#128 Unraveling the Power of Branding in Climate Tech & Its Transformative Role in Startups w/ Anna Konstantinova

In this episode, Silas Mahner (@silasmahner) & Somil Aggarwal (@somil_agg) speak with Anna Konstantinova about her advice to climate tech companies in relation to marketing and branding. Really helpful episode for our listeners from someone who has spent a lot of time helping founders and climate brands make their work digestible to the correct target audience.

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Topics:
**3:10 Intro & Career
**12:53 Why a Brand Matters
**17:54  How to Position Brand to People Uninterested in Climate Change
**26:36 Are There General Archetypes
**28:42 When to "Set" Brand
**31:32 Tips on Branding During Fundraise
**36:39 Personal Branding for Founder is Also Important
**43:03 When to Get Help to Pass the Plateau
**49:20 Hiring & Brand

Links:
**Connect with Anna: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaknova/
**AnnaKo.co
**Check out our Sponsor, NextWave Partners: https://www.next-wavepartners.com/
**Follow CleanTechies on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/clean-techies/
**HMU on Twitter: @silasmahner

Other episodes you might enjoy:
**Most Recent Episode: #127 Scalable Carbon Capture, Building as a Non-Deeptech Founder, Creative Business Models, & Navigating Funding Challenges w/ Luke Shors (Capture6)
**Similar Topic: #76 Endings, Endineering, Circular Economy, & the Customer Experience w/ Joe Macleod
**Something Totally #65 Different: Decentralizing Agriculture & Societal Resilience with Eddy from Eden Green Technologies

Transcript

Silas Mähner: 0:09

Hello and welcome back to the Clean Techies podcast, where we interview climate tech founders and VCs to discuss all things building and investing to solve the biggest challenge of our generation climate change. Today we have a bit of a different episode. Over the past two and a half years doing this, we have noticed there is quite a lack of branding across the climate tech companies that we talk to. This is not exactly surprising, given that a lot of the founders in the space are highly laser-focused and on their technology. But during climate week, I had the chance to attend the Climate Capital Summit hosted by Rick and Simran from Equal Ventures that we've had Rick on the pod recently, but one of the guest speakers was Chris Sacca and one of his biggest takeaways was that there is not a shortage of capital, but there is a huge shortage of good storytelling in the climate tech space.

Silas Mähner: 1:03

So, with all these factors, we decided to have Anna Konstantinova to talk about branding and marketing advice for climate tech companies. Anna does work with climate tech companies specifically on helping them craft their brand and manage marketing. She is very, very expert at the space and she is also part of the TTI network as well. She walked us through a few of the major principles you should consider as you build, and has some pretty interesting insights generally. In the spirit of collaboration, she is also offered to do a free consultation with our listeners, so if you're looking for some small, digestible starting points, reach out to her and mention the Clean Techies podcast and she'll help you out. We are confident that you will find this valuable, so reach out afterwards with your thoughts. Enjoy the episode.

Anna Konstantinova: 1:46

Impact brands represent the choice to live our lives in alignment with planetary action and our values, to preserve our amazing home for generations to come, be it through solar panels, how you travel, where you're sourcing your materials, the choices we make matter, and I know you know that if you're listening to this podcast. My name is Anna Konstantinova and I'm on a mission to make impact brands our next paradigm. I believe that marketing can be used for us rather than against us, and I want to help you build the best brand possible so we can all pour our strength into solving the biggest issue of our time. Whether you're a founder or an investor representing portfolio companies, let's work together to make sure your brand is seen, heard and remembered the way it deserves to be. And as a thank you to the Clean Techies community, I'm offering 20% off my newest launch Branding Sessions with code Clean Techies.

Anna Konstantinova: 2:36

One word We'll take 60 or 90 minutes to solve one specific problem, whether it be a naming issue, strategy, development, business growth or beyond. Let's put our minds together and move forward with renewed energy. Can't wait to hear what you're working on. Find me at anacodeco. That's a? N? A, k? O dot c? O. Talk soon.

Silas Mähner: 2:56

All right, welcome. Welcome to the show, anna. How's it going?

Anna Konstantinova: 3:00

Great. How are you? Thanks for having me.

Silas Mähner: 3:02

Yeah, super excited, super excited to have you. We've obviously connected in person over coffee and Union Square, and glad to be able to have you on and talk about what you're doing today. So let's get into you know, let's get into the details. Tell us a little bit about yourself, about your you know, your qualifications, and how did you get into climate?

Anna Konstantinova: 3:20

Sure. So I feel like I talked to a lot of people who had a similar trajectory in terms of like they didn't start out as climate. I was actually at dinner last night and we were talking about how, when we were in college, like majoring in climate wasn't really a thing Like I don't know anybody who you know past the recent era has been majoring in climate, you know. So I think it's really cool that that's a path now, but that wasn't my path. I was a.

Anna Konstantinova: 3:47

I immigrated to the States when I was about three years old from Ukraine and I think advertising helped me assimilate into American culture. You know, I was just seeing all of these things like billboards and TV commercials and things like that and I was like, wow, somebody came up with something as crazy as Tony the Tiger and like people know what that is, you know. And I was like I can come up with something like wild and crazy. Like if you come up to anybody on the street and say Tony the Tiger, like that's going to make them feel and remember something, you know. And somebody just came up with that Like it's totally wild when you think about it and that's what I wanted to do. Like I was super attracted to being able to like come up with these cultural objects and shift the way that culture and behavior kind of folds out, based on creativity, based on strategy, based on brand, and so I wanted to be an advertising. Since I was a kid, it was like my North Star for so long I majored in it.

Silas Mähner: 4:51

Hey there, quick break to remind any founders or VCs listening. If you are looking for deal flow, seeking to raise funding, looking for partners to help service your needs, or perhaps you're looking for corporate investment partners, feel free to reach out to us through our Slack channel, which can be found in the description. Because we meet a lot of people in this space, we set aside time each week to make introductions to the various people that we encounter. This is something we do free of charge in order to help these incredible companies solving climate change to scale. Looking forward to hearing from you in the Slack channel.

Anna Konstantinova: 5:19

I followed that path, you know as deeply as I could and I ended up working at a couple of agencies here in New York, most recently as the director of strategy, but around like 2016,.

