Strategic Minds: Whitney Paul — Consulting Startups and the Future of the Strategy Industry

A conversation about the changing nature of the strategy industry and working with startups in Silicon Valley.

Whitney Paul, Senior Strategist

Whitney Paul just came back from a hiking trip in South America where she got to see Mount Fitz Roy in real life — not just on a Patagonia jacket. She also discovered that San Francisco isn’t the only place that loves Fernet.

With a Master in Brand Management from VCU, Whitney applied her rigorous research skills consulting startups at venture studio West. Most recently, she was part of a team exploring Heat and Deloitte Digital’s AI practice.

As part of the interview series Strategic Minds, we talked about her experience consulting startups in Silicon Valley and the future of the strategy industry.

Please note that this interview is an edited transcript of a conversation Whitney and I had in person. Please excuse any grammatical irregularities.

Something I’m very curious about: You have an undergraduate degree in architecture. Are there any methods that you still apply to this day?

I think broadly, it’s helped me to be able to speak the language of design. For example, when working with designers or art directors, just being able to speak their language, give feedback, and better understand their process. Even if it’s not completely the same, at a high level it’s still a similar process and way of thinking. A lot of people think: “Oh, architecture versus brand, those are completely different worlds.” But in fact, they are tied together by design.

Architecture just wasn’t the right application for me. At least in the earlier years, you don’t really get to think conceptually as often. It’s highly tactical. What I experienced in my internships was the need to focus on these tiny little details in buildings — a half-inch here and there. Being stuck in that world was frustrating for me. And that’s when I knew I had to get out into a place where I could think more conceptually. I always liked the upfront research side of architecture and thought, okay, branding is a space I’d be able to have less of the window-and-door-detailing level work and more big picture thinking.

You then went to VCU Brandcenter and became a strategist and researcher at venture studio West. What was the core work there?

My role was really different on every project because it was in the startup world, but focused heavily on understanding people, culture, and the market in which our clients operated. Some of the projects were a little bit more focused on the innovation side and creating new products, and some were pure brand strategy.

The whole philosophy when West was founded was that there are a lot of accelerators and incubators that work on the technical or product side, but there are fewer resources that think more about the market side of the equation — something that can be missing when you have a founder that has tunnel vision, fully focusing on the product. So the idea was to help focus on figuring out the market, the customer, the brand and the strategy for how to go to market.

We always started with a discovery process involving stakeholder interviews and customer/audience research — because, in certain cases, if it was a very early-stage company, they didn’t even have a good sense for, “Who is your customer?” So all of this foundational work: ‘Why does the company exist?’, ‘How do you communicate what they do?’, ‘What is their unique value proposition?’, and ‘How are they positioned in the market?’

From there we would go on into the next phases, which included designing and activating the strategy coming out of our research through things like new brand identities and design systems, go-to-market plans, product transformations, and campaigns.

What else was special working with startups?

Talking to startups, oftentimes the founders were really in touch with what they were trying to do. Especially when the idea had been born out of a problem or frustration, or at least they had a story like that. But there were certain cases where founders came from a more technical background and hadn’t connected the technology to a strong market need. There’s a lot of that going on here in Silicon Valley.

The startups were all at different phases so they all needed something a little bit different — you have to be on the same page as they are. Because of limited resources, sometimes they need to prioritize other things and aren’t ready to make a certain move.

Especially when we had founders with very technical backgrounds, it included a lot of educating and helping them understand every step of the process, explaining why we’re doing what we’re doing. They are coming from a different world and have a lot of other things going on. There’s often more focus on the product development early on in the company’s growth, but where they need help is understanding the market, and how to find, cultivate, and grow their niche.

Working with startups can be very fast-paced and a bit crazy at times, but one of the amazing things is that you’re often able to see impact quicker than you’re able to in more established markets. The ultimate goal is to share the upside of that potentially fast growth, which is part of the advantage of having a ‘venture’ side of the company where you earn equity for your work. This is how West operates, taking a combination of fees and equity for work depending on the scenario.

What is your understanding of design strategy or strategy in design?

I see it as designing the whole end experience you have with a product or service. One of design strategy’s primary roles is to investigate the user side of the equation — whoever is using the product. In brand strategy, we would say, who is the audience? The language in the design world is more about users, and how do we understand what their goals are and how they move through their day and how this fits into their life.

At West, we did a lot of the more ethnographic style of research that is done in design research and strategy. Mapping out our findings onto a journey which could be focused on their interactions with the product, or sit at a higher level and explore a journey within their broader life. I would almost call it product design research light.

How do you see the strategy and innovation industry shifting?

A lot of agencies and brand consultancies are trying to evolve, trying to expand their capabilities and grow their innovation practice. Some of them already have.

I’m interested in how things are going at internal innovation groups as well. From what I’ve gathered, talking to people and understanding that space a little bit, a lot of internal innovation or creative/brand studio teams are still fairly new and figuring themselves out. It can be hard to operate creative groups within a company from a culture perspective. You have to be shielded from some of the day-to-day operations, and be given license to think differently about the company and the business problem it's being faced with at that moment.

What do you think the future of all these industries will look like, with consultancies acquiring agencies and creative studios?

As markets get more competitive and more global, creativity is going to be a huge asset in winning, and consultancies have realized that. Their models typically rely more on operational, organizational, and financial skill and knowledge, which sits at the other end of the spectrum from creativity.

The personalities and the language are different. Management consultants can be a bit rigid in their thinking sometimes. They tend to jump into frameworks while creative people tend to soak in what’s around them first and like to dwell on it a little bit more and think about it and process it. In innovation work, there’s this concept of divergent and convergent thinking, at least according to firms like IDEO. That’s a different way of working than management consultancies that usually apply a framework that’s often well established and has been used for years.

So sometimes there can be a culture clash and tension between those two worlds when you bring them together, but when they work together, they can be powerful — similar to how two cofounders tend to have opposite, complementary skill sets. From as far as I can tell, I think the consultancies and agencies are still trying out figure how to harness that power.

Specifically speaking to shifts with ad agencies, the agency-of-record convention which provided a steady stream of work for agencies is slowly going away, which can be a negative for agencies who prefer to partner long-term and get into the deeper work around how the company and brand evolve over time. So, in a way, it’s definitely a bad thing. But for an agency that likes doing the project-based work — I mean, some people like to stick to the shorter, project-based creative projects and staying out of longer-term business and brand positioning issues, it could be a positive. There’s a lot more small collectives and studios and freelancers doing these projects and then it does feel like a lot of people are coming back in-house into companies as well to manage those smaller consultancies.

Thank you so much for your perspective on strategy, Whitney!

An interesting book Whitney recently read:

The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power, who was the youngest US Ambassador to the UN (under the Obama Administration). Whitney: “It’s a really interesting insider take on US foreign policy and captures her point of view on what the role of the US should be in mediating global crises. I have a hard time reading too much in detail about politics when it’s dry but the first-person perspective makes it easier to relate to and follow.”

If you enjoyed reading this interview, keep an eye out for other interviews in the series Strategic Minds: Conversations with strategists across different disciplines exploring their view on the nuances of strategy.