site?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was fed up of designing everything to be the most convenient it could possibly be and to appeal to the most amount of people as possible as well.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm incredibly autistic and I've never really understood the whole social media marketing game.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's never really worked for me.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really understood it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really understood why you would want to just do the same thing that everybody else is doing.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and so when I when I set up the House of Cats, I was like, okay, I have tried to do the reindeer games, I've tried to do things the way you're supposed to do them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: What would happen if I just did what I wanted to do?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And let's see what happened.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I built this complicated, weird site with navigation that makes sense, but it makes sense in its own logical universe.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I with the YouTube channel as well, it's just like I just want to make the videos that I want to make.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And at some point, maybe that's gonna intersect with what people want to watch.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I find the same with my YouTube channel as well.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: The comments I get are, oh my god, where have you been all my life?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I found my tribe, there's nobody else doing this, and it's that instant, like, oh my god, like, and I that I love it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: I do my job right.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: I know.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: I used to have an email folder that was just called like compliments, so that whenever I felt bad that day, I could just open up the compliments folder and be like, oh no, it's okay.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I made some of the things.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love it because like your YouTube videos are they're not always about what you're selling.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Let me put it that way.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because like we are so much more than just what we are offering to people.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: One of your biggest ones seemed to be the history of black and white stripes.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was really the turning point for the channel.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which I watched because I was like, tell me more.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very interested.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody's whole wardrobe is just black and white.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think I think it really shows like you understood not only just your audience, but in this instance, it's also like, what are the aspects of you that you share with the customer so that if you create it and have fun, they will get to come along and be delighted with you.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that that was your guiding light for for all of it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of us are just scared to do it because we only see, like you said, the like formulaic, this is how you, this is how you go big on social.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: But even if you do go viral, like those aren't actually like it's such a small percentage that would even convert to be the super fans that you may as well have fun while doing it.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing I think the real, the really key thing is, is that you're never actually selling the thing that you're selling.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: People don't want to buy things, they want to feel something.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what I am actually selling is this feeling of belonging, of being an outsider and that being okay, celebrated even.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when people buy paintings, like all of my work is about that to some degree.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: All of the things I write about, all of the videos I make, have this thread of misfittery, which people can see themselves in.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then when they go on to buy paintings, what they're buying is a sort of symbol of that sense of belonging, of knowing that there's somebody out there who can understand them.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and the black and white stripes is such such a wonderful example of that because it is such, I mean, you've seen the video, like the symbolism of the stripe is this is this history of it being used to mark out people who are other, and then over time being reclaimed to celebrate that and worn as a badge of honor.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just such a perfect kind of segue with everything that I talk about and kind of what I stand for as an artist, as a as a brand, but you know, you have to think about these things.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you do as well.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I made it because it was a personal sort of, you know, I was fed up with people going, oh, Tim Burton, Tim Burton, and me being like, Well, actually.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a real like it came from a real like, you know, everybody ought to know this because it's not just Tim Burton.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it just happened to segue with something that a lot of people who are my kind of people are interested in.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of people who would like me are also happen to be Tim Burton fans.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And even though the video wasn't about Tim Burton, the algorithm finally twinked.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it was sort of, I mean, engineered, but engineered on a on a macro scale.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just one of the seeds that sort of ended up germinating and blossoming into something that brought a lot of people my way.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I think that's really interesting because, like you said, you didn't intend to do it, but it was like, what is at its core?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's for your main audience, but it's attached to something they like, which has a much broader appeal.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the strategist in me is like, I bet you could, if you were interested, keep finding those things.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And then, like, when you are like, I'd like to go viral again, you know, like it's being like, what is it?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have the belonginess, but then pop culture, like, what is the pop culture that sits on top of that that can then, like you said, tweak the algorithm to get there.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it's never occurred to me to try that.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very intrigued now.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting that you say that because I was talking with like my business friends after this video popped off, and we were all kind of like sitting around going, Oh, how could you replicate this?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how could you you could do a pogodots one, or you could do like a leopard print one, or you could do like a deep dive on one of the artists that you love.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized very quickly, like, the reason that video was as good as it was and captured like so many people's imaginations was because I didn't make it in order to go viral.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I made it because it was something that was deeply personal to me that I felt passionate about.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was the cyberbox that you pulled out so many times.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized, like, if if the only way that I could replicate this is by making something, making a video about something else that I feel passionate about, not trying to replicate the success of that particular video and trying to go viral.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And funnily enough, like a couple of weeks later, I had a second video go viral, which was uh called You Don't Owe Anyone Your Creative Process, which was about how you don't need to dance like a performing monkey on Instagram to be a successful artist, basically.