Katie Babineau

A stroll through San Diego led me to Geppetto's, where a life-sized puppet and friendly staff turned me into an unexpected customer. 🌟This IS the magic of independent retail. 🌟 With consumer spending down, small businesses need innovative strategies beyond discounting to thrive without sacrificing profitability. Curious about how #indieretailers are navigating these challenges? Check out my latest article in Total Retail. #Retail #SmallBusiness #CustomerExperience #Innovation #IndependentRetail #SMB #boutiqueowner #retailer #fashion

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I recently listened to Black T-Shirts Podcast with legendary Brent Smart and Adam Ferrier, interviewing Wanda Pogue, an accomplished traditional strategist who's now pioneering something called "post-creative strategy." A new model of strategy that feels like it brings a tech-product and experimentation mindset into the brand world (which is my black t-shirt). The new model: Instead of crafting one big idea (or release), you develop your brand proposition and roll out multiple pieces of creative across different demos on social media. Then, you observe what over-indexes and mine into the comments for insights. You can optimise the creative or evolve it based on the new ideas that come straight from your target audience; because the best customer ideas come when they’ve never been asked for them. What I love about this approach is how it merges speed, experimentation, and real-time market insight. It's more than just A/B testing or feedback generation—it's essentially running in-market focus groups. The insights gained from real audience interaction often outshine pre-creative testing. I’m fascinated by these innovative shifts in strategy and how they’re reshaping how we gather insights. And how else we can apply a product mindset into the brand and marketing world. Experimentation is a scary mindset in the brand context, but just the same as with product, as long as you have your fundamental strategy right, everything else could and should be an experiment. Keen to know what you think of this approach, or what you think of experimentation, is it too scary? Too expensive? Or?

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I'm excited to share that I've been busy helping grow Pickle, as their Director of Operations! Pickle is using the power of technology to make high-quality fashion more accessible, affordable, and circular, and it’s been rapidly scaling across the US (hence this very delayed post 😅). Just like Airbnb opened up and connected our homes, Pickle is doing the same for our closets: you can rent a Retrofète dress or Prada handbag from someone else’s enviable closet uptown for the weekend and, on the flip side, list an item you already own, making yourself a nice little side hustle by renting it between wears (check out TechCrunch's feature for more: https://lnkd.in/gFEC8zq6). So far this year, I've personally rented Cult Gaia and Alemais dresses for a beach vacation, a (faux!) fur coat for a themed dinner, a Reiss dress for a work event, and another Alemais stunner for a birthday celebration, to name a few. I have 11 (!!) weddings this year, so I'm looking forward to being able to save $$ without compromising on style. At Uber, we were laser focused on creating magical experiences (get ride with a click of a button?!), and it's a similar mindset that's led to Pickle taking off so quickly. The access to incredible pieces at affordable prices - with same day delivery (!!) in our core cities has created nothing short of magic. 👉 To my friends in the US - with summer vacations and wedding season picking up, it's a perfect opportunity to try out Pickle. I'd love to hear what you think! I've added a (free ☺️) download link to the thread ⬇️ PS - We're also hiring! If you know any NYC-based (or willing to relocate) Senior Engineers with founder or early-stage experience, DM me! It's an incredible opportunity to work on a transformational product with the best team. JD in the thread.

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Bravo to Julie Crabill and the team at Fathom.org for this eye-opening, nuanced take on #AI's impact on American society. The research indicates not just the business and productivity impacts of AI we like to talk about, but also impacts on public policy, bipartisan viewpoints, and the growing lack of trust in the tech companies who are on the forefront of AI development. A great read and something for me to keep in mind as I work with organizations grappling with AI. Marie Gill, Gina Jeneroux, MBA FLPI, Mark Wayman, Allie K. Miller ORG AI Download the report from the Fathom site. https://fathom.org/

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Does music impact our ability to focus? Can it help us be more productive? Glad you asked. Check out this great piece from Lauren Pufpaf about the research behind focus music and its rapid rise in the age of distraction. https://lnkd.in/dQJyXCRf

