The Power of Everyday People in Influencer Marketing
show notes
This week, Emily chats with fellow co-founder and COO at Hummingbirds, Charise Flynn. In this episode Charise & Emily discuss the origin story of Hummingbirds and the value of leveraging everyday people as brand advocates. They also answer all your questions about the Hummingbirds platform, who it’s built for and what brands should be tapping into people-powered marketing.
Charise Flynn, co-founder & COO of Hummingbirds
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Tune in for topics like:
[1:10] Hummingbirds origin story
[5:27] What led Charise to join Hummingbirds as a co-founder
[9:27] Definition of a charm
[10:16] What is a hummingbird?
[12:06] Traditional influencers vs. hummingbirds
[16:01] The cities Hummingbirds is operating in today
[16:36] Olipop using Hummingbirds to tap into the Midwest
[18:13] Brand categories that should be leveraging geo-specific marketing strategies
[21:31] Types of companies that are a good fit for Hummingbirds
[24:07] The vision for Hummingbirds in 2024
[26:17] The impact of AI on the creator space
[29:44] Rapid fire question round
Listen to this week’s Local Marketing School conversation!
Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Emily & Charise's episode:
#2: Local PR for CPG Brands & Beyond | Delaney Vetter, PR Strategist and Copywriter
#3: Transitioning from Events to Ecommerce | Emily Harpel, Art of Sucre
Don't hesitate to reach out! We'd love to hear from you on Instagram and find out which episodes you're enjoying the most. Your feedback is so important to us! Please take a moment to rate the show and leave a review - it supports our ongoing Local Marketing School journey and helps us develop more content that addresses what you’re hoping to learn more about!
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This podcast is produced by Hummingbirds. Learn more about Hummingbirds at hummingbirds.com.
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Emily Steele (00:12)
Hello everybody and welcome to the local marketing school podcast. My name is Emily Steele. I'm your host I am the CEO co-founder of hummingbirds and I'm so excited today to have a very special guest on the podcast I brought Charise on Charise is COO and co-founder with me of hummingbirds And we thought it'd be fun to just share a little bit of history about what hummingbirds is how it came to be How we started working together were two female founders based out of Iowa I think it's just not your typical story of like
to tech founders. So we'd love to just share a little bit about that and then answer some of the most frequently asked questions that we get from all sorts of people within and outside of the company. So.
I can kick us off just a little bit of the origin story since so much of it happened in my early days. But I was in my 20s then. I'm now a very refined 30 something year old. So I'm from Iowa and I grew up kind of not knowing I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but always loved building things and creating and doing and I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm so I needed something to do with it. So I started a couple brands in Des Moines, had a lot of success building the community, getting a lot of buzz. It just felt very natural to market those brands and spun out a local marketing agency to help other brands do the same, which is where I really started to understand the local advertising and marketing environment. It's so fascinating to see what channels brands were using when they came in as a client and I was like, oh my gosh, you're spending a fortune on radio, but you're telling me you wanna reach Gen Z and millennial consumers. I'm like, this just doesn't make sense. So how do you actually reach today's consumers where they're at? And so much of it was like me knowing intuitively, like as a millennial consumer, I was on Instagram, like for a couple hours a day
Charise Flynn (02:03)
Okay, quick question. Quick question. When's the last time you listened to the radio?
Emily Steele (02:09)
Um, I don't know. I must have had to been like, no, with my dad. He brought me to the airport and it was on. And I was like, what is this sound? You know? Yeah. I'm like, I haven't been.
Charise Flynn (02:20)
What are these advertisements, right? When you don't listen to the radio a long time, it can be kind of jarring. So that was like one of the things your clients were trying to solve, right? They couldn't reach you anymore.