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And shared sort of my creative process and how I share that with my audience.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that again was something that I care very deeply about.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just sat there making paper chains and just riffing, and it wasn't even like scripted or anything.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that one has has gone off as well.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think really having this really clear North Star of what who am I speaking to?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I speaking to?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what do they care about that I am uniquely positioned to provide to them?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and making making that, making the ideas that bubble up from inside me and trusting that it's about creating a body of work, not just like one viral moment or like this is this is obviously this is a business for me, this is my livelihood, but it is also my vocation, you know, this is my calling.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if I am engineering it to appeal to the gallery, I'm not doing my job as an artist anymore.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: My job is to find the people that are digging what I'm making, not to make stuff that some random person will dig.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: I went to, you would love this.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: So as you were talking, like about the like bringing together the people that that feel different and and putting out that kind of beacon.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I have been to several like heavy metal concerts recently, and it's so apparent, as somebody who's getting into the genre, there are bands like Ghost, where I it's I've never been in a sweeter crowd.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and and it's it's a satanic band with nameless ghouls or all the band members, so they all have masks on.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then last night I went to one that was Castle Rat.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, my husband went to see them recently.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, they're amazing.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, and it started with them, they wore Halloween costumes to an event, and then that became the costumes that they had to keep wearing.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it is a woman, for those who don't know, definitely look it up.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: But like, as my husband puts it, a battle babe.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: So she's got like her chainmail bikini, bra, you know, and like a sword, and there's like puppetry and like a choreograph fight scene that goes on, and a plague doctor.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: But the people who went are so into it, and it was really fascinating for me to watch all of these big burly men being like with Wolfgastle Rat.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, you just don't see this often because so many, so many like men don't listen to female artists.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, these people came to see a battle babe and like are absolutely loving it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then as I'm left, there's like a woman who was like, Normally music doesn't make me feel anything, but there's something about these songs that just I felt.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I I think it's so I think artists understand that a lot more than like business people, just like the impact that you can have.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I love that you lean into it, and like me, you like to delight your audience with unusual things.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so you initially pitched me and you were like, I ran a scavenger hunt, and immediately I was like emailing you back, and it was like, tell me more, and like let's get on and talk about this.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me about like what this was for and how the idea came about.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I think probably calling it a scavenger hunt is a little misleading.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was sort of a it was sort of a a photo essay slash detective story slash scavenger hunt that I was on that my audience was observing.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like a follow-along.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like a follow-along.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so basically, I have this collection, painting collection, which is called The Flourishing, which is sort of tells the story of um me leaving an abusive relationship in the UK and moving to Copenhagen and rediscovering myself and eventually meeting the man I would marry.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a collection of sort of abstract floral paintings, very vibrant, very whooshy and splattery and glittery.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a real kind of like an outpouring of that feeling.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted, I'd never offered them for sale online before, and I wanted to I wanted to do them justice, and I wanted to do the stories justice.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're all named after um the three what word, uh, what three words um navigational system, which assigned three words to every single square meter on earth, and something that I discover such a weird system, yeah.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: My husband got into it for a while.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's so cool, it's so nerdy.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's and I found that within like certain areas, so I could isolate like a restaurant that we went to, and I could find one of the square meters within that restaurant that would encapsulate the feeling of that particular um of that what happened in that particular place.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very much like geographically uh oriented.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was trying to think of a way to sell it, I was thinking like, I want to tell this story by taking people on the journey that I went through so they understand the impact of these paintings.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when they're looking at one of these whooshy, colorful florals, they're like, oh, and that's the place where she realized she was interested in her husband, like interested in husband.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the place where she was proposed to by a Nicaraguan poet after being in this terrible uh abusive relationship for so long.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I wanted people to have a real sense of like place and that this was a real story.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to tell the story of the escape, the escape from from the UK, and have it as clues that I would follow.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: My husband is an incredible photographer, he does all of my photography um on the website and and for projects like this as well.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's so useful.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I made I made a bunch of props.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it started with a note that supposedly fell out of a book in a in a cafe, and you see like the images of me sitting reading in the cafe, and you see the note falling, and then you see an image of the note.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it says to meet under the clock at Copenhagen Central.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then then the next email, we're at Central Station, and I'm under the clock, and I find a matchbook for a bar, which I actually made by hand.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't do matchbooks at that bar, so I had to actually like physically like make it and and do matchable and stuff.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I find the matchbook.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened was the the first email, I had several messages going, I don't think I don't think you should go.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like this seems really creepy, like be careful, or like if someone's left this for you, or if you've just like randomly found something that somebody else has left, like it