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Boldness isn’t just about having ideas; it’s about acting on them. As we move into 2025, let’s recognize that technology is currently one of the most powerful tools we have to create real, positive change. Women like Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, and Carol B. Tomé CEO of UPS, show us how leveraging tech can not only reshape industries but also empower the next generation to lead in spaces once considered out of reach. Technology has the unique ability to break down barriers, connect us globally, and transform industries. In education, digital learning platforms with AI-powered tutors or personalized learning apps are changing the way we teach and learn, making education more accessible to millions. In sustainability, IoT-driven solutions are helping businesses and cities reduce carbon footprints and manage resources more efficiently. When we’re bold enough to challenge the status quo, technology helps us build solutions that make the world more inclusive, innovative, and impactful. 2025 is the year to think bigger, act bolder, and use the power of technology to drive change. Let’s lead the way, break new ground, and create a future that works for everyone. #BoldIdeas #TechnologyForGood #WomenInTech #Leadership #TechInnovation #FearlessCreation #2025Vision #PositiveChange #Innovation

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Neurofeedback seems esoteric tech to most people, but here wellness expert Ryan Stoffko gives a nice introduction on how it integrates into practical daily living along with other healthy lifestyle habits. #Neurofeedback #Health #Wellness

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💖 Building authentic communities is more than a strategy—it’s the heart of Rare Beauty 's mission. At the Vogue Business event, CMO Katie Welch explained how Rare Beauty, founded by Selena Gomez , has succeeded where many brands struggle. Key takeaways: 🧠 Mental health is embedded in everything they do, from product launches to community efforts 🌍 Listening to their audience—like creating culturally relevant, Spanish-language content—builds authentic connections 🤝 Rare Beauty’s goal is to make every customer feel seen, heard, and valued How does your brand foster genuine community engagement? Let’s chat below! ⬇️ #RareBeauty #MentalHealth #CommunityMarketing #MissionDriven #AudienceEngagement #PopCulture #voguebusiness #beauty #community

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A great way to end the year with a 🦸‍♂️Hiring Heroes🦸‍♂️ update; Check out these early stage companies hiring finding benefits and more, from next play! ▶️ Nico from Dust is building AI assistants that connect to your company’s knowledge base to help you get more done, faster. They are backed by Sequoia and are hiring GTM people (e.g. sales) and engineers (priority being in SF). ▶️ Laura and Anna from Ceramic are building AI/ML infrastructure. Their small teams includes the founder of Gradient Ventures and a former Google VP of AI/Engineering. They are looking for founding team members, especially backend engineers. ▶️ Oren from Telos is building an ai-powered life coach that helps you build healthy habits. They’ve already set up partnerships with college campuses and are starting to grow. He’s looking for founding team members, especially an engineer and a designer. ▶️ Máuhan recently left Spotify where he was the Head of Innovation. He’s now building Shibuya, an interactive music platform powered by AI. They just raised a seed round and are hiring founding team members including a head of product, designers, and engineers. ▶️ Luke from CONTEXT is building a “software company to make web3 more fun.” They are hiring a protocol researcher, a decentralized systems engineer, and an operations lead. ▶️ Sneha from Spur is building AI browser agents to automate software testing. They recently raised from First Round and YC and are working with customers like Rippling and Perplexity. They are hiring founding team members, especially an engineer. ▶️ Sahil, the founder of Gumroad, is hiring a growth marketer. ▶️ New Lantern is building an ai-powered radiologist. They recently raised $19m. They are hiring in sales and engineering. ▶️ Alyssa from Fello is building a peer support platform. They are hiring a growth marketer and a product manager. ▶️ Rahul from Julius AI is building an AI data analyst. They crossed 2m+ users and over 8m data visualizations in 18 months. They’re hiring for growth roles. ▶️ Spyri from Dealops is hiring a business operations lead and a founding engineer. Dealops is an optimized deal pricing platform for startups and sales reps. These are just the Early Stage to startups, there's an entire list of scaling startups, and Investing teams. They are all hiring. Ben Lang is one of the VIP #HiringHeroes of the HiringHeroesNetwork and you can get the link to apply and emails or direct people in his newsletter. Check out it: https://lnkd.in/eYgFE53y #openroles #hiring