Anna Konstantinova: 5:30

I started to really get interested in, like the entrepreneurship crowd by going to Summit at Sea and things like that and also realizing how far away from nature we were.

Anna Konstantinova: 5:43

At the ad agency, I was working for Ford Motor Company at the time and I feel like you know the objective obviously at any ad agency is like more sales, more, you know, engagement, more awareness, and at that time I just started getting a little dissolution because I was like I wish that we could lean into being together, more helping the planet, more you know things like that, and I wasn't really seeing that at the ad agency. So while I was at Ford, I ended up actually co-founding a startup called second house and it was all about getting people out of the city and into nature more readily, which was pretty cool, and we had these kinds of saloons at so House. We called them the getting back to nature series and I met all these different people who worked in, you know, agriculture, architecture, like all different sectors, but had found a way to get back into nature through their verticals and that really inspired me and it made me understand like I don't have to work with, like the Ford Motor Company guys you know what I mean Like.

Anna Konstantinova: 6:51

I can do something that's more aligned with the people that I want to be with, and you know the kind of work that I want to do. So that was kind of the very beginning of what I started to do. And then on the side, I would work with a lot of actually female based entrepreneurs in impact, but I wasn't calling it that and I was just like, oh, I want to help you out. You know, I want to help you out and that was some of the foundation for the brand foundational work that I do now. But then in 2020, I was working as the director of strategy and agency called Terry and Sandy, and I actually ended up getting let go is a crazy time.

Anna Konstantinova: 7:29

My good friend, Alessandra Salzburger, the founder of TTI, was like you know, and you don't really want to like, sell sugar to kids in plastic jars anyway, and I was like you're kind of right, but what am I going to do? You know, and she's like you know, start coming to these TTI meetings, take some, take some time to think about how you can really lean into what you actually want to do and you'll be much happier. And I was like you know, you're really right, and through meeting so many of our awesome top tier impact members and seeing what they're doing, I thought that there was a need for creating this foundational brand work with the impact brands that I really believe in. So I ended up launching my own practice through meeting you know clients and really getting myself out there in the impact space from my own apartment in Williamsburg, you know.

Anna Konstantinova: 8:19

So it was a very interesting way to kind of like build the plane while I was landing it, because it wasn't like I was like, okay, I'm going to lead the ad agency and become, you know, a consultant. It was more like, oh, I have to just like figure this all out. But I felt really honestly I don't know how who we get on this podcast, but I felt very universally supported in doing it and I felt like it was probably what I was meant to be doing, because I was just super aligned and like lit up when people would tell me about, you know, how they were sequestering carbon or how they had a paint that would like suck the carbon out of the air and like actually creating brands that are fixing their planet and a lot of the problems that we have, rather than just like how can we, you know, increase our profit margins?

Silas Mähner: 9:03

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Silas Mähner: 9:26

Yeah, I mean, I think there's so many, there's so many interesting things you've mentioned there. I really like the journey, I like the fact that you just realized that you had to do it, and I think that the idea of one thing that stands out the most is when you said that you started to understand. It just kind of seemed like it was what you're meant to do. This is something a lot of people I don't think. I think it takes some time to realize and to recognize when they're excited, because a lot of times they don't notice that they're excited about something, but the person they're talking to would notice, right, and unless that person is a mentor or somebody who's close enough to you to say hey, you know, have you ever thought about doing this? Because you clearly, you know, lit up about it, that's a great idea and I think it's very important when you're thinking about.

Silas Mähner: 10:08

Obviously you founded your own kind of agency here, but other people might be considering founding a climate tech startup or something right it could be, you know, some less science-y startup as well. It could be something that's a little bit more service oriented or whatnot, and I think that people just need to spend a little bit of time realizing how to kind of pay attention to when they are excited.

Anna Konstantinova: 10:30

That's such a great point and I feel like I have a couple of tips on doing that, tips with Anna on the podcast. I think a big thing for me is like when I feel energized after a conversation versus when I feel depleted after a conversation. But when I was in advertising, you know, for 10 years I would leave a lot of meetings, especially with clients from, you know, fortune 100 companies, fortune 500 companies, tired, like so exhausted, because I felt like I was just like beating, you know something like to death unfortunately, like just trying to make a point over and over again and try to sell a creative strategy through or something like that. And it's really exhausting to try to turn like a whole ship around that's not ready to turn, you know yourself right, or with a couple crew members, but it's much easier when that ship is already kind of like floating in your direction.

Anna Konstantinova: 11:31

And I learned that when I was talking to impact founders, they were super excited about the kind of strategy that you know we were talking about. They didn't have pushback on every single line about like no, the period needs to be before this sentence and like we need the comma to be here, like they weren't so granular because they wanted to see what the audience and what like collaboration would bring. So I really feel like you know that's just my case, but just notice when you're depleted versus when you're excited, like just after you have a conversation with someone, am I tired or am I energized? And you know that comes with nuance Like if it's the end of the day and you just had a conversation with, like the most exciting person ever, maybe you're still tired. But it's like a different kind of tired, like it's like a mental kind of like, like exasperated, like you know like that, versus like I'm actually physically tired. I need to rest. You know so. But to your point, like tuning into yourself more, I think is a big thing we can all do.

Silas Mähner: 12:35

Yeah, no, I definitely. I definitely think it's not something we necessarily talk a lot about on the show, but there's a lot of Kind of meta things that founders need to do and people need to be aware of, whether you're a founder or working in climate, to kind of keep keep on track, because it's not, it's never easy, there's a lot of work to be done, but obviously so we've had you on today because we want to talk about your advice to founders and how, how they can build a brand and some of the tips there. So I guess we'll start with why is it so important to have a strong brand, especially again, in the context of climate founders?

Anna Konstantinova: 13:09

sure. So I think you know one of the most important things that we can do is hone who we are and what we stand for and the energy that we bring to things right. So Making sure that that is succinct and memorable and easy to understand is incredibly important in the climate space Because a lot of people are already kind of turned off by it, right? So, depending on what you do, like if you're consumer facing and vector facing, b2b, you know there's gonna be different levels of education that people have when they're getting to know your climate brand. But it can't be boring, you guys. I'm sorry. I Love scientists more than anyone else. Like I find them endlessly fascinating.

