We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cat Golden Shelby Dubin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cat Golden below.
Cat Golden, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
We had the idea for our business when we were attending an adult summer camp in the mountains of Pennsylvania. We were working together on a brand campaign in a different capacity and the energy was electric. Cat had the idea to pitch the campaign to one of her brand partners who loved it. Cat was the marketing brain and hype girl and Shelby was capturing all of the photo and video. While we were at that camp so many people were asking us how they could work with us. However, it wasn’t just that. The energy we felt at that experience it was electric. It was one of those times in life where you just know you’re on the right path and something is being revealed. After we got home and did a little market research we realized that it’s rare to find a mix of ideas and customer connection paired with visually appealing aesthetics. We began trying out different methods and realized that ultimately we wanted to empower other business owners to create content that is authentic to them, to document what they’re already doing (so social media doesn’t have to be another full time job), and confidently stand out.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
The problem we solve is to take the overwhelm out of content creation. Our core offering is our 1:1 Experience. It is half content creation and half putting it all together. We’ve had some business owners make 15-20 pieces of content in just one hour with us!
We also teach interactive workshops.
Lastly, one of our favorite things to do is work with brands at events and engage with attendees!
Cat started as a nurse and built a company called Nurses Inspire Nurses. She organically grew the community to 100,000 nurses + and scaled the e-commerce brand which was acquired in 2024. Through building the first company, she realized her innate gift was to connect with people and humanize the brand. She now does brand engagement consulting and is the lead marketer for SOCIAL REBEL.
Shelby is a professional dancer turned photographer. She started her business in 2020 when the world unexpectedly shut down and dancing no longer seemed like a possibility. Her photography business scaled quickly to full time and has opened the doors to work with companies ranging from local businesses to national brands. Her eye for aesthetics and capturing authentic moments has led her to be the visual expert for SOCIAL REBEL.
How’d you meet your business partner?
The story of how we met is pretty hilarious. Cat was running her first company, Nurses Inspire Nurses, but knew she would be selling and pivoting soon. She wanted to rebrand herself as a marketer and creative genius. She didn’t really know exactly how that would happen but she knew she’d need to look the part. She wanted some new video content and was referred to Shelby by a mutual friend. It was Thanksgiving weekend and Shelby said she was available (who is available on Thanksgiving weekend?! Shelby Dubin!) They met and created magic for the first time. What Cat didn’t know was that Shelby had just started offering videography and had just been trained. You would have never known because the video content was so amazing. Cat knew she liked Shelby when Shelby took her to this secluded private studio that they didn’t rent. Shelby was like – all good we’re fine. We’re always down to see what we can get away with! After that we did multiple projects together before going to camp where we realized we wanted to do more together.
Any fun sales or marketing stories?
One of our favorite marketing stories is how we got invited to go on a Virgin Voyages cruise with Richard Branson. Shelby used to work on a cruise ship and LOVES cruising. Cat loves Virgin Voyages and wanted to work with them. She went on her first Virgin Voyages cruise in 2023 and created content like she was already working with them. Through that cruise she was connected with an organization called Jerne who works with travel content creators. The SOCIAL REBELS went on their first sponsored cruise in January of 2024. Not long after we got home we received a call asking us to co-host a group of cruisers on a special Virgin Voyages cruise this fall with Sir Richard Branson himself!
It’s a beautiful example of going after what you want and just putting it out into the universe. You never know what might happen!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.socialrebelexperience.com
- Instagram: @socialrebelexperience
- Other: TikTok: @socialrebelexperience