Emily Steele (02:30)
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, and they were like, how do we fix this? And they knew a part of my playbook and value prop was like community centric, community relationships. Like how do you leverage, like being in a very specific geography and play that to your advantage by getting people to know you, to love you and like to share who you are. And so I use some of that playbook, but you know, that was, my curiosity was around like the influencer space was blowing up like years ago, but it was always very clear that influencers probably weren't going to be able to drive local behavior because like they're trying to build a massive audience to sell like use affiliate links drive e-commerce. So how do you do that in a local flavor? So brought together like 20 to 30 local people and was like, Hey, let's start talking about local brands and seeing if we can move the needle for them and figure out what moving the needle means. And my clients loved it. The people in my community loved it at the time. And you know, I was really stuck on like, what should what should this community be called? Like, what would be a good name? I was like, at one point, I was like central Iowa. influencers, because it was just our local group. But I was like, that just doesn't hit, right? Does that? And that wouldn't scale, right? That wouldn't be applicable anywhere else except central Iowa. And we go out to dinner one night with my family, and my father-in-law is very big into birds. And so he's going around a circle saying, you're a blue jay. And I was like, that is, you know, blue jay's going to be very mean.
Charise Flynn (03:36)
I'm glad you didn't land with that one. Wait a minute, you're Blue Jay or something else?
Emily Steele (03:55)
Not me. No, he's saying that about like my brother-in-law's a blue jay. Someone's like a warbler. Um, you know, like going through all the names and like I need to be more sophisticated. But he gets to me and he's like Emily, you're a hummingbird. You like flit around. You're like a little pollinator in the community. You do so many things. Like all these things. I was like, that's the name
That is the name. These are people who want to be pollinators in their community. And so, Spun Up Des Moines had enough success and just so much clarity around doing this in other cities, tested it out in a couple other cities. This is a no-brainer. We have technology. Did the thing. And then I was like, let's go raise some money. Maybe like, let's. Me and my two contractors, let's raise money. And it's a totally...
weird world if you've never been in the like raising capital space. And so I was, you know, asking my local network like, who should I who can like advise me on this strategy? Like, this is yeah, something like I don't want to do by myself, because it's so unclear how to approach it strategically. And a mutual friend of both of ours, Chelsea, shout out to Chelsea, introduced us via text, we grabbed coffee and we got we just got married super quick. Yeah, really. So
Charise Flynn (05:07)
rest is history, right?
Emily Steele (05:11)
Mic over to you. Like Charise and I met in the fall of 2022, like you clearly saw something, but like share a little bit about your background because there was a reason you were advising companies on their fundraising and other areas too.
Charise Flynn (05:21)
Yeah. So, um, interesting enough, I had done another startup, COO of a tech startup in my late 20s. Um, so about your age when I did my first, my first tech one and had scaled that company, raised, you know, 35 million in venture capital. We had a distributed team before distributed was like a cool thing. You know, this was pre pandemic. Um, so I had led a team, like almost a hundred people distributed across the U S.
Charise Flynn (05:50)
And through that opportunity, lived in San Francisco, did the whole tech scene thing. Um, had some really incredible investors, Andreessen Horowitz being one of them, you know, a top tier investor. And then after I exited that business, um, I was, uh, investing in companies. So angel investing and my husband and I invested in around like seven companies and I would work with them to help them on go to market strategy and scaling.
And, um, but they would ask me like, Hey, come join my startup. And as much as I loved, you know, supporting them and putting money in, like, I just couldn't see myself, you know, working the all in that it takes to really successfully scale a startup for the next seven to 10 years. And then we met and I was helping you. And I was like, I always say they're like three primary reasons. And One, I think it's you, Emily, as a person. Yeah. I was like, Oh my gosh, she's really smart. She has product market fit already. She has paying customers. She knows this vertical. She's really fun. We could really work well together. Like really we're yin and yang. Um, I think we have a lot of similarities, but we're really yin and yang. Like you're very forward. Like a lot of times you won't see me on podcasts. I like being behind the scenes. I like being in my, um, operations mode. And, um, so one, I was like, okay, we have very complimentary skill sets. And.
Charise Flynn (07:11)
I think that that's so important when you're deciding who to partner with because, you know, we might be in this for seven to 10 years, building this company. I mean, that's like the life cycle of most startups. So I always like to tell the story. I met and married my husband within nine months. And so I think I just have like an instinct. So when I met you, I was like, okay, good instinct. And we just were jamming on a lot of different things.