Anna Konstantinova: 13:55

But we have to find a way to synthesize the information and make it memorable, make it kind of stick with us, make it a cultural icon. You know Climate brand deserve the same or even more Attention, sexiness, like excitement around them, because they're the path forward. They're the only way that we're gonna stay on this planet. So keeping them kind of in the shadows, keeping them with like very boring branding, keeping it like Kind of under the surface of like what people can understand, you know that's gonna be difficult and that's gonna make people less likely to engage with the, with the brand, whatever it does, whatever it may be. So it's important to Really understand, tune in to what your target audience Wants, who they are, what they're interested in, whether it's investors, again, or B2B, different companies or the Consumer, it you know, all of these different target markets are gonna be in different stages of their cycle in terms of Understanding climate.

Anna Konstantinova: 15:00

So I can't just like go out to the American audience and start talking about, like, carbon Separation.

Anna Konstantinova: 15:06

I can't, even At 9am, you know like they're just not gonna know what that is.

Anna Konstantinova: 15:11

You have to explain to them how it's gonna relate to their life and the problem that they have, you know, and really like Land it in in their own hearts and minds so that they can start to get excited about it.

Anna Konstantinova: 15:25

So that's why it's really important to have a great time at brand, because a we have no other choice other than to make these brands Amazing or else that's it, you know, like time's up, but be you know the way to do that is to understand that humans, you know they're just like you, like they want to get excited about something. They want to have something in their lives that they want to tell their friends about or that they're proud of to have in their home or whatever it is. So just adding on that layer of like human and excitement and connection and viability and vitality to brands Is incredibly important and I think it's just been missing from this sector for a long time, maybe because people haven't been paying attention, maybe because the oil lobby has been like stomping on them, you know, whatever it is. But it's time for that to stop and it's really time for climate brands like be the brand of the future.

Silas Mähner: 16:23

Yeah, I mean, I think one thing that's interesting is that you have, you know, on a meta level, we've seen a lot of founders come on because they were, you know, very motivated by something that happened in the climate, and then they happen to be an engineer of some sort or a technical scientist and they go and found a company that solves this one particular climate problem. Right, but the the thing that we've talked about before is that nobody they're usually the words they use to tell it like it has nothing to do with the average person. The average person is like I do not care, like I have no idea what you're on, what. If you talk about it in the terms of you know the climate problem and people who have experienced that stuff, then it makes a difference. Right where I come from in Wisconsin, people aren't really too concerned about climate because the weather is always crazy in Wisconsin all the time.

Anna Konstantinova: 17:12

Like they too. They're like it's cold out here, so what are you talking about?

Silas Mähner: 17:17

Yeah, exactly, exactly because we're growing up. It was always oh, it's global warming. They say, well, I could use some global warming, it'd be better for my crops. You know like the point is. It's just a different, that's just a particular location in the US, but it's just a different Way of looking at things. Right, and people need to understand. Why is it valuable to me? Right, I have this discussion with my dad all the time. Why don't you have a Tesla? Right, a Tesla would you drive like a hundred miles round trip six times a week? Right, you should definitely have a Tesla because you'd save so much money on I'm on fuel and just helping people understand these things. So this is the big question I want to get to you next is Well, you mentioned in there that you have to help companies identify their audience.

Silas Mähner: 18:00

Yeah how do you, when your audience is, let's say, just a group of people like I'm talking about, not necessarily Interested in solving climate it well, how do you get them to buy this, buy into this, especially if we're talking about consumers, right? How would you get them interested when they're you know you're a climate company, you're solving a problem, but the people you're selling to aren't necessarily they don't really care.

Anna Konstantinova: 18:21

It's a great question and it really comes down to understanding them right. Like your example with the engineer, I see that a lot. You know People can write code and they even their product can be totally amazing and actually really needed and helpful, but they just, you know, it's like trying to cut your own hair, like you can't brand and the company, if you're not a brander, you know, brand strategist like a storyteller, you can cut your own hair like I physically have scissors. I could do it, but I probably shouldn't. You know, that's kind of what I tell people, I think.

Anna Konstantinova: 18:54

To answer your question a little bit deeper, I'll give you an example of a company that I worked with called reboot the future.

Anna Konstantinova: 19:02

They're out of London, it's a nonprofit and they were working on a campaign in Antarctica and the trouble was nobody gave a fuck about Antarctica because they don't live there the very few people. I don't think anyone lives in Antarctica, you know. So how can we get people to care about what's happening in Antarctica, where we're sitting here today? You know in their case it was the UK, but they have a global campaign, so anywhere, you know, and you know when we started to unpack that the thing is the land that you're sitting on here is the same, essentially, as the land in Antarctica, as the land in, you know, china or Zimbabwe or anywhere else in the world, for the people who are there as well, you know. So we have to understand that, like, our piece of land is as important as a piece of land all around the world, but we're just not physically there. So how can we like connect those boundaries and and see that those boundaries are actually not real, they're just, they're just perceived.

Silas Mähner: 20:02

Hey there, thanks for listening to this episode. If you made it this far, it's likely that you're enjoying the show, so wanted to ask your help. If you're enjoying it, please give us a review on apple podcasts and share with somebody in the same industry who might find this interesting. And if you're interested in getting summaries of these episodes, go subscribe to our newsletter. That comes out on linkedin, and sub-stack Links can be found in the description. Thanks for your help in growing the reach of this show you know?

Anna Konstantinova: 20:24

And then what happens in Antarctica? If the whole thing melts, that's really going to affect where you're sitting For sure, because sea levels are going to rise, temperatures are going to rise, you know so many different things are going to happen.

Anna Konstantinova: 20:36

So we really had to make people Understand that there's a symbiotic relationship happening in every single piece of land Um all around the world. You know, and we had these um this really fun campaign where people wrote in and said what do you love about where you live? You know, and people were writing I love how, you know, the birds chirp in the morning. I love the cherry blossoms. I love, you know, I live in New York City, just like you, so I have many things that I love about this city and there's actually a really fun nature that happens here too. So it you know to think about that and tune in and then you're able to see this huge Directory of what everybody loves about their piece of land all around the world, and that really makes you feel a certain way, you know, and that's why traveling is so important too, so that you can really see the experience outside of like your little bubble and really connect this to each other. So that's just an example, but the way to Understand your target audience is to think about what they're going through, talk to them, do focus groups, do qualitative research, quantitative research? That's a lot of. You know what I do as a strategist and um Really hone in on some insights about what they're going through and then speak to them in a way that's gonna make sense to their human experience, instead of trying to, like pour something down their throat that they might not even know about.

