#143 – Building a Brand with Jacob Cass of Just Creative

Shannon Mattern (00:01.685)

Hello everyone and welcome back to the profitable web designer podcast. And today I am joined by Jacob Cass brand designer strategist educator, podcaster, business coach, community builder. would say virtual summit hosts also flamingo enthusiast founder of just creative and Jacob, thank you so much for being here on the profitable web designer podcast today.

Jacob Cass (00:18.316)

Yes, a lot of things.

Jacob Cass (00:29.942)

Yeah, it's absolute pleasure. We've had quite a history over the years in terms of collaborations and things. So it's great to have a longer chat. So I'm looking forward to this.

Shannon Mattern (00:38.427)

Yeah. So yeah, like you said, you've, you are, you know, a consistent guest at the simply profitable designer summit. always in one of our most popular guests. and you know, we have chatted off and on, and I was chatting before I hit record that I'm excited to get to have like the conversation with you where I get to say, Hey, tell me about your background. How did you get started? Cause even though we kind of know each other, we haven't gotten to like have that.

Jacob Cass (00:49.499)

thank you.

Shannon Mattern (01:07.839)

conversation yet. So I'm excited to have it on the podcast. So can you give me a little bit of your like superhero origin story? Like what led you to all of those little titles that I that I mentioned at the beginning?

Jacob Cass (01:17.382)

That origin story. Absolutely.

Jacob Cass (01:25.6)

Yeah, there's a lot of titles, right? And they are titles. I like the phrase creative drifter because I kind of drift between all these different things and it keeps things interesting as a creative. So that's, that's me in a nutshell. What I love is branding, design, business and marketing and the cross-section of that, kind of probably why I enjoy strategy so much. But in terms of the origin story, I, you know, I've always been a creative at heart, you know, looking back in, you know, as you go all the way back to kindy, you know, being

very artistic, really rebelled against sciences and the maths and everything like that. So it was in my bones to be a creative, but I didn't really know about graphic design as a career until I got into high school. So I was dabbling in Photoshop and I was like morphing people's faces together and I ended up making a logo for a band, a terrible one. And I kind of got into design without even knowing that I was doing design as a thing.

And my careers advisor told me about graphic design as a career. And that's when the light bulb went off and I kind of directed my studies to go in that direction. studied at university, visual communication. So I kind of went that classical route. Realized I did not enjoy illustration, art. I was really interested in the logos and identity. So I had this inkling to go in that direction and typography. So in the first years of study, you always

kind of dabbling different things. You learn what you like, what you don't like. And yeah, I was just naturally attracted to logos. And that's where I focused. I grew a blog called just creative design back then as a way to showcase my studies at university. And that got me into the world of web design and blogging. So I kind of went this from like dabbling in design to understanding that as a career. And then it went into web design and blogging and then

Throughout that process, they got the attention of an agency in New York City. So they had hunted me as I was a student and offered me a job on the other side of the world. I was in Sydney. I still had six months to graduate. They said, that's cool, finish and then come over. So I did that and that catapulted my career because I went from being a student to working for brands like Disney, Nike, Powerade, Major League Baseball and other ones. So it was just like my...

Jacob Cass (03:47.424)

mind boggling. It was a major, major shift in terms of everything. I didn't know anyone. didn't know anything about the city, the location, the work, the culture, anything. So it was like, it was a huge experience. I was hugely perfaith, but it was the best, best thing I did. And yeah, I worked for five years in New York city. The first year I kind of bounced around different places trying to find the right one. And then I found the right one to stay with them for four years.

And I was an interactive designer for them for four years. So I did a lot of websites for the Nintendo, do one for Jerry Seinfeld, Powerade, Coca-Cola, those sorts of brands. So it was like really, really top tier brands. And I cut my teeth in the industry there. So, and throughout that period, I was running Just Creative Design, or I actually shortened it to Just Creative at that point. And I was kind of burning the candle at both ends as you do in, you your mid twenties.

I run in your own studio and working for someone else. And thankfully they allowed me to do both, which was great. And yeah, then I left New York after that and did the digital nomad thing, went to 88 countries and found out that, yeah, you can actually run a profitable business working for yourself. And I actually earned more in that first year than I was in New York because I had more time to focus on the business.

