We were lucky to catch up with Jacquelyn Tolksdorf recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jacquelyn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Often outsiders look at a successful business and think it became a success overnight. Even media and especially movies love to gloss over nitty, gritty details that went into that middle phase of your business – after you started but before you got to where you are today. In our experience, overnight success is usually the result of years of hard work laying the foundation for success, but unfortunately, it’s exactly this part of the story that most of the media ignores. Can you talk to us about your scaling up story – what are some of the nitty, gritty details folks should know about?

I didn’t start “smart”. I was so overworked as a Creative Director in the agency I worked for. The notorious salary professional. First one in. The last one out. 70 hours per week. No breaks. Burnt out! It sounds so stupid but during a final presentation to a client for the agency one of their execs just said casually, “Oh, wow – you do it all here except for the payroll!” I went home that night realizing that YES I actually could. And what I didn’t know about running a business I could learn. I put in my notice and began a goal of matching my salary by Year Two of running my own one-woman marketing business and freelancing for other businesses as a contractor. I had no savings. Grant money or business funding didn’t even cross my mind. I lived off of my credit cards (Hint. Don’t do that…). I did not hit the Year Two goal till Year Six…

I just celebrated the 8th birthday of my business, The Unglitch Inc in June. Was it easy? Nope.
Would I have done things differently? YES! I wish I would have known about investing more. I wish I would have put the credit cards down when I had no cash flow. I wish I would have learned about seller financing and looked into existing marketing agencies that wanted to sell their business first so I didn’t have to pull this business client list like a 2-ton wagon up a hill…with my teeth…

But while I wish I WOULD HAVE done things differently, I’m glad things went the way did…
It was meant to be that I struggled. What I didn’t succeed at I failed at…until I succeeded at them!
I work with many seeded startups to begin everything from branding naming, logo, website design, SEO, marketing, socials, PR, and more. I used to work with anyone no matter what their likelihood was of business survival. Getting to see a range of personalities starting their own business, I can tell you one red flag that GUARANTEES you’ll fail. You are not ready to struggle. Because guess what! The struggle is coming!

Jacquelyn, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I started in the print design industry. Ya know, back when people still bought magazines. Then I got a chance to work with one of the best brand designers in the planet and branding and logo design became my core passion. But as this crazy train of marketing and design has grown since the 2000’s so has my knowledge bank – from web design to SEO to social media and beyond!

I’m so proud of the plates I spin now in this marketing guru world! Am I a circus freak? Yep! Wouldn’t have it any other way!

While I was at university getting a degree in Graphic Design, I also got a minor in Anthropology. I thought I’d never use it after I graduated. How can the study of early man and predicting men of the future help me in any way in marketing… (giant smirk on face).

I now use Anthropology to predict what target markets want from brands. And like some kind of cyber Jane Goodall, I can see what’s trending and what your potential customers want to see from a brand like yours! Corp. Anthropology was big in the late 80’s/early 90’s and then the title kinda teetered off. I honestly didn’t even know what I’ve been doing for so many years was called Corporate Anthropology! But alas! That’s what I am!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

So when I started my business it wasn’t named The Unglitch Inc. It was another odd name called $(P@)#%(Redacted for legal reasons…) Things were going well for the first 5 years with this business name. Then my regular client work just dropped off completely…

I had no clue what was happening. I decided to reach out to a regular client about it. They said they had been working with me in full force for months…without talking to me. They said they communicated with my assistant now!

The issue. I didn’t have an assistant…

It took me forever to realize someone had taken what was on my online portfolio, created a similar domain and email like mine, and begun poaching my clients from my portfolio page. They made $80K over a year and I lost a year’s worth of business that I normally relied on. Even worse it wouldn’t have been $80K since I charged less. Why did this person from another country decide to pose as me? A little peon of a creative agency! I took legal action but got nowhere because, like a dummy, I did not trademark my business name or incorporate it. He didn’t get held accountable. I was told to change my business name.

Karma is a b!tch though and he tanked the business a year later once he lost my poached clientele.
Now it feels like such a little blip in my business. I re-branded with a better name actually and things started picking up. But at the time it was devastating.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Be weird. I’m in marketing. There are millions of us in marketing. If I did what everyone else did I’d quickly get swallowed up in the beige blob of boring templated websites and stock logos.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://unglitch.io
• Instagram: instagram.com/unglitch.io
• Facebook: facebook.com/unglitch.io
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelyntolksdorf
• Twitter: twitter.com/Unglitch_io

Image Credits
Please credit Wolfskull Creative (IG: @wolfskull_creative) for all photos.