Anna Konstantinova: 21:58

You know, and there's an additional layer to the climate Brand that is education. You know, often Some of the brands have a educational component that, uh, you know, the audience might not know that they want or need. Whereas if I'm selling, like a ballpoint pen, people probably understand, like what the point of that pen is right. But if I'm selling, you know, a nut milk with an alternative kind of nut from Africa, like BAM nut, which is the upper end that I worked with yesterday, from what if foods? Um, people just don't necessarily know why that's beneficial. So we're gonna have to use an educational component to that.

Anna Konstantinova: 22:36

And when I say educational component, I don't mean like everybody has to sit around and like grab a textbook and like listen to lectures. You know we can find a fun way to to portray that information, whether it's through video or song or audio. You know, we can really get creative To find out how we can Communicate the information that they need to know. But first we need to distill that information down from the pages and pages of science that are probably behind this climate, brand Um and like what are the most important things here and how can we synthesize them in a way that people are gonna understand? You know, and again, that's a lot of what I do as a strategist is sit with the scientists, sit with the people behind the work and and listen to what they like, see what they're excited about, like you, know we did this experiment and these are the results that we got and we've never seen these results before and it's super exciting.

Anna Konstantinova: 23:29

How can we communicate those results and the the benefit that they're gonna have to the end user?

Somil Aggarwal: 23:36

Yeah, the high level overview seems definitely really reasonable, given that that's sort of the challenge with climate as a whole is. It's not really software innovations or application software innovations all the time. It's a lot of things that genuinely move the needle forward, but in a way that people can't really understand. Um, I'm wondering, especially in your experience, you've probably have come across a couple patterns or things that consumers, innovators you know, people who are trying to spread the message common difficulties they come across in terms of their branding and their messaging. Is there a toolkit or are there some general categories in which you face Ignorance, resistance, a lack of knowledge?

Anna Konstantinova: 24:14

That's an interesting question. I feel like it definitely differs from company to company, but I think something that I see a lot is just a little bit of Disclare, like not being clear about who we are, what we stand for, who we're talking to. You know, and that's what the brand foundational work is all about. You know, we talk about mission, we talk about brand pillars, we talk about tone of voice, we talk about point of view, the brands point of view.

Anna Konstantinova: 24:45

I bring in a lot of young in archetypal work so that we can figure out which these archetypes and usually I blend two together in this brand gonna be, so that the audience already has kind of a feeling of who you're showing up as, instead of being something totally new. So he is like a great example of like a hero archetype and they really lean into that. So finding what archetype you are Is really helpful because then you know you feel familiar to the fans that you're introducing yourself to, instead of just like this is us, you have to accept us like you know, that kind of thing. So so really taking the time to Distill down the core foundation of like what this brand stands for, you know, to build that Foundational work so that you can build on top of it.

Anna Konstantinova: 25:35

I always tell people, you know, we have to lay the foundation down before we can build buildings and houses and a beautiful brand on top of that, or else it's just gonna fall into a hole. We have to be really like foundational about just why we're here and and how we can simply communicate that. And Sometimes with climate brands and you know, esoteric brands and things like that, it's not as simple as you know the nikes and the apples of the world, and that's even more why it's important to do that work so that we can find the right way to communicate that, because you know that's gonna be the the main way that the idea is gonna spread and scale.

Somil Aggarwal: 26:14

Totally, and I think you mentioned something that I find really interesting, which is you know the idea of an archetype right, and I think that it's actually much more innovative in terms of how you classify people, because the questions everyone's asking is you know, how do I do it? What does it look like? Essentially, people want to understand what it means, and I think that's what an archetype does really well, is it sort of synthesizes some of the key characteristics. So I wanted to note from you know, from your perspective, if you think there are general categories of archetypes or ways or commonalities, that you're seeing archetypes getting formed in climate.

Anna Konstantinova: 26:47

You know it's interesting. I feel like the framework that I use is often and the young Ian framework of the archetypes that he already kind of laid out for us and then using them in branding Kind of helps us connect brand personalities to larger archetypes. So Reinventing the literal wheel of archetypes is, I think, a problem that climate brands have, because it's important to understand that, like, even though you're working in climate and you're saving the world, you're still part of the collective consciousness. Like you still have to find a way to Connect to what people already see and feel and hear every day. You know. So there's definitely some similarities in personalities and in archetypes, but it's important to kind of like go back to the building blocks, blocks of psychology that we already have and think about how can we use these tools to really emerge in an exciting and powerful way.

Silas Mähner: 27:45

So I'm that's very fascinating. I think I'm sure you have some guides on this and people can can reach out to learn more and in detail about that. I do want to continue on. We've got a lot of things to go through in terms of what we talked about, the, the science. People are there, right, the engineers building and solving a solution, right when they, when they're getting started and building their company. Usually it's again they're in the lab and in a lot of cases, especially if you're not doing something, that's especially if you're doing something, that's deep science, right, deep tech.

Silas Mähner: 28:16

When? When should they step back and Really think about brand? Because they first have, to some extent, figure out the technology right At some point. When should they step back and ask this? Because we've had many people on the show whose Names are completely unrelated to what they're doing today, because they came up with the name when they were, you know, as an idea, in the lab. Yeah, they were solving a different solution or whatever, or they do a rebrand later on. But I'm just curious because, obviously, you got to have a name to get going, as, in my opinion, right, anything I've ever done. You got to have some kind of idea. But when should people step back and really really say, okay, this is what we have, to solidify everything from this point forward, because otherwise it's gonna be a mess.