And I wasn't working for someone else and I didn't have the overheads of New York City either. So yeah. And then after those couple of years of travel, set it down in Australia and I continued running Just Creative. And that's when I started the podcast. I started the creative community. I dabbled in digital products, releasing things like fonts and downloads and so forth. I ran the summit last year and now I'm focused on building a membership community for brand builders.

So that's it in a nutshell. hope it's short enough, that's the story.

Shannon Mattern (05:46.395)

Yeah. So, so many little facets and threads that I want to, to pull at, in that story. And so, you know, working for agencies in New York city, and then like going off on your own to run your own business. Like what were some of the. Like biggest lessons from the agency experience that you took with you into.

how you ran your own business.

Jacob Cass (06:18.424)

Biggest experience was that I was so glad that I went working for myself, went working for them versus myself because I got to learn from people much smarter than myself and got more experience that way and exposure to bigger brands and working with the team. And this is understanding how the ad industry works as well as the interactive department, which is what I was in. So I also learned that I don't like

office politics and I don't necessarily love working for the man, but when you live in the States on a visa, you have to have a visa and you're tied to that company. So there's those sorts of things, but I'm very glad that was the situation because it kind of forced me into that. but yeah, it's, it's, learned what I liked and what I didn't like and learned, you know, got exposure and you know, that was probably the biggest takeaways.

Shannon Mattern (07:09.533)

Yeah, it's one of those things where, you know, I never worked in an agency. I always worked like for companies in their marketing or, you know, marketing IT departments. so the agencies, like I was the client of the agency, right? And so I was kind of on the other side of the table, so to speak. And

It's interesting when you don't have that insider view of being on the inner workings of the creative side, and then you break out into business on your own and you're learning everything the hard way because you're like, okay, now I got to touch the stove because you don't have the behind the scenes of the inner workings of how the sales happen and the delivery happens. just like,

Jacob Cass (07:59.662)

Absolutely.

Shannon Mattern (08:04.499)

You know, trying to figure it out from the other side of the table. And it's just, it's a more, I think, I don't know, a more challenging position to be in because you're like, okay, now I'm trying to sell this thing that I used to be buying and I don't really have a full understanding of, how that worked. And so, yeah, I just did it the hard way for the longest time until I kind of figured things, things out. So.

Jacob Cass (08:17.848)

Mm-hmm.

Jacob Cass (08:28.226)

Yeah. You wear so many hats and you have to learn each role and that takes time. I think in the early start, well, I think early in your career, you're working on your skills, right? And you focus on that. And then eventually you get to a point where, I can actually run a business with these skills now. And it's like, okay, well, I have to learn marketing and sales and proposals and sales, like soft skills and all sorts of things. So it does take time to get that experience up, but it's a slow,

It's a slow journey and that's why it's called experience, right? It's like you learn on the

Shannon Mattern (09:04.774)

Yeah, absolutely. So you're you're doing you know, you're blogging the whole way, you know, doing just creative the whole time. Did that ever become like, was that like always just a little side project for you? Or did you have like a strategy for it the whole time? Like, when did it kind of like become its own thing? And now it's like the brand?

Jacob Cass (09:23.864)

That was very scatty.

Yeah, there was never a huge strategy in the beginning. it was me as a student sharing my design process. And back then it was much different. Like blogging was a actually thing you called a blogging, right? And those blogging communities and there was not much competition and you knew everyone knew each other in that design blog world, which was great. I just lost my train of thought. What was I answering?

Shannon Mattern (09:54.453)

When did Just Creative really become like the brand that you were, you know?

Jacob Cass (10:00.822)

Okay. Yeah, it was definitely an evolution. So to answer that. So in the beginning, it was the, the student design process kind of thing. And then that led into blogging and earning money through blogging and affiliate marketing. I just started to learn about that. And eventually clients came in through SEO and I was starting to learn SEO and how to build a website and WordPress and, you know, themes and plugins and backlinks and all those things. So you start to like,

learn all these different things that go on behind the scenes to actually grow a business. So was kind of like learning, growing, taking it all in. And then from that, then I could put together a strategy. And back then I was focused on logos. all the content I put out was pretty much focused on logos. And that meant I got found quite easily in Google. So for example, was like how much for a logo design or how to choose a logo designer, the best logos, whatever it may be. And I would get found quite easily in Google because

There was not much competition back then. And yeah, I was quite booked out for a long time when I was traveling, which was awesome. And, but then things changed a couple of years ago and much harder to rank these days, but that's how things go. But to answer your question, it was definitely an evolution blogging, learning about web design, using SEO to grow the business and brand and then social media as well. So I was very active on social, and this is what actually got the attention of that agency in New York city.