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: wasn't was.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: like so invested already.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second email, I had a bunch of people going, Oh, I think that's the matchbook.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I recognize the logo.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's from this bar.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think you should go here next.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was quite like I had not because I've been talking about this in my newsletters, like, oh, I'm planning this really cool experience for you.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, stay tuned.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's gonna be a few more emails over the next couple of weeks, like pay attention.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then people were just like, Oh my god, this is happening right now in real time.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go to the bar, and there's a photograph, like a framed photograph on the wall.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's actually me and my brother.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and behind the photograph is is a poem, a love poem.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the back of the poem is a treasure map, which has the what three words uh locations circled in their and their titles.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I follow the treasure map, I go to the X, and it's a gallery, and then there's a there's an exhibition catalogue in the window, and and we open the the the catalogue, and it's like, oh, like the artist is me.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is my journey, these are the paintings that came from this.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go to the website, and then each painting in the product description, you get the story of that place, where it was, and and what happened there.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, it's Megan, quick one.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: Everything you've heard so far today has been a live case study for what we do here at FatCap.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: So we build clever, personality-packed brands that attract audiences and keep them coming back for more.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you've wondered what we could do for your business, click the link below and schedule Discovery Call.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's get back to the interview.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that that was so remarkable about it like, yes, I sold some paintings, but people are still talking about it now.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I still get messages about it, I still get people signing up to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It on the website.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had um a friend of mine recently tell me that she talks about it on every single podcast she goes on because it's one of the most creative examples of marketing that like it's just the thing that she has in her back pocket when somebody asks her about creative marketing.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've I'm on this podcast with you now.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I've I've had uh invitations to kind of teach, it's raised my profile like enormously, it's just an incredible plus it was so much fun to do, and people were so into it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The selling of the paintings was almost sort of like inconsequential compared to everything else that happened around it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: I love this so much because again, you just wanted to make something that was fun, immersive, and then I I really like that we never know what's gonna come out of it all, you know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like we just follow our gut, follow our heart, and then all these things can happen when we do it.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, had you intended to keep it like live on your site as something that people like an evergreen experience?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Had you intended that initially, or like as soon as it ended, you were like, Oh, we need to put this somewhere.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not at the beginning.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was very much a just kind of like, you know, maybe I'll run it again when my list has got a whole bunch of new people on, I'll run it again as a as a campaign to the new people.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but once I saw the response to it, I was just like, I think this just needs to be an experience that people can have whenever.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's actually kind of sold a few prints and and things kind of after the fact, which is really lovely.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I I it's not something I particularly promote.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just every now and again someone will sign up and and go through it because they've been wandering the labyrinth that is the house of cats and come across it.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I love it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we'll definitely link it in the show notes because um you sent it to me and it was it was it was fantastic to go through.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I think it's a really good way to leverage it because you did all the work, you had all the fun, you never intended to take it any further than that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: But like you've already done the work.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Why not?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: You know, put it somewhere where people, like you said, can keep going through and you can continue.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody would be like, that's a bad thing, like to monetize it, right?
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can continue to make money off it, why not?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um also putting it together into a book, so with all of the paintings and all the descriptions.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's gonna be a lovely like art book that that that contains the full story as well.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I like it too because when I yes, when I initially, when you said scavenger hunt, I was like, oh my gosh, you got people to like go all around town and do this.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then I realized what it was, and to me, it was even cooler because it was this kind of like not that it wasn't work, but it was like this minimum viable product of how do I do it without having to like get permits, um, you know, like organize people, like will they even show up?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it's all gonna come to your inbox, but I get to have fun.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'll document it, you know.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: And you mentioned before we started this that that was kind of uh part of your background was to make these kind of immersive experiences that are virtual, though.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: Do you mind going into that a little bit?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, not at all.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I used to run a business called Elitra Communities, um, which was I I helped people to run these online community projects, which were month-long gatherings where people would sort of like a summit, like people would have like 30 contributors, they would all contribute something, and it would happen over the course of a month via email and and a discussion group.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was it was sort of when summits were I think people do summits a lot uh in a lot nicer ways these days, but at the time summits were just like really gross and exploitative and and fast and like overwhelming and like sensory overload.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and this was a really, really slow paced like you got one email every day, and it was usually something written.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: You could read the email, come over to the discussion group, have a little chat, and and people just absolutely loved them, especially the people that I work with who were very much um what I've referred to as introverts and highly sensitive people until I got my diagnosis and I realized, oh no, we're all neurodivergent, every single one of us, okay.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think introvert and highly sensitive was like code for neurodivergent before we knew what was going on.