Charise Flynn (07:39)
So one, people, people matters. And then two, I liked the impact and it was kind of like a no-brainer idea. I'm like, why is no one else doing this? Like it just seems so obvious, but no one else was paying attention. No one else kind of had your experience that brings ideas to the forefront. And then I was excited about the massive market opportunity. I really liked to build things and scale, scale them actually relatively quickly. And I knew because you'd taken the time to really understand both sides of the network.
But it was something like with capital, we could really scale quickly. And we've proven that out. So I remember being like, never. I had probably told a friend like a month prior, like, I don't know if I ever, you know, join a startup or co-founder startup. And then I met you and it all changed. And I was like, would you want a co-founder? Um, I would love to build this company with you. So that's the story.
Emily Steele (08:13)
Yeah, I was like, really? You really okay let's do it of course we're gonna do this together and we had already clicked so well and just kind of like engaging and like strategizing that it is yeah i think like what a lot of founders can say if they're doing it solo is it's so lonely and it's like you take on so much responsibility and it's harder to get funding when you're doing it by yourself versus building out a team and so all the things and all the reasons clicked and like Charise said she like She, you know, is the behind the scenes operator. I was like, you want to be on a podcast that has video on it? She's like, yeah. So you now get to see Charise in action. This is so fun. And of course, I'm going to put her on the spot with questions, but we're going to do it with each other. So we're going to go back and forth and ask each other some of the questions that we hear from the community brands, Hummingbirds, and dive into the things that we think you would want to know about the company. So.
Emily Steele (09:27)
I think I gotta go first. Yeah, I will. This one's a fun one. What is a group of hummingbirds called?
Charise Flynn (09:34)
Oh, that's an easy one, Charm. And thank goodness it's not a group of ravens because that has a much worse name, but Charm is very fun. And Charm is actually what our new community of hummingbirds is called. And I'm so excited. Hummingbirds cannot be a better name. And all the, everything's humming, they're part of a charm. All these really incredible branding opportunities around hummingbirds. Charm being one of them.
Emily Steele (09:41)
Mm-hmm. Agree. Seriously.
Charise Flynn (10:06)
Um, okay. So I'm going to ask you a question. I'm curious how do, how you started to create the community and how we join, like grow the community now, and then are they creators or influencers?
Emily Steele (10:17)
Mm-hmm. So one of the things we're really focused on is building communities. We call them hummingbirds. I know it's slightly confusing because our company's hummingbirds, but the creators, we call them hummingbirds. So I might interchange like hummingbirds and creators, but very much the persona of a hummingbird is like your everyday person who wants to try cool brands in their own backyard is already on social media sharing about their life. And so when we think about bringing those people together, they love the small businesses in their backyard. They're actively buying things like intentionally from the brands they want to support.
They're involved in the community, whatever that looks like. They're plugged in, they're early adopters. And for us, it's all about finding those people who want to be amplifiers, who already are amplifiers, but could plug in with different brands, try out their product experience, et cetera, and share it to their local network. They might have like 500 to 1500 to 3000 followers, so it's very truly like.
a person who's not trying to be like an influencer in any way. And I think that's kind of our secret sauce is like we know how to bring those types of people together who don't identify as influencers, maybe a handful do, but it's really like such a different play on how like local advocates can be really powerful as we have proven out over the last couple years. So yeah.
Charise Flynn (11:37)
Why do you think that's so why do you think that's important? Like why I'm you know we've talked about this a little bit but why did you see that opportunity so early on versus like hey I'm a Kansas City influencer or I'm a Milwaukee influencer. What is the difference that you see?