This was when digital was just breaking out and I was very much into Twitter and Facebook and digital marketing and so forth. that's why I got headhunted because of that. And I've always been sharing my journey along the way. So whatever I've learned, put out there and I was very open with that sort of thing. And I'm an early adopter of a lot of technologies, pretty much, which is a

Now double-edged sword because it's a bit of a distraction sometimes, you know, entities come out or AI comes out. Like I'm jumping on these things crypto. wish I jumped on earlier, but, still got in there. so yeah, it's, I'm just, yeah, I love new tools and technology and that's kind of how I've always been. So that's been the evolution of just creative. When something new comes out, I kind of play with it, integrate it, see if it makes sense, teach others about my experience. And, you know, I still do that today.

Jacob Cass (12:26.456)

but it does lose a little bit of focus.

Shannon Mattern (12:29.685)

So teaching others the whole time seems like it's been kind of part of your passion to just kind of like open up the doors and like show people what you've been up to. When did that like really become a part of your business strategy to say, oh, okay, I'm gonna like make and sell courses or open up a membership or, you know, when did that become kind of like a...

Jacob Cass (12:57.73)

Well, it's since the beginning, I've always shared. Yeah. I've always shared quite openly in the beginning of selling services, which is logo design. And more recently it's like the membership or the summit or whatever it may be. And I think it's just, you know, what, whatever's current at the time, I'll dabble in and just share it. It's like, that's as simple as it is. I don't think there's necessarily a big strategy behind it as much as I

Shannon Mattern (12:58.013)

something that you felt like you wanted to do, yeah.

Jacob Cass (13:24.31)

I wish I could say that, but it's just literally inadabling and sharian.

Shannon Mattern (13:28.959)

just like getting excited about what you're doing and wanting to show other people and answer their questions and.

Jacob Cass (13:34.474)

Yeah. Like if you remember when chat, she came out and Jen AI, like it was mind blowing. Like that was, there's only been a few mind blowing moments in my life. And that definitely comes to mind. It was like, Whoa, this is a game changer, absolute game changer. So yeah, I doubled in that a lot and created my own AI bot chat bots and experimented and that has improved my productivity.

my thinking, my ideation, and it's just made things easier. people that aren't using AI, for example, they don't realize how inefficient they may be because of that.

Shannon Mattern (14:14.249)

Yeah, I was just having a conversation with some people last weekend who are like, they're not designers, but they're like scared of AI. And I'm like, I don't feel like there is anything to be scared of here. Like this is, I feel like it's like a collaborative partner. It's like someone to bounce ideas off of. It's somebody who can speed up. It's like it's a tool that can speed up.

tasks so much and help give you new ideas and give you lots of bad ideas too. But like it's just.

Jacob Cass (14:46.542)

Yeah. And that's actually, there's a good point there because it is scary in a way because juniors, the, well, let me start again. So seniors, have the experience and we can connect the dots and understand what's good or bad, right? As a junior, you don't have that experience yet. So you're getting fed and well, you're feeding AI and it's doing the thinking for you. And you're not necessarily able to understand the nuances between good or bad.

It's not as black and white as that, but it is a little scary that idea, even for my kids, I think like, you know, we have these tools that can do so much of our thinking and writing and creating that, you know, are we able to continue writing at the level that we are at and thinking at the level we're at right now when we have these other powerful tools at our disposal. So that's an interesting top, whole other topic. So

Shannon Mattern (15:40.821)

Yeah, I know I put I'll put like, you know, podcast chat screen transcripts into, you know, chat GPT and say, write show notes for me and it will make stuff up that we didn't even talk about in the episode. And then I have to go and tell it like, that we didn't talk about that you made that up, do it again. So yeah, it's really interesting. Just like anything is you have to have a critical eye and understand that it's

Jacob Cass (15:54.339)

you

Shannon Mattern (16:10.225)

It's, you know, it makes mistakes and yeah, it's so, so interesting. Yeah, whole other conversation, but like for you as an early adopter, really like kind of diving into that and figuring out, you know, how it works well and how it doesn't work well. It's so awesome that there are people out there like you who can then say,

Jacob Cass (16:18.478)

Sorry about that.