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As I'm getting ready to be in Santa Clara to connect with people Face to Face, there's something pretty cool digitally- Matcha.so 🍵 pods and what Melissa Moody 🍵 is working on Small groups are the most effective way to tap into your valuable network. And we can all use support to reach our goals- this is where Matcha Pods come in Matcha Pods make it smooth (and fun) to invite, schedule, message async, and meet live with small groups of your peers around a shared goal or topic of interest. How it works- 1. Pick a shared goal or focus area. 2. Invite up to 5 other people who are working on or interested in the same thing. 3. Set a timeline and cadence that works for your group. 4. Up-level each other with async messaging and recurring virtual video chats.  5. High-five each other because, finally, your meetings are aligning with your key business goals. Want to try it? Right here ⤵ https://lnkd.in/gsGxN_2M Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored, but I'll get rewards at no additional cost to you if you use the referral link :-)

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Another great piece for Follow the Founder I had the privilege to work on. Ben Larson, Founder and CEO of Vertosa, shares his experiences and insights on mental health among entrepreneurs, an important and somewhat under-discussed topic. Happy reading! #contentwriting #blogwriting #talkaboutmentalhealth #inspiringstories #mentalhealth #mentalhealthandentrepreneurship #leadership #vertosa

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A decade ago, one of my mentors shared advice that reshaped my approach to life and leadership: Leadership is about judgment. It has little to do with titles. A 2018 research on how leaders spend their time found that 33% of a CEO's time was spent on responding to unfolding events. I reckon that this commitment is higher for customer facing functions such as marketing, comms, and CX (at least in my experience). These teams are on the front-lines of making determinations and taking actions about the unexpected events that impact the customers and the brand. Recently, I've seen teams across industries navigate compliance, cultural shifts, influencer news, inventory challenges, and tech/ cyber issues—all in a day's work. Irrespective of the external outcome (because mistakes happen), internally, what shines through and through is how someone approached their role - from assessing and orchestrating to driving clarity and alignment on the response. Or lack thereof. I've found that sound judgment and emotional control, both in unexpected and routine situations, distinguish a leader. Developing sound judgement takes reflection, self-awareness, and deep listening.... something that is not necessarily a part of management trainings or performance reviews :) You have to seek this with intention in your own and other's lived experiences. Leveling up starts when we start measuring ourselves not just by what we did, but how we did it. I hope my thoughts resonate. Let's start a dialogue on our #leadershipimprints and grow together. #leadership #marketing #growth

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A lot of people talk about how conversational search and genAI will help out consumers. But one of the things I’m most excited about is how it’s going to make merchandisers’ lives better. One of the hardest things about the job today is trying to figure out what a shopper wanted when they landed on your site, and how hard they had to work to find it. With traditional search, you might only get a few words or a short phrase to figure it out, which isn’t much context. The beauty of conversational search is suddenly the merchant will have so much more information - instead of a couple words, they might have paragraphs or even full conversation transcripts they can reference — much deeper insight into what was going through the customer’s mind while they were shopping. Brendan Witcher goes on to explain how that information can then be used to produce more useful product copy and other CX enhancements. It’s one of my favorite parts of our webinar last week. What do you think?🤔

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The influencer economy has evolved into a $250 billion powerhouse over the last decade, shifting from traditional ad revenue to diverse, value-driven income streams. Authenticity and engagement now reign supreme, with creators launching their own companies to better align with their values and resonate deeply with their audiences. Empowering influencers to create products that reflect their unique visions is transforming the industry, fostering genuine connections and driving meaningful change. By assembling like-minded teams, the focus shifts from promoting others’ brands to nurturing your own, enabling growth and lasting impact. This is the future of influence—leading, innovating, and inspiring in an ever-evolving landscape. Own your future. Own your path forward.

