[EO San Francisco] Helping Startups Raise Millions With Strategic Branding With Olga Svitelska
John Corcoran: 21:06
So wait, so let me just pause on this. So you’ve been in the country for a couple of years at this point. I don’t know what time it is, how long you’ve been there, but you go up to the CTO of gap, which is like the gap is like the one of the biggest.
Olga Svitelska: 21:21
100 store, like a 120 000 people working for gap. It’s like six brands.
John Corcoran: 21:27
And you go up and you’re like, hey, oh, hi. I worked in clothing previously and I have this idea for your e-commerce. And they were like, yeah, come pitch this to the CMO.
Olga Svitelska: 21:39
I told you like I found every job I had myself. So yes.
John Corcoran: 21:44
I love the gumption. I just absolutely love that. That’s amazing. So. So do you go and pitch it to the CMO?
Olga Svitelska: 21:50
I was like 20, 23 or like 24 at a time. So like, I didn’t I didn’t have any previous experience, like pitching to like that level of people. I think like that’s what’s good and bad at the time. At the same time, you.
John Corcoran: 22:06
Don’t know what you don’t know.
Olga Svitelska: 22:07
And I dared to do it right. Like I was like, okay, I can do like a bad side of it. Is that like it was a terrible presentation? Like I was not my best, you know?
John Corcoran: 22:20
So you go and you pitch it to the global CMO, I yes. Okay. So I’m picturing you coming up to, like, this skyscraper and like, you’re like, on the top level, and it’s like an entire building.
Olga Svitelska: 22:32
Yep.
John Corcoran: 22:33
It’s like an intimidating conference room. I mean, how intimidating was that?
Olga Svitelska: 22:40
I mean, on one hand. It’s also like gap participated in this like mentorship program where I was part of as a mentee. So it was terrifying. But I also felt like a level of support there that like, it’s for me for for my learning and like it doesn’t matter how it will turn out. Like it’s still I will leave this room more prepared for the next one.
John Corcoran: 23:06
And why do you say that? You felt like it didn’t go well.
Olga Svitelska: 23:11
As someone who’s, like, helping building pitch decks to clients for the past eight years. Yeah, and like, we helped raise clients more than, like, a billion in investment. Like, I just know that it was a terrible.
John Corcoran: 23:26
Okay. But you did it anyways.
!no name provided!: 23:31
Did it?
Olga Svitelska: 23:32
And, like, then I was invited for an internship at Gap Innovation Division, so I basically I ended up working with the CMO and CTO, not as a. Product owner or like a product manager, but like I was so like my so like. I did an internship there and then I got a position there. So it was like a. Kind of like a team manager position.
So basically I was responsible for. Team health. And I had a great time there. So like I had a couple of teams. The biggest one was probably like a 40 developers plus like design and management.
Team we did projects for Banana Republic. We did projects for for gap. We did projects for like in-store experiences. So like I’ve learned a ton. There.
And it was amazing. Amazing time.
John Corcoran: 24:30
So good experience. And then what led you to found Wunderdogs?
Olga Svitelska: 24:36
So before wander dogs I so like I left gap to work in a fashion tech startup. We were like building algorithms like to predict like closes or closing recommendations. So like basically I spent probably like around 7 or 8 years all together on this like intersection of fashion and tech. And then I found a job again, you know, like, but like at the, at a venture fund at that point of time. So I was running their special project of like, building a, like a landing pad for entrepreneurs who’s like coming to Silicon Valley to raise investment.
So basically there was like a like early stage deep tech B2B fund. I was running their special projects and at some point fund was invested. We’ve built the the place. And I was seven months pregnant at the at the time and my business partner now and like she was my also colleague at the venture fund. She was like I have an idea.
I know what we need to do. I’m like, what? She’s like, we need to start a creative agency for startups. I’m like, have you ever worked in the creative agency? She’s like, no, I’m like, me too.