Shannon Mattern (16:34.099)

Hey, brand designers, here's how you can leverage this to help you and here's what it's not great at yet, so beware.

Jacob Cass (16:41.996)

Yeah, absolutely. And some examples of this, right? So if anyone's used Gen.ai or generative AI tools, like creating images from text, often they come back with a certain style. very stylized. can often tell it's AI. And it's even worse for logos and mood boards. So I've actually custom trained some bots, which are free on my site that you can use. One is called Brandbot, which I definitely recommend to check out. You have to have the paid version of

Chat GPT to use it, but it is a powerful tool that will help with your business Branding marketing, you know idea generation logos as well But there's one that I also trained that was just focus on black and white simple flat creative clever Idea, so I trained it on those sorts of things so the results would come back more in line with my style of logo design versus

a very over the top style that chat GBT comes out with on by default. So there's those sorts of things that you can quite easily do through chat GBT and the user interface. It's literally typing in what I've said to train it and then, you know, typing in some more words and people don't realize it's actually that easy to train your own custom GBT. It sounds confusing and technical, but it's literally typing in words to train it. And that's how clever it is now that you can do that.

And then you can create that bot and share that bot with other people. And yeah, it's, super easy. So I just want to make, make that clear that don't get overwhelmed or scared from AI. It's very accessible. You just have to experiment and play and fiddle with the settings and you can create something awesome quite easily.

Shannon Mattern (18:23.273)

Yeah, it's like you can basically create your own team members within for your business within AI, you can train them, you can train them to do the things that you want them to do. And for me, my biggest challenge is like patience and training them. I get so impatient in training my AI that I'm like,

Jacob Cass (18:42.062)

Thank

Shannon Mattern (18:45.845)

Okay, I'm just gonna do this myself for now because you keep giving me garbage. And then I'm like, I understand that it's like, because I'm giving bad instructions, but then I get impatient and I go and do it myself. And I know that if I just took the time and chilled out and pushed my frustration aside and maybe maybe learned a little bit more about how to better train my AI team.

I could get it to work much better for me, it truly, you can multiply yourself by training them.

Jacob Cass (19:18.498)

Yep. Totally. Yeah. Learn like teach it your tone of voice and how you write and the output that you want. One thing I have noticed is if you tell it not to do something is not as accurate and doesn't obey as well as saying to do something. So positive reinforcements I found have been better when training. Yes. Totally. Yes. Do not draw on the wall. Yeah. Okay.

Shannon Mattern (19:34.644)

you

Shannon Mattern (19:38.901)

Just like real people, right? Just like humans. Now I really want to. Yeah. So you, we were chatting before I hit record about the summit that you hosted last year. Why did you decide to host a design summit?

And like, what was the, what was the intention behind that? And, you know, what did you, what were you surprised about that experience?

Jacob Cass (20:15.724)

Yes. So just for context last year, I ran the brand builders summit, which is my first summit is for brand builders. was for over four days. There was four different topics, branding, strategy design, growth and, just mind blank. It doesn't matter. I might have my blank on that one, but where it came from the catalyst for the idea was I.

Shannon Mattern (20:34.141)

You

Jacob Cass (20:40.278)

As I mentioned, my site was very heavily optimized for search and Google and was found easily. And that's what a lot of my lead gen came for my services and Google dropped off the map or dropped our site off the map and we lost a lot of traffic, like 95 % of our traffic. We did out all the, the affiliate driven sites. So that was another thing we didn't actually talk about Shannon was I dabble in affiliate marketing and content marketing and blogging and everything.

I did have a team of about 10 a couple of years ago who helped with the blogging and we scaled that up to a huge business and then it came crashing down. So there was some signs that something had to change and I had to pivot and that's where the summit came in. And I've been a speaker at so many other summits and I love the model because everyone wins, right? It's free knowledge. Everyone's passionate. Everyone comes in with their core expertise. The organizer,

gets a ton of emailers, emails, they can grow their business. The speakers get, they grow their list, they grow their awareness and it's a win-win for everyone. And that's what I love. What I didn't, what I, how do I say this? I underestimated how much effort and time goes into building a summit, but yeah, I'm sure you are aware of that one. And I also probably went,

Shannon Mattern (22:00.949)

.