Anna Konstantinova: 28:55

Yeah, no, I got that. I mean, obviously I want to say bring in a strategist like day one, but I know that that's not possible for a lot of people. But I do think as early as you can is best, and Probably at the if I had to choose like a timeline point Probably at the point of when you're starting to scale. So let's say, you have a core team of three or four people, including the scientist, maybe the CEO, business person, that kind of thing, and you're working on. You know what we're gonna do, what we're gonna create, what problem we're gonna solve. You know all those kind of things. But as soon as you start to step out to communicating that to the world, that's the time where you need to start thinking about your brand, because that is the time when the brand is gonna be useful. You know, and I see it a lot where I like I'll talk to brands that are in their like series C stage and they have a logo that one of the founders drew on a napkin and like Made in Microsoft Word, and they're still using that. You know, and that's a little bit of a problem because that is gonna make you not look as professional or as capable, as you are right. So, just like Brands are like people. That it's like I always tell everyone like brands are exactly like people.

Anna Konstantinova: 30:11

So if you, as a person, want to go out and get this amazing job, you're probably not gonna go in like your sweatpants that you've been sitting in for like five days and like not brush your hair Right, I mean you could, and people do in Silicon Valley, mazel tov, you know, I'm sure it works for them, but usually here in New York and just like when you want to present yourself Well, you're gonna think about what you want to do in order to present yourself the way that you want to be seen and portrayed.

Anna Konstantinova: 30:39

And Obviously, you know, with people it's a little bit different. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but I think it's a good example to think about. You know, that's the same thing as your brand, like, and in order to Get that done well, you need to have a sounding board of somebody who's gonna be able to like put you into the Kind of the cultural like guys of what's happening, right, because a lot of founders, their branding that they come up with themselves, looks exactly like a different brand that maybe they just didn't know about, in a different sector or different category. So it's just really important to Do that work and make sure that you're standing out and presenting yourself Well if you're gonna go step out into the world and, you know, ask for capital by the higher employees like try to get into stores and things like that.

Silas Mähner: 31:27

Mm-hmm. Yeah, a nice side way. You mentioned it, getting getting capital. So I want to talk about this. What are your tips as Companies are going through the fundraise right, especially let's let's just assume it's a company who's kind of got the basic technology figured out. They're going to a series, a You're looking to do a pilot and go from there. What are the tips around? You know how do they approach, how they approach funds, anything about the pitch deck.

Anna Konstantinova: 31:50

Whatever your major major pointers are, I Think the first thing is just and I've said this before and I'll say it again it's like make sure that you're clear and succinct, like a lot of the times I see, founders say what they're gonna say, like kind of their pitch, in five different ways, depending on you know which side of the bed they woke up that morning. So, getting it clear and being kind of practicing which words work best, which emphasis works best, where you know, taking the time to really comb through and make sure that the point that you're making is coming across well, I think that's really a key point. And then, secondly, you know, before you go and sit in front of the venture capital firm, that you're, you know, really wanting to invest in you. I would Practice in front of the industry, you know, ask some folks who know what they're talking about to give you some feedback, and that can be the most helpful thing. And sometimes it's hard to ask for that feedback, you know, because we don't want to be told like you need to go back to square one. Or you know we've done so much work. So I can totally understand why it would be scary to do that, but it's so important. And in those moments of getting that feedback back, you're gonna get those gold nuggets, you know, because you as a company even if it's not just you as a solo founder you have a team. You only know what you know. You know you don't have the, the mirrors to be able to kind of see all around you. So you have to get as much kind of reflection and feedback as you can before you go out and ask for capital, because that's the kind of questions that you're gonna face At that tribunal. Right, you're gonna have to be able to answer questions about the 360 degree value of your brand, about your you know, financial trajectory and things like that.

Anna Konstantinova: 33:45

So Making sure that you're kind of fully flushed out, I think is really important. You know, I think there's like an old adage that says lawyers, when they're on on trial, they never answer a question that they don't know the answer to already that they didn't know was coming, you know. So I think that that's a good, good way to think about it. Like make sure you've already thought everything through that they're gonna throw out you and don't seem like you don't know or that you're Flustered or that you haven't thought about it before.

Anna Konstantinova: 34:15

Like make yourself seem as thought out as you are, because this is like your You're. You're birthing this thing out into the world, you know, and you're so proud of it, and it deserves to have that level of reflection and confidence to go out into the world and solve these problems, you know, and climate, it's so Personal to so many people, you know, and I think starting from that place of story like this is why this has affected me, but also then taking it past the, this is why I was motivated into that. This is the work that I've done and really showcasing that. I think that passion plus purpose really goes a long way.

Silas Mähner: 34:59

Yeah, I think that's quite interesting, having really true clarity on what you do. I think it can be difficult for the founders because a lot of times they get to a point where they're just in the work and they need to raise money and then they just go out and do it. We've had one thing that makes me think back is Tommy Leap had said something around making sure you kind of have a map and tears of who you pitch first, because the first people are what do you say? Friends, fools and family, I think, and people that it doesn't really matter if you mess up the pitch. You gotta hear the questions and to kind of get used to saying it, because you're right, if you say it differently every time, you have no way of measuring. What is the? How am I performing? So I think that that's quite fascinating and, yes, having the clarity and just having somebody grill you like a debate prep or something on what Mike can ask, because if they ask a question, that's like super obvious and you should have thought of it and you don't have an answer and it looks pretty bad.

Silas Mähner: 36:03

But the one last comment I wanted to make would be I just when you talk about all these things. It makes me really think just how, how there's such an inner game of being a founder and there's so many things you have to be aware of with your own biases and self-conscious or maybe just overlooking a lot of things. Right, and you have to be able to not be too attached to your company, your baby, right, it's your idea, but you can't be attached to that idea. You have to be attached to solving the problem and take the feedback. That's something I noticed sometimes people struggle with. So I think those are my comments. Somo, did you have something else you wanted to go into?

Somil Aggarwal: 36:45

Yeah, I think it's also interesting where the balance is between what it's smart for a founder to do on their own versus getting help.

Anna Konstantinova: 36:52

Well, personal branding for a founder is really important too. Like, just like we do the inner work for the brands, you, as a founder, should turn that mirror around and take a look and do some inner work for how you're going to be reflected and received and some blind spots that you have and things like that. I think we all nobody on this planet walking around even the Dalai Lama doesn't have a blind spot, doesn't have something that they can work on. So I think, as founders and that's actually something that I offer, as well as some founder personal branding to get your own mission clear, to get your own website clear, to get your mission energized and out and ready for the world. So it's important to do that work too. And I think there's a lot of coaches out there and I think that's really great, like being able to have somebody who's constantly pushing you forward and has like a big view of the feel where you maybe are only stepping on. That's important. So I always kind of recommend different coaches to work with too.