Emily Steele (11:55)
Yeah, I think. What really struck me like when influencer marketing was starting to explode in like 2018, 19, as I was like just starting my agency and really curious around that kind of channel is, you know, if you are out there trying to be an influencer, the only way you can really make it is with like big sponsorships, like if influencing like is your lifestyle, you need big paychecks, like, and like, you have to make the math work to afford living. Right. And I was looking to even at like, you know, someone who is an influencer who lives in Kansas City doesn't mean they necessarily have influence there. It means that they live there, their body is there, right? But they're like, impact and voice is maybe national or global. And so to me, it was just so obvious, like, you look at even celebrity endorsements and mega influencers, and like, the more they do, like the less trust there is, like their feeds, their lives become like an advertisement. And I was like, this is gonna happen in the influencer space, because it's gonna blow up. But it's all gonna come back to people, the people we know, like and trust.informants and recommenders, if you will, of the brands we love. And we always go to our friends first, right? Like that's the place we go when we want like, who do I go for a dentist or where should I get my hair? Like, where should we go out to eat? Like, where should we travel with the family this fall? Like we look to our network first. So how do we proactively leverage that network? And that to me was like, again, like you noticed like a huge opportunity when everyone else was playing in big influencers and big brands, no one was going after the smaller. I was like, let's do it before everyone else.
Charise Flynn (13:29)
Yeah. I think it's really fascinating where you said like, these are people that talk about their everyday life online. And one of the things we were talking to a client the other day who uses, um, a little traditional influencer platform. And we pulled up kind of some of the content that was being created and we pulled up influencers that they were using and looked at their like feed. And it was all sponsored content. Right. So it's like, they were making a living that that's all that they talk about.
Charise Flynn (13:56)
And then we pulled up a hummingbirds content and they're talking about their life and you can't even tell like they aren't doing sponsored work. And so for that brand, it was all about the authenticity of like, this is a person that really has trust versus someone who's doing it only to get paid gigs, I think just changes the dynamic so much.
Emily Steele (14:03)
Yeah, it does. And I think that's more what brands are looking for too, is that authenticity and someone who's truly trusted versus someone who's like, you know, we talk about billboards too, and it's like, billboards are, they have a place, right? I would never like totally diss them as a channel, but like when you're, all you do is promotional posts, like your Instagram feed is one, like it's one mini billboard after the next. And people don't, they're like, oh, you're just doing this thing because like, it's a paid opportunity. And I just, I'm like, oh,
Emily Steele (14:44)
Like that would be the thing that to us, if that was all we saw with our hummingbirds, we would be doing something wrong. And I'm so grateful that we don't bring in those types of individuals for the business model we're really building.
Charise Flynn (14:56)
What I'm curious to of how many hummingbirds that we talked to have become like long-term customers of the brands that they're introduced to. And one of the lines you say often is like a billboard can't be your customer, but a hummingbird can be. And I just think it's like such a unique, different approach of, Hey, you put this product or experience in someone's hands and if they love it, they're going to become a lifelong customer. And that's what we see in the hummingbird community. Really cool.
Emily Steele (15:02)
Yeah. Yeah, it's been really cool. It's been cool to see like the brands that can actually track the hummingbird retention and we check in, we're like three months, six months, nine months from now, they're seeing, you know, anywhere between 50 to 70% of those hummingbirds stay long term and they can put dollar amounts to that person's name and account and the ROI just continues to grow from there. So that has been really cool.
Charise Flynn (15:44)
Yeah, like it's like their own, like a hummingbird's own spending versus like affiliate links and then like, I always say like schlepping other products, you know, but they're putting their own dollars where like their mouth goes, which is I think, fascinating about like some of the psychology behind it.
Emily Steele (15:53)
Yeah, I know, I love it. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you a question. What cities are we in today? We're recording this spring, 2024. I always like to provide context because if someone finds this, you know, months from now, we may, hopefully, we'll be in way more locations. So, where are we today?
Charise Flynn (16:09)
Mm-hmm.Yeah. So currently we're in 15 cities. So I'll kind of like in the Midwest. So as far North as Minneapolis, as far South, we had to like verify it on a map as Louisville, Kentucky, as far East as Columbus, Ohio, and as far West as Lincoln, Nebraska, and then, you know, 15 cities in between. We started in the Midwest and it really created a differentiator for us to be in the Midwest. A lot of times national brands will come to us and they have like an East Coast and a West Coast strategy figured out. But the middle America is like something they don't know how to really tap into. So you know, a customer, for example, like Olipop, you know, they get into Costco and they want to move their product. They want to build brand advocates. They want to build their consumer base. How do they do that? We can activate.