Jacob Cass (22:05.166)

Overdid it right for my first one. It was four days. There was 30 speakers and it blew up. My goal was to get 5,000 people there and that was like my stretch goal and we ended up getting 23,000 people register, which is crazy. It blew up. And yeah, the experience that people had the feedback. We had like a survey after and the feedback came back 9.7 out of 10 was the average rating for the whole experience. So

People really loved it and that was, I was chuffed to hear that. And yeah, we had 156 countries represented, which is crazy. And yeah, I was like, wow. And yeah, it was just a really awesome experience. So I'm very keen to do it again this year. I haven't started the planning for that, but if you do want to get on the wait list, it's called brandbuildersummit.com. You can go there to get on the wait list. But that was the catalyst for the idea. It was...

the SEO going down the service and services and leads going down. And that had been part of, many other summits and it's been, I came across a resource called summit in a box that was like, would help with building a summit and growing a summit. And that was like a game changer to, use that tool. And yeah, shout out to, to Krista for putting that together. That was like a, my lifeline for building the summit. So yeah.

So yeah, hope that answers your question.

Shannon Mattern (23:35.537)

It does. And, know, I love how you're like, I love summits. love the model. It's a win-win win. I totally wholeheartedly agree with that. The, the simply profitable designer summit that I run, Krista Miller actually started that, built it. And, you've, you spoke at it when she ran it. I spoke at it when she ran it.

And when I heard she was pivoting away from running that to go all in on some in a box, I was like, can I acquire this from you? Because I have the exact audience that this summit serves. Every year I look forward to speaking at it because it does benefit my business so much.

I meet so many other incredible people like you and so many of the other people I've had on this podcast just by participating in that. And I didn't want to see it go away. And so we worked out a deal for me to take that over. it's in it's we just by the time this comes out, we will have just finished up the ninth one. You will have spoken at it. We're excited to rebrand it for 2026 because it's got the same branding that it's had for 10 years and it's

Definitely time for a refresh in 2026. So I'm super excited about that project. But it truly is a win, win, win. you mentioned that 95 % of your traffic was coming from Google, or you lost 95 % of it. And you were doing affiliate marketing. I did affiliate marketing back in the day.

Jacob Cass (24:49.358)

10 years? Wow. That's awesome.

Shannon Mattern (25:18.557)

yeah, I relied, I have like a few cornerstone pieces of content that were like driving people to my website and I was teaching WordPress and I was making a lot of affiliate commissions on hosting and that shifted for me and it was the relationships that I built through things like summits, podcasts, you know, speaking at other people's events that really like, I,

saved me is very dramatic, but kind of.

Jacob Cass (25:51.106)

Yeah, it's absolutely true. I'm with you because that's the exact same experience I had where I came back to my brand and my network to, you know, bring out something new and just pivoted and change things up and, you know, made new connections. That was another big part I didn't touch on. It's like the people joining there have made friends for life. And that's no, no joke, right? Like there's been so many connections being made both between the speakers and the people and

Shannon Mattern (26:12.415)

Yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Cass (26:19.534)

You know, lives have been changed and I don't say that lightly. It's like, it's true.

Shannon Mattern (26:24.679)

Yeah. And I think that that's, you know, there are a lot, there are so many, summits and virtual events in the design space. And because the community is so giving and generous and creative and excited to show other people what they're doing. you know, I think we all understand that like, we get to make a living doing something we love being creative and

Just want to help other people like experience the thing that we've figured out for ourselves in such a generous way. And I feel like you're so good at that because you're, you, you are like kind of going first in all of these different areas. And then like saying, Hey, everyone, like, let me show you what I did. Let me show you what worked. Here's what didn't work or here's what stopped working, but here's how I'm pivoting and you're bringing people along with you.

Jacob Cass (27:20.878)

Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty open with that. Like I've shared my journey with my newsletter list, uh, you know, with my declining Google. And I also shared it when I was growing up, right? Like when we grew, we scaled from a couple of team members to 10 and we literally had a hockey stick, um, graph. And then that came back the other way. So it was literally a roller coaster and shared the great times. I shared the bad times as well. And I don't think it should always just be, you know, win, win, win. It's like, yeah, you have to.

share the losses and what you've learned along the way. And I've also, I've also brought up other communities that some were more successful than others. You know, I grew a Facebook group to a hundred K plus, and you know, now you can get an engagement to like a hundred people. It's some ridiculous. So it's like, you have to change based on how algorithms and the market and you know, all these other things, variables and adapt. And these days, you know, people are really wanting more human connection. You notice

You know, there's so many, so many, um, shallow conversations on social where it's just like emoji responses and great work and like, there's no connection. It's just like, check out your work and cool thumbs up, but that doesn't teach anyone anything. Like, how do you run a business? How do you get in those clients? Like what's your process? People that just don't share that sort of stuff. And that's where a community really helps a paid membership communities behind closed doors. And that makes people feel safer and they can share and they're not being pried on by other people.

