Scott Raven: And ultimately it helps them in the end with one of their big things, which is if you're raising capital, you're trying to do so as cheaply as possible, and these are all enablers and catalysts to trying to reduce that cost of capital for them.

Lysle Wickersham: It does reduce the cost of capital. And it's the kind of thing that creates long-term value by being consistent now, and I think it's hard sometimes for them to understand that value and why it plays. But if they consider being brand focused from the beginning, and I'm not talking about logos and art and color. I'm talking about the strategic foundation of a brand. You do that right and consistently from the beginning, it will pay dividends.

Scott Raven: Right. Now, you know that strategic and creative thought in today's day and age is being modified as we speak through AI and you have certifications in generative AI and prompt engineering. As you look towards the intersection of what these new technologies are bringing in with the wisdom and the experience that you bring in terms of overall brand strategy and brand capital creation, how do you see these two coming together in the future?

Lysle Wickersham: I will say that part of differentiation in building a brand is not just the rational, the product service, the features that I offer, it's also in the representation emotionally of that brand and tone and manner and style and personality and those things that are harder to describe. And in many marketplaces it's often parity environments, especially in tech and even companies in the AI space. And sometimes your brand and its personality is one of the primary differentiators in places where people are claiming a lot of the same values in feature sets. So that stuff really does make a difference. And with AI, you can use AI as a tool to generate foundational content, but it simply is not able to create what humans can create. A human is actually able to connect the dots, innovate, create new thinking. Remember AI is always a regurgitation of everything that's already been out there. So there are certain places that this tool is phenomenal, but creating a unique voice, finding that thing that is a unique expression of a brand, that needs humans. That just needs humans.

Scott Raven: I often say that as smart as AI is, it tries to act like a 7-year-old. It tries to please you as if you're being its father. And sometimes it doesn't always get it right. You have to have the brains to say, where did you get it wrong, son?

Lysle Wickersham: Yeah, it's funny. You can keep asking the AI to do it over and over and over again, and it will just do it over and over and over again, and it is never a situation where there's a right or a wrong. It'll just keep doing that at you. So you need to have talented people doing that kind of work. And when you figure out some of the brand attributes are things like tone and manner and voice and personality and those kinds of things. And the first decisions for those things are strategic. They connect with who's your audience? Am I creating a personality that can have affinity with this audience? And then what is the actual execution of that? What's that voice? What does it sound like? What does it look like? So all of that stuff has to come together and that's not the kind of thing that AI excels at.

Scott Raven: No. But let's get to you and what you and Brand Think really excel at which is working with these startups and early stage businesses. And after the litany of places and successes that you've had along the way, why is this home for you? Why is this the place for Brand Think?

Lysle Wickersham: That's a great question. For me, it marries the two things that matter most to me. And it is a little bit of an unusual skillset. It's a cross-disciplinary approach that not a lot of people are doing. Coming from a creative direction background and then going into investment banking and doing that kind of work, for me there's a natural progression of figuring out a strategic foundation for how a business can scale and grow and how to do that, and then figuring out how to tell that story and bring that emotional component. So for me, it marries my two career paths into an offering where I get to do both. And you need to do both to be most effective.

Scott Raven: And I know in talking offline with you that one of the key principles in terms of the operations behind the scenes with Brand Think is these are not transactional business relationships you're trying to create. These are legacy business relationships that you're trying to create, such that it's not just what was produced, the work, but the impact that that had, the ripple effect that it created.

Lysle Wickersham: Yeah. Again it circles back to the long-term nature of building equity if you're really trying to build wealth and value. And so yeah, you lay that foundation and you get it right from the beginning and you put a company in a position to scale around that and get invested around that. That's a super satisfying thing to be able to do because you're getting involved at the level of helping somebody figure out how to structure something and bring a dream and a vision to life. It's a super satisfying thing to be involved in.

Scott Raven: What is your favorite dream of somebody else that you helped bring to life?

Lysle Wickersham: Well, I'm in the middle of one right now. I'm working with a SaaS client. This guy spent a long career in Fortune 500 companies and saw a significant deficiency in young adults today being future ready and spent years developing a core curriculum to help young adults fill that gap that the education system doesn't provide. And when he came to Brand Think, it was at the very beginning, hey, I have this thing that I believe in to give back to these kids and figure out how to help them set visions and goals and know how to do that. And it took about seven months to figure out how to go to market, how to scale that, to do the modeling, to build all the assets, to be able to raise capital. And he's out there right now about to close a $4 million round to bring this vision to life. It's pretty powerful when you can help somebody satisfy a dream and really help them build something that means something to them.

Scott Raven: Yeah. You know, I'll use this as the segue into our traditional close on the podcast. I always do a tip of the cap to Randy Pausch's book, the last lecture where his final statement was, this was for my kids, right? I'm not going to say this is for your kids, but let's say that this is the next generation of entrepreneurs who have now listened to this podcast episode. What's the one big thing you want them to take away from what they've just heard?

Lysle Wickersham: Great question. I think about that all the time. I am a mentor in a startup organization trying to work with young founders. And I guess the biggest piece of advice is helping kids understand that there's a lot that you don't know, and it's not just about the product idea you have and what you're building. And so listen to people. Take advantage of mentors. Learn, be open-minded. Know that building a business is different than building a product. And embrace some of this stuff. These are things I wish somebody had told me a long time ago. I don't know if I would have listened or not, but I think that's the value. Be open-minded, listen, learn, let people help you.

Scott Raven: Yeah, and that's often one of the most difficult things for people who are entry level or young, is to be able to realize that they need help from others, and that you get there faster and further if you go together than trying to go it yourself.

Lysle Wickersham: Yeah, that's really well said. Ironically though Scott, I run into the same problem with seasoned leadership. CEOs who don't know what they don't know.

Scott Raven: Yep. It's everybody.

The Corvus Effect

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