I’m like, okay, let’s do it. So I think that for us, you know, like not having a previous experience in the area, but also like seeing like a need and a problem among those like brilliant founders and like companies like what we saw like by, like when we worked at the fund that a lot of great teams with the great products will not be able to raise capital due to the fact that they can’t explain in like human language, like what they do. Right? Like it’s basically I also like I said that like I worked at the intersection of like fashion and tech, but like I like now, I think that I’m actually like a a translator in a way between like creative and business. So like, I do understand both sides well and like I can understand and form like a brief on like what the company needs from the business perspective and like translate the need to a designer on like how it should be created, like what type of creative work should happen in order to like showcase the the need.
John Corcoran: 27:06
So it’s almost like I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it’s almost like you’ve built this career which was designed around rectifying this disastrous pitch to the CMO years earlier. It’s almost like you were like, I’m going to become an expert after this to make up for that bad pitch.
Olga Svitelska: 27:28
I never thought about it, but maybe, you know.
John Corcoran: 27:35
Sometimes these things make sense in retrospect.
!no name provided!: 27:38
No, I think it’s just like it’s also it’s a very like art.
Olga Svitelska: 27:41
And tech usually is like a parlor sinks. Right? Like, like it’s like a black and white or something, you know. So people that are very deep in tech, it’s really hard for them to get like a creative idea. Right.
And this like and vice versa, like for the designer like to understand what the tech team does. It’s a very like it’s a different world for them. So I saw it at the At the Gap tech right. Like again like fashion brands are product managers. Like coming up with the ideas like to solve this like specific problems.
Right. Like that. Like and they’re trying to explain it to the technical teams and like, they don’t understand each other in a way.
John Corcoran: 28:25
So why do you think that you are good at bridging those two? It’s almost like you have a part of right brain, part left brain. You kind of like. Maybe that’s just the way you’re wired.
Olga Svitelska: 28:36
Yeah, I think this is how I wired. And like, this is what we do for clients. So we started initially as a a pitch deck design firm. Right. So like we were like working with like a deep tech B2B startups at that time.
And we were just like asking them a lot of questions like, so what exactly do you do? Okay, like this is a technology, blah, blah blah. And you’re like, oh my God, okay. But like, what’s the purpose? Like why you do it?
What’s the value. Right. Like and you just like taking bullets here and there and like you then like creating a narrative and then like you building the design to support the narrative and like what it does it actually it increases their chances to explain and to like, make investors interested in their product just because, like investors, even though a lot of them have specialties and specific industries, they still need to understand the value as a business people of the product that someone’s doing. Not like technicalities of it. Like sometimes yes, but like usually it’s like, what’s the value?
Like who you’re serving. Like what type of problem you’re solving. Like what’s the benefits. Like how much we can earn on that. And you just like helping to build the structure and then like design to support like like a narrative there.
And in the past seven years, we’ve expanded to do brand strategy, brand design and digital. So basically we help now we, we have like a larger umbrella than just like a B2B startups. So like we call it like impact companies. And it includes startups, venture funds, nonprofits and like some percentage of like service and like SaaS businesses.
John Corcoran: 30:29
And talk a little bit about I know there’s some case studies that you could share for companies that you’ve worked with, either, whether it’s nonprofits or service companies and kind of what you do when you come in and work with them and you know what the end result is.
Olga Svitelska: 30:46
Yeah. So I. Think like for, for startups. Probably the, the like the most like quantifiable result would be rate like capital raised. Right. So like we help companies raise more than like a billion in the past seven years for them. Like depending on the stage, if it’s like a very like early stage seed Pre-seed, they just need to focus on the pitch deck, right? Like, pitch deck is the only asset that, like, will make it or break it for them.
This is the asset that they that helps them raise capital after they post that like early stage like seed then like this is when like they have capital for product development, they would need to have brand strategy. They will need to have a solid like positioning and messaging. Right. So like we started with the brand strategy. It’s basically what you do, why you do it and how you do it right.