I think that's why it's been received so well because that's what people are craving, that connection and learning from others on an actual personal level, not just an Instagram carousel, for example. Nothing against carousels or Instagram, it's just making a point here.

Shannon Mattern (29:04.765)

No, I think that the constant throughout all of the changes that have happened and will continue to happen are people and real relationships with real people, regardless of how you met them. Maybe you met them on Instagram, maybe you met them through whatever technology came out that allowed you to connect with someone all the way across the world. the constant is.

the, the through line through all of that is, is the people. I totally agree with you that, what I'm seeing more and more is people wanting to be in community, like actually together virtually, even more in person. too, I've been doing more in-person things and just, kind of, I kind of got used to like the virtual, like before the pandemic, I worked from home and I was running my own business and just kind of got used to that. Not much changed for me.

you know, in 2020, you know, that in that regard, but now I'm connecting with so many more people in person and the conversations are richer, the experiences deeper and I see more communities being created.

Jacob Cass (30:20.334)

I agree. I wish I wish there was more in Sydney. Um, you know, I lived in New York for five years and it was like every day, even not like throughout the week, there'd be an event that you could join, uh, in person, which was amazing. But in Sydney, it's very far between Sydney is a huge, very spread out place. And it's yeah, we don't have as many events like that. Unfortunately, I'd love to have some community events. Eventually we had a like a

a middle location, Hawaii would be nice. but yeah, we have a lot of members in the States and Europe and the UK and not so many in Australia. but that's probably because the market overseas more than Australia, but yeah, think. And I'm also in us dollars, which doesn't help us as ease either. but yeah, all our times, meetings and everything are in the U S and UK time zones.

No one, no one really loves to wake up early in the Australian time zones or be late for meetings, which I do, but that's just the nature of the beast. But my point is I'd love to go back to in-person community events eventually.

Shannon Mattern (31:29.641)

Yeah. I live in a very rural part of the Midwest, the United States. So it's not super easy for me either to get a lot of designers or web designers, developers together. But I'm starting to meet more and more people. And I'm like, we can just start small and see what happens. But online, our communities are awesome. So tell me about your membership community, Brand Builders Alliance.

When someone joins, is there for them? What is it like? What's a week in the life of your community look like?

Jacob Cass (32:07.02)

Yeah. Okay. So brand builders Alliance is a membership community for brand builders. So that's creative professionals, designers, strategists, entrepreneurs, anyone that has a creative service business. That's who it's for. It's has three pillars, right? We have mentorship, we have resources and we have the community. So that's really encapsulates everything. But I saw a gap in the market in terms of how people are learning and the communities that are out there. You know, you generally have

master branding over here, learn branding skills, design skills, or you have learned business skills over here. So this community is focused on both. People love brand and brand is a huge topic. It's very, very wide. It's a huge field, but also people need to run a creative business. There's no point in having these skills and you can't run a business. So the sweet spot for this community is teaching people about brand strategy and also business. So everything that comes with that.

pricing, your offers, marketing, client acquisition, lead gen, those sorts of things are there, but also, you know, we could focus on brand design and brand strategy and how to run a workshop. So it's everything encapsulated in one membership. So that's what makes ours different. And we also have not just myself as the guru, right? A lot of communities have one head as the guru and everyone goes to him and talks to it. We have seven resident coaches that have all diverse

backgrounds, right, strategy, business, strategic growth, facilitation. So they all come with different experience and you can learn from them. And then we have live master classes and guest experts come in. We have two a week, so there's a lot of value and it's very regular. Our members create events themselves as well. So you can co-host, we had co-hosting sessions, co-working sessions. We have

sessions where people share behind the scenes how they do things and these are all member led events. So there's a lot of engagement and activity going in there and that creates that connection right between people and that's what's lacking in so many other places and I'm so happy to see this actually happening and these connections being made and people engaging and like the forums are going off. So it's really awesome to see and that's what the Brand Builders Alliance is all about. I'm going to dive deeper but I'll just leave it there.