Charise Flynn (17:08)
you know, hundreds if not thousands of hummingbirds in the Midwest to go buy their product and showcase it to friends and family. So it's really cool kind of like tapping this part of the country that frankly, a lot of people aren't paying attention to. And going kind of by geography, you know, we're gonna expand to 15 more cities here in the coming year.
Charise Flynn (17:31)
And a lot of where we go next will be determined by customer demand. And that was really the current strategy of where we all ended up. Uh, but you can expect another geography. So it might be like the Southeast or Southwest, for example, a little bit of a teaser.
Emily Steele (17:38)
I know you have to keep tuning in to all of our content to find out. But it has been fun. I would say like the mid-sized city has been what we're kind of approaching now, just because like, you know, when you early on a company for us, it's like we've proven mid-sized cities worked really well. Like, we're not intentionally planning at this point to be in the large cities because it's such a different dynamic. And so when we go to those next 15 cities, they will probably be a similar size as where we're at today. So.
More to come there.
Charise Flynn (18:16)
Um, so talk to me a little bit about, you know, why geo specific and how do brands take advantage of those specific geos? And maybe you can give some examples of why that works and why, why brands need it.
Emily Steele (18:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think you, you know, you double clicked on all I pop, you know, kind of like driving local behavior to Costco's like, yes, that's maybe like not what everyone would initially think of when they're like hyper local creators. You might think like local businesses, but that's not it for us. And I mean, that's part of it, right? That's part of our ecosystem. We really look at our marketplace essentially as a place where creators can come and see a lot of different things they could do. So, you know, it's like.
the local cleaning service is local. They might have multiple locations across some of the cities we're in, but they need local customers and they need local awareness. And so tapping into GEO makes so much sense, especially, I mean, like I just shared too, like $160 billion is spent on local advertising. These people are trying to get people at a local level, right? But also an area that we've seen a lot of is success is kind of the tourism organizations that exist. They want people in specific regions or cities to drive the two to three plus hours to their city to do different activities and participate in cool things. So like Destination Madison, like set hummingbirds from all over the Midwest to their city to do like a really cool bike ride type of passport or experience if you will. And so it's really thinking, you know, if you want this set of people in this area to do something very specific within driving distance or in that zip code or in that city. Like this is a really great way to tap into it when you leverage people as the distribution channel kind of in addition to other channels. So I would say, is there any other geo-specific example you would have?
Charise Flynn (20:07)
Yeah, I think the travel one is very interesting. Also, you know, our brands, they're like sometimes multi-location franchises. We have a beauty brand right now that they have like 17 locations throughout the US. And so for them, they can have a strategy of we're just opening a new location in Kansas City, or we're just opening a new location in Cincinnati. How do we tap into a network of people to get that word out?
Charise Flynn (20:38)
And also restaurant groups is an interesting use case for us as well. Um, because they might own, you know, 10 to 15 different restaurants throughout a specific geography. And usually we find in those groups that they want to still be in proximity. Um, so they are kind of concentrated. They aren't usually like all the way from East coast to West coast. They're kind of within a region.
Emily Steele (20:42)
Yeah. I think restaurants are so...
They make so much sense when you think about local decision making. When I'm thinking about, where should we go for happier? Where should we go here? I am asking my network. That one very specifically, I find, drives the most local behavior. I'm not looking at Google reviews, per se, in my own backyard. Yes, I'm looking at it when I'm in new cities and things like that. But in my own community, I definitely look to my peers to decide where to go and what to do when family is in town. So I love that use case selfishly. You know?
Charise Flynn (21:30)
I think, you know, word of mouth has been the way that people are making decisions. Like, I think since the beginning of time.
Emily Steele (21:35)
yeah, before advertising was like a thing, you know? Okay, so what types of companies are a good fit for our platform?