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Optionality’s Fall will be Fierce! We slacked a bit over the summer, too. We took a break from webinars and podcasts in July and August. But now we’re back with that new school clothes feeling, and we’ve got some opportunities to share with you. 🔥 September’s fireside webinar: This Friday, September 13 at 12PM PT Hear from journalist and author Brigid Schulte about why work stopped working for so many of us and what we can do about it. Her new book (Over Work) covers both problem and solutions. 🤝 Announcing our first Optionality IRL event October 2nd in Silicon Valley! Thanks to our host, Extreme Networks and its WIN Alliance (their women’s ERG), it’s time for us to start meeting IRL. We’re collaborating to celebrate Optionality member Maria Ross and her new book, The Empathy Dilemma, exploring how empathetic leaders can balance the practice of compassion with performance and protecting one’s personal boundaries. 🕛 September Office Hours: for Premium members, Wednesday, 9/11/24, at 12PM PT. This month, a member is going to workshop her learnings on effective cold email outreach (no, this isn't a paradox!) 👩 👴 👵 Working Groups: Currently, we have a working group dedicated to helping members bring a book to life. And we have a working group dedicated to personal positioning. If you're great at helping other people articulate their personal brand, differentiation, and value proposition but SUCK at doing it for yourself, this is the working group for you. 🧞‍♀️ And don’t forget The Wisdom Exchange! A place to get just-in-time advice, learn a new skill, or get a helpful nudge toward making progress on any number of goals. Link for more details and registration for any/all fall activities: https://lnkd.in/gAMfTE5z

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Note I sent to our users this morning, but maybe interesting for some of you to read: We are at a turning point in our sector - the digital advertising frenzy is losing steam. I say this as someone who has been there since pretty much the beginning, including working to build ad products in house at FANG. There's a growing realization that our industry's obsession with all things digital has been at the very least overhyped. Maybe it’s time we rethink how we connect with consumers in more meaningful ways once again.   Advertising veteran and luminary I look up to Rory Sutherland once pointed out that brands are sacrificing creativity in favor of digital metrics. His message was simple: marketing should focus on storytelling and building relationships, not just churning out content for the sake of engagement, reaching audiences of varying quality - if real humans at all.   The rise of ad-blocking software speaks volumes here. Nearly 30% of consumers now actively avoid digital ads, frustrated by their intrusive nature. The takeaway is clear: people don’t really want ads online. This is where out-of-home (OOH) advertising shines— it’s both unskippable and non-intrusive, meeting audiences in the real world where their attention is undivided. Screens at a desirable distance, not interrupting your group chat or daily news.   Anyway, how many digital campaigns can you actually remember that stand out in the last decade? It’s a tough question, I struggle to think of many - but when you think of out-of-home campaigns, it’s clear they have the power to create memorable moments. I just flew into Seattle and can shut my eyes and recall the Dell AI campaign I saw at the Austin airport yesterday. But I couldn't tell you the social media ads I scrolled past 5 minutes ago before writing this note. All attention is not created equal.   At AdQuick, we believe in the power of combining the precision of technology with the impact of OOH. Our platform makes it easy to plan, buy, and measure OOH campaigns while delivering results that can’t be blocked or ignored. OOH provides brands with a lasting presence, one that resonates and is memorable.   It’s time to build campaigns in places that matter.

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👀 In An Election Year, Influencers and Brand Safety Becomes Even More Important When I talk to people at brands and agencies, a hot topic around influencers & creators is whether they are "brand safe." Generally speaking, the raw authenticity that often comes from influencers can also bring more riskiness around their content and behavior. And it's fair to say that there have been a lot of influencer scandals that might make brands uncomfortable or at least more cautious when working with certain personalities. This New York Times article highlights how companies like Captiv8, Viral Nation, and Obviously all sell either services or software that score and rank creators on different metrics related to brand safety. In an election year, the potential risk vectors for influencers speaking out politically can increase the risk for a brand. The industry would benefit from having something the VIX index in financial markets, a way to create indices that gauge the relative volatility and riskiness of influencers in the aggregate or split out into different sub-categories or as individuals. Media effectiveness and marketing measurement is still a work in progress. Once we start collecting more data points on the influencer industry, we'll be able to create more derivative data products and insights that can actually be helpful for brands. #data #influencermarketing #marketing #advertising #creatoreconomy #media #entertainment

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Bay Area tech founders with ADHD, how would you like to spend a whole day each month working on your business and yourself with the support of an experienced executive ADHD coach and a group of like-minded individuals? If you’re curious about what it might look like and how it might benefit you, shoot me a DM or text MASTERMIND to (833) 230-5150 #adhd #entrepreneurship #founders #bayarea #siliconvalley

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My own tool turned against me 💀 Okay, not really. It just reminded me that writing for my own ear doesn't mean that others will have a positive experience with my copy. Like the Flowpoint team pointed out today, "good writing is easy for everyone to understand." You can test the reading comprehension level of your own writing using our newest free tool: https://lnkd.in/ead687S4

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