Carmen Watts | Wildbrand
Can you tell us a bit about your business and what inspired you to start it?
I run a creative brand and web agency called Wildbrand. I’ve been working in this space since 2012, but running my own business since 2017. I love what I do, and all the cool projects I get to work on and great people I get to work with. The creative industries are perfect for me because I love having the variety and choice in the projects I take on. I guess that’s what inspired me to start; after working in digital marketing agencies for enough years to start turning your hair grey, I felt called to go out on my own and find a way to work that enabled a lot more freedom and autonomy for myself and choice in how I live and work. I started working 100% in the ‘online world’ before it was really a thing people did. Having come from the digital marketing industry, I had an instinct that the way we were working was about to dramatically shift and I wanted to be at the forefront of it.
What’s one of the biggest challenges you have faced and how did you overcome it?
As a creative small business owner, my head is everywhere, all the time, but I’ve unfortunately never been a ‘numbers person’. It’s not something that has ever come naturally to me, and despite my Dad having an absolute gift for numbers (he was quite literally a human calculator), I unfortunately inherited none of it. So I’ve always relied on having people in my corner helping me out with the ‘numbers stuff’ that I didn’t feel equipped (and quite frankly had no real desire) to deal with. A (wo)man’s got to know her limitations, as they say, and numbers in general have always been mine. To put it into context: I was the A grade english lit student who completely flunked the most entry level of math.
Pictured: Me, not a Numbers Person.
The problem with operating this way, though, is that I was outsourcing 100% of my understanding in this area to other people, and had no way of truly knowing whether the numbers were right or not. Whether I was doing the right thing or not. Every tax season felt more like Russian Roulette; an exercise more in blind faith than genuine understanding. I knew that something had to change, but I didn’t know what. I had worked with a number of people before and felt that no one truly cared about me or my business. I am just a small fry, after all, but the truth is, I needed to be empowered with the knowledge and understanding to do things better.
When I spoke to Maree from Altr, we instantly clicked. I felt like this was (finally) a person who could help me not only keep up with the general obligations of running a business, but she could help me understand things. Maree and Lucy are true professionals who take time to go through the details with me that no one ever has. I’ll probably always struggle with numbers, but I feel a lot more comfortable moving forward with Altr in my corner. I trust them completely and I feel like I’m now building my business on a solid foundation with the right people who have my back.
What has been your biggest success or win?
My biggest win has been simply getting through the last almost-8 years on my own in business. It’s certainly been a rollercoaster and it’s not for the faint of heart. But making the decision to start my own business all those years ago allowed me the freedom to do the things I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. Things I’d have to beg someone else for time off for, or simply miss out on all together. Starting this business has allowed me to spend the last few months of my Dad’s life by his bedside, travel the world, live in another country, work on incredible projects, designing cool products… from my swimming pool if the weather is nice. I mean, I’m a simple gal, and it’s life’s simple pleasures that really make me feel ‘successful’.
If I’ve learned anything at all so far, it’s that you never know what life will throw at you, and the most important thing is that you have the ability to be flexible and agile. I believe people who have the autonomy to spend their days how they want are the happiest people. And happy people create things from a place of love and gratitude, and that’s really what we need right now.
Wildbrand has been my own quiet rebellion against a system I felt sort of trapped in for many years. One that demanded increasingly more time and attention and energy from me, but offered very little in return. I’ve never been a person who aspires to take over the world. Success for me is waking up in the morning, reading a good book, walking the beach, having a great meeting with a client, and spending the afternoon working on a project that lights me up.
I hope to inspire others along the way to follow their own dreams, because ultimately that’s what small business is about. It requires a lot of sacrifice and sometimes blind faith in yourself and your abilities, but I’d rather work my ass off for a decade of my life trying to build my own dream than wonder what I could have built if I wasn’t too afraid to try.
How has working with us impacted your business?
It’s only early days yet, but already I feel a lot more confident that the financial side of my business is being taken care of. I feel like I have people who are in my corner who genuinely care about my business and want to see it succeed. Altr is the kind of accountant / bookkeeper / financial advisor I wish I’d found when I first started my business. They understand small business, they understand its unique challenges, and they also know how to help you grow. I have a lot more confidence with Maree and Lucy and Hannah on my team, this is really only the beginning!
What’s one thing you know now you wish you’d know when you started your business?
That the biggest struggle would be showing up, even when you don’t feel like it. Running a completely online business means that you have to show up regardless of how you feel. And a lot of that time, you’re going to be completely alone. And sometimes that’s incredibly difficult. But with the right systems and processes in place, it makes everything a lot easier.
Oh, and on that note… with the right people in your corner, you can be a lot more hands-off and focus on the things that only you can do. I’ve been a recovering perfectionist for a few years now; delegation has not always been my strong suit. But there is a time to manage everything yourself, and a time to let go of the reigns a little. You need to know which season you’re in and where you’re trying to go to know the difference.
It’s easy to look back and think ‘I wish I’d known this’, or ‘I wish I’d done this better’ but I think that the most important thing in starting a business and making it work, is just never giving up. No matter how you feel, no matter how things look on the outside, know that it’s all peaks and troughs in business and you’re going to pull through it if you don’t give yourself any other option. You have to believe in yourself more than anyone else will, before anyone else will.
I think everyone is capable of doing amazing things, the hard part is believing in yourself enough, consistently, and acting accordingly for long enough to see the fruits of your labour.
In the beginning, I spent a lot of time in ‘planning mode’, but never really doing the thing that scared me. I spent a lot of energy “upskilling” myself, learning all the things, buying all the courses from people who seemed to have it ‘all figured out’, but never actually ended up doing the things. (Recovering perfectionist, remember?). The truth is, none of that stuff felt really authentic to how I wanted to run my business or how I wanted to live.
Something I’m still trying to learn is at the end of the day, no amount of business coaching or online courses could ever cure my fear of being seen. I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders and shaken this sense into me at a cellular level. You don’t need another course. You don’t need another business book. You don’t need another guru. You need to face whatever the thing that’s scaring you or stopping you—head on—in the way that you know deep down only you can do. That’s when the magic happens and you truly take flight.