Somil Aggarwal: 37:57

So it is you're right.

Anna Konstantinova: 37:58

Like it is a huge inner game to be a founder, because there's a lot of things that you're swimming against the current of right. You're kind of like a salmon trying to get to that other side of the river and there's bears and there's a lot of other things. I use a lot of metaphors in my work and usually they're nature based. So it's important to think about how you're gonna get from point A to point B and what your strengths are, but also recognize what your weaknesses are and honestly like talk about that authentically.

Anna Konstantinova: 38:31

Like a lot of people try to pretend like oh, I'm perfect at everything, like don't worry, I have it. But when you say to someone like I'm actually really not that good I'm gonna give my own personal example driving a car. I'm a New Yorker, I just can't really drive a car Like in New York City, in the country, sometimes I'll try, but usually I just outsource that and I'm kind of afraid it gives me anxiety. Like I'm trying but I'm scared. But see, now everybody's like I understand, like I have a thing like that. I'm like that too.

Silas Mähner: 39:02

I'm working on it.

Anna Konstantinova: 39:03

Yes.

Somil Aggarwal: 39:04

Yeah, I was gonna say I resonate with the nature based metaphors. I was gonna say, silas, we should do more of those. Be like it does give a very environmental ethos to everything you do.

Anna Konstantinova: 39:14

For sure. I noticed someone. I honestly don't remember who it was, I don't think I was connected to them, it was like a share on LinkedIn but I remember that it was a Ukrainian woman because I'm from Ukraine, and it really resonated with me After some of the horrible stuff that's been happening there. She's like I noticed that a lot of our corporate language is war language, like kill it, slay, things like that, and I even noticed it in myself. Since she pointed that out, I was like, oh wow, I do do that and I've been consciously trying to reprogram that into more nature based things Like kill two birds with one stone, like why can't we save two birds with one stone?

Somil Aggarwal: 39:54

Yeah, definitely. I feel like this was something that came up in conversation for me recently. There's like a huge fascination between business school and war, Going down the foxhole just like a bunch of different-.

Anna Konstantinova: 40:08

The trenches totally.

Silas Mähner: 40:12

There's a huge trend right now, again blowing up on Twitter and TikTok, about people asking their husbands how often do you think about the Roman Empire? So this is all very topical.

Anna Konstantinova: 40:22

That's a great question.

Somil Aggarwal: 40:24

Well.

Anna Konstantinova: 40:24

I was in Rome recently, so I feel like it's more recent than most and we were at, me and my partner. We went to the Coliseum and it's just so interesting. It's like a huge, amazing monument to war in a way, but like small war that you can create. I was like what would it be like to walk in here, be wearing that whole garb and just watch some man wrestle a lion, Like it's totally insane. So that was the thing that happened, you know.

Somil Aggarwal: 41:00

Definitely.

Anna Konstantinova: 41:01

Our society has a lot of war, kind of like holding it up in high esteem, and I think we need to start putting peace up on that pedestal instead.

Somil Aggarwal: 41:14

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think it's the same way that video games kind of changed the way that we process and perceive certain life events, I think.

Anna Konstantinova: 41:23

Okay, we started.

Somil Aggarwal: 41:25

Yeah, so no, I think that there's validity to all of it. I feel like part of it too is it's just easier to understand and relate to the severity of things when you liken it to. But is that appropriate?

Anna Konstantinova: 41:34

I think that's up to people's discretion 100% and we take it so easily, like we take the whole video game thing of like I'm in a car and I'm running people over and then I grab a gun and I'm shooting everyone. You know, like, if you're doing that for 15 hours a day and then you just like walk outside, like what is your brain gonna be programmed to do, you know? And we have a TTI member actually who's working on kind of a more conscious video game way of being, because you know there's nothing wrong with gaming. But I do think there is something that is not right about just like putting war on a pedestal, fetishizing.

Somil Aggarwal: 42:13

Definitely. Well, I don't want to bore the audience who went with our personal views, but I'm sure you know again, we'll love to keep talking about this. I think something you mentioned that is definitely worth following up on is I feel like there's a lot of content out there and a lot of information out there about how to work on your brand, how to build it, but I think there's real value in understanding when do you need help and when do you need another voice. That's something that I think, as you know, people who are first time founders go through their journey, or even you know, professionals who have been in the game for some time. It's understanding when do you need help, when do you need to buy a new piece of software, when do you need to bring in some sort of specialized talent to make easier on yourself?

Somil Aggarwal: 42:53

I don't think that distinction is as clear based on what's out there. So, in your experience, I think this is, you know, similar. To make another non-climate analogy, similar to bodybuilding People hit a plateau. That's generally when you get a bodybuilding trainer because they help you. Even though you've been successful enough to get to a certain level, there is a next level to get to. So I'm wondering in terms of branding, does that exist and what usually, if there is a commonality, is that plateau?

Anna Konstantinova: 43:21

That's a really interesting question. It probably has to do with when your business is starting to scale right. So maybe if you, let's say, are a baker, you're able to sell your cupcakes to your neighbors, your neighborhood, maybe even your town. You know you're going to events, you're at the town meetings, you know things like that. But if you wanna start getting to the next town or the next state, or you know national distribution, you're probably gonna need a partner who's gonna help you do that right. So I think it depends on what your vision is and what your goals are and then being able to recognize that you can't do it alone you know, A big part of climate is recognizing that we can't do it alone.

Anna Konstantinova: 44:11

Not one person can fix the whole climate crisis or deny the whole climate crisis, you know. I think we all have to realize that we have our special talent, that we have, and turning them on towards climate and really connecting with each other. How can we fix this problem together? You know and that's what I really wanna do with my branding work is there's so many amazing ideas out there and they deserve to be seen and heard. Let's make sure that they're as loud as they can be so that we can really start fixing this problem, you know. So, to answer your question, I think it's really about how big you wanna get and what your goals are, and then like laying out that trajectory and recognizing that you know to go from A to B. I'm gonna need a little help here.

Somil Aggarwal: 44:57

Well, I wanna double click on the scaling part. I mean scaling. You can scale at many different stages, going from you know first one to 100 followers, 500 to 1,000, it could be from first you know one customer to five. What part of like, what stage of scaling do you see the greatest need or the greatest sort of like turning point?