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I I still don't think we're in the minority because or we like everyone I hang out with is, and so I'm just like, are you sure we're the minority?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because I haven't found one yet.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, introduce me to a neurotypical, please.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to meet one.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I know, they don't exist.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there were these, there were these wonderful experiences, and I worked really hard to bake in a lot of that sort of offline connectivity where people can really connect with each other one-to-one.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of what I taught was like how to actually build relationships, how to help the people who came to your event build relationships with one another and create a real community feeling.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And again, super neurodivergent because the whole thing was a pop-up thing that then went away after a month, and then you could kind of sort through everything by yourself afterwards, you know.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, and I worked on that for gosh, six years from 2018, and I think I closed it down at the end of 2004, and I got to a point where I could either like I could either kind of work on my art full-time, or I had to change the sort of fundamental foundations of what it was I was teaching because the internet had changed so much, and the sort of the structure of the thing that had worked so well for that amount of time, like the that there was the diminishing returns on it because people would just TikTok had come in and people just were struggling to get people to sign up for stuff and pay attention to things.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I need to, I need to either rejig this or I could just let it go and do the thing that I actually really want to do.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it certainly, I mean, I I yeah, I I cut my teeth in tourism marketing, which is all about creating experiences for people, making them feel home away from home, anticipating their needs before they even know that they have them.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, like this is baked into my kind of career from from year dot, you know.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: I love this so much.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: I I've I've learned in filming this that I am just a total nerd for human psychology because I think the way that we operate is just so fascinating.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so it makes it makes so much sense then like how intentional you are with everything, because the thing that I got immediately from your site and the emails was that you build with the I call it like an edge user in mind, which would be anybody neurotypical, right?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like we cannot be bothered to read whole paragraphs, we get lost easily, like and and we need hand holding, especially with like with anxiety or things like that, if we're gonna sign up for something.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I just got that sense when I was on yours that you, whether unconsciously or consciously, you were doing it very well in a way that felt very welcoming.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I could tell this thought through.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just if it all makes sense now with the tourism background.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you were very lucky to have that.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's also, I mean, it's it's partly that, but it's also partly just who I am as a person, like making I have spent the majority of my life feeling incredibly isolated, incredibly unsafe, and incredibly just out of step with the world.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And like I was wrong and broken.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a lot of us who are diver neurodivergent have had a similar sort of flavor of experience.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding on the other side of that, I met somebody who helped me understand what safety felt like and what security felt like, and what it felt like to be safe in my body.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that has given me an extraordinary platform where I can stand steady and I can extend my arms and I can welcome people in because I know what I needed when I felt like that.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I needed spaces online because I'm not really an offline person, you know.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I spend most of my time in my house.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I needed spaces where it was all right to be an absolute freak, to be aware of, to be completely to be presented with something that happened in the real world and go, that's not my experience at all.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't relate to that.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is this is who I am, this is my experience.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: And to be met with, cool, come on in, you're welcome too, you know.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that is sort of like baked into everything I do.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And when people, I mean, my newsletter has been the stuff of legend for years.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I've been writing a weekly newsletter since 2012, and I have people on my newsletter now that have been with me through four different business iterations.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love that?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: I take mine with me everywhere too.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: When I started the new business, I just like imported the old list and I was like, hello.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's been three years.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: Who wants to come?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_02: 50% of them stayed.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, there's no more embroidery, this is what it is.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't mind if you leave, but if you want, like, here we go, guys.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, there's brilliant.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's go.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: Different thing.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_02: Let's um no, I I think a lot of people you they want an audience, they want super fans, and I think a lot of people don't understand like hearing what you did.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: I yeah, I I did too.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: I had like a weekly newsletter for like eight years, and then I shut the business down and like burnt out, needed a break, and now it's back, and I'm like, let's go weekly again.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think people want a super fan base, but don't always realize that it is a communication that needs to go both ways, but you talking to them and letting them talk back and like keeping it going, and that you need to be in contact, like often like weekly is kind of the thing.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's not all about what you're selling, it's it's experiences.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: It is, I found this for you, I was thinking of you.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm starting one now.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_02: I got inspiration last night at the concert, and I was like, my magical world has talking magical cats.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, we're gonna do an advice column, and people can stick because who would not want to get advice from a very opinionated talking cat?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, what are those world-building things that we can do, or what can we share to the audience to let them know you belong here, we're the same.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: I like this, I think you'd like this.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And the bar, as I've discovered in these interviews, like the bar is kind of low for what people expect to get from other people, or like what they expect to be given.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think delighting them is so much easier than people think.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you have to give something of yourself.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're expecting people to pay attention to you, to give money to you, to support what you're doing, to believe in what you're doing, you have to give of yourself.