Charise Flynn (21:47)
Yeah, so we already talked a little bit about like consumer packaged goods. Like those are things of, you know, repeat that you're going to the grocery store and putting in your cart. And the reason I think that that's a really good fit is our hummingbirds are always wanting to try new products or services. So we work with a lot of emerging CPG brands or brands that have new product launches and they need to really get the hands and get the product in the hands of real people. So that one works. You know, CPG is a really good space.
for both sides of the network. Restaurant groups are also really interesting. And, you know, usually these are restaurant groups that have a marketing budget and someone who heads up marketing. And they can really be kind of methodical about what's their approach to driving behavior and people into their restaurants. Of course, the Hummingbirds love trying new restaurants or going back to favorite restaurants. The content is also really cool. I mean, who doesn't love, like, a good food content. So let's see, restaurants, CPG. Also, you hit a little bit on travel. I think travel is really interesting. Word of mouth really works great there. Like go experience something, tell your friends about it. Friends I think are always looking at like, what's that mini destination getaway? Like not something you have to get on a plane to go do, but driving distance and how do you start to build buzz around, hey.
Charise Flynn (23:13)
Madison is actually really cool. Grand Rapids, Michigan is actually really cool. Go check it out. So those are a few of them. And then beauty and service is an interesting category for us as well. And for the hummingbirds, you know, it's things like go get a facial, get your house clean. What are like local service providers in your own backyard? And that, you know,
Charise Flynn (23:36)
All of those from the brand side, they need to acquire customers and repeat customers. So it's a great fit. And from the bird side, they really love trying those experiences. And oftentimes they try it, they talk about it. They become a long-term customer.
Emily Steele (23:40)
Yeah, yeah, love that.
Charise Flynn (23:53)
Um, okay. So I get a, um, flip the switch back to you. Um, this is all like, I think super exciting how we're able to make local impact. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your vision for where, um, your vision for the next year, you're really a visionary founder. And one of the reasons that I got so excited to work with you is just like this massive, massive vision that you have. So tell us a little bit about the vision for the future.
Emily Steele (23:59)
Oh my goodness. I think what really excites me is people as a distribution channel and like we build a network. I know. People as the distribution channel, like what am I saying? Like people being like the source of sharing things that are happening locally and beyond. Like people, people powered marketing. Like I love people powered marketing, community centric, like community led growth, like this whole, like the creator led.
Emily Steele (24:51)
Creative-led commerce, community-led commerce. Like, sorry, just throw all these phrases out. But all of this is really cool because it centers around someone's voice can make an impact. And I've always been all about impact. Everything I wanna do is about impact. So how do we help local people drive impact for things they care about in their own community? And so for when we think about where can hummingbirds go, we know that people have influence. Okay, great. How do we expand that influence beyond the way we exist today? Like, we know the crater economy is massive. And it's not like, are you working with influencers and creators? It's how much budget are you work, like how much of your budget is going towards this? So we know we're on to something in terms of what we offer today, the chance to match with local creators or hummingbirds, et cetera. But I think as we continue to grow and continue to really refine what we have, we can really look to say, I love to share, I think I would be a fabulous influencer, but the reality is I don't want to be an influencer because what I buy is local and I don't have an affiliate link I could share. I can share it and obviously be authentic and like, hey, I just got this dress at Marne or whatever. But we think about.
Every other brand has a way to capture those sales shared. You think about LTK, you can capture the sale from a creator and you see all of that. Why don't we have anything like this at a local level? And like driving commerce and proving we drive it through people is really interesting. So we get to figure this, yeah.
Charise Flynn (26:21)
Okay, I want to ask you another like kind of maybe it's a little controversial. So there's a lot of talk about AI and like avatars and Instagram being taken by overtaken by AI and not real people. What are your thoughts on that?
Emily Steele (26:26)
I was like, okay, right, right? Like, of course AI creators, of course creators are going to lean into AI more to help them with content, but you're always going to go back to your friends, the real people with heartbeats who are helping you decide what to do on the weekends when their friends are in town. So I'm like, yes, AI is going to blow up in terms of how creators can monetize and like actually being fake accounts essentially, right? Or like not real humans and like, yes, it's happening, but I don't think it impacts like the geo space because we'd really do rely on actual people we can bump into the grocery stores to help us decide.