Anna Konstantinova: 45:17

When you're not able to personally respond to everybody. I think when you, you know, when people are messaging you and you have like five people messaging you and you are able to, like, have a personal conversation with all those five people, that's great. And then you're owning your brand, right, because nobody else is taking that out of your hands. You're the one that's dealing with everybody personally, right. But when you're getting like a thousand messages a day, you just personally don't have the time to answer all those messages. That's when it's time to get some help and start scaling.

Anna Konstantinova: 45:50

So and that relates to any type of industry and I actually experienced that with my first company at second house.

Anna Konstantinova: 45:56

As soon as I stepped away, the, you know, took a vacation, whatever it is, the message wasn't honed and the experience wasn't the same as I would have curated it, and I was like, oh no, like this is not the way that I wanted this person, who I had invited to experience this you know curated product that I've been creating, you know.

Anna Konstantinova: 46:20

So, when you personally, as the founder, are breathing life into it all the time, all the time, all the time, and then when you step away, if that whole thing is going to crumble, you need a little bit of help and you need also, I think, a big skill that not just founders but a lot of folks who are out there working on teams have is start learning how to delegate and start learning how to trust people and also how to brief them. You know, a big part of strategy and branding is that briefing part. Like I need this, this, this and this, and I wanted to feel like this, this, this and this and make sure that the person who is taking care of it has a clear idea of what you're looking for, so that you can kind of step away with trust instead of step away with anxiety.

Somil Aggarwal: 47:04

I was going to say that's a very tangible metric of a silence. I feel like we're already sort of hitting the point where we're getting a little overwhelmed with our with having to engage. So maybe we're at that point too, but I appreciate that.

Anna Konstantinova: 47:15

But you know it's tough because, like money is a factor right. So there's always like this whole scale with like the economics of your company versus like what you actually need and help, and that's like a personal journey that everybody goes through Like what am I willing to invest in it? Who's willing to help me? You know all of the different networking things that you have available to you, which is why networks like TTI are so important, because we all really want to help each other. Make impact, the next paradigm, you know, and I really believe that once we align that purpose with the economics and the fuel of it, that's what's really going to make people feel motivated to make change.

Silas Mähner: 47:51

Yeah, absolutely. I think there is a certain catalyst that comes right. I do, we're running out of time, but I want to go over one thing just kind of get. I want to give some sense from my side. Two cents from my side, then hear kind of your thoughts on this.

Silas Mähner: 48:04

Is, you know, being a recruiter. There's a lot of times where hiring managers, especially at an early stage, they kind of underestimate the impact of how they manage their hiring process, how it will affect their brand in the public, because they can have like a great leader who's out there speaking publicly, doing great things and attracting people. But I've seen some companies I've worked with in the past that have really terrible hiring processes where it takes, you know, it stops and goes and then it eventually does go forward and they try to, you know, bring the candidates back in. But then they're like, well, I mean, it's been like six, seven weeks now, like are they actually serious, etc. Even though the people may be great in the company, maybe great, it can really affect the brand. And there's another kind of second part of that, which is how you treat your team right. If you treat your team in a way that is, you know not.

Silas Mähner: 48:56

Let's go back to this nature thing. It's not nature oriented, right, if it's really rough or inconsiderate. You're going to develop a reputation in the market because people speak a lot, right, word travels very quickly and, in particular for the companies that are startups that eventually transition into being a little bit less start-up-y, they need to be willing to take feedback from their employees, because they're not going to, they can't expect that every person that joins is willing to work a hundred hours a week for no benefits, right? So I'm just kind of curious if you have any comments around this brand aspect from an internal and an external perspective, because we see lots of climate tech companies that are starting to succeed and then even some of them are doing big layoffs, which I don't think is responsible growth if they're doing that. But can you just talk about this from the hiring perspective? Slash the internal and external perspective.

Anna Konstantinova: 49:47

Sure, sure, I mean. I think that's why that brand in our work at the beginning is so important, because who you say you are to people, who should be who you really are on the inside, you know. Again, it's like people. If I'm out here spreading like flowers and love and then at home I'm doing something like horrible and inconsistent with that vision that I'm trying to put out there, that's not a holistic person, you know, and brands need to be like that too. So, as you're creating your brand, as you're thinking about who we want to be to audiences, that's where you have to be internally as well. Even more so, even more so. You have to really be that mission, embody that mission and see how it's going to shape itself out.

Anna Konstantinova: 50:37

To be in the hiring process, in the interview process, in your HR policies. You know, if we say we're a nature based solution and we don't have any benefits for our employees, like that doesn't really make a ton of sense, you know. But maybe you can help them find like holistic practitioners and help them get you know acupuncture and things like that. If you're selling a holistic practice, that's really beautiful, you know. So, making sure that those through lines are happening externally, internally and presently with yourself.

Anna Konstantinova: 51:10

So, if we're being honest, like I actually am this kind of a brand and I'm embodying it in all of the different practices that I do I too find that you know, in job processes and the path it can be super brutal to you know, get ghosted and try to do a whole presentation for someone and never hear back and like the whole hiring process can be super brutal, and I'm sure you see a lot of that and that's another thing that we have to disrupt, because these are humans that we're talking about. But you as a company, I think before you start hiring, you should take some time to think about how do we want to hire, how do we want this process to look like? Who?

Anna Konstantinova: 51:50

is going to do this work, you know, and sometimes start up and I think that's with my clients too like things are moving a million miles a minute and the founders like super busy and you know investors are calling and this is happening and we need an event for climate week and like this and that it's so many things get thrown at you and it can be really hard to manage the kind of empatheticness of holding your team and everything like that.

Anna Konstantinova: 52:14

But that's why you need the right people to be able to do that. It's not on one person. You really need to just understand that these are people that we're dealing with and we want to be able to approach them with the way that we would want to approach the people who are giving us money too. You know, it's kind of a. It's the same polarity of I'm attracting customers and I'm retaining talent. It's really two sides of the same coin, and you have to treat those who work for you even better than those who are, you know, buying from you, because then everybody inside the company feels that too, and then that magnetism is going to translate to your audiences.