It’s like, what’s your big vision? What’s your mission? Like how you position yourself, what the value that you provide, how you can prove it. Like what are the proof points for the value proposition. And then like how you convert it into messaging.
So like positioning then we do messaging is like how your brand speaks, what type of language you’re using, like what type of terms. Like how technical you are. Like are you funny. Are you like serious like and like all of those things? Just like we like creating a person out of a brand and then we go into like visual identity.
So like creating your logo, creating your colors, creating your visual language. And like all of those things that then you can apply to website said to sales presentations to, I don’t know, like merchandising for your team signs like different companies they like have different applications. And and then we stay with customers, with our clients as we call it, like extension of your marketing team. So basically like a team of strategists, designers and developers that like support you along the way before you’re at the stage when you hire everyone in-house and and then like, you basically like take everything under one umbrella. But for some clients, it’s 4 or 5 years, like we had clients we have like one client, Nvidia Bioscience.
We started with them at their seat when they had a splash page. You know, they raised like $10 million. And they came to us and we worked with them for the next like four years, till the point where they I think like think they like now totally raise like 400,000 million. And now they have the full team in house. If we talk about nonprofit organizations, one of the clients that we have is called Caminar.
So it’s like like they have many clinics across Bay area and they help people with like mental health and like people that have issues with substance abuse and like they so we also like rebuild their brand. We rebuilt all of their materials and their website and like to help them serve their clients better and like more efficient. I don’t know if that answered.
John Corcoran: 34:18
Yeah. No, no it does. And you know, because this is 2025 and no interview can get by without a question about AI, I wanted to ask you about how has is branding in particular changing with AI? Is that affecting the way that you you would do branding for a company now?
Olga Svitelska: 34:39
So I see AI as a.
!no name provided!: 34:42
As a tool, right? So I don’t believe that I can do a good design on its own, but it’s a great tool in the like, in the hands of a designer to make their work more efficient, faster. I’d like to to do the brainstorm and and stuff. So to me, AI is in a way it’s like a Photoshop for photographers. Like Photoshop is not doing your photos right.
Like it’s not like making a photo shoot, but like, it, like, improves the quality.
John Corcoran: 35:13
Yeah.
Olga Svitelska: 35:15
With the efficiency. So I think like for us, AI is we definitely use AI for like a back office operations a lot. It simplifies day to day. It simplifies email writing and all of that. So I mean, like I think everyone is like using it to this extent by now.
It also helps with the. Sam I. Think it’s it’s. To me AI is amazing as a combination with the with the senior specialist. So like when AI does 70% of the job but then like those additional 30% makes that like work really like valuable.
John Corcoran: 36:05
Right.
Olga Svitelska: 36:06
Just because like if you. Give I just like to like a junior person it will do 70%. But like the like a junior specialist won’t be able to make the right decision and choice and like improve it to the extent where like it’s like this is what you need in hands of like someone like senior. It’s a great tool And I think that we will see like more and more in usage specifically, specifically for like marketing materials creation. So let’s say you have a team that like build your brand, foundations, positioning, messaging, right, like your brand language and then you this is where you can onboard AI to produce materials for you. Blog posts like articles I don’t know, like some visuals and stuff.
And then you still need to have a like a quality assurance specialist in a way that will go like review drafts, improve them and finalize. So I see that. But the like AI is very scary, should be very scary for like junior and mid-level specialists in like different directions. Right. Like yeah.
Whether like a writer or designer or developer. Just like at that level. I can compete for sure.
John Corcoran: 37:32
Yeah. Oh, God, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you and learn more about Wunderdogs.
Olga Svitelska: 37:39
So they can go to our website? It’s Wunderdogs.co and it’s up to how we came up with the name. It’s we take underdogs, right? Like do some wonders and then help them to become big dogs. So it’s w u not w o if the Typekit.
And yeah like my my LinkedIn and like our website and our company’s LinkedIn would be the the best places.
John Corcoran: 38:07
Awesome. Thanks so much Olga.
Olga Svitelska: 38:09
Thank you John.
Outro: 38:10
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