Charise Flynn (27:18)
Well, I'm curious, like, how does someone who can't taste really give a review of, like, I love this Olipop flavor? Like, it's not, like, real if they can't taste or, like, if they can't experience things, like, truly experience, like, all of that becomes kind of fake. And so I think it's really interesting. I am a big believer in, like, how does technology move us forward? I've always been, I've been in technology for a long time and I'm always, like, curious around, like, what's the secret sauce and the mode that we can create?
Charise Flynn (27:49)
Um, but I also like, don't think all change is good change, right? Like, I wouldn't think about like, what products do you have in your house? And like, you, you have people over for dinner and they're deciding like, Oh my gosh, Lola's hot sauce. I've never tried this. I'm going to try this. And then they become a brand advocate. So it's kind of like the real people interactions in like utilizing products and having experiences. He's never going to go away.
Emily Steele (27:53)
Yeah. Yep. No.
Charise Flynn (28:17)
Right? Like unless we like start to eat all of our food, like liquid vitamins and like live in like a, just like a fake reality. Like, I think we're gonna still taste and experience things in our physical world for a long time.
Emily Steele (28:21)
So for us, it's like, how do you make those? How do we facilitate introductions to things you can do in your community? You get out, like the feel good person to me too, is like, you know, you get people out, like experiencing things like that adds to the quality of your life. Like that adds to the literally the local economy becoming more successful because of sales tax dollars, et cetera, et cetera. So I just like the whole picture of helping local communities thrive, like getting back to our mission is like key to everything we do. And creators are part of that. Like you can shop small.
But you can also shop small and share small. And I think for us, it's like, maybe not all of our customers are like your traditional small business, but the heartbeat of the brand is all about getting into your community, trying new things and sharing it. So your, your own local network of peers can be inspired to follow suit or try new things themselves. And so that's to me, like the, like the pulse, we're always like, Hey, is this, is this a thriving community and how do we help local creators and local residents?
Charise Flynn (29:05)
I know.
Emily Steele (29:28)
thrive even more where they live. So that gets to be like what we get to solve for the next, how many years did you say? Seven to 10 years? So we got maybe like six to nine, or like one, one year in. Okay, so wow, that's interesting to think about. Okay, well, let's wrap up with some rapid fire questions. So I'm gonna kick off and then you can throw them back to me. So what's your favorite snack?
Charise Flynn (29:48)
My favorite snack. Mmm, I think it'd probably be popcorn.
Emily Steele (29:59)
Safe, so good. What's something very few people know about you?
Charise Flynn (30:05)
I've hiked to the base camp of Mount Everest. Not to the top of Mount Everest, but the base camp. And it was like a two week trek. That's the adventurous side of me.
Emily Steele (30:14)
Badass. Yeah, I love it. Your Enneagram is.
Charise Flynn (30:17)
Seven, fun and adventure.
Emily Steele (30:19)
It's the best number, just saying. What is a business book you would recommend?
Charise Flynn (30:28)
Um, you know, I'm always inspired by the book play bigger. It's around category creation and just like how people define, um, create a category, IE, you know, Uber created it's own category, Amazon created its own category. Airbnb created its own category. It's just fascinating how these, these companies come to life. And it's like the title play bigger kind of helps you think bigger.
Emily Steele (30:32)
Yeah, yeah, we love that book. Okay, last question. What's your favorite spot to travel and why?
Charise Flynn (30:59)
Um, definitely Mexico or Central America. Um, I think why I lived in Honduras for a period of time in college. And so there's something about Central America. I love the people. I love the food. I love the weather. I like the hot weather. Um, I don't know. It's my, it's my happy place and it's close. You know, it's like, doesn't take eight hours to get there.
Emily Steele (31:01)
And similar time zone has been so helpful. It's so helpful if you wanna travel. We're a remote first team, so we're like, you can work wherever. It's helpful if you have a similar time zone-ish. Ha ha ha.