Shannon Mattern (34:30.697)

Yeah, I love the Alliance model, right? Where you're really encouraging connection and collaboration and, you know, member, like member-driven member-led conversations, you know, because designers are brilliant humans. They have so much to share and maybe they don't want to like run their own membership, but they can contribute in a meaningful way to their community.

inside this container that, that you've created for them. think that's, that's really amazing.

Jacob Cass (35:05.666)

Yeah, I'm really stoked for that. And I didn't even ask for this. Like people were asking me, I, can I do this? Can I start this? And like, yes, I can really encourage that. And that is like, that's what I wanted. And I'm so glad that people just came ahead and did that. And now it's taken some of the stress off me for running events and everything. And that's what I learned the last community I ran. I ran one for a couple of years. under, under priced it. I over delivered and I kind of burnt out because I was just given too much for.

Not enough return and it's not just financial, like there's other things, but at the end of the day, don't want to, you need your time and time is not infinite. So some things have to change and I've learned from that experience, made it a price point that's more manageable for people and also so I can reinvest as well. So we've got community managers, better community managers now because they can afford better and they're like kind of playing matchmaker behind the scenes and connecting people. that's.

point of difference and everyone has a different reason for being there. So we have an onboarding form that helps understand why they're there, what they're trying to achieve. So then we can connect people in the backend to help with that goal as well. And that takes a lot more effort to make, you know, be a personal matchmaker and make connections and ensure that people are getting the value that they joined for. Cause some people want the resources, some people want

the live events, some people just want to work and comments occasionally, maybe, you know, every so, so often, like every everyone's there for a different reason. And that's what I had to come to realize. And, I've learned from that mistake and now we're focusing on actually understanding that better. You know, it's not perfect yet, but we're getting systems in place to help with that.

Shannon Mattern (36:53.809)

Amazing. So you're the kind of person that's kind of on the cutting edge, I would say, of trends and kind of following them. And I'm curious, like, what's next for you? What's exciting you right now? What's on the horizon for you?

Jacob Cass (37:16.408)

Well, this, this has taken all my focus at the moment. I've put client work to the side of like a couple, but I'm not actively promoting my services now. So I'm really focused on the community, getting that to where it needs to be and growing that. Cause the thing with communities, if they, if there's no engagement and there's nothing going on, they die. And it's, can be a slippery, slippery slope when that happens.

And yeah, so that's my focus. And in terms of the future, the brand builders summit 2025 is in the, in the works. I have to get started on that. It's a lot of work as you, as you know, try to put that together, which will be later in, in the year. But that's my two big projects for the year. And who knows what's going to come out in the meantime, that's going to distract me and go down like, like a little squirrel down another hole.

Shannon Mattern (38:02.325)

You

Yeah, but you have a membership that will be excited and a community that's excited to like see where you're going to lead them next. So very cool. So where can our listeners go to check out the brand builders Alliance, learn more about you, your podcast. We didn't even talk about your podcast. Where can they go to learn more about you?

Jacob Cass (38:14.093)

Yeah.

Jacob Cass (38:25.324)

Yeah. Okay. All right. the podcast just branding is there's been six years and six seasons. So we've got quite the backlog back catalog of episodes. It's all about branding, obviously some amazing guests on there. have, Chris Doe and Marty Neumeyer, Mark Ritson, some, big names, some real knowledge in these episodes in terms of the summit brand builders summit.com. You can join the wait list for next year or this year. Sorry.

later in the year and just creative.com is my brand design studio and agency in Australia where you can get all the links to connect with me on socials. And lastly, the brand builders Alliance. You can go to join BBA.com and you can learn more there and get on the wait list for the next time we open the doors. And yeah, if you have questions, I'm always available on social media, LinkedIn and Instagram. I might two, two ones I use mostly.

And yeah, I'd love to hear from you if you have questions. So thank you, Shannon.

Shannon Mattern (39:28.709)

Amazing. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And I will link up all of that in the show notes. Everyone go check out just creative.com connect with Jacob if you're not if you're not already connected with him, check out the podcast, get on the waitlist. Yeah, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.

Jacob Cass (39:48.718)

Thank you. Yeah, I love this chat and community summits, know, backstories, origin stories, it's all good stuff. So thank you. Great question.