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a very different thing for like a big box store that's just pumping out discount codes and stuff.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are a soul, a soul trader, like an entrepreneur, a an artist, a creator, you have to show up and be okay with think with people thinking that that you're their best friend, you know.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I've always spoken to my people.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I speak to one or two individuals in whatever I'm writing, whatever I'm recording, and it creates the effect that everybody thinks that I'm I'm their friends.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I I am there, I mean, boundaries, you know, parasocial, we all understand that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it is, it doesn't come from an engineered place.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's because that's who I am and that's how I communicate with the world.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I am open, I'm willing to be vulnerable, I have very strict boundaries about what I will and won't share.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know where I am with that, and I'm very comfortable with that, and I stand firm in that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to get personal to show vulnerability and to be a person and to be human and to make people feel like they're walking this journey alongside me because I want to walk this journey alongside them, you know?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: When I rebranded my embroidery kit business, um, I needed to make like the avatar for who's this super fan going to be.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I picked a person that I'd met a few times in person at events and I built it all around her.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like I politely stalked all of her socials to find out everything I could.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_02: And then I even called her up and was like, I have some questions, you know, like so tell me about your life.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then later, as I started designing things, she would email me and she'd be like, Oh my god, I feel like you designed this for me.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, I did.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: You literally did.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're on my list, like your picture is on my wall.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, that's wonderful.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny, it's funny that the more specific you get, whether it's who you're talking to or about uh an experience or or anything, the more specific you get, the more universal it becomes.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely fascinating.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: You think if you're just like, oh, but what if people feel this or this or this or this?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, no, no, you get you get really granular and really specific, and so many more people will see themselves in what in what you've said and feel like that you've spoken directly to them and read their minds, and yeah, it's kind of magical.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and so much fun.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's so much more fun to have super fans, yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: They will come along for the ride, and they will yours even looked at for your safety when they thought uh you were wonderful.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: I just I'm so touched by all of that.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: What did you tell them?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Were you just like, no, no, it's fine, just wait till tomorrow.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or I sort of left the emails hang for day two because they were coming out oh they're coming out every other day.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: So she died.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of my audience are in the US, so I'd like they'd they'd send me an email, I wouldn't see it until the following morning, and then I'm like, well, there's another email coming out.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to be very kind of I didn't want to spoil the story.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, so I was very sort of vague and non-committal.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Don't worry, I'm fine, I'm safe.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, thanks for looking out for me.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: But like trying to say it without like, this did you really think I have a photographer that just follows me around, like capturing these like epic in-motion shots?
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you know how many times it took us to get that napkin falling shots?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think we took about 50 shots before we got it.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody in the cafe is like, What are they doing?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: My it's funny, my brother um actually has a cafe, he's the manager of a cafe, so we were able to go after and he let us kind of do it in public.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was which was really good because when we had to go to Central Station, like I don't even think you're allowed to take photographs at Central Station.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just like, get the shot, get the shot, like hide the matchbook, quick, get the shot, Rick, run.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've done that before too.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: We've done that a lot, yeah.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my husband also used to do, like, he did a semester of like street photography.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: And where we lived was a very small town.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: I grew up in North Dakota, which is like nobody lived there, and it's tiny, and nobody does street photography.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I would come with to be the like distractor.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: So he would have this giant camera, and I would just have to keep carrying on a conversation with him as though I'm not noticing as he's like, you know, stopping and taking a photo of somebody, and then I'd be like, come on, like let's let's keep going.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Taking a photo of the street posting.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not not of you.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: No, I love this so much because I think there's a lot that people can learn to have fun, to make their own space for the people that they want to bring in to honestly do some kind of weird and fun things with their email marketing.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_02: And like because you never know what will come of it, and just to like think of ways to take people from I just found you to, oh my god, where have you been all my life?
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's just delightful.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you so much for coming down to chat.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: This has been really fun.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: We will have all the links in the show notes so people can do their like get those emails themselves uh and know that you're safe.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but also to find your work um and to keep up with all the the things that you have going on.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think when this comes out, I will be midway through another campaign, which is uh sort of an occult mystery series, which is based on uh K-pop marketing mechanics, but you wouldn't know that it's just the behind-the-scenes stuff, you wouldn't know that from the outset.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, that's really fun.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for coming on and chatting today.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: If this conversation had you going, okay, how do I build my own version of that?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's my whole job over at FatCap, where we help businesses build brands their audience obsesses over.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: You'll find the link in the show notes, along with everything today's guest brought up.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Megan, go be weirdly effective.