Charise Flynn (31:26)
Now this winter I worked for Mexico for like just over a month and there's like great internet, it's sunny every day in the winter. It worked really, really well. And it's the same time zone. So good point. Okay. So what like is your favorite coffee beverage right now? I know what it used to be that I think you're evolving.
Emily Steele (31:38)
I know I think this is a very important announcement to make I am NOT an oat milk latte gal anymore I'm very much into the cortado. It's like a little less milk So like your latte would be like more milk like same amount of espresso cortados It's like it's an even ratio to spot two shots of espresso to basically what would be a similar ratio for espresso to milk I like oat milk. I will live die by oat milk. It's so good.
Charise Flynn (32:19)
and what caused the evolution.
Emily Steele (32:21)
So I went to Panama City and one of my friends was like, you have to go to this coffee shop and you have to get a cortado. And so that was roughly like eight weeks ago. So I'm a changed woman. Here we are.
Charise Flynn (32:37)
What's a fun fact that people don't know about you?
Emily Steele (32:41)
My fun fact is, this is one I share all the time, I biked across America in 2012 from San Diego to Myrtle Beach, and so that happened. That was fascinating and hard.
Charise Flynn (32:54)
Okay, so this probably plays into the next one. What's your enneagram?
Emily Steele (32:57)
Enneagram, we're both sevens, which was so fun to figure out. But if you know me and Charise, like as humans, you'd be like, oh, that's interesting because you're so different. But it's so funny where we like consistently align and like how we think and how we act and things like that. I think like I tend to be more like emotional, feely, touchy, all of that. And you're like very action, challenge, like you have a lot of like the eight in you. So it's cool to see how that plays out, especially on our team too, not to go there, but it's been fun to build with the Fellow 7.
Charise Flynn (33:27)
Yeah, and how do you think, you know, sevens approach business maybe differently than another Enneagram number?
Emily Steele (33:35)
I think the optimist, like optimism, like seeing what's possible versus limitations. And I think you and I both really click on like abundance over scarcity. I think that's kind of the natural wiring. When you look at sevens, we fear pain and suffering. Like we don't want to do anything that does that. And so I think it has really allowed us to focus on the good and then taking the good and scaling what works. It's partly mindset, but.
Yeah, what have you noticed?
Charise Flynn (34:07)
Well, I like think about building business is a really big epic trek and adventure, you know Like this woman is like an adventurous and I think you know, there are like lots of playbooks But when you're building a startup really it's never been built your way before because you're building it first time And so I love the adventure and like the adventure seeking of like what's around the corner and kind of thinking about what's around the corner I also find building really fun, you know
Charise Flynn (34:34)
I often wake up at like 4.35 a.m. Like start my day working. And people are like, why? Like, oh, are you that stressed out? And I'm like, no, I love doing this. It's so much fun. Like building a company and like making an impact is like a ton of fun. And I think that goes back to the seven. Seven is all about like optimizing fun. And I think you can create like amazing things when you're having fun.
Emily Steele (34:45)
Agree. Agree to agree. Okay. Do you have more? Oh yeah. Warm or cold? I'm like right in the middle. Like I love a good 60 degree temperature. Get me a sweatshirt and jeans. I'm in my happy place. Yeah.
Charise Flynn (35:00)
Okay, warmth or cold?
We're definitely yin and yang. It's like 70, 90. Love it. Okay, last, are you a Swifty?
Emily Steele (35:17)
I mean, if anyone says no, I don't know if they can listen to the podcast anymore, because you're gonna be like, oh, identity. Always 1989ers, you know, like we have so much in common, obviously, being the same age and everything. No, I love Taylor Swift. She's a legend. So, um, OK, well, what?
Charise Flynn (35:34)
I feel like I'm being too old to be a Swiftie, but my daughter definitely identifies as a Swiftie, which is fascinating to me.
Emily Steele (35:41)
So, so incredible. She is a very influential human. Okay, well, I think that's a wrap. This was fun. We'll have to see if everyone wants us to do this more often. But this is another episode of Local Marketing School. So glad you tuned in. If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a review, rate us, all the fun things, and we'll see you next time. Thanks.
Charise Flynn (35:45)
Thanks, Emily!