Silas Mähner: 52:57

Yeah, I mean there's two things that I'll wrap up with. I think one is the communication part. Right, people, candidates, understand that life happens and things happen, but what they don't get, and they will never be willing to accept, is that you can't tell them what's going on right, like I get it if you're busy, I get it if you've got you know a huge deadline or something, but just communicate it to me. Right, and that's what we try to do on the recruitment side, not to, you know, talk my own book too much, but we try to play that middle, middle person role of helping them understand. Hey, you know we apologize for the time delay, but also, if you're doing this on your own, if you're a founder, make sure you think ahead the next six weeks.

Silas Mähner: 53:32

A lot of people think that you can go out and hire in two, three weeks and you're going to have somebody in your place. You're not. It's going to take usually six to eight weeks, no matter you know what kind of company. There's some roles that are quicker, but for really critical roles it's going to take a while. So think ahead and be aware of what. Okay, you know climate week's coming up. I will not respond to any of your emails during that time, like give me until this time to get back. Give them a heads up, because if you don't communicate it's really, really a bad look.

Anna Konstantinova: 54:00

But also it's like people I always say, like if I'm holding all of these secrets inside, that's going to hurt me and the people that I'm having relationships with. You know, just be honest. And also, like, if you can't make something, be honest about that too. Like, try to keep your word about things like that as well. You know, because it can be really hard when schedules get busy and then a candidate is waiting for you to show up or you know meeting doesn't happen or things like that. And even if you're a little late, you know things can get rejiggered, things can get rescheduled. But just be just be honest, like I think we need just more honesty and communication. More communication is always better than less, I think.

Silas Mähner: 54:39

Yeah, I would agree with that, and I think that this point that I find really fascinating is you know, I watch it all the time with candidates being on the outside, right. I have to convince them to take the interview with my you know, my client. I get them interested and then eventually they go inside, right, and then I'm like, okay, now do they? They still feel the same way, right, because they were on the outside of the house looking at the nice painting and everything right. Now is the inside as nice, right, and this is something that is very it manifests itself very quickly.

Silas Mähner: 55:07

People. It is a kind of this transition when they've accepted the job and they begin to go in, there's things that are, you know, oftentimes there's some of my clients that I've worked with in the past who it feels like there's a bit of a transition to the reality versus the, you know, the campaign, the, the, the, the favorite, my favorite clients are the ones where there is no difference. Everything is the same through all the way and the candidates appreciate that because they know exactly what they were sold and they joined. I think this whole branding thing if you're, if you're slow responding to your internal candidates and people you want to join your team, like, how are you going to treat customers or et cetera, right? And the talent market for a lot of people is extremely tight right now. So you need to be aware of how you do this, because I have seen companies completely tank their brand just by having bad hiring processes or treating their employees wrong. But anyways, not to talk my own book too much, I think we've talked about a lot of things.

Anna Konstantinova: 55:59

Brands are everything Like they're everything and how you live and breathe, how you hire, how you decorate, how you, you know, show up at climate week, how you do anything you know. So I think it's really important to think about yourself as a whole.

Anna Konstantinova: 56:12

You know, I always say brands can be like the sun, you know, like an energy source, like a, a hopefully never ending energy source that like keeps burning and burning, and burning, and it's a 360 degree energy source, right. But if I'm in New York, the sun is going to feel the same to me as what on the other side of the world too I mean depending on the equator and things like that but the energy source is the same. So it's important to be seen as that same energy source from any way that somebody is looking at you, whether it's through your advertising campaign, through your hiring process, through your swag, like through your events. I see a lot of climate brands and they have events with plastic cups that go straight in the trash.

Silas Mähner: 56:52

Yeah, I thought about this recently. I was like does it make any sense? It's not adding up.

Anna Konstantinova: 56:58

I recently met a company I'm going to do a little plug for them called Zero Cup, and what they do is they drop off as many cups as you need and then they pick them up at the end. You know, and it's a circularity game and they have plates also and it's like a really great one-stop solution. The founder, michael, he's really great, he's New York based, and I just found the solution for an event that I had yesterday and I was like, oh my god, can you please come, because I don't know what we're going to do with these cups.

Anna Konstantinova: 57:25

And the educator also, and she was like well, I could bring glass cups, but that's a whole thing as well. It's like a weight you have to wash them Like. That's difficult to. They can break.

Anna Konstantinova: 57:34

You know, so I especially if you're having an event, you know, outside or at scale it could be hard to bring glass, but at the same time, plastic is horrible and we know that it's ruining our earth, and it's made out of petroleum, and I could go on and on. So what's the kind of middle ground? Just look for solutions and make sure that you're not just playing the status quo because it's easy. I don't want to see any fake plants at climate events, like plastic plants. That really grinds my gears. Either don't have any plants or get a real plant.

Silas Mähner: 58:05

Yeah, there's so many interesting things. It's really. It's really been great to have you on. I think we'll have to definitely have a follow up at some point, but let's you know what's your call to action, anything that you can ask of the audience. Where can people reach you?

Anna Konstantinova: 58:18

Sure, so my website is Anna Code that. So it's a nna koco and I'll put that in the show notes for you guys. So in my email is Anna at Anna koco, so that's going to be a nna at a koco and you can reach me there. And I'd be so happy to hear about the brands that you're building and what you're working on. And I'm actually launching a new offering during climate week. I'm launching it during climate week, but it's going to be alive. You know hereafter where I'm doing 60 and 90 minute calls with founders or people who are working on brands to kind of solve one problem, because I've been hearing a lot of feedback like I have this one thing that I just really don't know how to solve it, or is this name right, or what should I do about this, and it's really great to have a sounding board on that. So that services on my website too, again Anna koco, and I'd be so happy to just like listen and see what's going on and how we can help.

Anna Konstantinova: 59:22

And again like it just really lean into empathy and connection and all those kinds of things. Because the climate crisis it got created because of a lack of that and we can't keep perpetuating that with the same energy that built it Right. So we have to really start breaking apart all of these, all of these problems, and filling them with solutions.

Silas Mähner: 59:43

Yeah, absolutely, I completely agree. So definitely reach out and get your branding right, everybody.

Anna Konstantinova: 59:49

Definitely so nice to talk to you guys. Thanks so much for having me.

Silas Mähner: 1:00:03

Yeah, absolutely.